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December 2021 MBR The Theatre/Cinema Shelf
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Midwest Book Review
Jan 2, 2022, 2:14:57 PM1/2/22
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The Theatre/Cinema Shelf
Monologues for Adults
Mike Kimmel
Ben Rose Creative Arts
9781953057068, $14.97
https://www.amazon.com/Monologues-Adults-Original-Inspire-Professional/dp/1953057063
There's a special challenge in the dramatic monologue world, in presenting exercises for adults that are diverse, educational, and appealing. Many monologue titles are directed to teens, and hold themes particularly interesting to this age group. That's why Monologues for Adults: 60 Original Monologues to Stand Out, Inspire, and Shine is especially recommended and relevant to aspiring adult drama students. It focuses on original works designed to instruct adults on various facets of the monologue's dramatic format, providing works that can be used not just as self-teaching exercises, but sources for auditions and family-friendly stage performances at the college level and beyond.
Mike Kimmel crafts a diverse selection of subjects and monologue approaches. Examples of this diversity include a treatise on kindness, "When People Don't Care," which begins with others and evolves to an admonition to consider self-care equally important; "Bird Watching," which opens with a criticism of the practice and evolves to consider its underlying benefits; and "Pie in the Sky," about dreaming big and doing work that "does more than pay the bills." Each monologue offers not just the opportunity to practice dramatic skills, but the chance to learn new ways of living, finding the positive even in events or approaches that may initially seem negative or unappealing. This elevates Monologues for Adults into a series of meaningful explorations and dialogues that hold value beyond their acting exercises. While Monologues for Adults will, of course, appear in drama and acting collections, it ideally will also be considered as a succinct collection of life lessons and observations appropriate for self-help audiences, as well.
These Fists Break Bricks
Grady Hendrix, author
Chris Pggiali, author
RZA of Wu-Tang Clan, author
Mondo Books
https://mondoshop.com/collections/books
www.thesefistsbreakbricks.com
9781736891605, $39.95, PB, 432pp
https://www.amazon.com/These-Fists-Break-Bricks-America/dp/173689160X
Synopsis: When Warner Brothers (a major Hollywood studio) released Five Fingers of Death to thrill-seeking Times Square moviegoers on March 21, 1973, only a handful of Black and Asian American audience members knew the difference between an Iron Fist and an Eagle's Claw. That changed overnight as kung fu movies kicked off a craze that would earn millions at the box office, send TV ratings soaring, sell hundreds of thousands of video tapes, influence the birth of hip hop, reshape the style of action we see in movies today, and introduce America to some of the biggest non-white stars to ever hit motion picture screens.
"These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World" by the team of Grady Hendrix, Chris Poggiali, and RZA of Wu-Tang Clan is a lavishly illustrated history that tells the bone-blasting, spine-shattering story of how these films of fury spawned in anti-colonial protests on the streets of Hong Kong came to America and raised hell for 15 years before greed, infomercials, and racist fearmongering shut them down.
"These Fists Break Bricks" also covers Japanese judo coaches battling American wrestlers in backwoods MMA bouts at county fairs, black teenagers with razor sharp kung fu skills heading to Hong Kong to star in movies shot super fast so they can make it back to the States in time to start 10th grade, and Puerto Rican karate coaches making their way in this world with nothing but their own two fists.
It's also about an 11-year-old boy who not only created the first fan edit but somehow turned it into a worldwide moneymaker, CIA agents secretly funding a karate movie, the New York Times fabricating a fear campaign about black karate gangs out to kill white people, the history of black martial arts in America (Why does judo or karate suddenly get so ominous because black men study it?, wondered Malcolm X), the death of Bruce Lee and the onslaught of imitators that followed, and how a fight that started in Japanese internment camps during World War II ended in a ninja movie some 40 years later.
