In this little book, two of film's most visible critics, Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel, interview three of the most influential film directors of the last 30 years: Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas. (Scorsese is interviewed by both Ebert and Siskel. Spielberg is interviewed by Siskel; Lucas by Ebert.)

Much of the focus of this little book is directed toward film preservation, although the title of the book also refers to trends in filmmaking. It is interesting to see the predictions that all three directors made for the future of film when these interviews were conducted in 1990. Along the way, we gain a bit of insight into the passion these three directors (and these two critics) have for films and their future. An interesting look for the casual fan or the serious film lover.

116 pages

A must-have for film fans. In what other book can one get so intimate about films with acclaimed film makers Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and George Lucas, along with prominent film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Simply put, facinating, and a pure joy to read. Plus, the proceeds go to restoring films, such as JAWS, that are literally disappearing.

That is a very good book it is about fans that send E.t. and Steven Spielberg.The leters are funny, strange,and sad.Perfect for anbody who likes E.T. especially kids.They have good pictures and even two family circus comics with are good friend E.T. Buy the book.If you like Steven Spielberg`s movies.

Letters to E.T. is a compilation of letters written to steven spielberg and e.t. by fans all over the world,
people of all ages fell in love with this unearthly creature that was deserted on this far away world,

the letter that most touched me was one written by a mother of a 20 year old(in 1982) autistic boy, the boy cried during the movie wich is very exceptionel because autistic people NEVER crie
"not for themselves ,not for others" so his mom wrote,

a lovely book for everyone who keeps E.T in his heart,
my heart will "glow" forever,
peter de mooij ...

I've been waiting a long time for a book like this. Populist filmmakers like Steven Spielberg are too often ignored by publishers who would rather print in-depth literature on the likes of Coppola or Scorsese, so it's nice to see a meaty tome such as this on the bookshelves. Spielberg lets rip on all the stuff you often wondered about whilst watching his films, and proves himself to be rather adept at delivering hilarious anecdotes. Unlike the George Lucas Interviews book, Spielberg isn't shy when it comes to discussing his private life. All in all, an enlightening read. Jolly good.

There's a lot of really good stuff in here.

First, the interviews span some 25 years, so you get a sense how he's matured and yet how he's stayed the same.

Second, Spielberg is very candid, so interviews with him tend to reveal more than many others.

Third, there's just a lot of good stuff in here, some of which you may have heard and some not. For instance, I had never heard the story of how, as an awkward 12 year old, he and a mentally retarded boy were dead last in a school race and their peers cheered the retarded boy to beat young Spielberg. Spielberg describes how he knew he had to let the boy with without him realizing it and did just that. And then he describes how after the race, after the others carried the retarded boy on their shoulders, Spielberg was both devastatingly happy and sad.

Or there's the anecdote about his encounter with Stanley Kubrick -- how the master was not as stand-offish as one might think, and yet how he sized up Spielberg with "his probing, questioning eyes, always looking at you to see if you're true or falso. To see what you're made of, to see what you have upstairs. His chess player's eyes. Real surgeon's eyes."

There's lots of other examples I can bring but if you have any interest in Spielberg or movies just go out and get the book. It's a great read about a fascinating man whose own character arc and maturity as a movie-maker is the stuff great stories are made of.

We all love parts of Star Wars, but why settle? For example, he could take a novel like Defenders of the Holy Grail and make it as magical as Lord of the Rings. His fantasies miss connections with the modern world His studio could be making real statements about the human condition instead of lightweight _______.

Wonderful book about the great filmaker who gave us such masterpieces as THX 1138,Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars. . . .very rich and well done with beatiful colored pages, and comments from other filmaker on the movies of George Lucas. . . . a wonderful edition that would look great on anyone cofee table,so go out and buy it today.

This book gives you a sequence of events in Lucas' creative empire. It also contains interesting quotes from the man himself as well as other significant contributors to his work. It may come as a surprise to some of us that Lucas' goals are quite similar to our own; the only difference is that he has a very strong will to make it all come true.

Contained in this book are his projects that touched many who will never imagine the same way again.

"Gremlins" is one of my favorite movies, about a furry little creature (a Mogwai) named Gizmo who is adopted by a young man, Billy Peltzer. Billy's given three simple rules to abide by: don't expose it to sunlight (or else it will die), don't get it wet (or else it will multiply into more Mogwai--or Gremlins, depending on its current stage), and never feed it after midnight (or else it will metamorphosize into a killer Gremlin).

While I love the movie, I wasn't too pleased with this loose novelization of the film. The author seemed to want to write his own version of "Gremlins"; he barely stuck to the script--dropping, adding, and altering several scenes along the way. This is evident right from the beginning with the prologue--a quick but unimportant explanation of the Mogwai's origin as alien beings on the planet Enz. (Since when?)

The one good thing about this book, though, is the dozen or so color photos taken from the movie. The cute black-and-white illustrations of Gizmo and Spike at the beginning of each chapter are also a nice touch.

The intended audience for this book is apparently preteens, though it's appropriate for all ages. However, I'd recommend sticking with the movie instead.

