Ain't It Cool?: Hollywood's Redheaded Stepchild Speaks Out is 2002 non-fiction book about the entertainment industry written by Harry Knowles of the website Ain't It Cool News along with co-writers Paul Cullum and Mark Ebner. The book was published by Warner Books and features a forward by director Quentin Tarantino.
Reception Entertainment Weekly, “For the most part, ”Cool” is an erratic read, with Knowles’ success story awkwardly interspersed with his views of the movie industry.”
Publishers Weekly, “More Winchell-than Ebert-like in approach, Knowles presents himself as a hard-boiled, scrappy underdog working on behalf of the public; largely this works, particularly in his exposé of the National Research Group's test marketing of movies.”
Wired, “Sadly, what makes aintitcoolnews.com so great is what makes Ain't It Cool? so flawed: Insider dirt and name-dropping lend spice to tasty online snippets, but when it comes to book-length material, Knowles can't spin a yarn – despite help from two coauthors. He stumbles even with dramatic material like his crippling accident (he slipped at a memorabilia fair) that kept him homebound and ultimately led to the creation of his infamous site.
Slate, “But what’s fascinating about Knowles’ memoir isn’t his flimsy self-defense so much as how his book displays the two fallacies surrounding AICN and its mandate to shame Hollywood into making better movies. The first is that only movie-lovers will save movies. But it’s the very attitude of generic movie-loving—typified by the show-biz obsession AICN caters to—that has lowered people’s expectations over the years and defined delight down.”
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