June 16, 2008

Review: Admit One

Admit One: A Journey Into Film
by Emmett James

I've just finished reading a Review Copy of the humorous and reflective memoir of actor Emmett James and his fascination with film. The book is laid out is a very pleasing style with plenty of white space for ease of reading. The chapter titles are the titles of well known movies that reflect in some way the contents encased within. I am impressed with the quality of the presentation of this book.

As for the inside, I liked what I read for the most part. Mr. James can write and is funny and self-effacing. It is clear he is in his 30s and living in LA, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I am also in my 30s and grew up near LA. It felt very familiar to me as the type of humor and storytelling that I myself indulge in. I could have done without some of the language and the Lap Dancing chapter but it was not horrible or even uncomfortable. I have worked as a extra in a few TV shows (Power Rangers and Sweet Valley High) and a particularly bad gangster movie starring Martin Sheen so I am mildly familiar with how Hollywood works. The scenes described within the book, while possibly ridiculous, are entirely possible. There are probably millions of stories like these to be shared all over the streets of LA.

I'd like to thank online publicist Lisa Roe for offering me this book to review and Emmett James for sending me an autographed copy. I enjoyed Admit One very much.

8 comments:

Gilion at Rose City Reader said...

Nice review! You make a book that I would probably not have picked up on my own sound very interesting.

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

I've heard such great things about this book! It sounds like it will induce a lot of nostalgia. By the way, I love the summery look.

Petunia said...

Rose-then I've done my job. =)

Trish-I love remembering pleasant scenes from my childhood. The beach scene on my blog is one of those triggers too.

Anonymous said...

Martin Sheen made a bad movie?

The books sound like a fun romp.

Unknown said...

I'm adding this to my wish list at paperbackswap.com

Enjoyed your site. I've added you to my webroll.

Literary Feline said...

I enjoyed reading this one. It brought back a lot of movie memories.

Petunia said...

Carrie-as far as I can tell it never made it to the theaters and is very difficult to find on tape. It's that bad.

C.B.-nice to meet you. I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.

Feline-Yes, like ET and Karate Kid. But there was no mention of Back to the Future.=(

Anonymous said...

This is in my pile of books to read, glad to read another positive review of it!