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Ingrid Bergman, A Personal Biography (2006)

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Some time ago I was watching The Inn of the Sixth Happiness and I (again) noticed what a great actress Ingrid Bergman was. It immediately reminded me that I still had a biography about her, which was written by Charlotte Chandler. She is no stranger to the movie star biography world as she has written books on Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis, Mae West, Federico Fellini, Billy Wilder and so on.  It is the first time however that I have read something she has written, but I am pleasantly surprised. Especially since she has had a number of conversations with Bergman herself and is therefore able to tell many things first-hand. In addition, she apparently applied the same tactic to all her biographies, which allows her to fall back on overlapping themes. When Chandler was writing a book about (and with) George Cukor, she talked to him about Gaslight (a 1944 film directed by Cukor starring Bergman), but she also had talks with Federico Fellini. Bergman had a good relationship with the Ita...
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The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History (2009)

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Like so many others, I grew up with The Simpsons. The yellow family has always been there in my opinion (not surprising since the series had already been going on for a number of years before I was born) and I enjoyed watching the first roughly 15 seasons. Some time ago I came across this book by John Ortved and bought it for old times sake.  However, it is an unofficial version of the facts and that means that there has been no cooperation from Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon. These are three of the most important figures in the history of the Springfield family and their absence is not to be overlooked. Fortunately, Ortved manages to overcome this problem by using interviews that the men have given to other magazines (Groening apparently chatted with Playboy a lot). On the other hand, I do have my doubts about some of the statements because neither one could defend themselves. In addition, Ortved disproves some facts in the style of "and person x has claimed the opp...
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Lucky Man: A Memoir (2002)

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It was actually a coincidence that I felt like rewatching the Back to the Future films a while ago. I hadn't seen them in years (it says enough that I only had them on VHS) but between the second and third film I also felt like delving a little more into the world of Michael J. Fox. He is an actor who has left his mark on films and television with Family Ties, Back to the Future and Spin City, but who has also given Parkinson's disease a face for many people. Surprise, surprise: I have his biography in my bookcase! It is therefore a stroke of luck (pun not intended) that Lucky Man: A Memoir is about literally all those things. These types of biographies are usually written according to a certain pattern (birth, youth, first successes, etc.) and it is nice that Fox does not always follow that pattern. These are themes that are all discussed, but there is quite a lot of jumping back and forth in terms of time and characters. Is that bad? Absolutely not, you just have to pay some ...
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Marilyn Monroe: Fragments (2010)

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Marilyn Monroe, even after all this time she is still looked at as a brainless bimbo by some people. When you dive a little deeper into her life, you will learn that there is an intelligent and empathic woman who needed to create a mask to keep herself from getting hurt (again and again). It was a mask she didn't drop often, but with Fragments you get a more than decent look at the woman behind the mask. Especially since it has never been so clear that there are two personalities in one woman. The focus of Fragments lies on Norma Jeane Mortenson (Monroe's real name) and not the carefully crafted image called Marilyn Monroe. The book collects several written documents varying from poems to letters to even recipes. Not everything is that interesting (especially the recipes have no added value, luckily this is only a small portion of the book) but it is clear that the actress is at her most vulnerable in these texts. Her break-up with Arthur Miller, her time in the psychiatric war...
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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2021)

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Rarely have I known a movie that sowed so many different opinions as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I went to see the film in the theater with 2 other people, and one of them thought it was a mediocre Tarantino, and the other thought it was the worst Tarantino in his entire oeuvre. I, on the other hand, was more on the positive side and thought it was one of his best films since he directed Inglourious Basterds. Of these three people, I was actually the only one who was somewhat interested in the book that Tarantino published in 2021. No idea what to expect, but I started with a lot of expectation. The interesting thing about this whole release is that it's not just a one-to-one translation of the film. There are elements that come back of course (Cliff Booth's visit to the western ranch where the Manson Family is hiding is recounted), but the majority is a sort of extension of the film. This time you get a lot more background about Cliff Booth. You get (among other things) an ...
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