Customer Reviews

Ten Bad Dates With De Niro

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There are hundreds of books out there full of film lists - on the top 10 or 100 or 101 or 1001 greatest movies/worst movies/most expensive flops/greatest stars/most important film directors whatever.
This book has fun with the idea, with some truly original and often very funny Top 10 lists. The writing is witty, and the writers (including the Coen Brothers, Steven Soderbergh, and DBC Pierre amongst others) know their films, so small international films are as likely to be included as big Hollywood fare.
The top ten lists include unlikely categories like 'Dodgiest Decisions of the Cannes Festival Jury', 'Worst Wigs an Actor Dared to Wear', 'Gratuitous Machine-Gun Frenzies' and dozens more.
Seriously, it's possibly the most enjoyable film book I've read since Michael Medved's Golden Turkey awards books from many years ago.

Writers, directors, filmmakers, etc. list their top 10's on various cinematic "achievements." Here are a few list titles : Ten Gratuitous Machine Gun Frenzies, Ten Angst-Ridden Piano-Playing Protagonists, Ten Great Thespian Turns in Drag. Each list has an introduction and each item on the list is further explained, sometimes with historical references and context in time.

If you're a cinema junkie, you will LOVE this book. If not, like me, the lists themselves will be selectively appreciated, without need for the excessive explanations found therein. (Excessive only because I'm not a cinema junkie.) At 458 pages, you had better be prepared!! It's certainly not exhaustive, cinema-wise, and it is subjectively selective.

Cinemaphiles will enjoy reading this, if only to be inspired to make their own lists after disagreeing with what they read! Have fun.

A fun book of top ten lists where the categories are things like "Ten Brooding Architects" or "The Coen Bros' Ten Most Memorable Minor Characters" or "Ten Great Opening-Credit Sequences." As the second example indicates - since the Coen Bro's are known for well crafted minor characters - this is an intelligent set of lists, not just random nonsense. "Ten Angst-Ridden Piano-Playing Protagonists." "Ten Directors Who acted, with Honour." Each list is thought-provoking; the whole book is a browsers delight.

The writing is witty and knowledgeable. The many contributors are film critics, writers, film historians, film-makers, playwrights, and even an agent or two. The lists are expansive - including foreign films and those from times gone by.

If you love good visual storytelling, and you've forgotten too many good movies, check out this book, it will definitely have you running over to Netflix to add things to your queue.

I don't really have much more to say than that. You won't want to read this in one sitting; 57 is just about right.