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Cimino
- The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate, and the Price of a Vision
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
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Publisher's summary
The director Michael Cimino (1939-2016) is famous for two films: the intense, powerful, and enduring Vietnam movie ,The Deer Hunter, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1979 and also won Cimino Best Director, and Heaven's Gate, the most notorious bomb of all time. When it was finally released, Heaven's Gate failed so completely with reviewers and at the box office that it put legendary studio United Artists out of business and marked the end of Hollywood's auteur era.
Or so the conventional wisdom goes. Charles Elton delves deeply into the making and aftermath of the movie and presents a surprisingly different view to that of Steven Bach, one of the executives responsible for Heaven's Gate, who wrote a scathing book about the film and solidified the widely held view that Cimino wounded the movie industry beyond repair. Elton's Cimino is a richly detailed biography that offers a revisionist history of a lightning rod filmmaker. Based on extensive interviews with Cimino's peers and collaborators and enemies and friends, it unravels the enigmas and falsehoods, many perpetrated by the director himself, which surround his life, and sheds new light on his extraordinary career. This is a story of the making of art, the business of Hollywood, and the costs of ambition, both financial and personal.
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Mary Tyler Moore made her name as Dick Van Dyke's wife on the eponymous show; she was a cute, unassuming housewife that audiences loved. But when screenwriters James Brooks and Allan Burnes dreamed up an edgy show about a divorced woman with a career, network executives replied: "Americans won't watch television about New York City, divorcées, men with mustaches, or Jews." But Moore and her team were committed, and when the show finally aired, in spite of tepid reviews, fans loved it.
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An Interesting Story That Never Quite Gets Told
- By S. Blythe on 07-26-13
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Best. Movie. Year. Ever.
- How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen
- By: Brian Raftery
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From a veteran culture writer and modern movie expert, a celebration and analysis of the movies of 1999 - arguably the most groundbreaking year in American cinematic history.
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Like talking about movies with a friend
- By Shawn Inmon on 05-30-19
By: Brian Raftery
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We Don't Need Roads
- The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy
- By: Caseen Gaines
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
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Long before Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled through time in a flying DeLorean, director Robert Zemeckis and his friend and writing partner Bob Gale worked tirelessly to break into the industry with a hit. For the first time ever, the story of how these two young filmmakers struck lightning is being told by those who witnessed it. We Don't Need Roads includes original interviews with Zemeckis, Gale, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Huey Lewis, and over 50 others who contributed to one of the most popular and profitable film trilogies of all time.
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Great for fans - good for others.
- By Pete Johns on 06-25-15
By: Caseen Gaines
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Pieces of My Heart
- A Life
- By: Robert J. Wagner
- Narrated by: Robert J. Wagner
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Abridged
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Robert J. Wagner has starred in more than 100 films and television series over the past 50 years. In this deeply personal story, he recalls his rise to stardom. He talks candidly about his relationships with some of the greatest stars of the 20th century, including Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, and, for the first time, he shares the details of his two marriages to Natalie Wood. Wagner also offers a fascinating look at Hollywood during the last half of the 20th century.
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Wagner's life, told in a gracious manner
- By Chris on 12-18-08
By: Robert J. Wagner
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Without Lying Down
- By: Cari Beauchamp
- Narrated by: Holly Palance
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Cari Beauchamp masterfully combines biography with social and cultural history to examine the lives of Frances Marion and her many female colleagues who shaped filmmaking from the early teens through the 1940s. Frances Marion was Hollywood's highest paid screenwriter - male or female - for almost three decades, wrote almost 200 produced films and remains the only woman to win two Academy Awards for original screenwriting (The Big House and The Champ).
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A Must Read
- By Robert Wallace on 03-19-19
By: Cari Beauchamp
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Caddyshack
- The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story
- By: Chris Nashawaty
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Caddyshack is one of the most beloved comedies of all time, a classic snobs vs. slobs story of working-class kids and the white-collar buffoons that make them haul their golf bags in the hot summer sun. It has sex, drugs, and one very memorable candy bar, but the movie we all know and love didn't start out that way, and everyone who made it certainly didn't have the word classic in mind as the cameras were rolling.
