Like every week we post a book review on a subject related to acting, health, personal growth or anything related to the showbiz industry. This time its dedicated to all those women (although men have been known to act up like this too) that wish you something –other-than-the-best. It’s “Trippin the Prom Queen” by Susan Shapiro Barash.

The author talks about how women can be heir own worst enemy and exposes the dark world of female envy and competition. She dissects the myths about female friendships and exposes the true relationship: rivalry.

The book explains which areas women are most competitive in, how different they are from men, when its healthy competition and when its not, and uses these beliefs to then talk about how they can form strong relationships with both friends and colleagues, and grow to be strong and self sufficient.

Is it worth reading? It can be funny at times (hilarious at others) but personally I don’t believe an author when they claim that all female relationships are based on envy, but with her magic piece of advice you can turn it all around and become best friends with your competition. So NO, I wouldn’t recommend it to be taken seriously.

Director: D J Caruso
Cast: Shia LaBoeuf, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Bob Thorton.

Plot: Jerry and Rachel are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of increasingly dangerous situations, using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move.

Steven Spielbergs latest movie was what I would have expected from him. The action packed film had very good special effects and for the most part believable stunts. His prodigy boy, Shia LeBeouf does a pretty good job although I have to say the part doesnt deviate much from his past roles of ‘rebel’.

I think the first 15 minutes of the movie drag on a bit too long. There is no need to give us such deep background information to set us up. I found myself wondering when the “real” story would begin. Specially because now a days we dont walk in unknowingly into most movies, and we know what they are going to be about, I feel storywriters have more of an obligation to outsmart us and not bore us.

Overall, the movie was a good action filled thriller. The concept has been done before: 2001, space odyssey, Stealth….. but has been copied in an elegant enough way that you dont know who is controlling the ‘bad guys’ until near the end. The acting was pretty good (specially Billy Bob Thortons performance), and the ending was, although a bit predictable, still decent.

Like every week we post a book review on a subject related to acting, health, personal growth or anything related to the showbiz industry. This time it’s the Hard-edged “True and False” by David Mamet.

If you are at all familiar with David Mamets style you already know how his tone is shocking, witty and direct. In this case he takes a rather irreverent tone to talk about acting schools, interpretation, sense memory and the Method (all of which he is rather opposed to).

He also shows us how to deal with auditions, rehersals, agents and directors, how to encourage audiences as an actor and stay faithful to the script. Which is an important lesson to learn in my opinion: ALWAYS stick to the script and leave the improvisation for when you have pemisssion from the director.

Last but not least he makes a mention to the business of actors and auditions and working as an actor in the real world.

But, Is it worth reading? YES YES YES. Its one of the best books that I have ever read on acting because regardless of if you agree or disagree with his conclusions, it makes you question the Status Quo of the classic conceptions and “The Method”. A definite must for all actors who have studied acting before and need to question their beliefs.

Written and Directed by: Bryan Bertino
Cast: Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman, and Kip Weeks.
Synopsis: After returning from a wedding reception, a couple staying in an isolated vacation house receive a knock on the door in the mid-hours of the night. What ensues is a violent invasion by three strangers, their faces hidden behind masks. The couple find themselves in a violent struggle, in which they go beyond what either of them thought capable in order to survive.

Great Thriller movie! It really gets deep inside your skin (especially women). In the first half hour. Being left alone in a strange house late at night is enough to prove my point!

Its enough to know that its actually based on a true story and if you go online and look at all the facts they have from reality its even more creepy. And theres always something that I cant stand about little whispy female scary characters with freaky voices in movies.

Spoiler Alert! The ending was not as creepy but just as terrifying if you think that it’s a very plausible and possible thing to happen in out-in-the-empty-woods house. Overall I liked it very much, and Liv Tyler’s performance was well worth mentioning. I don’t know if she has any other experience in thriller/scary movies but she did very well.

The book is a follow-up to the book Truth In Comedy, in which the author explains in detail the Harold method used at the i.O. (formerly Improv Olympic) in Chicago and the i.O. West in Los Angeles where actors such as Tina Fey, Chris Farley, Mike Meyers…etc have all studied. And in all honesty, she refers quite a bit to such method throughout the first half of the book without really explaining it which can be very annoying if you haven’t read it.

Basically the Harold method is a technique to have all actors from a group onstage at the same time in an organized manner to showcase all the personalities and still get the point of your statement across. For that you use “the rules” and several tricks. My personal favorite is the tag-out in which you manage to “flash” a character in a scene in space and time and introduce new character at the same time.

She does give some really good and sound advice in chapters 5 through 7 for both starting improv actors as well as experienced pros. The main idea is always to overcome the barriers you put on yourself. Look at the experts and learn from them. And she explains in detail a lot of scenes that are used to exemplify the techniques.

The book also comes with a DVD of improv scenes performed at the i.O. which is hilarious and very helpful to see what she means.

Is it worth reading? If you are interested  or like in improv, then DEFINITELY. Although I would have to say, you need to buy the first book to understand this one first. I would also say that going over the DVD and seeing some of the pros in action is a great added bonus to the book and an easy fun way to learn some new skills.

Cast: Tony Curtis, Jerry Lewis, Thelma Ritter
Dir: John Rich
Synopsis: American playboy Bernard Lawrence has cleverly designed a system using the airline timetables to keep going three affairs with flight stewardesses. However, his life soon starts to descend into a shambles after the arrival of a friend, Robert Reed, and a dreaded change to the flight order, whereby it becomes increasingly difficult to keep his three fiancées apart

I am a true fan of both Tony Curtis (Houdini anyone?) and Jerry Lewis (The best comedian ever!). So to have them together in this great comedy of tangles and relationships that twist and turn and get mingled was wonderful.

It’s a movie I believe to be timeless, countless times imitated but never even remotely approached. So many try to make comedies like these now a days but just cant. It might be the acting (I mean, few have been able to successfully follow the exaggerated comedy of Jerry Lewis, just Jim Carey, Jack Nicholson…) but maybe it has more to do with the writing. The wit and humor is simple and complex at the same time.

Definitely a must see for all of you who want to learn comedy from the pros and hopefully one day even surpass them! This is a wonderful place to start.

Like every week we post a book review on a subject related to acting, health, personal growth or anything related to the showbiz industry. In this case its Robert Blumenfeld’s revised and expanded edition of “Accents: A manual for actors”.

It’s a great tool to give us actors and one that is so complete is hard to come along. The one-place to find it all.

The book includes:
-Asian Accents: Chinese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Burmese, Thai, Indonesian….etc
-African Accents: South African, Zulu, Sub-Saharan, Ethiopian, Nigerian, Ugandan, Congo, Swahili…etc.
-Middle Eastern: Arabic Accents, Egyptian, Hebrew, Persian…etc
-Slavic Accents: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Slovak, Czech, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian…
-Germanic Accents: German, Prussian, Bavarian, Viennese, Yiddish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish…etc
-Romance Accents: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian…etc.

But what is truly impressive is that it separates by class, Date, and geography the American, British Isles and Commonwealth English. So its not the same to study a Upper Class late 1900’s North American accent from Baltimore, and a Modern English Provincial Accent from Liverpool.

The book gives a detailed and comprehensive description but for those of us who prefer to learn in a more audio-visual form, it also includes 2 CD’s with a manual to each language.

So, Is it worth reading? If you’ve read the rest of the article you know already the answer is YES!!!!!! This book serves as a  wonderful tool for any actor and is worth even having as a reference book because you will certainly find yourself returning to it time and time again throughout your career.