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What kind of collection could possibly find common ground among The Son of Kong, Platoon, and Pink Flamingos? What kind of fevered minds could conceive of such a list? What are the unheard-of qualities that tie them all together?
The answers: This book. The National Society of Film Critics. And the far-reaching enticements of the B movie itself.
Once the B movie was the Hollywood stepchild, the underbelly of the double feature. Today it is a more inclusive category, embracing films that fall outside the mainstream by dint of their budgets, their visions, their grit, and occasionally—sometimes essentially—their lack of what the culture cops call “good taste.”
The films in The B List are offbeat, unpredictable, and decidedly idiosyncratic. And that’s why we love them.
- Sales Rank: #223732 in Books
- Published on: 2008-10-07
- Released on: 2008-10-07
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .58" w x 6.00" l, .65 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 240 pages
From Publishers Weekly
In this collection of essays by members of the National Society of Film Critics, the "B movie" is defined, classically, as "the Hollywood stepchild, the underbelly of the double feature." What B movies have become is a question the book answers only partially-movie fans will certainly debate whether newer films like Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs actually deserve a place next to proven genre classics like Gun Crazy and Crime Wave. Among dozens of pieces, highlights include Charles Taylor's appreciation of 1967's Point Blank and its embattled director, John Boorman, who mixed French New Wave styling and pulp-novel nihilism to inspirational effect (he also discusses Mel Gibson's remake and Steven Soderbergh's open tribute in The Limey). Roger Ebert's knowledgeable contributions don't disappoint; having himself penned the absurd B classic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, he champions outliers Peeping Tom, May and Pink Flamingos. Rob Nelson includes the gonzo 1989 Nicolas Cage film Vampire's Kiss, for which the actor ate a live cockroach on-screen. Other titles include Detour, The Conversation, Vanishing Point, Videodrome, Eraserhead and last year's Grindhouse; though the collection's breadth undermines any attempt to pin down the modern B picture, these brief essays celebrate well the reckless streak that runs through Hollywood.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Editors Guild
“A tome that will set nicely on the shelf beside your movie collection and provide rewarding reading as a supplement to the film viewing experience.”
Kirkus Reviews, Reference Special Issue, 2008
“Downright fun…Diversity can be found here aplenty, with fan favorites like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Reservoir Dogs, to stalwarts like The Son of Kong. They’ve also included some questionable picks like The Rage: Carrie 2 that will likely spark debate among film enthusiasts. The surprises, however, are the beauty of The B List.”
Augusta Metro Spirit, 10/15/08
“The National Society of Film Critics come together for an amazing array of sub-mainstream memory in The B List…The list of contributors is enough to make a movie fan’s mouth water…Some of the most knowledgeable people in the movie field provide an outstanding collection of memories, opinions, and even analysis…The writers in this volume offer an expansive view of where the film world has been and where it seems to go when the mainstream isn’t quite ready…Collected with an intricate knowledge of B-movie production and complete with viewer guides and arguments for each of the movies selected, The B List is a welcome companion to the book collection of any movie fan who sometimes steps beyond the simplicity of the mainstream theater.”
Total Film, November 2008
“A few questionable choices in the National Society of Film Critics’ round-up of B-movie ‘beauties,’ but they’re argued with authority and panache. Besides, it doesn’t hurt to have a couple of curveballs alongside all the usual cult suspects.”
Filmbill, October 2008
“Perhaps The B List is at its best when it makes a real genre film like The Rage: Carrie 2 seem legitimate, while showing that a cult classic like Pink Flamingos may not be as good as its reputation might suggest. Such are the delights of this collection, which truly offers something for everyone.”
Santa Fe New Mexican, 10/10/08
“[An] entertaining compilation of essays.”
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 10/26/08
“The writing is generally good, often excellent. Editors David Sterritt and John Anderson have done a good job of selecting essayists with an interesting variety of viewpoints and styles…[A] worthwhile book.”
