by Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! “Hit-making is not a repeatable formula. It can’t be bottled; a set of people at a certain point in their lives meet in a certain place under certain circumstances. They will never meet again in this way with exactly the same powers, nor will the world again be […]
Books
Bill Haugland goes the short story route with new book
By Stuart Nulman What turned veteran CFCF news reporter and Pulse anchor Bill Haugland into a short story writer? Was it the fact that revered short story writer Alice Munro just won the Nobel Prize for Literature? Actually, it was a dusty old cardboard box that was tucked away in his Vermont home. The box […]
Robert Plant: A Life by Paul Rees (HarperCollins, $39.99)
by Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up “You very, very rarely meet someone like Plant, who is still fanatical about music after forty years at the top. That’s almost unprecedented.” -Bill Flanagan Many years ago I was having a coffee with a friend of mine at a small café on Monkland Avenue in N.D.G. The waitress […]
Nicholson: A Biography by Marc Eliot (Crown Archetype, $30)
by Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! “He’ll tell you that Jack is the hippest place in the universe, coolest place in America, the Independent Republic of Jack. The hardest thing to do is wear a gift well, and Jack wears it with a killer smile and a pair of shades.” -Mike Nichols Very few […]
Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $36)
by Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! “If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.” -Johnny Carson Comedy-variety has always been my favorite television show format. And from 1962 to 1992 Johnny Carson was the undisputed master. I fondly remember the mid-eighties when NBC […]
Very Naughty Boys: The Amazing True Story of HandMade Films by Robert Sellers (Titan Books, $16.95)
By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! “I guess if there is a legacy, it is that they did support a lot of people and created a lot of careers. There was a bravery to take on things that most people wouldn’t necessarily touch.” -Wendy Palmer I am among the minority who list George Harrison […]
Celebrating 20 Years of Books and Breakfast
by Stuart Nulman Paragraphe Bookstore founder Richard King remembered when the store decided to hold its first ever Books & Breakfast event 20 years ago. He got the idea from a similar event that was held on a regular basis in Victoria, B.C. … only it was on Wednesday […]
Charles Foran to make special appearance at StoryFest on Tuesday, October 15
By Terry O’Shaunessy Award-winning novelist, journalist and biographer Charles Foran will make a special appearance next week at StoryFest 2013, Hudson’s annual literary festival that brings the crème-de-la-crème of Canada’s literary scene to the tiny town on the Lake of Two Mountains. Author of the much-lauded Mordecai: The Life & Times, Foran will talk about Mordecai […]
James Bond, The Spy I Loved by Christopher Wood (Twenty First Century Publishers)
by Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! “…the art of making a Bond movie is to do exactly the same thing – only do it differently.” -Christopher Wood Recently a cable movie channel ran a month-long James Bond celebration. I enjoyed watching the early classics like Dr. No, Goldfinger, and my personal favorite, From Russia […]
Still Foolin’ ‘Em: Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys? by Billy Crystal (Henry Holt, $29.99)
by Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! “Have fun storming the castle!” -“Miracle Max” from The Princess Bride Billy Crystal has been around show business for over forty years. He is truly a survivor who has done it all: From TV and film actor, to stand-up comedian, writer, producer, director, and Broadway star; although he […]