Synopses & Reviews
Art Linson's riotous journey through the making of five major motion pictures.
Whether he's trying to persuade an executive that Gwyneth Paltrow has enough chin to carry the lead in a movie, forcing an enraged Alec Baldwin to shave off his mountain-man beard, or sitting through an excruciating reading of a David Mamet script as Bob de Niro toys with the notion of heading up the cast, Art Linson gives us a brutally honest, funny, and comprehensive tour through the horrors of Hollywood, from script to screen.
In What Just Happened? we get to explore, at close range, finicky directors, clueless executives, shameless marketers, famous actors, battered screenwriters, and hapless producers crossing paths in such calamitous ways that it's a miracle these films get made at all. Linson is the ideal guide through this heavily land-mined, high-stakes industry, pausing for a moment here or there to explain some aspect or pitfall of the business, to wax nostalgic about film days past, or to serve up a compelling inside Hollywood tale of woe. Whether you love the movies or not, you won't be able to resist the stories behind them.
Review
Art Linsons dark gem of a book is a wickedly funny and sardonic insiders look at life in the belly of the beast. It is the best users manual to Hollywood I know.” Peter Biskind, author of Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film
Art Linson puts a film freak exactly where he or she wants to be: in the Fox screening room during the studio brasss horrified first look at Fight Club. . . . Linson gives readers a glimpse into a bizarre world where Its good is the absolute worst thing you can say about a movie.” Entertainment Weekly
Art Linson sings of Hollywood in a low, guttural, animal wail, alternately hysterical, biting, humiliating, and wise.” Sean Penn
Synopsis
As a Hollywood film producer, Art Linson has had a hand in producing some of the most unforgettable films of the last half century--Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Untouchables, Fight Club--and has worked with some of Americas finest actors and directors. Dubbed by the Los Angeles Times a breezy anatomy of ritual humiliation,” Art Linsons Hollywood memoir What Just Happened? gives us a brutally honest, funny, and comprehensive tour through the horrors of Hollywood. To be released in 2008 as a feature film starring Robert De Niro and featuring appearances from Bruce Willis, Sean Penn, and John Turturro, among others, Grove Presss reissue of Linsons hysterical memoir will include a new foreword, the films script, and several black-and-white shots from the film.
Synopsis
Producer Linson gives readers a brutally honest, funny, and comprehensive tour through the horrors of Hollywood, from script to screen.