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Stories From the Trenches: Adventures in Making High Octane Hollywood Movies with Cannon Veteran Sam Firstenberg Book Review
Loading...Stories From The Trenches: Adventures in making High Octane Hollywood Movies with Cannon Veteran Sam Firstenberg Book Review
By Marco Siedelmann, edited by Nadia Bruce-Hawlings, with a foreword by Sam Firstenberg
Published by Editions Moustache
755 pages
Released January 29, 2020
Purchase the book here
Check out the book’s Facebook page here
In the B-movie loving world, director Sam Firstenberg is a legend, as he is the man who directed four classic ninja movies (Revenge of the Ninja, Ninja III: The Domination, and the first two American Ninja movies), some of the best low budget action movies of the 1980’s and 1990’s (Avenging Force, Cyborg Cop, and Cyborg Cop II), and the immortal break dancing opus Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. A book about Firstenberg’s life, movies, and career was both a no brainer and just a matter of time because, again, the man is a legend. Writer Marco Siedelmann, who gave us The Untold, In-Depth, Outrageously True Story of Shapiro Glickenhaus Entertainment back in 2016, decided to be the first to write a Firstenberg book and get it out to the world, and Stories From The Trenches is the result.
At a mammoth 755 pages, Stories From The Trenches is essentially a mega long interview where Firstenberg talks about his life, his early career in Israel, how he got to Hollywood, his work with the Cannon Film Group, and everything after that, including his retirement from directing and what he’s up to now. You will likely learn things you didn’t know about Firstenberg’s career, his movie making philosophy, and what it was like to work with people actors and performers like Sho Kosugi, Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, and more. It’s all incredibly fascinating, both as a sort of biography of Firstenberg and how mid-budget/low budget genre B-movies were made in the 1980’s. Siedelmann asks great, in depth questions and Firstenberg provides the answers. It’s always great to hear how a director feels about his or her cinematic output, what worked, what didn’t, and what it was like “in the trenches” actually making the movies, putting them together, etc. Again, you will learn things about Firstenberg’s movies that you didn’t know before and things about the B-movie world of the 1980’s and 1990’s you didn’t know.
The book is also peppered throughout with interviews from people that worked with Firstenberg, like stuntman Steve Lambert, actors Jordan Bennett and Lucinda Dickey, producer Gideon Amir, among others. These interviews are also full of terrific information regarding how Firstenberg was as a director and what it was like making movies in the 1980’s and 1990’s. It’s hard for me to pick which “extra” interview is my favorite, but at the moment I think it’s a toss-up between the Lambert interview and the interview with Michael Dudikoff. Of course, tomorrow it might be a different interview. I just can’t stress this enough; you will learn so much about what it was like making movies for Cannon back in the day.
Stories From The Trenches is also chock full of behind-the-scenes photos with captions by Firstenberg, and these are just as fascinating as the various interviews. You will see, just in case you didn’t know, that low budget movie making is not a glamorous endeavor. It really can be both a rewarding and miserable experience at the same time.
If you’re a fan of Firstenberg, ninja movies, Cannon Pictures, B-movies, and or reading about the moviemaking process, Stories From The Trenches is a must read and a must own. You will learn about it all. Another great book from author Marco Siedelmann.
Read Stories From The Trenches. Read it, read it, read it!