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Not Really About Caddyshack Until Hour 5
- By William M. on 07-01-18
By: Chris Nashawaty
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The Simpsons
- An Uncensored, Unauthorized History
- By: John Ortved
- Narrated by: John Allen Nelson, Justine Eyre
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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John Ortved's oral history is the first-ever look behind the scenes at the creation and day-to-day running of the television phenomenon known as The Simpsons, as told by many of the people who produce it.
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Great Content, Awful Reading
- By JH Easton on 03-13-11
By: John Ortved
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Robert Altman
- The Oral Biography
- By: Mitchell Zuckoff
- Narrated by: Robert Altman, Warren Beatty, Cher, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert Altman - visionary director, hard-partying hedonist, eccentric family man, Hollywood legend - comes roaring to life in this rollicking cinematic biography, told in a chorus of voices that can only be called Altmanesque.
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Enthralling!
- By Wise & Careful Shopper on 10-17-10
By: Mitchell Zuckoff
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Top of the Rock
- Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV
- By: Warren Littlefield, T. R. Pearson
- Narrated by: Bob Balaban
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Warren Littlefield was the NBC President of Entertainment who oversaw the Peacock Network’s rise from also-ran to a division that generated a billion dollars in profits. In this fast-paced and exceptionally entertaining oral history, Littlefield and NBC luminaries including Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Kelsey Grammer, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, Julianna Marguiles, Anthony Edwards, Noah Wylie, Debra Messing, Jack Welch, Jimmy Burrows, Helen Hunt, and Dick Wolf vividly recapture the incredible era of Must See TV.
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Nostalgic Look at NBC in the 90's
- By Jill on 10-10-12
By: Warren Littlefield, and others
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You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried
- The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation
- By: Susannah Gora
- Narrated by: Kelli Tager
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The landscape that the Brat Pack memorialized is rich with cultural themes and significance, and has influenced an entire generation who still believe that life always turns out like an '80s movie. You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried takes us back to that era, through Susannah Gora's interviews with key players such as Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, and John Cusack, and mines all the material from the movies to the music to the way the films were made to show how they helped shape our visions for romance, friendship, society, and success.
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Brings me back to my teenage years! Fantastic Narration! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- By Amazmama on 06-24-22
By: Susannah Gora
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Street Gang
- The Complete History of Sesame Street
- By: Michael Davis
- Narrated by: Caroll Spinney
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
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When the first episode aired on Nov. 10, 1969, Sesame Street revolutionized the way education was presented to children on television. It has since become the longest-running children's show in history, and today reaches 8 million pre-schoolers on 350 PBS stations and airs in 120 countries. Street Gang is the compelling and often comical story of the creation and history of this media masterpiece and pop culture landmark.
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An important subject, but hardly gripping
- By Scott T. Hards on 09-24-10
By: Michael Davis
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Homey Don't Play That!
- The Story of In Living Color and the Black Comedy Revolution
- By: David Peisner
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Few television shows revolutionized comedy as profoundly or have had such an enormous and continued impact on our culture as In Living Color. Inspired by Richard Pryor, Carol Burnett, and Eddie Murphy, Keenen Ivory Wayans created a television series unlike any that had come before it. In Living Color shaped American culture in ways both seen and unseen. Now, Homey Don't Play That! reveals the complete, captivating story of how In Living Color overcame enormous odds to become a major, zeitgeist-seizing hit.
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Wow, that sucked......
- By Just W on 10-11-18
By: David Peisner
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It was the best of times and the worst of times for Hollywood before the war. The box office was booming, and the studios’ control of talent and distribution was as airtight as could be hoped. But the industry’s relationship with Washington was decidedly uneasy - hearings and investigations into allegations of corruption and racketeering were multiplying, and hanging in the air was the insinuation that the business was too foreign, too Jewish, too "un-American" in its values and causes. Could an industry this powerful in shaping America’s mind-set really be left in the hands of this crew?
