What Just Happened?: Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line

I like books on Hollywood biz and this one fits the bill by a real pro, Art Linson. Anyone involved with classics like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Fight Club and Heat knows his way around the business and how it has changed in the last 30 years. Linson throws one kink in the normal Hollywood tell-all. He introduces a fictitious former studio head that has lunches with Linson generating a lively dialog of the business by to former players.While I enjoyed this book, I have one major complaint. There are only four Hollywood stories in the book. It's like Linson has found his hit and can issue many sequels so he does so little at a time. The book is only 180 pages and is a very fast read. Also, the stories are not in great depth. For example, he describes the movie The Edge with Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins. He does a good job describing how these two are selected and the great respect he has for both actors. But the story line quickly ends as Baldwin shows up overweight and with a long beard. Linson has to deliver the bad news that he must change his appearance. End of story. Let's move on to the next. While this story is anticlimactic after a flirtation with Robert Deniro in the movie, I like Linson's writing style for the subjects. It's short, uncomplicated and humorous. Other stories covered include Pushing Tin, Great Expectations and The Fight Club. All interesting stories but all written about very briefly.Irrespective, I still recommend this book if you enjoy reading Hollywood stories. Linson had a great career and I'm sure there is another book coming in the future.

I'm a Hollywood junkie, so I enjoyed this book. Art Linson isn't nearly the natural storyteller that William Goldman is, meaning the book isn't quite the joy Goldman's books were to read, but, on the other hand, Art is a PRODUCER and he sees films further through than Goldman and his stories are a deeper vision. The device used in the book, of the author talking to another has-been, is (as it was noted) very, VERY annoying and I suggest you just skip it by (it adds nothing). The book is a quick, one-sitting read, and it's as frivolous as a cookie wafer. Art certainly whines -- and I'm sure "Great Expectations" bombed because it was a bad movie, not because "Titanic" had the same scene in it (Art even implies the naked-drawing idea was stolen!) -- but if Art wasn't a whiny guy who took no responsibility...he wouldn't have written this book. So the trade-off is okay with me.

Art Linson has produced some of the greatest films of the last 20 years (Fast TImes at Ridgemont High, The Untouchables, Heat, Fight Club) yet with this insightful razor sharp guide to the trenches of filmmaking he shows how every film is a new fight with an insane collection of "creative" executives who must be appeased and destroyed...When Linson descibes the horrific response the executives at Fox had to seeing Fight Club for the first time I laughed out loud....Read this book if you love film and fear where its going

Art Linson writes a very funny profile/memoir of uptight execs in Hollywood...and the movies he's produced...with a pen dipped in bile.Screamingly funny, and you'll zip right through it. I finished the tome in two and a half hours.

I read What Just Happened in one breathless sitting. Couldn't put it down. It is funny, well pace and amazingly well written. It is a gritty, honest look at an outrageous and often ridiculous world. You think you know everything there is to know about Hollywood? You don't. Read this book. It will change the way you think about the movies.