Amazon.com Customer Reviews
Lots of Photos and Ads, Little Content - Review written on July 24, 2006
Rating: 2 out of 5
8 customers found this review helpful, 5 did not.
Interview is definitely a different type of magazine for me- someone who usually reads business and travel mags- and it's not quite what I expected. With a title like "Interview" I read my first copy of this magazine anticipating pages and pages of nothing but interviews. It turns out that interviewing is the main focus of the magazine, but it's not the only one. There is substantial space given to fashion, movies, and other areas, too. Some of these columns are worth an occasional look, but they failed to grab my attention. The writers seem to play it safe, and that includes the interview section. They don't ask many daring or controversial questions. They keep it simple, asking questions about an entertainer's latest album or movie, without delving much into their personal lives.
Interview has many general annoyances. My greatest complaint is the advertising and the arrangement of the contents. About half of the pages in each issue are covered with ads, with fashion, liquor, beer, and hair care items providing the bulk of the advertising revenue. The ads are everywhere, with the majority in the front pages of each issue. The table of contents is buried, and I find this very frustrating. The contents starts with the interviews for that specific issue on one page, then a few pages later, proceeds to the remainder of the contents, which is the regular monthly features. What's annoying is that you have to search for the table of contents. It varies from one issue to the next, falling somewhere in the first half.
Interview also varies greatly in length. Some issues are as short as 80 pages while others are more than 200 pages long. The shorter issues use staples for binding while the longer issues are bound in a more professional way, minus any metal.
This magazine centers on entertainers, fashion, music, and the like. You won't find any interviews with politicians, businessmen, etc. Interview sticks strictly to entertainers, and that includes the regular monthly columns. You won't find a column about the business side of the music industry or film industry. You will find only articles about the stars themselves.
Interview's only saving grace is the photography. It would make a nice gift for those who enjoy fashion and who like looking at pages and pages of men and women modeling fancy clothing. But in many ways, the photos are overemphasized and there isn't enough substance to the magazine. The articles are very shallow with more eye candy than reading material.
Overall, Interview is sloppy and cluttered with too many ads to make it worthwhile reading material. My subscription was free, and I'm thankful that it was. Besides a few nice photos for clothing, there isn't much to make this magazine worth the cost.
Aren't we sooooo lucky to be us! - Review written on June 16, 2005
Rating: 5 out of 5
13 customers found this review helpful, 3 did not.
OK. For those of you who continue to believe that New York is the center of the United States, Hell, the world, who forgot the map CNN kept flashing with the two different colors after the election that MIGHT infer there are several schools of thought about the polycentric views of the US, for those of you who can take a little criticism from the midwest, the dark states, middle earth, the Elba of the 21st century, you're not.
There's a whole world out here. People have jobs. Yes, it's true. We work, send our kids to school, even go to church on Sundays. And on other days too. We vote. Oh, yeah, you already know that.
So having an interview with an actor who goes on about how he meditates, is a vegan and thinks about trees and birds when he has a particularly stressful scene with Ashley or Uma or Diane, you know, it just doesn't carry a lot of weight with the serfs. But . . . .
It's a great magazine. Andy lives. Photography is tight and realistic. The ads are sexy and provocative. The sidebars interesting and insightful. It's wordly. It covers music as well as RS. It's (don't get all riled up now) a fun magazine to read.
However, the interviews which we are led to believe are the heart and soul of the magazine, seem to be along the lines of 'damn, it's so good to be me and I guess you're OK too.' Or, 'I see you're wearing a $15,000 Versace with a plunging neckline and . . . you've selected old, black, Converse All Stars to wear with it! How Noveau! How tasteful!'
Come on. Where's the bite? Where's the interview with Alex Rodriguez that says 'how come you went to therapy . . . it's only New York?' or with Marv Alpert 'hey what's on your fashion agenda now?'
Chris Berman from ESPN says he was on Maui a couple of years back and he was walking with his kids one dawn and he ran into Steven Stills with his kids. Now that's a conversation I would have liked to hear, not one that ends up with me thinking the two parties to the conversation (it sure isn't an interview - see Columbia University's Interviewing 101 in their School of Journalism) are off to pick out furniture.
It's New York. Show your teeth. Flex. 5 stars. Larry Scantlebury
Fantastic Magazine - Review written on November 03, 2004
Rating: 5 out of 5
10 customers found this review helpful.
Interview is a small magazine with big ambitions. All the latest news in entertainment, fashion, and politics can be found within it's colorful pages. The photography is amazing, and grand in scale, although the magazine is packed full of ads (which are equally as colorful I might add). This is NOT entertainment weekly- Interview is the indi-film of magazines, and the people and films it covers are not usually those found in typical magazines. Instead of focusing on the actor du jour, Interview covers the up & coming, the soon to be, and the undiscovered. The interview formats are fascenating and unique, as most are done by celebrities, of celebrities. If one is looking for typical hollywood gossip, Warhol's masterpiece is not for them. At such a cheap price, Interview is a gem that is yet undiscovered by many. I highly recommend it!
Finally something fresh. - Review written on June 09, 2004
Rating: 4 out of 5
11 customers found this review helpful.
I know "Interview" has been around awhile, but I just recently got into it. In short, if you're into the arts, it's your magazine. It touches on music, movies, fashion, and everything inbetween. And often the interviews of celebrities are done by other celebs, like "Jim Jarmusch" doing a Q&A with "The White Stripes", just like they're sitting in a room chatting, very casual. I like that. Also the photography is tops, and often takes up the whole page (good mini-posters). They're good about not exposing the same old people too, lots of fresh faces, usually cool. Hey, if it's good enough for "Andy Warhol", it can't be bad, huh?
Eye candy--but GOOD eye candy - Review written on April 04, 2002
Rating: 4 out of 5
8 customers found this review helpful, 14 did not.
Nice mag. Hadn't picked it up for a while
Nice pics, decent articles. Worth giving a look to.
Very Warhol - Review written on December 13, 2001
Rating: 4 out of 5
68 customers found this review helpful, 5 did not.
Andy Warhol started the magazine "interview" a long time ago, but it still maintains a very warhol tone.
the magazine is exactly what it says it is: interviews, but these arent the run of the mill. many will be very concise, getting to detailed points, and you learn much more about a person than you do in the standard magazine interview.
a few things i like about this mag:
1) dirt cheap
2) the paper: its very matte, not glossy, and kind of thick. it makes the pictures look awesome.
3) they give you a free calendar of photos
4) the photography. its all very current, kind of raw, but alot of fun.
5) the pages are rather large, and make excellent gift wrap. many pictures contain a whole page, and alot of the ads are in the same form.
this magazine is very visually oriented, and is recommended for people who are interested in and are up to date in the music-movie world.