"Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures" is more of a compendium to the documentary video released with the Kubrick Collection boxed set than a book of its own inspration. It's a trip through times past for both wife and author Christiane Kubrick as well as for the viewer who grew up with Kubrick's marvelous films. The book allows a deeper and more accessible view of the Man Behind the Camera.

Watching Kubrick's films, one gets the sense that something greater than a single man is directing these movies. Looking at these behind the scenes photos I hear the words "Dont' pay attention to the man behind the camera," as Kubrick plays the Almighty Oz in the production of his films.

The book is presented in a large hardback volume with glossy pages; all of the photos are black and white. We see Stanley from an infant all the way through to his work on "Eyes Wide Shut." The final pages also offer some pre-production sketches for "Artificial Intelligence." It is less of a book to read than a book to look through, although there are small captions to each picture that Christiane gives the reader the time and place and offers a little insight into Stanley's thinking.

With a foreward by Stephen Spielberg (the eventual director for "A.I."), "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures" is designed for the Kubrick fan, but serves as a memoir for Mrs. Kubrick. As she mentions in the introduction, "The photographs will...correct the mistaken view of Stanley as some sort of isolationist misanthrope out of Dr. Mabuse by way of Howard Hughes."

'STANLEY KUBRICK: A Life In Pictures' (c. Oct 2002) by Mrs. Christiane Kubrick, is an insightful photographic odyssey of Stanley Kubrick, America's very original and probably only auteur director.

Mrs. Kubrick presented, in chronological order, rare family photographs of Stanley Kubrick from his childhood in the Bronx and through his teenage years in high school and working for LOOK magazine. This included his very first 1945 photograph of a newspaper vendor he sold for twenty-five dollars to that publication.

The chronology then continued as a mix of Stanley Kubrick in his various movie publicity stills and with candid photographs of the behind the scenes activity as Director Kubrick lined up his shots on movie cameras; interacted with his crew; conversed with his stars; "having a little game of chess"; or the very obvious serious discussions with cast and technicians. (The pictures of Stanley Kubrick cracking-up laughing on the set of '2001' are priceless; as are the touching photographs of him holding his young children.) The photographs continued until the filming of his last movie, 'Eyes Wide Shut', showing a mature and greying director.

And for those who follow the interesting lives of the actors in his films, 'STANLEY KUBRICK: A Life In Pictures' provided dozens of revealing off-camera images of his interactions with such noted personalities as: Marlon Brando; Kirk Douglas; Lawrence Olivier; James Mason; George C. Scott; and Sterling Hayden. Equally as interesting as his cinematographic technique was his managerial style as he presided over some of Hollywood's most powerful movie stars, dozens of cast and crew, and sometimes thousands of extras, which one can only infer from the objectivity of this black & white photographic collection.

This collection contained a touch of poignancy as photo #57 showed a publicity still of Stanley Kubrick, Sterling Hayden, and Kola Kwariani pouring over a chess game together in the chess club set of 'The Killing'. In this 1956 movie, Kola Kwariani played professional wrestler Maurice Oboukhoff, who instigated a very memoriable diversion for the race track robbery. In real life, Kola Kwarinani was a real wrestler and expert chess player who played in the same New York 'Chess & Checker Club' (alias The Flea House) as Stanley Kubrick. The neighborhood changed, and in February 1980 at age 77 while playing in 'The Flea House' Kola Kwariani was beaten to death by five black teenage hoodlums.

The book: 'STANLEY KUBRICK: A Life In Pictures' is neither biography nor history but simply an important collection of objective photography mutely capturing the working details, values, and personality of America's only world class movie director.

As a suggestion, first read the biography: 'STANLEY KUBRICK: A Biography' (c.1997) by Vincent LuBrutto, to fully appreciate Mrs. Christiane Kubrick's impressive photographic compilation. Only then does the revealing photographs of her husband answer the many questions induced by all the incomplete written biographies on Stanley Kubrick.

