Cult Movie Rants 3 - the Inevitable Return

We're currently watching From Russia with Love in Film Studies. It's the first Bond I've ever really really enjoyed. I've seen it before, but this time just seemed better. Interesting fact you probably didn't want to know: Colonel Klebb's a lesbian, presumably because that's somehow wrong, she's ugly and she wants to kill him instead of sleep with him. It's just like how all baddies in Bond have foreign accents. This is why old Bond films are better than the new ones - they can get away with being outrageously non-PC, chauvanist, Brits-are-bestist and steriotypical in a way the modern ones can't. This makes the early ones fun while the later ones are far more sedate, giving the baddies human sides et al...

So today, my views on violence in movies and under that, yet another addition to the cult movie debate.

Yesterday I tried York Film Notes from the film studies library - for Pulp Fiction, if it matters, but it doesn't really as it really was awful. It just didn't think of anything interesting to say at all. In fact, it was guilty of just retelling the story which they always tell us to avoid.

So today I borrowed "Shocking Entertainment:Viewer Response to Violent Movies", an overly expensive look (£12.95 for a slim volume) at why people enjoy 'em. It was a pretty good read, though it was totally textbook all the way through - basically it was the analysis at the end of a piece of research. And there was a very nice picture of Mr Blonde, halfway through what was
basically his own chapter. They had arranged a few groups made up of over-18 adults of both genders who had seen three or more from a list of 9 vicious flicks, asked questions and studied the response. They also watched the "eye-slicing" from Henry:Portrait of a Serial Killer, and the "ear-slicing" from Reservoir Dogs and had a little chat about them.
(very slightly spoileryness if you haven't seen the latter for the next five paragraphs)

You know, reading some of the transcribed responses about it upset me far more than actually seeing the film did. I really did not see what all the fuss was about - perhaps I just have a very very strong stomach (highly unlikely, I'm one hell of a wuss), or perhaps I was expecting it to be so much worse it seemed tame, I don't know. I'd always assumed the outcry was not because it was particularly yucky, but because of the music: it's catchy, you're tapping your foot and all of a sudden you think "jeez I'm meant to be on Marv's side here...", and that was what made people feel uncomfortable about it - you want to dance like Mr Blonde, and you really probably shouldn't. Even the notoriety contributes to the wrong-ness of the scene -it's like when you see a comedy you've seen a thousand times before, and you start to grin before the jokes because you know what's coming next. Am I the only person who always smiles when he says "Have you ever listened to K-Billy's Super Sounds of the 70s?", even the first time? Apparently so - I just read a whole book of people saying how intense and disturbing it was.

The chapter really did make me feel pretty bad, so bad that I chickened out of buying the soundtrack when I finally got a chance to this afternoon after wanting it for weeks. And this is mainly because I told Friend 4 (who isn't much braver than me) that it wasn't too violent, she's since said she'd quite like to see it and I've a niggling feeling that possibly my evaluation was...a tad on the optimistic side...Yeh, I felt pretty sorry for Marv but I wasn't covering my eyes and squeaming, though after reading all that I felt like perhaps I should have. I did feel pretty alarmed when he got the petrol out - I felt it had gone too far at that point, and as much as I like Mr B, I love Mr O for rescuing Marv- but before that it was more like a little harmless fun.

The first time I saw this film, I compared it to Waiting for Godot, and I stand by that. It is a sort of absurdist stage comedy - in a place of no importance, talking a lot but doing nothing, very funny in places despite being pretty sad. It was raw, but not real. I think because it was so unreal I had no problem with it - it's a totally artificial situation a million miles away from me. Selfish but true. I'm not a gangster or a cop, I'm not even American. I'm safe from all that. I found, for example, the first death in Scream a lot harder to watch, because it's a defenceless teenage girl in her own home. The same logical cowardice goes for scary movies - I don't mind Alien because it's set on a spaceship, but Sixth Sense (set in public and often during daylight) really had me freaked.

