Weekend books.

"Neal Gabler steps into a biography of the legendary Walt Disney with substantive credentials," writes Fred Schruers in the Los Angeles Times. "His An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Created Hollywood (1988) was a signal achievement in art-versus-commerce storytelling that still resonates, as does his 1994 biography of Walter Winchell and, to a lesser extent, his 1998 book Life: The Movie, How Entertainment Conquered Reality. In Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, Gabler confronts long-standing suspicions that Disney was a Red-baiter (yes, though ineptly and ineffectually, he writes) and an anti-Semite (a much more complicated answer, though he says it is largely 'guilt by association')." In the end, "part of the author's formidable achievement is to take the intricacies of Disney's devoted artistry and intertwine them with his ultimately rather forlorn life."

The London Times runs an extract from Brian Sibley's biography of Peter Jackson, the bit where the director and Fran Walsh meet Bob Weinstein.

Updated through 11/1.

Allen Barra in Salon: "The Return of the Player is about the anesthetizing mind-set that Hollywood has inflicted on the country, blurring both intellect and instinct and leaving us vulnerable to men skilled in selling us the simplistic version of reality that they know in their hearts we all yearn for - bland, amiable predators whose moral sense is akin to cancer cells, men like Griffin Mill who can rationalize murder in the name of the great audience. 'I know who you are,' Griffin tells us at the end, 'because I know what you want.'"

William Cook on Michael Palin's Diaries 1969 - 1979: The Python Years: "Palin calls his diary an antidote to hindsight, and it's amazing how a show that looms so large today seemed almost incidental at first ('John and Eric see Monty Python as a means to an end - money to buy freedom from work')." Also in the Observer, Geraldine Bedell reviews Ian Buruma's Murder in Amsterdam.

Ray Young at Flickhead on David Thomson's "odd but heartfelt homage": "It may be a sign of impending breakdown when, scattered throughout the pages of Nicole Kidman, he invents imaginary scenarios for her to act in, as if he were playing with dolls."

Online listening tips. Ed Champion talks with Joe Eszterhas and Nora Ephron about their new books. Related: "The time has come for a Jade Special Edition," argues Vince Keenan.

Update, 10/30: An online listening tip. Neal Gabler is a guest on Fresh Air.

Update, 10/31: "But if Walt Disney was made for Hollywood, he himself questioned whether Hollywood was made for him." Salon runs an excerpt.

Updates, 11/1: Gabler's is "an ocean liner of a book - bulky and a trifle slow," writes Scott Eyman in the New York Observer. That said, "I think Neal Gabler is right to characterize Walt Disney's life as a triumph, and a quintessentially American one at that. In his relentless, grinding allegiance to work, in his preference for a brilliantly processed metaphorical gloss on reality rather than the thing itself, Disney was a man - and an artist - absolutely in the American grain."

Gabler's next radio appearance is on the Leonard Lopate Show.

Posted by dwhudson at October 29, 2006 6:16 AM