In a continuing battle for recognition and respect that started a long, long time ago and continues today in movies like The Matrix, Kill Bill, and Black Panther and here, in the pages of "These Fists Break Bricks", and for the first time, is the full uncensored story.
Critique: Published in a coffee-table sized paperback back format (8 x 2 x 11 inches), "These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World" is a 'must read' for anyone who has every sat in a theatre and thrilled to a martial arts movie. Inherently fascinating, impressive informative, expertly organized and presented, profusely illustrated, "These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World" is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, college, and university library Film History and American Popular Culture collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.
Editorial Note #1: Grady Hendrix is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author and one of the founders of the New York Asian Film Festival. He's covered the Asian film industry for Variety, Sight & Sound, and Film Comment, among others.
Editorial Note #2: Chris Poggiali is a librarian, writer and film historian who edited the fanzine Temple of Schlock from 1987 - 1991, and brought it back as a blog in 2008. He has written about film for numerous magazines, websites, and DVDs/Blu-rays.
Editorial Note #3: An American rapper, actor, filmmaker and record producer, Robert Fitzgerald Diggs is better known by his stage name RZA. He is the de facto leader of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan, having produced most albums for the group and its respective members.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
The Midwest Book Review is an organization of volunteers committed to promoting literacy, library usage, and small press publishing. We accept no funds from authors or publishers. Full permission is given to post any of these reviews on thematically appropriate websites, newsgroups, listserves, internet discussion groups, organizational newsletters, or to interested individuals. Please give the Midwest Book Review a credit line when doing so.
The Midwest Book Review publishes the monthly book review magazines "California Bookwatch", "Internet Bookwatch", "Children's Bookwatch", "MBR Bookwatch", "Reviewer's Bookwatch", and "Small Press Bookwatch". All are available for free on the Midwest Book Review website at www (dot) midwestbookreview (dot) com
Anyone wanting to submit books for review consideration can send them to:
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
To submit reviews of any fiction or non-fiction books, email them to Frugalmuse (at) aol (dot) com (Be sure to include the book title, author, publisher, publisher address, publisher website/phone number, 13-digit ISBN number, and list price).
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
Monologues for Adults
Mike Kimmel
Ben Rose Creative Arts
9781953057068, $14.97
https://www.amazon.com/Monologues-Adults-Original-Inspire-Professional/dp/1953057063
There's a special challenge in the dramatic monologue world, in presenting exercises for adults that are diverse, educational, and appealing. Many monologue titles are directed to teens, and hold themes particularly interesting to this age group. That's why Monologues for Adults: 60 Original Monologues to Stand Out, Inspire, and Shine is especially recommended and relevant to aspiring adult drama students. It focuses on original works designed to instruct adults on various facets of the monologue's dramatic format, providing works that can be used not just as self-teaching exercises, but sources for auditions and family-friendly stage performances at the college level and beyond.
Mike Kimmel crafts a diverse selection of subjects and monologue approaches. Examples of this diversity include a treatise on kindness, "When People Don't Care," which begins with others and evolves to an admonition to consider self-care equally important; "Bird Watching," which opens with a criticism of the practice and evolves to consider its underlying benefits; and "Pie in the Sky," about dreaming big and doing work that "does more than pay the bills." Each monologue offers not just the opportunity to practice dramatic skills, but the chance to learn new ways of living, finding the positive even in events or approaches that may initially seem negative or unappealing. This elevates Monologues for Adults into a series of meaningful explorations and dialogues that hold value beyond their acting exercises. While Monologues for Adults will, of course, appear in drama and acting collections, it ideally will also be considered as a succinct collection of life lessons and observations appropriate for self-help audiences, as well.
