Rating: - LIKED it, but didn't LOVE it...
The strength of this book is that Richard Bare tells a lot of very entertaining stories that he or other directors have had to face. In doing so, he engages the reader and invites us on his personal journey through his career in making motion pictures. In particular, his stories about Spielberg & Lucas are engaging. Also, I think that the chapter on the two different forms of acting was particularly good.

The weakness of this book is that it is more a collection of "war stories" applied to chapters that are supposed to be instructive. In other words, he has chapters including: "Camera as a directors tool", "working with a film editor", "creating a job for yourself", etc... however, these chapters are not particularly insightful in teaching one about the topic. Part of this is the result of being laid out in what feels like a random order, instead of each chapter building on the previous one. Additionally, the book gets bogged down in that it tries to cover so much that it is only successful superficially.

Again, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Thus, I would highly recommend it as a read to anyone that is seeking pleasure. However, if you are after the true "directors" insight... I would refer you to "Making Movies" by Sidney Lumet. "The Film Director" is to "Making Movies" as "Mobsters" is to "The Godfather".