Never Coming to a Theater Near You
A Celebration of a Certain Kind of Movie
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
It is in the nature of today's movie business that while Hollywood blockbusters invade every megaplex, smaller, quality films often don't get screen time. Fans of finer films have to count on catching up with them on video and DVD, but even the most hard-core devotees have trouble remembering what sounded good when a film was originally released. Never Coming to a Theater Near You will remedy that situation.
This selection of renowned film critic Kenneth Turan's absorbing and illuminating reviews, now revised and updated to factor in the tests of time, point viewers toward the films they can't quite remember, but should not miss.
Moviegoers know they can trust Turan's impeccable taste. His eclectic selection represents the kind of sophisticated, adult, and entertaining films intelligent viewers are hungry for. More importantly, Turan shows readers what makes these unusual films so great, revealing how talented filmmakers and actors have managed to create the wonderful highs we experience in front of the silver screen.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The title of this book, a collection of Turan's daily newspaper reviews from the Los Angeles Times, promises the unearthing of deeply obscure material or a truly revolutionary take on old favorites. Turan, who is also a contributor to NPR's Morning Edition, sets the book up more modestly in his introduction as a guide to unsung films now on DVD and video. He's a lovely reviewer, able to encapsulate a film's charms in a few phrases, and he has a particular knack for opening sentences, an important tool for any newspaper writer. But the section on English-language films contains reviews of movies like Election, Dead Man Walking and Muriel's Wedding i.e., multiple Oscar nominees and winners, many that benefited from mass-market publicity campaigns. In essence, Turan's favorite flicks are already sung. His section on foreign films is far more useful, since many of them had very limited releases. Turan saves the best for last: nine longer essays he calls "Retrospectives." These pieces treat topics we don't hear much about: the great directors Max Ophuls and Frank Borzage, the delectable treats that came from "pre-code" Hollywood, and Yiddish film. And Turan's funny gloss on the familiar conventions of Chinese martial arts films shows how perceptive and winning he can be.