These Fists Break Bricks
Grady Hendrix, author
Chris Pggiali, author
RZA of Wu-Tang Clan, author
Mondo Books
https://mondoshop.com/collections/books
www.thesefistsbreakbricks.com
9781736891605, $39.95, PB, 432pp
https://www.amazon.com/These-Fists-Break-Bricks-America/dp/173689160X
Synopsis: When Warner Brothers (a major Hollywood studio) released Five Fingers of Death to thrill-seeking Times Square moviegoers on March 21, 1973, only a handful of Black and Asian American audience members knew the difference between an Iron Fist and an Eagle's Claw. That changed overnight as kung fu movies kicked off a craze that would earn millions at the box office, send TV ratings soaring, sell hundreds of thousands of video tapes, influence the birth of hip hop, reshape the style of action we see in movies today, and introduce America to some of the biggest non-white stars to ever hit motion picture screens.
"These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World" by the team of Grady Hendrix, Chris Poggiali, and RZA of Wu-Tang Clan is a lavishly illustrated history that tells the bone-blasting, spine-shattering story of how these films of fury spawned in anti-colonial protests on the streets of Hong Kong came to America and raised hell for 15 years before greed, infomercials, and racist fearmongering shut them down.
"These Fists Break Bricks" also covers Japanese judo coaches battling American wrestlers in backwoods MMA bouts at county fairs, black teenagers with razor sharp kung fu skills heading to Hong Kong to star in movies shot super fast so they can make it back to the States in time to start 10th grade, and Puerto Rican karate coaches making their way in this world with nothing but their own two fists.
It's also about an 11-year-old boy who not only created the first fan edit but somehow turned it into a worldwide moneymaker, CIA agents secretly funding a karate movie, the New York Times fabricating a fear campaign about black karate gangs out to kill white people, the history of black martial arts in America (Why does judo or karate suddenly get so ominous because black men study it?, wondered Malcolm X), the death of Bruce Lee and the onslaught of imitators that followed, and how a fight that started in Japanese internment camps during World War II ended in a ninja movie some 40 years later.
In a continuing battle for recognition and respect that started a long, long time ago and continues today in movies like The Matrix, Kill Bill, and Black Panther and here, in the pages of "These Fists Break Bricks", and for the first time, is the full uncensored story.
Critique: Published in a coffee-table sized paperback back format (8 x 2 x 11 inches), "These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World" is a 'must read' for anyone who has every sat in a theatre and thrilled to a martial arts movie. Inherently fascinating, impressive informative, expertly organized and presented, profusely illustrated, "These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World" is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, college, and university library Film History and American Popular Culture collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.
Editorial Note #1: Grady Hendrix is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author and one of the founders of the New York Asian Film Festival. He's covered the Asian film industry for Variety, Sight & Sound, and Film Comment, among others.
Editorial Note #2: Chris Poggiali is a librarian, writer and film historian who edited the fanzine Temple of Schlock from 1987 - 1991, and brought it back as a blog in 2008. He has written about film for numerous magazines, websites, and DVDs/Blu-rays.
Editorial Note #3: An American rapper, actor, filmmaker and record producer, Robert Fitzgerald Diggs is better known by his stage name RZA. He is the de facto leader of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan, having produced most albums for the group and its respective members.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
The Midwest Book Review is an organization of volunteers committed to promoting literacy, library usage, and small press publishing. We accept no funds from authors or publishers. Full permission is given to post any of these reviews on thematically appropriate websites, newsgroups, listserves, internet discussion groups, organizational newsletters, or to interested individuals. Please give the Midwest Book Review a credit line when doing so.
The Midwest Book Review publishes the monthly book review magazines "California Bookwatch", "Internet Bookwatch", "Children's Bookwatch", "MBR Bookwatch", "Reviewer's Bookwatch", and "Small Press Bookwatch". All are available for free on the Midwest Book Review website at www (dot) midwestbookreview (dot) com
Anyone wanting to submit books for review consideration can send them to:
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
To submit reviews of any fiction or non-fiction books, email them to Frugalmuse (at) aol (dot) com (Be sure to include the book title, author, publisher, publisher address, publisher website/phone number, 13-digit ISBN number, and list price).
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
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