A lot of people in the book said similar things about not minding it if it was removed from their own personal situation. Though the most interesting chapter was when they disussed violence in the news vs film - there was an interesting spread of people saying it was more real in one over the other. All in all, it was an interesting book, if a bit scientific. The one downside that eight chapters of very interesting discoveries and responses from the participants boils down to ten pretty obvious conclusions such as "fictional violence is entertaining" (duh, why else do people watch them?) and "real violence is raw and brutal and not entertaining" (total geniuswork!)

Personally, I do like a bit of violence, but only because I like tense situations and prefer my heroes dead. And only when it's neat and beautiful - you'd have to pay a decent sum (or, alternitively, confiscate my boxed set and threaten to eat it) to make me watch Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. And before you mention Mr O, yes I know it's not nice and it's certainly not dignified, but the situation between himself and Mr W, and his freefall into total moral quagmire, do have a certain strange poetry to it.


Today also, more thoughts on cult movies. Because I found three more ideas for measuring cultyness, and I need to comment where Friend 4 can see it (if you've only just come in, Friend 4 thinks Star Wars counts as cult, and as a fan of the RHPS and many an other, I have yet to prove that she is very very wrong. Parts one and two of this rant are located under the cult movie's tag)

Number one, can't remember where I found it but it's nice:

"A mainstream film 10,000 people see 1o times
A cult film, 10 people see 10,000 times."

Which I liked! Especially as yesterday I technically held my 10th viewing of R+GaD (technically, because I've seen it 9 times all the way through, and then the first half twice.) I don't have anything more intellectual to say than that...

Even better has to be the Mutant Reviewers site. They rank cult films out of five under five catagories which describe them perfectly. They are...

CULT
QUOTES
OFFENSIVENESS
BIZZARE
REWATCHABILITY

A few months ago me and my sparring partner made a venn diagram to approximate cultyness.
We placed Blade Runner, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, R+GaD, Withail+I and Donnie Darko in the middle as having all three qualities we found important. Under this new measure (according to me, not the site by the by), RHPS would still be fine scoring, like, five in everything, R+G, Withnail and Donnie would still be pretty ok, but Blade Runner is at a serious disadvantage. It's one of the original cult movies, and yet not really any of those catagories- the flaw in the system is not accounting for the revived-on-video brand of movie.

Aside from that, I agree with most of their choices, but it's a bit of a strain to describe LA Confidential as cult...they also list the LOTR films as cult; me and Friend 4 decided against this as the culty cultiest fans are either book-purists or screaming girlfans. They also list Star Wars as cult. Hmmm. I let them off on account of the rest of it being so good. And their reviews of R+G are awesome - especially Rich's. I lift huge chunks from that review whenever I try pursuading others to see it.

But third and finally, most of all, I liked the idea that a cult film is..."a film loved by some people for precicely the reason other people found it offputting." It means Pulp Fiction counts, as I've always sneakily supposed it does, because some people loved the mesh of bad taste humour and blood, and the rest thought it was just bad taste. It encapsulates Dirty Dancing and Lost Boys, which while not particularly odd certainly have that culty whiff. It certainly has space for all the old faves (though as per usual, I'm having difficulty with Blade Runner. I just can't see anything obvious about it one could hate...)

And most importantly, if that's the case, Star Wars can't possibly count because I can't really think of anything in them to dislike. That's the thing Friend 4 is missing. A film's got to have a small dedicated fanbase, but it's also got to be routinely despised by almost everyone else.

Cult movies are like in-jokes. Either you "get it", you latch onto whatever madcap genius everyone else is missing, or you don't. And I'm willing to defend Lost Boys to the death against anyone who thinks it's awful...



In other news...two nights ago, my sister refused to let me have a snack when I came home from school starving as we were going out to eat. Four hours and twenty minutes later, we arrived at the restaurant and were presented with menus. In revenge, I spent the evening quoting portions of famous scenes from diners, coffee shops and Italian spaghetteers at my dad, all purposfully taken from films she hadn't seen. The highlight settling on the tip, although my dad attempting to call the waitress "garcon" was pretty good in a thank-goodness-she-was-out-of-earshot sortofa way...and kudos to that same waitress for bringing my meal while I was in the loo so I could conveniently quote Mia as soon as I came back. Although my sister did lash back with some well placed Wayne's World here and there.