This songbook is a must for any Disney fans. It has many songs from almost all cartoons from the very first, up to Aladdin, and includes many TV shows etc.

Despite its respectable cover this is only slightly more serious than the celebrity tell-alls of recent months. Incidentally it also has at least a couple of factual flaws even mild Internet research could have corrected

The book only scrathes the surface of this splendid director. Several chapters on the directors movies are simply to "thin". There's no information that we haven't heard of before. Instead read the book on GEORGE LUCAS by same auther. It's much better.

This is a very interesting book about a filmmaker. What i like is that it spends most about his career. It was very well written biography.

This is Spielberg's novel version of his more famous movie. It's not a bad book but, being Spielberg, it reads more like a movie screenplay than an actual novel. It's not that the writing is dry or boring (it's actually quite well-written and captivating in spots), but it doesn't go into extreme detail on some of the more mysterious and awe-inspiring scenes, as good science fiction invariably does. Of course, this was reconciled in the movie where you could actually SEE what is merely being described in this book. Still, this is a fun book, and I reccommend it to you for a rainy day or something of the kind. It's nice, quick read that you'll enjoy.

I would recommend this book to people who like to read novels, comics, picture books, and who like to read about aliens. The part that I didn't like was that I knew what was coming up because I already saw the movie twice.

This book contains the entire "script" for Raiders of the Lost Ark, though it is obviously not the original screenplay as it contains elements that were not thought of until filming had begun (e.g.-Indy shooting the Arab swordsman). It would have been nice to have the text of the shooting script to see the difference between it and the final cut, but no such luck. Still, being an Indiana Jones fan, it's nice to have it if only for reference purposes. There's an introduction by director Steven Spielberg himself that is pleasant without being revelatory, but again it is nice to have. The main draw of this book are the copious amounts of storyboards it contains. Crowding every page are drawings that show how the filmmakers had it all mapped out in their heads before cameras rolled. The storyboards are culled from various points during the production and it's interesting to see how the artists interpreted characters and locations. Particularly intriguing are Joe Johnston's special effects storyboards, which break down the complex visual wizardry of the film's arresting finale. The book itself is pleasing in appearance (if you can track down a good copy), with Richard Amsel's poster art handsomely rendered on the front and some full color storyboard examples on the back. On the whole, I would recommend this to Indiana Jones nuts as it makes a nice complement to the film.

I expected much from this book but I found it was not as good as "Outrageous Conduct" which also dealt with the Twilight Zone disaster. "Special Effects" was a bit too scholarly and did not provide enough information on the participants.

Unlike weightier bigraphies like Kevin Brownlow's terrific "David Lean" or Simon Callow's 'Orson Welles-The road to Xanadu," this book feels like author Sanello didn't look much further than magazine articles and trade clips for research. According to the dust cover, he had over half a dozen interviews (7? that must have been exhausting!) with the director himself and a handful of stars (though never really truly substantiated), but it doesn't seem like he thought about interviewing parents, siblings, co-workers, crew members, etc. for any more details or elucidations about this icon of American pop culture. His obvious admiration and fawning over his subject distracts from any possible objectivity and also grows tiresome. The book offers a basic overview of the director's life and work but not much in terms of how he works, communicates, or thinks. For example, there's almost nothing about his relationship with pivotal Amblin producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. Didn't they ever argue, or disagree about anything? How were projects brought in to the company and what was Kennedy and Marshall's thoughts about their boss? There is also no insight from production designers or cinematographers or writers or producers he worked with. For more than just a cursory look at this director's career (up to 1995) look elsewhere.

If you know nothing at all about Steven Spielberg, this book might be a good summary of his career. But if you are looking for personal insights, new depth or detailed film analysis, invest your book-buying money elsewhere. I was also put off by the fairly frequent denigrating remarks about various actors, screen writers and directors many of whom have careers that would seem worthy of some degree of respect.