Minnelli at MoMA

Meet Me in St. Louis just screened at MoMA this weekend. The MoMA blog has a lot of notes and insight about the film including this mention from Mark Griffin's recently published biography, A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli.

We featured Mark Griffin’s A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life of Vincent Minnelli in an Auteurist History of Film special event last year. Mark’s book is scrupulously scholarly, but he confesses his devotion to Minnelli on the first page, based on his first viewing of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever at the impressionable age of 16. Regarding Meet Me in St. Louis, Mark presents a reasonable appraisal of Garland: “Freed from Andy Hardy, Busby Berkeley, and her outmoded ugly duckling image, a new Judy Garland emerges…and she’s a beauty.” Mark also quotes Minnelli’s own assessment of the film: “It’s magical.” So, I’ll buy into that and hold my ambiguity and qualms in check at least for Meet Me in St. Louis, The Pirate, An American in Paris, and The Band Wagon. Musicals are supposed to be magical.

Library Journal: Mark Griffin's new book on Vincente Minnelli

"..well-written and tasteful work..."
~ Carol J. Binkowski, Library Journal

Read the full Library Journal review of Mark Griffin's new book A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli at this link.

Published by Da Capo Press
Biography / Film
$15.95 | $20.00 (Can.)
ISBN 978-0-78672-099-6
E-BOOK ISBN 978-0-306-81893-6
6 x 9 | 320 pages | 70 B&W photos

Internet Review of Books: Not your usual gossip feast

“Not your traditional tell-all gossip feast…Instead, the book offers the reader a meticulously researched chapter-by-chapter portal to Minnelli’s thirty-three films…One of the pleasures of Griffin’s book, which essentially ends more than thirty years ago with Minnelli’s final film, is the joy of discovery. We can now see for ourselves overlooked masterpieces in film on DVD…Mark Griffin has pointed the way to 33 fascinating other movies worth watching.”
~ Charles L. Hoyt, Internet Review of Books

Read the full review in the Internet Review of Books at this link.

March 9: Author Mark Griffin at Lewiston Public Library

Book Talk: Mark Griffin on the life and art of film director Vincente Minnelli

DATE: Tuesday, March 9
TIME: 7 p.m.

LOCATION:
Lewiston Public Library
Callahan Hall
200 Main St., Lewiston, Maine

Free and open to the public.

FMI: 207-513-3135

Author Mark Griffin will speak on his newly published book A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.

Read recent Lewiston Sun Journal article at this link.

Reviews of New Vincente Minnelli Book

Follow this link and scroll down to read some great quotes about Mark Griffin's new book about Oscar-winning director Vincente Minnelli.

The title of this book which will be released on March 2, 2010 is A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli.

Biographers Robert Hofler and Foster Hirsch have both given this new book the thumbs up.