After seeing the start of Murder with Mirrors, I'm desperate to know whodunnit (we hadn't even got to the murder yet, though I had my suspicions...full dull story here) . After briefly scouring the internet, searching for the dvd and asking two Marple-obsessessed friends, neither of which could remember, I have finally resorted to getting the book out of the library. It's tedious, but oh well...

And finally, this evening I had something of a resort of my pictures collection; specifically my screenshots. Perhaps the memory would be less clogged if I parted with one or two of my collection of R+G screenshots. After all, I do have 412 of them (I got a new program and clipped half the movie; I'm gonna do the second half sometime), and when taken along with my collection of 408 icons...it probably takes up a fair bit of space overall.

Where's your neck?!

Recovered from RockyHorrorness now...almost.

It was great! Ok, I was absolutely beat on the costume front. I was most impressed with the Riff Raffs (awesome character!), and with one of my drama teachers who was on stage in suspenders hosting the evening. And the guy who came as Rocky with merely a pair of gold hotpants. That was brave. And cold. I wore a lot of pink - I'll post a pic as soon as we get sent it.

I was one of those irritating people who shouted very loud, sung every word and generally beat everyone else using toast/cards/tooters etc by several minutes because they were all ignorant and useless... It was great, great fun, as fun as being pelted with rice and squirted with water in a public place can be. We got newspaper to shelter under - amusingly enough, mine was a lads mag and, I'm not kidding, it had 1 or more naked girl on every page. Honestly...

I still have rice in my boots, and I wanna go again!


Last night was awful (OK, it takes a few days for me to entirely compose a post so the timescale is pretty squiffy. I have had a bad evening sometime this week) I just got really morose, and it wasn't helped by mum suggesting I watched Reservoir Dogs to cheer myself up because it would have worked great, absolutley great. I told her she shouldn't be encouraging me. After all, three times in two weeks...is an honour reserved for R+G... and also pretty obsessive.

Now what I really need is to bully a friend into seeing it. The rationale is something like this:
a) It's a sub-cult movie. It's no fun at all being a cult of one.
b) It's also no fun quoting, doodling main characters, recasting the film with friends and excitedly pointing out that one of the warehouses near our school is actually an abandoned mortuary if no one else gets the joke.
c) In fact, it's just plain no fun at all watching movies on your own. And this film in particular.
d) I'll be able to actually say all the rants which don't quite work on paper.
e) I'll be able to actually coo "Mr *insert colour* is so sweet", which also doesn't quite work on paper.
f) It'll stop me feeling really, really lonely when, eg, the harvest hymn contains innocent lines like "first the blade and then the ear"
g) It's a jolly good film. I've a duty, surely, to pass my good fortune on?
h) There is only one proven way to recapture the fun of seeing a film for the first time. And that's vicariously - by making someone else see it.

Unfortunately, I have some movie-morals, one of which is to only recommend a film if I think people will like it. And I have absolutely no point of reference here whatsoever. I mean, I didn't mind


Speaking of obsessive, there was a plus side to yesterday. I've finally downloaded a program which lets me screenshot DVDs and have gone into a perfect FRENZY of icon making. One film in particular. *hugs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern* They are so so so sweet. I think I managed about a screenshot a minute, and I've positively clogged up the hard-drive, but I don't care! OK, the R to G ratio is slightly (OK, totally...) skewed in G's favour. Whatever. They are making me exceedingly exceedingly happy.

At school we're doing King Henry IV part 2, and if that sounds involved and awful then you're totally right. It's not too bad, but I'd really really rather be doing Hamlet. No prizes for guessing why that is. On the other hand, it has kinda improved my appreciation of R+GaD. Such as the Players, with their incessant string of bawdy jokes, which I was reminded of at the beginning of act II, or Falstaff's comment that he was born "about three of the clock in the afternoon" i.e. when the play started, i.e. he didn't exist before that etc etc. My favourite moment so far is undoubtedly when Falstaff suggests he pretends to be the king, and Hal pretends to be himself and vice versa. Tom Stoppard evidently knows his Shakespeare very very well.