Baltimore City Paper, 10/29/08
“The book’s most compelling essays make you rethink old favorites or point you in the direction of movies that even those of us who grew up tethered to our VCRs may have missed…If you’re looking for a guide through film’s funkier tributaries, this is intellectual criticism written with the urgency of a fan juiced to share some odd object of infatuation with a world that likely missed it the first time around.”
Curled Up with a Good Book, 10/08
“One of the most quotable books I've read in a long time…[An] amusing and thought-inducing collection.”
The Associated Press, 11/7/08
“The literary version of having a movie-critic friend intent on convincing you that there's a movie of which you've never heard but must see, The B List offers up mostly irresistible essays by the National Society of Film Critics about their favorite guilty pleasures…These movies may never make "best-of" lists, but they're all memorable, and most essays convey the giddy pleasure involved in watching a movie that is engrossing even though it doesn't ostensibly matter…The book's broad scope adds to its charm…The strength of the book lies in the fact that even if readers never see the movies discussed, it is still fun to read about them. And many essays showcased here will either pique readers' interest or reacquaint them with forgotten favorites…I challenge anyone to finish it without a Netflix queue full of previously unheard of movies they're excited to check out.”
NPR.org’s “Blog of the Nation,” 10/20
“A delicious critical collection of these low-brow treats.”
Publishers Weekly, 11/10/08
“These brief essays celebrate well the reckless streak that runs through Hollywood.”
InfoDad.com, 11/13/08
“Fun for fans of films that, in most cases, never quite made the A list because they wouldn’t be caught dead there.”
BookPage, December 2008
“Reminds us why it’s OK to love movies that have never made a ’10 best’ list.”
Buffalo News, 11/23/08
“Much more fun, though, by far, is The B List, in which members of the National Society of Film Critics belie their organization’s stuffy title and rummage around in the glorious seamy cellars that all art forms need for growth and health…You’ve got a lot of very merry film critics in The B List celebrating with you the joys of cinematic junk—even if so much of it has a weird tendency to last so much longer than so much ‘respectable’ fare.”
Bookgasm.com
“The book makes some interesting arguments.”
GloriousNoise.com, 12/1/08
“[An] eclectically focused selection of essays…There is an abundance of good writing in The B List, writing about movies that you are familiar with and about movies that you may not have even heard about…The B List should be—to make a movie blurb-like crack at this—on your A List.”
Curled Up with a Good Book, 11/28/08
“If you are a movie fan at all, you should definitely take a look…It's a nice tour through the bottom level of film history, looking for some gems that almost nobody has seen…The essays about these movies actually do force the reader to examine what may very well be a familiar movie in different ways than they have before…Readers will find many ideas for movies to rent the next time they are at the video store…An excellent collection of film commentary. The love for these movies shines through in almost every essay.”
Skyscraper, Winter 08
“An engaging, lively read for die-hard B movie fans or those interested in knowing what to watch for at local DVD rental stores or on late-night television.”
Magill Book Reviews
"With a good mixture of familiar and obscure titles, the critics provide acute observations...The essays are insightful and entertaining. The best make the writers' enthusiasms infectious."
Word blog, 12/29/08
"The films in The B List are offbeat, unpredictable, and decidedly idiosyncratic. That's why we love them. That's why we love this book. A great collection of essays."
Bitch, 1/09
“Cover[s] a diverse set of films…Offers the cinephile a pleasant enough way to while away a few hours…May even alert readers to movies they’ve missed.”
SLUG (Salt Lake Underground)
"A good read…It throws caution to the wind and zooms in on films whose conception, lurid upbringings and dubious character traits would drive most people away. This is a fantastic resource for cult film buffs the world over.”
Atlanta Daily Report, 12/19/08
“There are some terrific pieces by all kinds of movie critics you’ve heard about, usually writing about movies you’ve never heard about.”