*spoilers included*

He did a superb job on BACK TO THE FUTURE, and he did just as well on GREMLINS. As he did in BTTF, here he takes us *inside* the characters, where he reveals more of their background, secrets, and ambitions. In particular, the origins of the Gremlins and the conversations between Gizmo and Stripe were excellent additions.

The only flaw is the same one that haunted the novelization of BTTF--it seems that Gipe was not given the final draft of the screenplay to work with. In the book, Mr. Futterman dies. In the actual movie, however, he was only seriously injured; the filmmakers apparently decided to spare him at the last moment. But this is a minor flaw that does not detract too much.

Recommended for GREMLINS fans, and anyone who wants to see how movie novelizations should be done!

Meet Gizmo the Mogwai. A cuddly little creaturer which comes with a list of three rules:

1) Keep him away from bright lights. They could kill him.

2) Keep him away from water. A single drop will bring you another Mogwai.

3) Don't feed him after midnight. A single bite will bring about a terror like no other...GREMLINS.

Author George Gipe turns a fun B-movie into a literary masterpiece of equal parts terror and laughs. This book contains much that the movie was missing. We learn the origins of the Mogwai and Gremlins. We hear conversations between the creatures. And we hear about past incidents of Gremlin escapades.

The best part of this novel is the start of the Gremlin invasion. We jump between reports being relayed to the local radio stations and the terrifying experiences of the hero's neighbors.

George Gipe only wrote three novelizations in his career: GREMLINS, EXPLORERS, and BACK TO THE FUTURE. All were excellent, but left you hungry for more of Gipe's work. Where did he go?

If you are lucky enough to find this book, by all means pick it up. You'll love it.

Just watch that racist Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to see that this man is deathly afraid of India and Indians in general. Too bad - he seems to love the Communist Chinese a lot though.

I want to give this book 4 stars, but I just can't bring myself to do it. This book is certainly an impressive scholarly work - well researched, reasonably well referenced, and when there is analysis offered, it is thorough and insightful.

Unfortunately, the analysis is also my major complaint with the book. McBride seems to haphazardly pick pictures to analyse, while ignoring others. What possessed him to give devote more pages to 1941 than all the Indiana Jones movies combined? Further, he has a tendency to focus too much on the story of the movie - I submit that most people reading this book have seen these movies and can draw their own conclusions about the significance of the story. We'd rather hear about how they were made, etc. That is, more facts and less analysis would would make this a better book.

The first half of the book is very good, because the author takes his time explaining family connections, his amateur films, etc. It is a little repetitive (how often does McBride feel he has to tell us that Spielberg felt like an outsider growing up?), but the detail and narrative flow are very good, telling us a lot about the man behind the movies. Especially interesting is the information on S's TV work.

The second half of the book rapidly degenerates into a shallow overview of things we already know about Spielberg, and is very disappointing. It's almost like McBride had a page limit, and after spending so much time on S's childhood, he had to rush through the remaining material, save for sections on Schindler's List and Colour Purple (both deserving movies, of course). Even Jurassic Park is little more than a sideshow, wherein McBride denegrates Crichton's novel (a fate that Peter Benchley's Jaws seems to avoid, even though in my opinion JP is a work far superior to Jaws) and comments on how Spielberg worked on the effects in Poland while shooting Schindler's List. Even his fine analytical powers seem to break down. What else could possess him to comment that Raider of the Lost ark is racist and "a soulless and impersonal film", while praising Last Crusade as "a graceful piece of popular filmaking...gratifyingly free of racist overtones that blighted the two previous films." Huh? Has McBride actually watched these three movies together? Or does he really think it's okay to portray stereotyped Arabs, but not stereotyped Indians or Nepalese?

At any rate, this is an important work, recommended for anyone that wants to learn more about the early life and works of Spielberg. But I would suggest putting it down without reading the last 5 chapters.

I've now read about five or six biographies of Steven Spielberg and all vary in depth and quality. However Joseph McBride book can only be described as THE most in-depth account of Spielberg's fascinating life. You simply won't read a more well-researched account of Spielberg's life unless the great man writes his autobiography. Don't be put off by the fact that Spielberg didn't co-operate with this book, virtually everyone else did including, most surprisingly, his father. A terrific read from start to finish.

Certainly we would agree that director Steven Spielberg's life would be a great way of learning about creativity. However, young readers will probably get a better idea about his creativity from his movies than from this book. While Erin M. Hovanec does provide a concise little biography of Spielberg, the size limitation of this little book means the example have to be a little general. We learn that Spielberg used his creativity to make "Jaws" very scary, used tiny cars with puppets as a creative way of keeping actors safe in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and hired computer people to do the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park." Fortunately, kids who read this book will look at his movies and get a better sense of his creative genius. After all, it really does come from his work rather than his life per se, and I know I would rather try to explain hsi creativity using film clips rather than relating his biography. This PowerKids Press book is part of a new series of A Character Build Book titles, which include learning about assertiveness from the life of Oprah Winfrey, charity from Princess Diana, courage from Christopher Reeve, integrity from Eleanor Roosevelt, and strength of character from Muhammad Ali.