PS - This week we get our Progress Reviews. My film studies teacher made me laugh. His comment on my progress is, I kid you not, that "I need to have more confidence when expressing my views about film."

.....

O-kay...I think we can do that. After all, I obviously lack courage in my opinions. What does he want me to do, correct him when he gets his facts wrong?!

I see you shiver with anticip.....

This morning was awful. I got my act together and determined to watch a film to cheer myself up.

Question is, what? Lets put it this way, I knew what I wanted to watch. Can you guess, folks? Unfortunately, I don't have my own tv, and watching the same film three times in two weeks smacks of borderline insanity. If it weren't for my family...

Now a few months back I saw Rififi, and at the time it made a big effect. I kept thinking "What if I never see a film this good about a diamond-heist-gone-awry ever again?". This was the reasoning behind recording The Asphalt Jungle, which was also in black and white. Anyway, I recovered eventually and the film remained unwatched on the video.

Time passes, I discover there is another great movie along those lines, watch it, love it and get hit by "Hang on, surely there can't be three movies this good about a diamond-heist-gone-awry?" Enter The Asphalt Jungle, still patiently waiting to be seen. So I wound the video back and discovered the beginning had been partially wiped over by somebody else.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Lesson learnt: you can only ever see a film for the first time once. And there is no way to get around it. No matter how hard you try.

By gum I was cross. I was pretty irritable beforehand, but this really made me mad. Anyway, I rather halfheartedly pulled Run, Lola, Run.

Thank-ee goodness. It was just what I needed to run the stress out of my system. I've wanted to see this ever since hearing the theme tune, which is jolly exciting let me tell you! It's very exciting, fast paced, and totally great.

My mother hates whizzy cinematography, films where the camera won't stay still. She would have left almost immediately. It's part music video, part advert, part computer game. Lola has twenty minutes to get 100,000 marks to save her boyfriend. Now that's what I call high concept.

There are animated scenes, black and white, slo-mo, speed-up, scenes in red, cut screens, wipes, fades, dissolves - somebody has had a lot of fun with their editing suite. Lucasitis! But for once it doesn't feel superfluous. To quote some info cribbed straight from imdb, in a 71 min film they use 1581 transitions. That's an average shot length of 2.7 seconds. makes a nice contrast with all those tortuously long edits from Alien.

To start with it's disorientating, but priceless when everything falls into place. For example...the first time round she almost kills someone taking the safety catch off the gun. Second time round, she's learnt. This is what I mean by video game - you try to beat the level, you get killed, you learn and try again. She knows the bike's been stolen. Every time, things are different. Minor ripples result in one woman joining the church instead of winning the lottery. It actually reminds me slightly of a script I wrote once; but for once, the similarity didn't annoy me. Have I mentioned the music yet?

All in all, this'll go in the same box as Moulin Rouge - some people are going to hate this on account of the visual style, but if you get into it you'll adore it. There's a layer of whimsy propelling the plot which may annoy some people, but not me and not all 'em folks who put this on the imdb top 250. And it's equal to what I imagine a good dose of ecstasy to feel like.

Best of all, it entirely cured me of my apathy and I managed to zip through all my jobs for the day in about ten minutes. And it gave me the edge I requred to climb out of the window and jump about my own height onto gravel with bare feet when I got trapped in the toilet instead of sitting around lamely for an hour until my family came home and let me out (the handle's stopped working from inside, so if you shut the door you can't get out).

And it was such a boost, that when mum and sis finally did return and told me I had an hour to get ready, I actually had the drive to sort out two costumes and my tea within twenty minutes.

I hadn't told you, had I?