Film International, Issue 38, 2009
“Books like this often bring out the best in film critics, and The B List brings out the best in many of the best film critics in America…[They] don’t snipe or sneer, show off or oversell: they simply make well-informed and well-founded appeals for us to (re)consider the lowbrow barnstormers they believe to be worthy of the remastering and revivals usually lavished on films by a Bergman, Renoir or Welles. The resultant essays are short, taut, punchy and impassioned, and fuelled by infectious enthusiasm for B movies of bravery, vitality and invention.”
About the Author
David Sterritt is chairman of the National Society of Film Critics and a film professor at Columbia University. He lives in Baltimore.
John Anderson writes regularly for Variety, the New York Times, and Newsday. He lives in Los Angeles.
Most helpful customer reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Taking a walk on the wild side
By David Roy
Are you a fan of movies? Not just any movies, but those cult classics, such as Rocky Horror Picture Show, or the low-budget movies that are showcased in Grindhouse? If you are a movie fan at all, you should definitely take a look at a new book called The B List. Edited by David Sterritt and John Anderson, this book consists of a series of short essays on various films, B movies in which the authors find some value and quality. It's also a nice tour through the bottom level of film's history looking for some gems that almost nobody has seen.
The book is divided into a number of categories, from film noir to "neo-noir" to sci-fi classics and road movies and many more. Thus, we get an eclectic mix of movie recommendations (the only one that's really not a recommendation is Roger Ebert's essay on Pink Flamingos, which he originally did not give a rating to and explains that he did not because "stars seem not to apply. It should be considered not as a film but as a fact. Or perhaps as an object."). These are movies that, despite the fact that many have fallen by the wayside, the authors feel deserve recognition.
I've been a fan of Roger Ebert's for a long time, so it was a pleasure to see that he contributed five essays to the book. However, the rest of the entries in the book are also very good. As is usual with any book that has many contributors, some articles are better than others, but I can honestly say that there wasn't one that I found badly written. All of the authors are noted film critics, and all of them have presented thoughtful treatises on the pictures on question. Readers of The B List will find many ideas for movies to rent the next time they are at the video store.
However, you will have to do a lot of the research yourself. It's almost criminal that a book like this rarely mentions, and only in passing if it does, whether a movie is out on DVD or not. Many of the older movies might not be, and a notation would have been very helpful. The authors are singing the praises of these movies; you would think they would want to make it easier for the reader to find them so they can revel in the juicy filmic goodness as well. Sadly, you're on your own.
Despite this failing, The B List is an excellent collection of film commentary. The love for these movies shines through in almost every essay, and the writers do a good job of intriguing you into doing that search. So forget those big budget blockbusters for a moment, those "live-action" films that are more computer graphics than anything else. Take a walk through the seedy underbelly of Hollywood, take a gander at films that bend the genre just a little bit, or are made so cheaply that the quality of the story has to take you through it. Pick this book up, find something you might be interested in, and give it a try. I think you'll be glad you did.
David Roy
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Misleading Title for a Hodgepodge of Essays on (Mostly) Cult Classics
By A. Ross
It has to be said that the title of this latest compilation from the National Society of Film Critics is more than a little misleading. Pretty much every major dictionary defines the phrase "B Movie" in more or less the same terms: a low budget film, often of poor quality, originally made to accompany the main feature in a double billing. However, in the introduction to this collection of brief essays, the editors provide completely different definition: "Today, we assert in this volume, [the B Movie] is a more inclusive category, embracing films that fall out of the mainstream by dint of their budgets, their visions, their grit, and frequently...their lack of what the culture cops call 'good taste.'" This is a definition so vague and sweeping that one could fit almost any film under its umbrella, which renders it a totally meaningless. A more accurate title could be made by chopping off the front of the book's subtitle, leaving "Cult Classics We Love" -- although even that doesn't account for some of the non-cult movies discussed ("The Core" and "Platoon" being notable examples).
