David Spade’s memoir reflects the adage that “Dying’s easy, Comedy is hard.” Spade’s self-deprecating sarcastic tone keeps the page turning as he narrates numerous career rejections, confrontations with Eddie Murphy, and being catfished by a Victoria’s Secret Model’s Twitter profile. At this memoir’s core are four chapters depicting consecutive seasons at Saturday Night Live, wherein Spade constantly fears expulsion for underperforming on the show, even as he clowns behind its scenes with successful castmates Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, and Chris Rock. Throw in Spade’s spats of jealousy, the sudden death of Farley, plus salient quips about “the biz” and there’s an ironic twist to David Spade's Almost Interesting.
My First Movie contains entertaining and enlightening interviews with directors like Mira Nair, Kevin Smith, Gary Oldman, Barry Levinson, and Anthony Minghella about their first forays into feature filmmaking. Every interview breaks down each director's background, inspirations, creative process, financing, pre-production, shooting, editing, releasing and, most importantly, the benefits and detriments of not knowing what you're doing.
David Hare's memoir covers the three major experiences that shaped his life and his vocation as a playwright: growing up in and escaping his suffocating childhood and education; directing and being writing for the Royal Court and Portable Theatres; and British political culture from post-war consensus in to the election of Margaret Thatcher. Cogent and satirical content, buoyed by a strong political point-of-view made Hare one of the most important 20th Century playwrights. It's a fascinating story of the artist's development and ongoing conflict with the gnawing doubt that both forces one to create, but also plagues inspiration.
