Customer Reviews

Better Living Through Bad Movies

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you're like me (and I know I am, and you've wondered why bad movies are made, wonder no more! Bad Movies are made to teach us life lessons! That's right--they teach us the lessons that Oprah and Dr. Phil missed!

Its full of great life lessons and hilarious snark! (Check out the chapter about "RedDawn" for lovely snarkieness on the Bushes!)

Be careful where you read it, though. I laughed out loud on the bus so many times, I got dirty looks from the driver!

This is just a great, funny book. A definite must read for bad movie lovers and MST3k fans (like me)

I rarely read books about the movies, especially bad ones, but this book, I couldn't put down! It's is witty, wise, insightful and will cure the common cold and Brewer's Droop.

My shelves are littered with supposedly funny books about the movies but not one is funnier than Better Living through Bad Movies. From the article that clearly proves that Beaches and Armageddon are exactly the same movie to the chilling description of the winky-centric Bruce Willis vehicle Color of Night, you cannot afford to miss out on reading this hilarious book. I won't even compare the humor here to Joe Queenan or Libby Gelman-Waxner even though I also like their writing. This book is simply above the rest and constantly astonishes with tangents that pay off one after another in funnier and funnier ways. Plus if you are missing MST3K, here is something that will get you away from the closet and out of the fetal position at last.

The beloved S.Z. is widely known as one of the funniest writers on the internet and her first book (with the equally brilliant S.C.) is the funniest thing I've read in years!!! Buy it now!!!

This is a really funny book. And by really funny, I mean laugh-out-loud-till-people-around-you-stare-at-you funny. Just reading the one about Waterworld cured the torturous pain of having to see it ten years ago! It's miraculous! I don't suggest reading it all at once, though, especially if you have heart problems, just had surgery, have incontience, or are prone to the high-pichted squeaky dog whine laugh, because it's really that funny. And even though it features a couple of movies that I like, I still find the reviews of them funny. This is the perfect book for light summer reading and tons of laughs.

Nurture your sense of humor - buy this book! Bad movies have never been funnier than they are here. Between reading the reviews and watching the movies, this is a high impact, low cost barrel o' fun.

What I personally love about the book is the way the authors just seem to fall over the cliff into absurdity every so often. It's the perfect metaphor, and exquisitely amusing.

I'll never forget the day last fall when this wonder of the written word, this pulp-based pulchritudinous prose, this book among books, arrived in the mail. It's been a long time (since Hunter Thompson, Lewis Grizzard, and Erma Bombeck died, anyway) since a book made me laugh out-loud, but this one did the trick.

I've always enjoyed Scott & S.Z.'s movie-reviews-as-geopolitical-discourse pieces at World O'Crap [...], but to have them in more-portable, curl-up-in-bed-and-laugh-yourself-silly, take-it-anywhere-and-annoy-the-people-in-the-waiting-room format was a great boon to my reading life. The title alone was enough to impress my former doctor, a barely-shaving young tot who specialized in "pain management." Hopefully he'll fork over some of his Medicare riches and buy a few copies.

This book is an ideal gift for anyone who's ever liked movies, political commentary, or who has a sense of humor. And even for those stick-in-the-mud in-laws who have less humor than a wet diaper, this book is still a winner --- they may not get ALL of the jokes, but they'll at least give themselves a migraine in the pursuit, so it's the gift that keeps on giving!

When I can, I plan to keep a case of Better Living Through Bad Movies by the front door, to help educate & enlighten wayward Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Amway salespeople. Also very useful for flogging the aforementioned people over the head when they JUST WON'T LISTEN.

If I could generate the interest and tax shelters, I believe that we could start a whole new cult based on Better Living Through Bad Movies --- as long as the critters at S.Z.'s house get to benefit from the fundraisers, and we can set up our own compound out in the undisclosed wilderness (but sure as hell not in WACO!!) --- Better Living Through Bad Movies could become a whole new way of life!

[...]

If you're a fan of such obscure,lousy movies as "The Last Sacrifice","Ator the Fighting Eagle" and "Mitchell",this book is perfect for you! Authors Scott Clevenger&Sheri Zollinger show how to find the gold in the silt of bad movies. Instead of gushing about the American Film Institute's Top 100,Clevenger and Zollinger find insights in the infamous "Waterworld",relationship advice in "Coyote Ugly" and the grieving process in "The Phantom Menace."

"Better living through bad movies" is consistently hilarious. It's hard to read without laughing. "Megaforce" and "Gymkata" are shown as evidence that fey action heroes had their place in the '80s along with Rambo&the Terminator. "Attack of the Clones" is re-read as an Afterschool Special about the sulking teenager Anakin Skywalker. "Armageddon" is revealed to a chick flick like "Beaches",but with a great deal more homoeroticism. (Where's "Deep Impact"?That was a pretentious disaster movie too,but a lot less fun) "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" delightfully skewers Kenneth Branagh's current pretentiousness ("Hamlet" would fit right in).

"Better living through bad movies" is a gloriously funny book. Watch bad movies...and LEARN.

Does life sometimes seem to be just one damned thing after another? Forget chicken soup, psychopharmaceuticals, and the tube- here is your remedy, without question the funniest book of 2006. Written by the lovely (and talented!) Sheri Zollinger and Scott Clevenger (proprietors of the indispensable, read-every-day-to-preserve-sanity weblog "World O'Crap) this book deconstructs, hilariously, some truly atrocious movies. If snark can lift your heart, if good writing about bad cinema can elevate your mood, you have to get this- and give copies to your friends, too.

This book is a perfect companion to those of us who enjoy the existential pain that seriously, truly, bad movies can bring. The antidote, of course, is laughter; just like with most of life's inanities. But this is not just dumb disagreement or contempt. No, far beyond that. It is the highly cerebral rearrangement of the "Bad" into a lovely new dashboard figurine of snarky, utter, disection. Fun to read, fun to give as gifts (and I've done both!).