The Take2 Guide To Steven Spielberg

Over 60 contributors deliver their thoughts and reviews on the world of Steven Spielberg, including Joseph McBride, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Matt Zoller Seitz, Tom Carson and James Berardinelli. Edited by Adam Zanzie.

In this spectacular third wave of written communications, where billions of creative words are added to the published discourse every day, Take2 Publishing is dedicated to finding those lonely literary gems that can spark and fulfill our curiosity, passions and understanding of the world around us … only then to be shunted starkly to the cold dark corners of cyberspace purgatory.

We search, find and repackage those erudite treasures into a brand new form.

Welcome to Take2 Publishing … a dedicated eBook publisher whose works, although 'traditional' narratives in form, also serve to illuminate the wonderful writings, (their authors and sites), that at the moment are not getting anywhere near the attention they deserve.

Whether it's a Guide to a filmmaker or a cinema sub-genre (or a television series), the books will include multiple reviews of every film directed by the filmmaker, every episode of the series (no matter how many seasons), or every film discussed. There will also be at least 8 - 10 chapters discussing issues related to the subject … each chapter having multiple associated articles … coming from some of the best known writers on the subject, as well as (and more importantly) from writers who perhaps are only writing for themselves or their friends. It will be the editor's original text that will provide the 'connective tissue' for the narrative and will also provide a contextual framework for each contributed article.

All contributions are attributed to their authors, as well as an indication of the first instance of publication in relation to place and time. We have also included, where applicable, a reference to the context of the original published article in a paragraph we’ve labeled ‘Frame of Reference’. It should be noted that an article that is not attributed to an author is an original contribution from the editor, as is the case with the initial articles leading each chapter.

As a general rule we have included a link to the original online article for all contributors works as we encourage readers to read and perhaps join in the 'comments' sections dedicated to those articles. (Obviously those links will only be usable by eBook devices able to connect on-line.) We also include a quantitative guide to those ‘comments’ sections for each article, but please note that even where there are no comments … or no ability to leave comments … this is not a reflection of the quality or content of the article.

Where applicable, we have incorporated the author’s qualitative ratings with the articles, standardizing and translating those multiple rating systems into one simple scale … from 0 – 100. But as Andrew Urban of Urban Cinefile notes, “ I know stars and so on are a convenient shorthand, but I have resisted ratings (at my site) … in my view they over simplify the process of film appreciation”.

We have ‘copy-edited’ the articles into our standard ‘style-guide’ for reasons of ‘style continuity’ … and have also tried to find a balance between ‘acceptable’ grammar and the author’s grammatical style.

One of the results of Take2’s endeavors to compile, collect and collate … ended up being the creation of a repository to keep for posterity many of those priceless writings that could disappear forever at the whim of a ‘host’. In fact, even when compiling the initial books some sites have gone ‘dark’ leaving us no link to connect to … and many more will go down in the future. But at Take2, the content will survive … and hopefully thrive.

So, dive straight into our publications … and please don’t hesitate to get back to us with your feedback at comments@take2publishing.com (placing the title of the book in the ‘subject’ line). We will respond.