We're gonna see the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Properly. The way it was meant to be seen. Going to one of these, as has been one of my dreams for as long as, oh, forever. I couldn't find a proper costume in time, so I'm just going as a random Transylvanian in pink slut-wear. It's gonna be great. It had better be great.


PS - last night we played the movie game again, and guess what? Not only did me and my sister win both times, but the diretor card that came up was WARNER HERZOG! It's become a bit of an in-joke, really, especially now he's taken over the position as "Favourite Director (of whose filmography I've actually seen zilch)"

Still, playing with my sister is tiring. One day, i'll be on a team with someone where I can say "Lawrence of Arabia" instead of two minutes of "David Fall? David Jump?" in reply to the best possible clue - "First name, like as in Goliath, second, what you shouldn't do over a cliff..." and

Cult Movie Rant 2: the Superflous and Badly Spelt Sequel

The debate continues. The current approach in the fight to prove Star Wars is not a cult film is a Venn diagram. For the uninformed, forgetful or just plain dim, a Venn diagram contains three overlapping circles, each with a bit of criteria. So films in the middle will agree with all three. You'll get the hang of it, my description is lame.

Here are the three circles:

Twelve Monkeys factor - odd, dark, mind bending, confusing, disturbing or plain bad taste. If it feels like a cult film. Also known as the films my mum didn't like.

Blade Runner factor - died at the box office, resurrected through video or midnight showings. Also applies to taccyness, floppyness, so bad-it's-good-ness, cheapness, ever-so-slightly-rubbishness,badly over budget-ness, smallness or indieness. Also known as no-blockbusters.

Star Trek factor - If it's quotable, causes dressing up or drinking games, inspires devotion and leads people to claim "Jedi" as a religion on public census records.

Yup, you spotted it. Star Wars does fit into one of the catagories. Whatever. The point of the venn diagram is this - everyone's definition of cult is different (it's just mine happens to be right...) but on the diagram all factors are equalled out, and thus the more culty the film, the more circles it'll be in. Savvy? For example, Once Upon a Time in the West died at the cinema and was resurrected on video, but nobody's claiming that as cult (see below)

So the question you are doubtless all asking - What DOES fit into the circles. Well, let's have a look....



Little red spots indicate films I haven't actually seen, so may be wrong about. RHPS stands for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, BR is Blade Runner, R+G is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, DD's Donnie Darko and W+I is Withnail & I. It's all objective anyway. Or subjective. One or the other - I know what I mean. If I gave this challenge to somebody else, they could get completely different results.

(You'll notice SoaP is not a cult movie. Because it's not. Hype does not equal cult, it's a virtual nemesis. Web hype created the Arctic Monkeys, and they're hardly an underground phenomenon. Yeh, it's called SoaP and guess what it's about! Ha ha! How clever! How funny! They're making a self-consciously awful movie! How post-ironic! It's not even very good at being bad, it's not half awful enough - just tediously subpar. See my review, which is a tad less harsh.)

While on that note, let me introduce you to my new best friend - The A-Z of Cult films and filmmakers, a far better book than the rough guide to cult films I reviewed last month, for several reasons. Lets start with the fact it only contained cult movies. No Godfather. No Pirates of the Carribbean. No Zulu. No Star Wars. Take that!!!!!!! Although there are one or one I disagree with - Once Upon a Time in the West...a nice touch though is it justifies its controversial decisions, such as The Matrix and Alien, which are defended pretty well.

The book is larger, but with far less entries so the films get a lot more space. Each has an entire page with a box of basic details and an extra colomn for MEMORABLE DIALOGE!!!!!!!!! Yes, an area celebrating cult quotability. OK, many of the quotes will mean very little unless you've seen the film ( I've seen Brazil several times recently, and I don't recognise all of them...), but it shows willing. Plus it adds yet more varaity to the ever-growing list of things I know about films I haven't seen.

The rest of the page is text- part synopsis, part discussion, and it's interesting even to those who haven't seen the film and mostly blissfully spoiler free! OK, not entirely. Quadrophenia, Brazil, the RHPS and a few more I've forgotten - but crucially it didn't give anything away about anything I wanted to see.

