Friday, March 04, 2005
 
Book Report: The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time by Ty Burr (1999)

This book represents another picture book I inherited from my aunt. Not that it meant much to her; she probably bought it at a yard sale to sell on eBay, and I might well have been at the yard sale with her, egging her on.

It's a compendium of 100 of the best movies from 1894-1994, as determined by Entertainment Weekly and Ty Burr. It contains the requisite mixture of classics and foreign films. Man, you know, the last foreign film I saw was El Mariachi, and prior to that it's limited to Jackie Chan and kung fu flicks. I didn't even see Crouching Estrogen, Hidden Misandry even though my wise and benevolent mother-in-law recommended it.

But books of this stripe are good browsing material, even if you're not a tabloid fan or if you don't care for anything lighter than The Atlantic Monthly for your magazine reading. Books like this are quick espresso shots of trivia information, information I hope to put to use at the next North Side Mindflayers Trivia Night victory.

Plus, if you're a trivia smart aleck like me, you'll look for flaws in the book. Like that the cover contains a still from Rebel without a Cause, which didn't make the book. Or that the still of Han Solo confronting Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars was not from the original, but from the 25th anniversary re-release (in 1997, which was beyond the five year cutoff of the book).

So it's a good enough book, a quick one-night flip through, and it won't kill as many brain cells as, say, watching the French language liberated sexuality movies.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:38 PM
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To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."