THIS WAS VERY INFORMATIVE IN REGARDS TO MR. SPIELBERG. THE BOOK DETAILS WHO EXACTLY THIS MAN IS, WHAT COMPELLS HIM TO DO THE MOVIES THAT HE DOES AND WHAT IS HIS DRIVING FORCE. A MUST READ FOR ANY MOVIE FAN, BUT ESPECIALLY A SPIELBERG FAN!

This is a wonderful book written by a wonderfully talented writer. This is a great book for old and young alike!

Along the Tracks is a book about a boy named Yankele, and he also is called Yasha through the second half of the book. It starts out Yankele and his family living in Lodz, where the German army had invaded after conquering Poland. Yankele's family started moving on, trying to get to Russia. When they finally got to the border, the Nazis wouldn't let them in, so they had to stay outside for a while. Soon, all of the Jewish people there had flooded the Nazi guards, and Yankele's family got inside Russia. They lived there for a while, and Yankele's father joined the Red Army, and he fought in the war against the Germans. Soon Russia was taken over and Yankele's family was forced to leave, taking a train to Warsaw. After they got there they had to take yet another train out, and Yankele and his mother and sister got separated when someone bombed the train. A man helped Yankele for a while, until the next train station, then they left each other. Yankele was on his own for a very long time, staying with a group of thieves and stealing to live.
After a while, Yankele was helping an old lady who couldn't get certain things, like coal from coal piles at the train tracks. Soon, the old lady told him of a lady who lost a boy - one that would be thirteen, which Yankele was. Yankele was thirteen years old, and he looked like he was seven. That was his mom in the black market, and he stayed with her for a while. Eventually, he would get tired of staying in one place and would wander, then come back and stay with his mother. This was a very good book, I liked it a lot and it went by very fast. It was by Tamar Bergman, and translated from the Hebrew by Michael Swirsky.
Nick, Madison OH.

In my opinion, Along the Tracks is a good book. You find yourself on the edge of your seat numerous times, not to mention not being able to put the book down. Along the Tracks also has a very happy ending, which I happen to like.

I loved this book! It totally sucked me in from the moment I opened it. It's about a young boy's experiences being separated from his family during the Holocaust. His adventures are amazing! He has to overcome his friends dying, hunger, disease, poverty, separation, and even love. And I can't believe it all really happened to a real person!!!

I enjoyed this book a lot. Even though some of the personalities lacked realism, it still had a very good plot. Starts out slow, but later you get sucked into it. Anyone who is crazy about reading books should definitely read this one. It should become a movie! Lastly, It also serves as a hidden guide to finishing the video game!

When I first started the book I thought the story line was a of juvenile theme, but after about 30 pages you soon find out that there is an underlying mystery that is the basis of the book. The story is an adaption of a PC adventure game that Lucas arts of Star Wars fame produced, and it wonderfully gives the best of both worlds, the discriptive imagery of Alan Dean Foster and the cunning puzzle of the game. The story is a first contact book that revolves around the adventures of the three main charecters, Boston Low, a NASA astronaut, Dr. Ludger Brink, a scientist, and Maggie Robbins, a reporter. Thier adventures exploring an alien planet are the premise of the novel. The book is a good story that holds the reader and leaves you wanting to play the game to see if you are as good as the charecters

This book is a nice piece of science-fiction. The Dig has all the characteristics of a space opera with enough information to keep your feet on the ground along with enough mysterie to keep you holding the book in your hands instead of putting it down for a break everyonce and a while. However there was one draw back, this entire book was based on a computer game! I played the game befor I read the book and I ended up with not enough surprise to keep my eyelids open, The entire expierence was almost ruined for me if it wasn't for Foster's originality. I would recomend this book for whoever hasn't played the game. It is a very mysterious novel that is definately a five-star. I hope I see more of Alan Dean Foster.

The early drafts of the script for Poltergeist were either a chaotic mess or James Kahn took some liberties with the main story. Either way the results are not nearly as effective as some of the rave reviews would lead you to believe.

Strobes, creepy voices, and crawling steaks were fun on-screen. But much was missing (or just badly acted by secondaries).

Much is explained in the book, and more detail is given as to the nature of the attacks on this fictional family. Taking nothing away from the awesome acting of the primaries JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson, the book lends more depth to the little girl, Carol Ann, the midget psychic who comes tot he family's rescue, and the paranormal investigation team who stays at the house. Each incident is deepened and expanded, providing more true fear material and less photographic shock.

More robust than the movie, and classically chilling, Poltergeist is a must-have for horror enthusiasts.

Just shut the closet door before you read!

Books are usually better than movies. This one is a toss up. I love the film for it's visual aspects. I adore the book for it's details that the movie could never bring you.

I was freaked out on many occasions reading "Poltergeist". The part with "the beast" and how it thinks and hates really got to me. To think that they, the spirits, are standing there in front of you without you even knowing. The battle between "the beast" and Tangina is epic.

It was an extremely well written book and thank goodness a damn good movie. Enjoy them both.