It also contains minibiographies of culty directors. I knew this to be accurate because I'd only heard of five of them. But the bit on Terry Gilliam was interesting, if erronious (the Good Omens project vanished). There's the occasional photo too, mostly black and white copies of the film poster.

And plus, another five-or-so films have piled onto my must-see list. So all in all, a good read - a book filled with films I'd never heard of, surely the final indicator that these films are truly culty.



This week has been the dolly zoom week. For those of you uninformed, thats a fun camera effect caused by walking backwards while zooming in or vice versa. It's famously used in Vertigo, and you'll also spot it in the "get off the road" scene in Fellowship of the Ring. I always keep a look out for them, cos they're cool - this week, an all time record of four. Two in Twelve Monkeys, one on Robert Redford's head in Spy Game and one during a cut scene for the Lara Croft computer game...

Finally, we need to congratulate the bright spark showing The Descent on a large screen underground. It could start a spate of location-inspired cinema. Titanic on a boat. Jaws on a beach (they actually did this last year; I didn't go). The Blair Witch Project in a dark forest. Airplane! on an, er, airplane...ok, a practical question now which possibly skirts tastelessness - do you think they'll show United 93, cos you know Hollywood never misses a trick...

Book reviews!!!!!!!

Some moviebook reviews today. It's what I do when not watching films - I read about them. Or talk about them. Pity my friends.


For a while now one such friend and I have been embroiled in debate about cult movies. She claims Star Wars is a cult movie, and while I agree it does share some traits I don't think it is. True, it has an obsessive fan following. But the flipside of that which makes it cult is that the film doesn't appeal to anyone outside of that following. Not appreciated by the mainstream, but adored by a select few. Dude, Star Wars got itself voted top on the C4 top 100 films ever. I had to seriously tweak the results of the Ultimate Movie Poll* to make sure it came second to the Godfather trilogy. Now compare that to some films I would say were cult. Brazil (161th), Blade Runner (14th oh crap), Withnail and I (41st), Spinal Tap (190th)...

Ok, well that wasn't very impressive. I used to say that the final definition of a cult film was something my mother didn't like, but after having discovered yesterday (to my absolute shock, may I add) that she really liked Reservoir Dogs, 254 f-words and all, I'm gonna have to re-evaluate that criteria.

I admit it's a sketchy subject. Some films, like Four Weddings and a Funeral are never going to be cult. And some films, such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show are, no two ways about it. And there's a whole scale in between, with a rather gray patch at the centre containing things like Star Wars. Only I wouldn't have put it there if not for said friend.

The thing is, cult is such a loose label. It means dedication, quotability, late night discussions, being misunderstood. A high number I would say were either a bit disgusting, disturbing, bad taste or reliant on black humour. But not all of them. Make the definition too wide, and you can include Donnie Darko, Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, A Clockwork Orange, Resevoir Dogs, The Big Lebowski and Requiem for a Dream. The significance of those films is that they're all in the top 20 films ever as voted by http://www.ymdb.com/index_ukuk.html Certain schools of thought add the cult tag to all of those, other schools could claim any film with that many votes can't be properly cult. Incedentally, seeing as this post seems to be measured by my mum's opinion, she says that a chart topped by Fight Club and Pulp Fiction is wrong because the majority of people whose opinion counts wouldn't say they were favourites. Only that's just the gist. She didn't say the ymdb voters didn't have a right to an opinion, that was my interpretation.

At the same time, it has to have a certain notoriety. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is one of the great non-cult movies of our time - endlessly quotable, my mother didn't have a clue, and several dedicated fanspots online all of which I am a member. Yet not enough people have heard of it to make it a true cult film.

Can you guys see the dielemma? So many attributes, which ones rank top? Well, I'd say the fan following and mainstream alienation came hand in hand - Have you see the obsessive Phantom of the Opera fans? I'd say they were culty, but you don't have to be a member to enjoy the film.
And a film which alienates everybody hardly counts as cult either.

