BOOK REVIEW: 'I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution' by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum

Though it’s often hard to see now through the haze of Jersey Shore-induced frustration, MTV was once a revolutionary cultural benchmark. It changed music. It changed film. It changed our concept of celebrity. It changed our very attention spans, and it did all even as almost everyone called it a crazy idea.

The chief brilliance of I Want My MTV is a glorious and purposeful absence of journalistic posturing. Marks and Tannenbaum appear only in brief introductions to the material in each of their book’s chapters. The rest is left up to the people who lived it.

The book is really a series of compelling vignettes, stitched together by a loose sense of the history of the broadcast network that premiered quietly and quickly shot itself into the pop culture stratosphere on the wings of pop superstars, cocky filmmakers and way too many drugs. The creators of the network, the producers and directors who shepherded it through the often tumultuous early years, are here, as are rock and pop superstars like Def Leppard, Duran Duran, Pat Benatar, Billy Idol and Phil Collins.

The picture they paint is a kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting portrait of a revolution birthed out of an often chaotic network that no one thought would succeed to begin with.

It launched in 1981 with a very obvious first video – The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” – and then continued with a second meant as a message to the record companies – Pat Benatar’s “You Better Run.” From there it grew through blockbusters like Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”  and duds like Billy Squier’s infamous “Rock Me Tonite.” It saw the rise of the VJ, the birth of the superstar video director (names like Michael Bay and Dennis Fincher, who are working on a much bigger scale now), the shifting landscape of music and the cultural explosion that is the music video.

But MTV did more than change television and music forever simultaneously. It also changed lives. Musicians, personalities, executives and directors all find their place to explain why in I Want My MTV, from stories of cocaine vials dropping live on stage to massively overproduced videos to the (often reluctant) promotion of hip-hop as a new driving force in the music industry.

Marks and Tannenbaum get out of the way and let all of this happen in their pages, but more significantly, they guide it where it needs to go. The book is a massive sheaf of material ranging more than a decade and featuring more than a few huge personalities. They find a way to craft all of that into a cohesive, compelling and often madly entertaining volume that will make even the youngest reader long for the days when they could actually turn on cable and see these things playing out.

MTV will never be what it was again. Reality television has, for better or worse, overtaken the age of the music video. I Want My MTV strikes a chord of nostalgia for those of us who remember it, but it does more. It calls for everyone reading it to look up and realize that what happened in those TV studios in the ‘80s and ‘90s thoroughly changed media, perhaps more than any other development since the advent of television itself. The MTV age was a revolution, and I Want My MTV is its energetic, often messy, manifesto.

BOOK REVIEW: 'Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson'

To casual readers, Hunter S. Thompson is best known for those drug infused days in Las Vegas that he turned into a now legendary novel, but to anyone who wants to really understand what the man was about, the writings he contributed to Rolling Stone magazine over a period of more than 30 years are the true heart of the legendary Gonzo journalist.

Gonzo journalism, when it’s done right, is a first-person hand grenade of experience, insight and often simple, unfiltered chaos. Thompson was the form’s original master, and its original advocate was Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone’s editor who brought Thompson on board in the publication’s early days and sent him to follow the dueling campaigns of Richard Nixon and George McGovern in 1972, the fallout over Nixon’s Watergate scandal, and finally – in his final report – the results of the 2004 presidential election.

These are the elements that tie together Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone – lovingly edited by Wenner himself – and in between are many smaller stories, including Thompson’s memories of shooting with fellow counterculture legend William S. Boroughs, and a large collection of memos, letters and other correspondence between Thompson, Wenner and the staff at Rolling Stone.

Together these elements build a picture of a true American storyteller, bending and often breaking the rules of journalism to get to the heart, the real truth, of whatever he was writing about, and then telling it with unabashed mad joy alternated with vicious fury. Working with Thompson could not have been and was not always easy, as Wenner’s letters pleading with Thompson for copy often reveal, but the end result was something magical.

Thompson helped define the scope of Rolling Stone’s political writing throughout the 1970s, a tradition carried on today by writers like Matt Taibbi. But more than that, he defined journalism for a new age. It was no longer about standing at the steps of City Hall in a coat and tie, scribbling in a notepad as someone talks from a podium. It was no longer even about rooting out corruption through meticulous paper sifting. Those things all still have their place, but Thompson refused to play by those rules.

He launched himself into the story, became a character literally and figuratively in his pieces, charged headlong into whatever was happening. People have analyzed and mirrored his methods for decades since, and today those methods are legendary, but as Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone proves, it wasn’t a matter of technique. For Thompson, it simply couldn’t happen any other way.

BOOK REVIEW: 'Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend' by Susan Orlean

The story of canine film and TV star Rin Tin Tin is unique and mythic even by American standards. Born on a World War I battlefield (that’s not a legend, it actually happened) and rescued back to the US by American solider Lee Duncan, he became an immortal, a movie star, a TV star, a hero beloved by millions.

