All Hollywood loves a Blockbuster, but there are some that they didn't love. Blockbusters that should have succeeded, but were overshadowed by others. Or nuanced, intelligent films that were less popular simply because they required more though than is usually necessary in a big-budget "Blockbuster" film. Films that, for whatever reason, didn't make the box-office they should have, or Blockbusters you should have seen, but didn't.
The book breaks these films up into 5 basic categories: Action/Adventure, Comedy, Drama/Romance, Animation and Spectacle, and reaches into each of those categories to find really good films that should have done well at the box office, but didn't. Or were underappreciated critically. Bookending the discussion of these films are two such classics: Ridley Scott's BladeRunner and Jonathan Milius's Conan.
As befits it, BladeRunner gets pride of place, and discusses how it was made, and how director Ridley Scott managed to get everyone on the set to the point where they wanted to kill him (with the exception of the actors). He demanded that everything on the set be built and laid out exactly how he wanted it. Things that people watching the film would never see were included. But today, the film is more popular than ever, and the care Ridley Scott took with the film is why.
Conan, on the other hand, was made by a director who was also a fan, and while it retains a purity of vision that the second Conan film lacked, it is not as well remembered today.
On the other hand, Turan feels that the films covered in this book are all something special, and have something to give to watchers. From Action films like "Air Force One", Comdies like "Elf", Drama/Romances like "The Rookie", Animated Films like "A Bug's Life" and Spectacles like "Saving Private Ryan"; Turan contends are some of the best films around.
Movie fans may find some of their favorite films missing, because this book is about American filmmaking, and American films. So fans of Anime or Foreign Films will find themselves rather disappointed at not seeing films like "Princess Mononoke" or Akira's Kurosawa's "Ran". Because they weren't American films, they weren't considered.
What he does include is reasons why these films made his cut, and why he thinks they should be considered some of the best. The reasons for each are, of course, different, but readers can learn something about the craft of filmmaking from these descriptions, how to make a film "real", not necessarily how to make it realistic, but how movies speak authentically, and from the heart.
Reading this opened my eyes to films I hadn't seen yet, and what made the films I had seen, and liked, great. Read this book to find the beauty and sincerity in a new crop of films, and to find ones you liked that you may not have seen yet.
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