Ain't It Cool? Hollywood's Redheaded Stepchild Speaks Out

by Knowles, Harry; Cullum, Paul; Ebner, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780446679916
• ISBN10: 0446679917
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Summary

If you love the magic but hate the hype...if your heroes have always been twenty feet high...if the eyes of the ten-year-old celluloid junkie inside grow wide when the white light fires up the silver screen...you dwell in the land of Harry Knowles, the 30-year-old, 350-pound college dropout who reigns as the Roger Ebert of his generation. Now Harry tells how he started a movie-based Web site, ain't-it-cool-news.com, purely for his own enjoyment...how he become the most feared, sought-after outsider in the entertainment industry...how his significant, sometimes strange encounters with the New Media mogul likes of Matt Drudge and Quentin Tarantino may impact tomorrow's movies...and why studio test marketers fear "ain't-it-cool." All this, plus his top ten favorite and least favorite films, and those he would most like to see get made but probably never will, along with his Geek Manifesto on what's wrong with Hollywood will have you dancing in the aisles clamoring... Book jacket.

Author Biography

Harry Knowles created aint-it-cool-news.com in 1996, a Web site that is read by over 1.5 million people and receives over 1,200 e-mails each day. Harry has been named one of the 100 most powerful people in Hollywood by both Entertainment Weekly and Premiere magazine. He lives in Austin, TX Paul Cullum is a writer for L.A. Weekly in Los Angeles and a wide range of publications worldwide. He was managing editor of the late, lamented Film Threat Magazine during its final print incarnation under the Larry Flynt aegis. Like Harry, he originally hails from Austin, TX Mark Ebner is an award-winning investigative journalist who has covered all aspects of entertainment for dozens of publications, including Spy, Details, Premiere, and New Times. He lives in Venice, CA

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Quentin Tarantino
Introduction	1	(16)
The Trouble with Harry	17	(8)
``A Boy's Best Friend Is His Mother.''	25	(18)
The Abyss	43	(16)
Wild in the Streets	59	(10)
Ace in the Hole	69	(10)
A Face in the Crowd	79	(12)
The Big Carnival	91	(10)
Lost Horizon	101	(12)
``Take Your Stinking Paws Off Me, You Damn Dirty Apes!''	113	(8)
Sleeping with the Enemy	121	(10)
``How Many of Those Things Are Out There?''	131	(10)
Ocean's Eleven	141	(8)
``Valhalla, Mr. Beale.''	149	(12)
Basic Instinct	161	(40)
A Night to Remember	201	(10)
``To George Bailey, the Richest Man in Town. Hee-Haw!''	211	(10)
Skin Game	221	(12)
Born Yesterday (or the Geek Manifesto)	233	(40)
NOTES	273	(6)
APPENDICES, or ``You Wouldn't Put Charlie Parker in with the R&B, Would You?!''	279	(4)
Appendix A: My Top 10 Favorite Films of All Time	283	(12)
Appendix B: My 10 Least Favorite Films of All Time	295	(14)
Appendix C: The 10 Films I Would Most Like to See Made	309