Susan Orlean, a staff writer for The New Yorker and devoted lover of animals, sets out to explore how and why this legend was born, how and why it’s lasted, and how and why the name Rin Tin Tin still rings in America. She does this by charting Rin Tin Tin’s birth in France, his first brushes with showbusiness and eventual blockbuster success and his death, which was such a major event in 1932 that radio broadcasts were interrupted nationwide to announce it.

But the story of Rin Tin Tin doesn’t end there, and neither does Orlean’s. She continues on to follow Duncan as he presses forward with his faith in the Rin Tin Tin (or “Rinty,” as he called him) name and bloodline, taking Rin Tin Tin Jr. and future descendants – including The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin TV star Rin Tin Tin IV – on into their own careers, with varying degrees of success. And then the book goes further still, chronicling the efforts of producer Bert Leonard to get The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin on television, and finally on to the modern admirers of Rin Tin Tin, including owners of the remaining descendants of the bloodline.

The lasting effect of Orlean’s book is a unique, immersive and thoroughly engrossing chronicle of how a legend is born and then refuses to die. It’s a very American tale. Rin Tin Tin, the original, died nearly 80 years ago, but the name and the image still linger. The dog is a kind of god, a restless spirit that fades but doesn’t vanish. Orlean is fascinated by this, and her elegant, natural and often witty prose makes that fascination infectious.

We study human celebrities constantly, either out of envy or out of some attempt to understand how a person lives in such a bright and unforgiving spotlight. What Orlean does in Rin Tin Tin, through the study of a beloved animal with uncommon charisma and spirit, is not only fascinating in itself, but also a welcome new angle on the phenomenon of celebrity and cinematic immortality. 

BOOK REVIEW: 'Damned' by Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk, author of cult classics like Fight Club and Choke, is known for taking broad and often taboo concepts and morphing them into playful, shocking tales that challenge our understanding of civilized life. With Damned, he goes further conceptually than he’s ever gone before, creating one of his bravest books that – even when it misses the mark – still packs a punch.

Madison is 13, and she’s just landed in hell. She died, she thinks, from a marijuana overdose. She sits in her cell, watching rivers of excrement roll by (no, really), contemplating her millionaire parents, her social awkwardness and the boy she had a crush on before she left the world of the living. She meets a few friends: a jock, a pretty girl, an angst-ridden outsider and a nerd. It’s The Breakfast Club meets Dante’s Inferno, and as the novel wears on Palahniuk makes it even more than a clever pop culture analogy.

Madison’s adventures in hell traverse everything from the sexual preferences of giant demons to how telemarketers often originate from the very pits of Satan. It’s equal parts funny and shocking, and it’s all helped along by Madison’s playful , melancholy voice. Palahniuk is famous for his first person narratives, and with Madison he’s found a character that he can once again master, even if she is a 13-year-old girl.

The only downside of Damned is that sometimes Palahniuk seems to be trying a little too hard. Some of the themes he’s trafficking in here are clichés, like the idea of calls from telemarketers originating from a phone bank in hell, that he’s deliberately trying to treat in some new and amusing way, and most of the time it works. But there are times when it seems he’s going the extra mile just to shock, and it doesn’t always serve the story. Palahniuk has always been that kind of writer, but this time it seems he’s going deeper simply because he’s literally in hell, and he wants to make the most of it. Still, when in hell, do as the demons do, I suppose.

That aside, Damned remains an enormously entertaining book that’s part Jean-Paul Sartre, part John Hughes, a trippy adventure into a literal abyss of teen angst, corporate worship, greed and power. Chuck Palahniuk remains the great American literary trickster god.

Damned is available in bookstores everywhere Oct. 18.

BOOK REVIEW: 'Down the Mysterly River' by Bill Willingham

Bill Willingham is best known for his acclaimed comic book series Fables, the story of a band of fairy tale characters living in the real world after the world they came from is overtaken by an evil force. It’s an adventure tale, a war story and a romance all in one, but it’s also a story about the nature of stories, about creations and how they become bigger than their creators.

Down the Mysterly River, Willingham’s new novel for children, is a variation on the same theme. On the surface it’s a boyhood adventure tale filled with talking animals and sinister adults and sentient trees. But beneath all that, wrapped in this idyllic childhood romp, is another story about stories.

Max is an adventurous boy who loves solving mysteries, but when he wanders too far in the woods and into an unfamiliar landscape, he finds himself in the midst of a case he can’t solve. Things get even stranger when he meets a talking badger, a talking cat and a talking bear, and finds himself pursued by sinister humans called Blue Cutters, who have swords that do far more than simply cut flesh. They cut out parts of people, memories, qualities, feelings. They edit people like editors do characters, and they want to change something about Max.

