Mostly Film is taking a short break for a UK bank holiday, but we’ll be back on Tuesday with a new feature: the Mostly Film Book Club. The idea is simple. Every two months we choose a book about film, we give it a brief introduction, and over the course of the two months we discuss it here. Then we do it again with a different book.
First up is Julie Salamon’s The Devil’s Candy, her soup-to-nuts account of the making of Brian De Palma’s titanically unsuccessful “The Bonfire of the Vanities”. Shudder as Bruce Willis is cast instead of John Cleese! Wonder why Alan Arkin is ditched in favour of Morgan Freeman! Boggle at a ten-second clip of a runway that took five cameras and $80,000 to shoot!
We have other books lined up for future months, but we’re hoping Mostly Film readers will have ideas of their own and can step up with suggestions. The brief is as plain as can be: it can be any sort of book as long as it’s centrally about film and film-making. Biography, tutorial, novel, criticism – anything. Let us know your ideas in the comments section.
Also coming up next week, pieces on why Michael Bay is like Osama bin Laden (only alive), the life and work of the jailed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, and the usual helping of much, much more.
MostlyFilm 
Easy Rider Raging Bull – can’t remember the author at the moment. It’s a fascinating account of the rise of the superstar director in the 70s, and looks at the making of all the major films, as well as anecdotes about actors and studio politics – the guy interviewed EVERYONE. It’s brilliant, read it!
Yeah, that’s a great read. Biskind’s similarly styled Down and Dirty Pictures – about the Miramax-led independent revolution of the 90’s – is a lot of fun too.
Cool – added to the list!
As always, I will step forward with my suggestion that Picture, by Lillian Ross, is the best book ever written about the business of cinema.
Amazon order for The Devil’s Candy placed. And now I’m going back to look at that Lilian Ross book.
I have The Devil’s Candy, but in a big fat hardback edition I bought 2nd hand in Chicago. Thanks for making me lug that around, Mostly Film Book Club!
Sorry!
I need the workout, it’s OK.
I’ve had the paperback for ages: I think I read it *before* I saw Bonfire of the Vanities, and don’t believe I’ve revisited it since. Thanks for giving me an excuse to do that.
If anyone needs a copy, there’s a long lead time on Amazon but AbeBooks have loads: http://tinyurl.com/3zhuvxj