This new edition of the Rough Guide to Cult Movies offers a new improved blend of essential trivia and informed opinion as it takes you on a tour of the most compellingly weird - and weirdly compelling - films in the world. From ''A Bout de Souffle'' to ''Zoltan Hound of Dracula'', this guide selects films to savour in every genre from circus movies to westerns of all flavours - spaghetti and sauerkraut. New genres have been added - gambling and vampires - and this edition includes a miscellany of movie trivia identifying, for example, the four women who have played Hamlet on screen, a peek at celluloid''s greatest back stories (such as the rumours of munchkin mayhem in The Wizard Of Oz) and a personal selection of cult movies from the likes of Johnny Depp, Julie Christie, Kevin Spacey and Bert Kwouk.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
If it ain't a subject of a Rough Guide then it probably ain't worth reading TNT Magazine
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
From the Author
THE PITCH For almost as long as I can remember, movies were always important, an event, like church, the only difference being that the queue to get in to see Jungle Book was a fair bit longer. But movies took you out of yourself, made you belong to something, a quasi-religious experience if you like. Which is why, today, whenever I go to the cinema, I spend the first minutes of every movie worrying in case the audience is going to talk all the way through it. This book has something to do with all that but it really exists for one reason only – to increase your enjoyment of the movies. If you want a thoroughly exhaustive reference work, put this back on the shelf now. If you want a film buff’s guide to cinema as an art form, sorry. Or if you want a list of the cast and crew on every film, best go elsewhere, there are certain websites we’d recommend. But if you want several hundred socking good reasons to visit your local rep house, watch a late-night rarity on! TV or splash out on that DVD movie you’ve been promising yourself, you’ll find them in here. There are no dull films in this book. Mad films, yes. Great films, certainly. Films that provoke fierce disputes as to whether they’re well cool or, well, crap: you bet. So if your ambition is to spend even more of your life watching films than you already do, this should serve you well. Now go. Use it wisely. And may the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end at least once. Paul Simpson
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Should have been called 'Popular Movies',
By
This review is from: The Rough Guide to Cult Movies (Paperback)
THE ROUGH GUIDE TO CULT MOVIES does, in its presentation, follow in the footsteps of what has been a successful formula for Rough Guide books. This guide is a thematic guide to movies in general. The book consists of over 80 categories of movies such as: animals, b-movies, cops, doctors, fantasy, horror, musicals, prison, serial killers, zombies, etc. Each category has a selection of movies which, for the most part, fit the subject. There are also various sidelights thrown into different categories which expand upon the actors, writers, directors, etc. Unforunately, although there is a spattering of cult movies included, most of the films covered are standard fare movies which fit the category. Additional mistakes, such as the wrong year for a movie, are to be found on occasion. The selection of movies for some categories appears almost random with gaping exclusions (the category for zombies lists CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD but excludes DAWN OF THE DEAD and Fulci's ZOMBIE; the category for 3-D lists JAWS 3-D but excludes COMIN' AT YA IN 3-D). Additionally, any information provided for a movie includes: title, director, abbreviated cast, and a short description, which in most cases is shorter than what you can find in a video review guide. If you are looking for a general introduction to popular films in a thematic presentation, that can be found in this book. If you are looking for a book about actual cult films and any kind of discussion about them or their particulars, it is not to be found here.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Good book but in the wrong way,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Rough Guide to Cult Movies - 2nd Edition (Rough Guide Reference) (Paperback)
As a romantic comedy, Star Wars is a failure. As a science fiction film, the Annie Hall is a complete disappointment. Whatever other merits these movies might have, there are definitely areas that they are lacking. Which brings me to The Rough Guide to Cult Movies: as a reference book, it is highly suspect. What's notable is that Annie Hall fails as sci-fi because it doesn't try to be that genre; The Rough Guide fails at the very category it aspires to. Which is too bad, because it is often an interesting read.
The failure starts at the beginning of the book with a definition of cult movies that is so broad as to be meaningless. We then a series of chapters representing various "genres", some of which are valid (science fiction, westerns, horror), some of which are ridiculous (Animals, Food, Nuns) and some of which are not even true genres (dubbed, independent, straight-to-video). After this, we get various miscellaneous topics that are thrown in without rhyme or reason, such as a list of top movie grosses followed by presidential movie trivia. The movie descriptions are often amusing, although there are numerous errors (such as misstating Geoffrey Rush's role in Pirates of the Caribbean), even more omissions (every reader will find his own; one example is that Unforgiven is missing from Westerns) and plenty of movies that are really miscategorized but seem only placed in a specific genre to fill it out. What saves this book is, even though it fails as a reference book, it is nonetheless entertaining. I am therefore giving this two stars instead of one. It's a rather useless book, especially if you want to learn more about movies, but if you do pick it up, it is probably the most entertaining two-star book that you're ever likely to read.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not about cult movies,
By Curmudgeon "grantc" (West Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Rough Guide to Cult Movies - 2nd Edition (Rough Guide Reference) (Paperback)
"Rough guides" and "cult movies" should not necessarily be thematically unrelated, but in this instance the Rough Guide publishers have stumbled. The definition of "cult" should include "underground", "obscure" and "tribal", as "cult" movies exist as niche films appealing to a specialist audience: The Rough Guide to Cult Movies is concerned with popular, mostly American films which have continued to find an audience beyond their expected commercial life, be they big budget blockbusters or low budget independents. The book has lots of arbitrary categories such as "philosophy" and "vampires", but no discussion of what constitutes "cult". In almost every one of the myriad category chapters I could name at least one missing true cult film, and the "discussion" of each movie's contents leaves a lot to be desired. This book will not satisfy people with some knowledge of cult films, as your favourites will either be missing or cursorily addressed, and for newcomers it misrepresents what "cult" actually means.
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