Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1669177 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-01
• Released on: 2005-09-22
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

From Publishers Weekly
A self-described "source of information about films that might have been neglected or overlooked or, conversely, well known at one time and now worth a reminder," this hodgepodge guide may most appeal to readers who value a New York Times recommendation above all else. The collection includes "art films," small-scale indies and foreign-language films, as well as coming-of-age comedies and thrillers that "flourish on the far side of respectability," according to critic A.O. Scott's introduction. "The editors try to ease the anxious quandary you may face wandering up the video-store aisles in search of something to watch," he says. They succeed in that mission; the films, organized alphabetically and described in approximately one page each, range from Joseph H. Lewis's 1949 Gun Crazy, which Pauline Kael called "a tawdry version of the Bonnie and Clyde story," to Ridley Scott's 1977 The Duellists, adapted from a Joseph Conrad story, to Laurent Cantet's 2001 Time Out, which chronicles workers' woes at the management level. Most (though not all) of the films listed were produced within the past 30 years, and though they vary widely in terms of genre and commercial value, all are, as Scott says, "worth seeking out."
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Customer Reviews

Not the best of its kind
I had high hopes for this guide, as I generally respect the reviews of A.O. Scott and the New York Times movie review crew. However, this book disappoints in several ways:

1) The movies are heavily skewed towards those released in the last 10 years. The more recent a movie, the less likely I am to have "almost forgotten" it. Sure, Metropolis is in here, but very few other movies until the 1990s. What I'm looking for in a book of this title is more older movies that I am more likely to never have heard fo.

2) Some of the recommended movies are pretty questionable, in my book. I understand there is bound to be difference of opinion, but I doubt that flicks like "Drumline", and "Freddy got Fingered", rank amoung the best movies I've never seen.

The best DVDs you've already seen...
Peter Nichols (ed.), The Best DVDs You've Never Seen, Just Missed, or Almost Forgotten (New York Times, 2005)

This is a book whose stated aim is to bring to light obscure titles now available in America on DVD. A. O. Scott says in the preface that this is a guide to those movies "you may not have even known you were missing."

Then you get to the actual movies. It's a weird, weird universe where even the casual film buff has somehow forgotten About a Boy, Adaptation, Almost Famous, American Beauty, American Psycho, Angels in America, or Atlantic City. Many of them were nominated for Oscars, most of them won. (The two exceptions in that list were a TV miniseries that swept a number of Emmys and one of the most controversial mainstream films of the past twenty years.) And that's just the As. You'll see a lot of Oscar nominees in this book. None of them, I think, is all too terribly obscure. And yet while Scott also alleges that the book tends towards the "art film", which in America often translates to "flicks that aren't in English", this compilation glosses over the most celebrated foreign directors-- Kieslowski, Almodovar, Inarritu, Kusturica, etc.-- and manages to completely ignore a number of only slightly more obscure directors celebrated pretty much everywhere on the planet except America (for example, not a single Theo Angelopoulos movie makes an appearance).

Not bad if you consider that the title should have been The Best DVDs You've Just Never Gotten Around to Seeing After Hearing a Whole Lot of Hype About the Movies They Contain. ***

Great Gift Book
Tired of wandering the aisles of the video store, only to succumb to yet another film made for teenage boys? Then pick up this new guide, which boasts 500 wide-ranging reviews of everything from art films, small-scale indies and foreign-language films, to coming-of-age comedies and thrillers that "flourish on the far side of respectability."

The one-page reviews, all organized alphabetically, are sure to enthuse even the staunchest cinephile - but especially fans of "The New York Times." You won't agree with everything, to be sure. But there's definitely something for everyone here. A great gift book for a cinephile.