The book is essentially a road story, as Max and his new friends travel down a river that Max himself has named the “Mysterly,” as they try to find answers with the Cutters in hot pursuit. As the tale builds, Willingham makes it clear that he’s not just telling an amusing tale for children. He’s meditating on the magic of stories, the magic of making something out of nothing.

But the tale itself is what propels the exploration of ideas as living, breathing things. Down the Mysterly River maintains a leisurely but compelling pace, fueled by its characters and their bemused, energetic dialogue.

Willingham’s comic book roots make him a distinctly visual storyteller, and – with the help of gorgeous illustrations by his longtime collaborate Mark Buckingham – Down the Mysterly River is a distinctly visual book. It seems to crawl out of the pages at you like a fairy tale all its own, and that’s more than good writing. That’s a little bit of a magic.

A child might pick up Down the Mysterly River and find an enthralling adventure to get lost in. Adults might pick it up and find a layered contemplation of fantasy and imagination. But everyone who picks it up will find a story they can’t put down.

Down the Mysterly River is available in bookstores now.

'50/50,' one of the year's best comedies

Tragedy makes fools of us. Whether we wish to ease the tension or simply become unraveled in the chaos of the unthinkable, we all become jesters in the face of it. Think back to any really horrible time in your life – the death of a loved one, the loss of a house or a job, a really tough breakup – and you’re bound to remember a few moments that were just plain embarrassingly goofy.

This is the comic well from which 50/50 draws, a potent cocktail of pain and unpredictable joy that feels more genuine than most films about tragedy ever will (perhaps because screenwriter Will Reiser based it on his own life; perhaps because it’s so good). It’s a film that captures with breathtaking ease the inherent madness of living with a deadly illness. It’s about laughing through the pain, about how to let the pain go, and how to make as many dirty jokes as possible along the way.

Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has a nice life. He has a good job at a Seattle Public Radio station, he’s got a gorgeous girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) and his best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen) is always willing to indulge his fear of driving by chauffeuring him about town. When persistent back pain sends him to the doctor, Adam finds that he’s been stricken with a very rare form of cancer at the age of 27. He will begin chemotherapy and attempt to shrink the tumor clinging to his spine, but first he has to tell his overbearing mother (Anjelica Huston) and begin taking meetings with a student therapist (Anna Kendrick) working on her doctorate and trying very hard not to screw up.

The film charts the course of several months as Adam takes his course of chemo, deals with the side effects, shaves his head, has relationship troubles, gets a dog, makes some new cancer patient friends and simply tries to deal with the emotional and physical strain of it all.

At times he feels light-hearted, optimistic, even going so far as to play along with Kyle’s scheme to use his new bald head to help get girls. At other times a kind of numbness falls over him. He realizes his chances are slim (50/50, get it?) and that there might not be any point in attempting to forge new connections in his life if he’s just going to sever them with his own death.

It’s in this dichotomy that 50/50 finds its greatest strength. Films about dealing with illness are too often so message packed that even the sick people in the audience find them kitschy and self-indulgent. This is not one of those films. This film does not attempt to dissect the cancer experience as a psychological or spiritual or even philosophical condition. Nor does it seek to portray life with a deadly disease as a kind of Terms of Endearment journey to inner peace. This is a film about how hard it is, and about how in the midst of all that hardship you can find a way to survive. It never preaches about it, never forces it. It just is.

Levitt gives the performance of his young career, and he’s had plenty of great roles before. Adam is not an inspirational figure by nature. He’s just a guy who caught a tough break and has to face the fact that he might die. There are no grand speeches, no declarations of turning over a new leaf or great epiphanies about the nature of life. There’s just a guy struggling, but Levitt’s natural and unadorned performance is so genuine and so committed that the lack of loftiness in his story doesn’t matter. Rogen was tailor-made to play the goofball best friend, and he shines in the role once again here, but he also manages to find something emotional in all that goofiness that masks the fear for his friend. Without weeping or pontificating, Kyle manages to become warm. Kendrick also shines as a young student who, unpredictably and somewhat frighteningly, faces counseling someone not much older than herself on how to deal with a poisonous mass inside their own body. She is vulnerable and funny and easy to fall in love with, and she continues to declare herself as a rising talent.

It’s intentional that 50/50 is an unembellished account of illness. It’s meant to be that way. It never attempts to bring you to the kind of seize the day moment that so many films about death do. It’s a comedy, after all, and comedy is the great life-affirming thing that happens even when we’re all at rock bottom. There are times in this film when you laugh in spite of yourself, when even the gloomy moments spark some inner memory of your own vulnerability to the awkward insanity of the hospital room and the friend whose hair is falling out. It feels like maybe you shouldn’t, but you laugh anyway, and that’s the point. It’s the great thing about comedy. Even at our very lowest, we can rise with a laugh.