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What listeners say about Cimino
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jeff Davis
- 05-02-22
Fascinating - highly recommended
I really enjoyed the book and narration. It provided a lot more nuance to the Man, and gives great backstory perspectives on the development of his two seminal works - Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate. A really fascinating, talented and complex guy.
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- down2dallas
- 06-10-23
Just WOW!
What an amazing insight into one of my favorite directors of all time. I could not stop listening. What an amazing and troubled life! Gave me insights into Hollywood and sometimes my own issues.
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- Buretto
- 04-03-22
Briskly paced, but misses the mark
It's understandable that an author would choose to write about a subject they admire. But when that strays into sycophancy, it becomes a problem. The author does present Cimino, the man, in a rather unflattering light.. insecure, narcissistic at times, but yet generally likable as a director on sets. It is the when it comes to the work itself however, when the author loses a bit of his objectivity. Numerous examples of supposed unfair treatment from the media and the public are met with examples of others auteurs committing at least as egregious sins on sets (in the author's mind), e.g. running massively over budget, acting tyrannical on sets for his vision. It may be a reasonable defense, but the "whataboutism" just comes off, as it always does, as churlish and petty. Similarly, as the director's career dwindles, and perceived failures mount, the author has convenient excuses and precedents. But he never once considers that perhaps the story isn't so much Cimino, the wunderkind, with a couple early successes and an Oscar for The Deer Hunter being persecuted a la Orson Welles for his auteur ego, But maybe the story is about a reasonably talented, driven guy who caught lightning in a bottle with his first two films. (The truth be told, I don't think Thunderbolt and Lightfoot can be called anything other than a reasonably entertaining and serviceable film, though The Deer Hunter is clearly a gem.) And perhaps his limitations and style of work proved out that he wasn't quite the genius that the author and Cimino himself, thought he was.
I purchased this title mainly because I have an admiration for The Deer Hunter, and an odd fixation on Heaven's Gate. It's the latter film that is the main focus of the book, but seems to me misses a lot of the main points. The author does recognize that outrageous delays and massive cost overruns helped to make the film a stock joke about Hollywood flops. But ultimately the author blames the reception to Heaven's Gate, and the subsequent fallout afterwards, to a scapegoating campaign against Cimino.
Consequently, not enough of a spotlight is put on the film itself. It is a gloriously beautiful visual experience. The cinematography is exquisite and the core story is intriguing, as relevant in 1980 and 2022, as it was in the setting of the film over a hundred years earlier. The rise of the permanent businessman, and the corporate takeover of the country, a theme similar to that expressed in Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. But where the film goes wrong is that, simply, it's too long. Even the shortened version is too long. There should have been more criticism of the editing, both of the scenes and the script. A common criticism, not deeply explored in this book, is the gratuitous violence in the film. It's true, there is too much unfocused violence. It's unlike Peckinpah, who himself earned the nickname "Bloody Sam". But Peckinpah's violence had an ethos, whereas Cimino's is violence for its own sake. Which is neither here nor there, because the truth is, there is too much of everything, and the story is not masterfully constructed to work efficiently. It needed to be edited, shorter, more forward moving. Not necessarily faster, but less languorous and sluggish. The Soderbergh 108 minute Butcher's Cut comes closest to the the mark. But as the film is, it's neither a masterpiece nor a failure.
In any case, it became tiring to hear the author work as a posthumous PR man for Michael Cimino. Particularly, the incessant comparing the treatment of Cimino to how others, at other times, and under other circumstances, were treated, such as Welles, Scorsese, Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Alan Pakula, Robert Altman, the Wachowskis, etc. etc. You get the point. I don't care about Variety or National Enquirer stories.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Jimmy V
- 07-19-22
A Fascinating Read!
I saw the review in the May 2022 New Yorker and decided to select this title. I'm so glad I did. Cimino is such an interesting character and his story is so well told here. Not only do we learn a lot about the man but also the film business in the 70's and 80's. Highly recommend.
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