Book 12: Bad Movies We Love
Continuing with the book_it_2006 project...
Book 12: Bad Movies We Love
Author: Edward Margulies & Stephen Rebello
Genre: Nonfiction
Number of pages: 330
Pages Read This Year: 3539
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best]: C-
Short description/summary of the book: from Library Journal
Margulies and Rebello, authors of a feature in Movieline magazine titled "Bad Movies We Love," here expand on their column with write-ups on 203 films. Possibly showing the effects of viewing too many bad titles, the writers have movie stars "sneer," "leer," "grimace," "smirk," or "shrug" entire sentences, and they occasionally twist or misstate a fact if it makes for a better story. Most of the chosen films fall into the "women's picture" genre. As expected, names like Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, Mickey Rourke, Pia Zadora, and Rob Lowe are plentiful. The reviewers' air of gleeful bitchiness is sometimes very amusing, but it is best appreciated in small doses, since the subject matter calls for a certain amount of repetition in tone and terms (e.g., ham ). Only comprehensive film collections need consider.
My Thoughts: Being a fan of movies, both good and bad, when I saw this book at my local library I thought it'd be a fun read. I was wrong. Bad Movies We Love is an idea that's ripe with potential, but this book never lives up to it. It's very dated, which isn't an unforgivable sin seeing as how it was published in 1993, but content is very poor. Most of the book is spent on trashy dramas, romances and big-screen soap operas. The book almost entirely ignores sci-fi and horror movies (home of the greatest bad movies ever made), while devoting entire chapters to Sharon Stone and Troy Donahue. A lot of the themes that they divide the chapters into are negligible, and half of the movies listed could have fit in virtually anywhere.
The chapters themselves are arranged with the films in alphabetical order, frequently creating a situation where the authors refer to a movie that they haven't even discussed yet. And the writing itself is just dull -- they make the same tepid commentary time and again, over and over. Really, how many times can you read the same joke about a film killing off someone's career? And for that matter, how many times can the same actor kills off his career?
This is a bad book, but not a bad book I love.
Next Up: Something Down There by Mickey Spillane
Book 12: Bad Movies We Love
Author: Edward Margulies & Stephen Rebello
Genre: Nonfiction
Number of pages: 330
Pages Read This Year: 3539
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best]: C-
Short description/summary of the book: from Library Journal
Margulies and Rebello, authors of a feature in Movieline magazine titled "Bad Movies We Love," here expand on their column with write-ups on 203 films. Possibly showing the effects of viewing too many bad titles, the writers have movie stars "sneer," "leer," "grimace," "smirk," or "shrug" entire sentences, and they occasionally twist or misstate a fact if it makes for a better story. Most of the chosen films fall into the "women's picture" genre. As expected, names like Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, Mickey Rourke, Pia Zadora, and Rob Lowe are plentiful. The reviewers' air of gleeful bitchiness is sometimes very amusing, but it is best appreciated in small doses, since the subject matter calls for a certain amount of repetition in tone and terms (e.g., ham ). Only comprehensive film collections need consider.
My Thoughts: Being a fan of movies, both good and bad, when I saw this book at my local library I thought it'd be a fun read. I was wrong. Bad Movies We Love is an idea that's ripe with potential, but this book never lives up to it. It's very dated, which isn't an unforgivable sin seeing as how it was published in 1993, but content is very poor. Most of the book is spent on trashy dramas, romances and big-screen soap operas. The book almost entirely ignores sci-fi and horror movies (home of the greatest bad movies ever made), while devoting entire chapters to Sharon Stone and Troy Donahue. A lot of the themes that they divide the chapters into are negligible, and half of the movies listed could have fit in virtually anywhere.
The chapters themselves are arranged with the films in alphabetical order, frequently creating a situation where the authors refer to a movie that they haven't even discussed yet. And the writing itself is just dull -- they make the same tepid commentary time and again, over and over. Really, how many times can you read the same joke about a film killing off someone's career? And for that matter, how many times can the same actor kills off his career?
This is a bad book, but not a bad book I love.
Next Up: Something Down There by Mickey Spillane