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Admit One: My Life in Film

door Emmett James

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11122243,339 (3.65)15
First set in Croydon, South London, in the 1980s, Admit One details how Emmett James escaped the pains of adolescence by going to the cinema. With wry, self-deprecating humor and observation, the author reflects on, obsesses over, and rages about film and its correlation to our pasts. The author finds that his true calling is in transiting one side of the screen to the other. He decides to leave England for the only place where he can realize his dream of becoming an actor - America.We then follow the author on his numerous Hollywood adventures, watching as he glides smoothly from forgery to pornography to crashing the Academy Awards under the alias of a nominated screenwriter, and eventually stumbles into acting in the highest-grossing movie of all time, Titanic. At every turn, the films that inspired Emmett James as a child resurface, and they serve to contextualize his humorous collection of stories in which he provides unique insights into the fascinating world of film.… (meer)
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1-5 van 22 worden getoond (volgende | toon alle)
Not to take anything away from Mr. James, but I don't see how he warrants a biography any more than I do. The writing was witty at times, but at others it was an obvious attempt at wittiness. I've read funnier and more interesting bios that didn't take 200 pages. ( )
  snotbottom | Sep 19, 2018 |
What are the key movies in your life? Perhaps not your favorite movies, but the movies that stand out as important moments in your personal history, the ones the represent significant periods of time or events or people in your past?

Actor Emmett James uses this question to frame each chapter of his memoir Admit One: My Life in Film. You've probably not heard of Emmett James. He has had a moderately successful career, judging from his profile on the Internet Movie Data Base--20 acting credits ranging from voice work to regular roles on a short-lived television series to a supporting role in James Cameron's Titanic. The one with Leonardo and Kate. His memoir, Admit One, follows hs life from childhood in England to a struggling, then promising career as an actor in Hollywood. Each chapter is framed by a particular movie, one that Mr. James found important at that point in his life.

I like the idea. In fact, we share a few movies in common: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Star Wars: A New Hope, The Elephant Man, The Amityville Horror, Taxi Driver, 2001: A Space Odyssey. (A confession--my mother wouldn't allow my little brother and me to see The Amityville Horror though I did get my hands on a copy of the book which I devoured in secret, and in my day there was just Star Wars...none of this New Hope business.) When Mr. James writes about how thrilling it was to see Sindbad fight an army of skeletons, I could identify. I remember. Those stop-motion animation monsters, once state of the art, that inspired Mr. James to pursue an acting career inspired my friends and I to try our own hand at film making. All we needed was my best friend's father's Super 8 camera, a cable for the shutter, a backyard sandbox and my little brother's plastic dinosaurs. (Another confession-- half of the dinosaurs were mine.)

While suburban California where I grew up is a long way from the working class England of Mr. James's childhood, I found the first half of Admit One nostalgic reading. We're bound together by a common love of the same childhood movies. (I wonder if Avatar will inspire the same sort of amateur film making. I hope it does.) The second half of Admit One follows Mr. James's journey to Hollywood and his attempt to become a professional actor. Success does not come easily. There are roles he'd rather not talk about, both small and large, a few respectable acting gigs here and there, then a big break, a part in a full scale Hollywood production. The kind they don't make anymore. Titanic.

A good idea can hinder a memoir as well as help it. At first the the events in each chapter stick close to the movie that frames them. Mr. James's childhood need not match the reader's childhood if the two share the love of the same movie. We were all watching Star Wars at that age, or whatever our era's Star Wars was. This makes it easy to identify with young Emmett even if the theatres we attended were radically different. It seems odd that the closer Mr. James gets to a career in movies the farther away the chapters in Admit One get from the films that frame them. A few offer little more than ironic commentary on the events they describe, and the narration becomes snarkier, more worldly-wise. By then end of the book I began to miss the little boy who loved movies so much.

But it just may be too hard to love movies like a child does once you're in the world that makes them. The Hollywood Mr. James ends up in does not live up to his expectations. One day an agent calls--get to the set right now; you're needed for a scene. Full of hope, the young actor arrives on set to be sent to the make-up trailer. He is stripped, shaved, dressed in a bikini with large balloons stuffed in the top. The scene, a boxing rink. The part, a woman boxer. The reason an actor was hired instead of an actress, the visual joke of punching a woman's oversized chest. This is not the worst thing that happens to the aspiring actor. Mr. James makes a living but it's not the one he dreamed of when he was a little boy amazed by the sight of Sindbad fighting an army of skeletons.