The book contains about sixty essays, only five of which appear to be exclusive to the book, with the rest having previously been published in various magazines and web outlets. The editors have tried gamely to group the essays into ten sections, some of which make sense (Film Noir, Neo-Noir, Science Fiction, Horror, Westerns) and some of which don't (Political Pictures, Cult Classics, Midnight Movies). I could have done without such attempts to categorize and would have been glad to take the movies in chronological order. This might allow the reader to trace some interesting cultural shifts along the way instead of finding the films shoehorned into preassigned categories. Almost all the obvious recent "cult" films are included (eg. Pink Flamingos, Rocky Horror, etc.), but even readers of the type who would be attracted to such a book will likely find plenty to add to their Netflix queue. (Personally, I've seen roughly 2/3 of the films covered in the essays.)
As with any book of this nature, the essays vary wildly in both tone and quality, from thoughtful and probing analysis to rah-rah fanboyisms. It has to be said that there are far too many essays that reveal the particulars of the plot. So, if you don't like spoilers, you're better off taking the table of contents as your viewing guide, and not reading about a film until you've seen it. Still, on the whole, a decent little mainstream introduction to some of American cinema's intriguing nooks and crannies.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Hollywood's Step-Children
By Douglas Doepke
B-movies of the studio era were like step children-- members of the family, yet few adults paid much attention to where they went or what they did. The result was usually unmemorable, just like what most kids do to pass the time. But sometimes the result, less cluttered by the do's and don'ts of conventional moviemaking, produced genuinely novel entertainment deemed too risky for broader audience appeal. Those are the hidden gems B-movie lovers treasure.
The book is a respectable addition to that library, especially for those developing an interest in our obscure movie past. Many of the standard gems are included, particularly the noirs--Out of the Past (1947), Gun Crazy (1949), Detour (1945), for example. However, several lesser known noirs like Crime Wave (1954) and the astonishingly cost-effective Murder by Contract (1958) also appear.
Now I confess to being something of a purist. B-movies typically played the bottom-half of double features in the 30's, 40's & 50's, were in black&white, and were nearly always products of the studio system. Those are the ones I treasure because they usually ran up against the dead hand of studio censorship, causing their makers to finesse as best they could. In the case of Gun Crazy, for example, the friction resulted in a fascinating series of images subtly blending two of censorship's biggest no-no's, sex and violence. The result is a riveting noir that comes closer to revealing our national obsessions than any A-production of the period. Put another way, if A-productions revealed what we were supposed to see, it was a B-movie like Gun Crazy that revealed what we sneakily wanted to see.
Anyway, the book expands beyond purist confines to include low-budgeters and cult films through the early 2000's, such as Reservoir Dogs (1992), Rocky Horror Show (1975), The Core (2003), et. al. Many of the newer ones I haven't seen; at the same time, the book shows me helpfully why I should. Most movie genres are covered, including musicals, politicals, Westerns, and weirds. Somehow, comedies got left out and I'm still wondering why. That durable farce from 1945, Up in Mabel's Room, would have been a good comedic place to start. Of course, which films are chosen for inclusion can always be second-guessed. For example, my all-time classic, DOA (1950), is left out-- but then, some classics are bound to be left out. On the other hand, whether an elaborate production like Platoon should be included-- as it is-- remains debatable. Nonetheless, the choices strike me on the whole as reasonable ones, perhaps not optimal, but at least reasonable.
Editors Sterritt and Anderson provide properly irreverant intro's to each section. The articles themselves from professional critics are by and large both entertaining and informative. However, readers looking for heavyweight or academic analytics will probably be disappointed. Most essays reflect a sprightly journalistic-style approach and run no more than 4 pages, hardly enough room for deep analysis. Still and all, most of the movies don't bear deep discussion--what, I wonder, would an iconographic interpretation of the cleverly cartoonish Big Bus (1976) read like. I shudder to think.
Anyway, the work stands as an informative little compendium, especially for those newly embarked on the glories of the B-movie essentials.
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