So here's the catch. If Phantom of the Opera, an enjoyable movie with some very hardcore fans is definitely not cult, I fail to see how Star Wars, a good fun space romp with a clique of nutty obsessives (no offence meant, of course - you should see my R+GareD avatar collection. All 600 of them.) could ever count? Anybody can enjoy Star Wars, it's a kids film. Not to say kids films can't necessarily be cult, but...well you can see my point?

So howsabout entertainment Weekly's top 50 cult movies? I'd say that was an extreme list en general, a long way from the dreaded grey area - all obscure stuff, pretty bad taste. It's interesting to note they have an entire catagory for "senseless act of violence".

And now for the book review. Because we found the Rough Guide to Cult Movies. Now I like the Rough Guide series - I thought the Lord of the Rings one was excellent considering how small it was compared to the size of the subject. And it was interesting, especially the section about Leon Trotsky's films. However, while in principle I agreed with its definition, some of their choices were pretty desperate. Ever seen that well known cult flick Zulu? Me neither...Oooh look, the baddies are coming to get Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -better get the toast out. yes, fellas, it's a list that's extreme in the other direction. A list so all-encompassing that Groundhog Day, The Count of Monte Cristo, School of Rock, The Godfather and Pirates of the Carribbean (I kid you not...) all come under the umbrella which is cult. So nice book, and especially nice sidenotes (loved the section about which films were the first to use which swear words), but I wouldn't take everything in there as gospel.

THE LINE

<-----------get real! <--- er, possibly---> Really culty---------->

Four Weddings 1 Zulu 2 Star Wars {Grey Area} Blade Runner 3 Withnail 4 RHPS

Cult Movies book:1 My Friend:2 Me:3 EW:4

And now for the other book, one of a series of 6 "A Cinematic History of {insert genre here}". Sounds highbrow, doesn't it? Well it's a series of large-text pages interspersed with colour photos to make up for actual depth. That's not to say I don't like it, mind you. The other ones look a bit dull, but the lumped"A Cinematic History of Gangsters and Detectives" caught my eye because of the Untouchables picture on the cover, and also because...well, you know. And I must say I adore it! The films are in roughly three catagories - those I've seen and loved, those I haven't seen and am going to love (after having looked forward to seeing a film for a long time, I always make damn sure I enjoy it...ah, the limitless world of self delusion!), and films I haven't really heard of but am sure to like because they're hanging around in such illustrious company. On the other hand, this book is fatally flawed. At a mere 30 full-colour pages, and with tricky words like genre and censorship highlighted and glossirified, it's obviously aimed at children (add to that I found it in my school library), which prensents an interesting conundrum - a kiddie book all about films they can't see till they're 18.

They're not all 18s, true. And I can't be bothered to count the percentage which are because it's obsessive. But of the 24 I can comment on with any certainty, I'd say that 3 were suitable and would be enjoyed by the age the book's aimed at - Ocean's Eleven, The Italian Job and Vertigo. And I'm not so sure they'd understand the last one.

Still, it's pretty much spoiler free (i.e. haven't spotted anything significant yet, though they could have given a little less detail about the Italian Job, and there is a dead body on the final page, though I don't think anyone who hadn't seen said film could identify it) and any book which mentions Resevoir Dogs three times can't be all bad. And while I admit it has it's audience seriously confused -too simple for adults, not relevant enough for kids - I love it, and it serves perfectly as a browsable list of films I'd enjoy.



*the Ultimate Movie Poll is a private project which I'll share when finished. The criteria is this: a list of the 100 greatest films ever, no more or less, from any country or time period, either selected by critics or voted. These have been compiled into one bumper list by giving film 100 1 point, and film 1 100 points. Admittedly it's not foolproof - many of the lists are quite old, which is unfair to newer stuff, but then again in these lists people vote for modern stuff over older in general; and you should see the problems I had with trilogies! (half the lists credited the Godfather/Star Wars/Lord of the Rings/Three Colours movies seperately and half credited them as complete works of three). I'm not sure it's conclusive, but I am satisfied it's close.