Maybe one day.... ( )
  CBJames | Apr 18, 2010 |
"Admit One: My Life in Film" is the amusing memoir of actor Emmett James. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s in Croyden, England, Emmett soon discovered that the cinema made for a great escape from his mundane childhood. Using a memorable movie as the theme for each chapter, he writes his story starting with his first ever movie experience and moving through his childhood to adulthood when he tried to break into the movie business.

While I found his childhood interesting and was glad he included those details, for me the book really got exciting when Emmett started getting involved in acting. I’ve always had an interest in the behind the scenes world of Hollywood and this book gave me a glimpse at the ups and downs of a struggling actor. The dichotomy between his experience in soft porn and his experience on the set of the blockbuster film "Titanic" is not something many popular actors of today would ever share, so I appreciate the fact that Emmett does not try to hide the realities he dealt with while struggling for his “big break”.

This honest and cleverly written memoir was a really fun read, and I can see why it recently won the award for Best Book from the USA Book News as I would not hesitate recommend it to anyone who has an interest in acting or movies. I wish Emmett James the best in his future career whether it be in acting, writing, or some other aspect of the entertainment industry. ( )
  CaApril | Apr 6, 2010 |
The memoir is a series of stories from James' life until his movie role in Titanic. Each chapter begins with a movie that was important to James during that time period or provides a clue to the reader about the chapter contents. The beginning chapters made me recall movie going experiences with my own parents that I had forgotten.

One standout story is about his quest to be cast in a superhero movie. From the start the reader knows the outcome won't be good - it's one blunder after another. It definitely one of those stories that seems devastating at the time (to all involved) but is now a great laugh.

Other stories include trying to find work in Hollywood, his first movie role with lines, and experiences on the Titanic set. Some of the later stories take a while to find their way to the punch line.

Full review available at http://www.amberstults.com/?p=2283 ( )
  astults | Mar 7, 2010 |
Emmett James is funny. He's acerbic. He's irreverent. And he's written a memoir that is good fun indeed.

Starting with his childhood in Croyden, James takes the reader through his life as a boy in London and eventually as an actor in Hollywood. The book seems to split cleanly into two pieces along these lines. His boyhood was a fairly normal if poor one and he invokes images of childhood that anyone who grew up around the same time will recognize and appreciate. He can be faintly snarky about Croyden, his family, and his exploits growing up but I found these entertaining and funny. The section focused on his life in Hollywood trying to make it as an actor ramps up the entertainment factor as he honestly portrays some of the shifty things he does to get noticed or just to have fun. He discusses his career in forgery, his porn film debut, his roles as an extra, and meeting the parents of a boy he "reconnstructed" who died horribly. Ultimately James is really one of the lucky ones because he does get some breaks, including a role in Titanic.

The short chapters are headed by plot synopses of films that either influenced James or parallel the narrative within the chapter. It's an intriguing and fairly successful way of structuring the memoir. The films themselves are not under discussion in the chapters, they are merely foils to James' life. This distinction might disappoint film afficianados but for the regular Janes among us who might not have seen all the movies listed (::ahem:: like me), it works well, offering a small glimpse of the theme to come. The writing is honest and open but witty and occasionally biting. James doesn't shy away from presenting himself warts and all. What he doesn't present so much though, is a depth and an emotion to his story. It stays mostly on the surface, skimming from event to event without offering a deeper insight. For instance, his only mention of his marriage comes after his plot summary for the movie Green Card and the extent of the chapter is "Life imitates art. Enough said." While this gets a chuckle, it is indicative of the way in which he shies away from heavy emotional content throughout the memoir. It still works as light fare but there's still a slight sense of lack as a result. Over all, James' story is appealing and anyone interested in an insider's view of Hollywood, uncluttered by unreality as presented in magazines and tabloids, will appreciate this decidedly funny, conversational, and very different memoir. James has captured both the magic of childhood and the magic of movies. I hope he gets the chance to play himself in the film.

Thanks to Lisa at Online Publicist for sending me a copy of the book for review. ( )
  whitreidtan | Mar 3, 2010 |
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First set in Croydon, South London, in the 1980s, Admit One details how Emmett James escaped the pains of adolescence by going to the cinema. With wry, self-deprecating humor and observation, the author reflects on, obsesses over, and rages about film and its correlation to our pasts. The author finds that his true calling is in transiting one side of the screen to the other. He decides to leave England for the only place where he can realize his dream of becoming an actor - America.We then follow the author on his numerous Hollywood adventures, watching as he glides smoothly from forgery to pornography to crashing the Academy Awards under the alias of a nominated screenwriter, and eventually stumbles into acting in the highest-grossing movie of all time, Titanic. At every turn, the films that inspired Emmett James as a child resurface, and they serve to contextualize his humorous collection of stories in which he provides unique insights into the fascinating world of film.

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