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New Gay Book

 The critic Michael Koresky has a memoir out--"Films of Endearment."

It's a fun concept. Koresky is mainly telling the story of his mother, but his own story also works its way into various paragraphs. The "frame" is this: Koresky and his mom rent one Hollywood movie for each of the ten years of the eighties, and each rental features a woman in the lead role.

Koresky says that Hollywood seems designed for straight men; many blockbuster films of the eighties, such as "Terminator," "Lethal Weapon," "Die Hard," and "Predator," left Koresky cold.

But, in the eighties, a little experimentation could still occur. Audiences would still pay to see adults working together on adult problems--in front of the camera. (Today, your main option is superhero movies.) In the eighties, you could still occasionally see big literary gifts in the possession of Jessica Lange, Whoopi Goldberg, Sissy Spacek, Sigourney Weaver, Kathy Bates, Michelle Pfeiffer, Debra Winger, and Faye Dunaway (and the list goes on).

I found the "memoir" parts of this book a bit less than gripping, and I think the conceit is flawed; a memoir should build to a climax, and because Koresky has really "foisted" a plot on to his writing, the only "climax" in his book is a decision to rent "Crossing Delancey." (A book of unrelated, or loosely-related, essays...may have been a better choice.)

Still, I like Hollywood gossip in any form. I'm happy to learn that Whoopi was still in her twenties when she landed "The Color Purple," and that Oprah had to wait several months after auditioning. ("We're looking at REAL actresses, like Alfre Woodard.") I like to read about Debra and Shirley MacLaine--the unfortunate reference to Debra's "turbulent brilliance" at the Oscars. And who knew that Jessica Lange came pretty close to winning *two* Oscars in one year? (It's Koresky's argument that Lange would have won for "Frances" in basically any year, just not the year that Meryl Streep also happened to be in the running....for a film called "Sophie's Choice.")

Koresky is smart and charming, and it doesn't matter that the book malfunctions at times. I'm recommending it.
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