HOLLYWOOD ANIMAL

Screenwriter and iconoclast Joe Eszterhas tries his hand at autobiography with good results. Casting veteran monologist Eric Bogosian was a fine choice, as he certainly has been immersed in "the business" as well. Eszterhas contrasts memories of life as a poor Hungarian immigrant child with accounts of his increasingly wild and unhinged Hollywood life. Names are dropped and souls bared in a mea culpa of epic proportions, leavened with sweetness and a heart the size of Budapest. Bogosian shines as Eszterhas loves and hates, and is loved and hated, with equal intensity. D.J.B. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 04]