Rating: 
Summary: EISNER NEEDS TO GO NOW....
Review: Michael Eisner is perhaps the most controversal CEO that the Disney Company has ever had. This book does not address all the acusations that have ever been made at him, but it's close enough. Disney under the Eisner name has become a much different company then the one Walt Disney himself created almost a century ago. One that the Disney family itself does not like and have waged a personal crusade to remove Eisner for the last several years now. I agree with them. Until this man is gone, and someone else restores the Disney company to more what Walt Disney himself had in mind, Eisner/Disney is as big a joke as AOL/Time Warner.
Rating: 
Summary: Wow!
Review: A tremendously insightful juggernaut of accounts that takes you on a ride through one of the most fascinating journeys in recent Hollywood history. Kim Masters does a great job of establishing "who's who" and "who did what to who" by detailing key defining moments in the careers and lives of such Disney icons as Michael Eisner, Frank G. Wells, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Ovitz, Roy E. Disney, et al - not to mention former Paramount chair Barry Diller.This is just one of those books I started to peruse on my weekly Sunday trip to the bookstore and simply COULD NOT PUT DOWN! Too bad it was published before Masters had a chance to tell us a bit about Bob Iger's rise to the Presidency of The Walt Disney Company.
Rating: 
Summary: Masters Paints a Grim Picture of Disney's Inner Sanctum
Review: After reading Hit and Run and an excerpt from the this book in Vanity Fair, I couldn't wait to read "Keys to the Kingdom." I was not disappointed. Masters does a fine job of telling Eisner's (and the stories of those around him--Katzenberg, Diller, etc)story. Something about Eisner has always bit a bit unreal--even smarmy at times--and Masters holds nothing back. It isn't always balanced, but overall is fair. The details and stories are terrific--until the last 1/5th of the book. I was engrossed until the story turned the Katzenberg trial--where Masters drowned us in the details. I love details, but at times one needed a road map to keep. Masters is to be commended for a journalistic/insiders account of that dark time for Disney, but wow...I just had a time staying focused. However, on the whole the book is well worth the paper back price. You'll learn how Disney has never really gotten over the death of Frank Wells and why all those executives keep leaving. It is indeed a grim place; Eisner's inner sanctum. It is also another fascinating book.
Rating:
Summary: Masters Paints a Grim Picture of Disney's Inner Sanctum
Review: After reading Hit and Run and an excerpt from the this book in Vanity Fair, I couldn't wait to read "Keys to the Kingdom." I was not disappointed. Masters does a fine job of telling Eisner's (and the stories of those around him--Katzenberg, Diller, etc)story. Something about Eisner has always bit a bit unreal--even smarmy at times--and Masters holds nothing back. It isn't always balanced, but overall is fair. The details and stories are terrific--until the last 1/5th of the book. I was engrossed until the story turned the Katzenberg trial--where Masters drowned us in the details. I love details, but at times one needed a road map to keep. Masters is to be commended for a journalistic/insiders account of that dark time for Disney, but wow...I just had a time staying focused. However, on the whole the book is well worth the paper back price. You'll learn how Disney has never really gotten over the death of Frank Wells and why all those executives keep leaving. It is indeed a grim place; Eisner's inner sanctum. It is also another fascinating book.
Rating:
Summary: Very informative and a good read.
Review: I found this book to be an interesting read. I have also read Michael Eisner's autobiography and was looking forward to reading more about his tenure at Disney. I appreciated the way that Kim Masters brought a different perspective to the events leading up to Eisner's taking the helm at Disney as well as the time since Eisner took over. There certainly were many things that Masters discussed that Eisner did not cover very well or at all in his book. I think it is important to get more of the total picture on events such as these and not just one point of view. I felt that Masters presented a point of view that was much more broad than the view presented by Eisner. Now for some of the things I did not like about this book. There is many times in this book that Masters' tone seemed almost gossipy which is something I do not like. Also, Masters seemed to dwell on the negative aspects of Eisner as well as other people that held or continue to hold power in the entertainment industry. She seemed very critical of anyone holding that power and said very little positive about them. There is (hopefully) good and bad in everyone, I would have liked to get a more balanced story from an author with Master's talent. Overall, I recommend this book. It is a good source of information that I have not found elsewhere. However, I too felt this book left me unconvinced that Eisner has "Lost His Grip."
Rating:
Summary: I thoroughly enjoyed the book
Review: I have to say that I am a Disney fan who read Eisner's book. I really wanted to read another book about him, having read his autobiography. This book was great reading about his personalitiy and strenghts and weaknesses, but it never convinced me that he "lost the keys of the kingdom." Every CEO of a major corporation has their own strengths and weaknesses. This book shows a lot of Eisner's strengths. It also focuses on some weaknesses, such as being a loner and being angry at some of the ambitions of some employees. What the book did not deal with is the wonderful experience we have all been having a Disney since Eisner took the helm. Where else can you go where you know what you will experience? This is a great book to buy and make your own conclusions from. It you are a fan a Disney, I would read it for the insights. Even though the content is not positive toward Disney, you can draw your own conclusions. I have to say where else can you go for great entertainment that is wonderful? And who else can be responsible for this than Michael Eisner?
Rating:
Summary: Hardball in the Disney executive suite
Review: If you don't recognize names like Ovitz, Katzenberg, or Eisner, this book is probably too insider-oriented to be of interest, because Kim Masters goes into extraordinary detail about Michael Eisner, who perennially brings the wrong kind of attention upon himself due to his stellar pay package. When options are included, Eisner's pay is regularly in the hundreds of millions per year, a figure that defies explanation except that Eisner had stacked the board with his cronies. Eisner comes across as no genius, but neither is he stupid nor is he the boss-from-hell. True, Eisner does have an abrasive style and a fragile ego, but this is probably unremarkable among Hollywood movie moguls. Oddly, the book seems to be more about Katzenberg, who appears to have been the author's main source. Katzenberg eventually became Eisner's right-hand man, only to lose his job, allegedly because Eisner could not tolerate a strong person in the Number 2 position. The book's engaging style sweeps the reader into a world where 7-day weeks and 20-hour days (gulp!) were considered normal, and where even top-performing executives were cannon fodder on the battlefield of office politics.
Rating: 
Summary: Remember when you were graded for content vs. style?
Review: In but four pages, I learned more than I ever knew about Eisner's influence on Disney -- and the author's tiring, blatant, bias against him. Her poor, unnecessary choices of loaded, connotative words make this an informative but irritating read. If an editor ever manages to separate the hardwork and research from the cheap useless flamewar, this would definitely be five-star material. As it stands, it's a two-star annoyance.
Rating:
Summary: Mouse Trap
Review: It's interesting to review a book a year after having read it, and without studying parts of it again....kind of highlights the overall significance, or lack of it. The best part of this book was the first half...Eisner's climb to the top, and inside stories on other big names in the business. Like most of these tales, very little of the behavior seems to be rational or fair...just greedy and petty. In the end this bogs down the story, especially the endless detail on Eisner's fight with Katzenberg. Overall, I guess I'm glad I read it, as I think Kim Masters paints a fairly authentic picture of what its like inside Hollywood. But I would only recommend it to people who are fanatics on the entertainment industry.
Rating:
Summary: Prescient Book
Review: Keys to the Kingdom predicted the current situation at Disney with remarkable accuracy. The insights about Michael Eisner turned out to be right on the mark.
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