Never Coming to a Theater Near You: A Celebration of a Certain Kind of Movie

by Kenneth Turan

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786723942
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	11/01/2005
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	914 KB

About the Author

Kenneth Turan is the film critic for the Los Angeles Times and NPR's Morning Edition, as well as the director of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. He has been a staff writer for the Washington Post and TV Guide, and served as the Times' book review editor. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, he is the co-author of Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke.

Turan teaches film reviewing and non-fiction writing at USC and is on the board of directors of the National Yiddish Book Center. His most recent books include Free for All: Joe Papp, The Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told and Never Coming To A Theater Near You. Turan lives in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on Twitter @KennethTuran.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	xiii
1	English Language Films
	Introduction	2
	The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert	3
	Bhaji on the Beach	5
	Birthday Girl	7
	Bloody Sunday	9
	Bottle Rocket	12
	The Commitments	14
	Croupier	17
	Dead Man Walking	19
	Deconstructing Harry	21
	The Deep End	24
	Devil in a Blue Dress	27
	Dirty Pretty Things	29
	Election	31
	Flirting with Disaster	33
	Fly Away Home	35
	Groundhog Day	37
	Heavenly Creatures	39
	High Fidelity	41
	Hilary and Jackie	43
	The Iron Giant	46
	Jesus' Son	48
	Land and Freedom	50
	Last Orders	52
	Last Resort	54
	Lawless Heart	56
	Laws of Gravity	58
	Living in Oblivion	60
	Love and Death on Long Island	62
	Lovely & Amazing	64
	Love Serenade	66
	The Madness of King George	68
	Manny & Lo	71
	Muriel's Wedding	73
	My Son the Fanatic	75
	Naked	77
	Next Stop Wonderland	80
	Out of Sight	82
	Persuasion	85
	Pipe Dream	87
	Pollock	88
	Proof	91
	The Quiet American	92
	Ratcatcher	95
	Richard III	97
	Ronin	100
	Safe	102
	Searching for Bobby Fischer	104
	The Secret of Roan Inish	107
	Secrets & Lies	109
	Sexy Beast	111
	The Snapper	113
	A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries	115
	State and Main	117
	The Station Agent	120
	Strictly Ballroom	122
	Sweet Sixteen	124
	Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould	126
	This Boy's Life	129
	To Die For	131
	12 Monkeys	134
	Ulee's Gold	136
	Unstrung Heroes	138
	Vanya on 42nd Street	140
	Wag the Dog	142
	Waiting for Guffman	145
	Waking Ned Devine	147
	The Waterdance	149
	Whale Rider	151
	Wonder Boys	153
	You Can Count on Me	156
	Zoolander	159
2	Foreign Language Films
	Introduction	162
	After Life	163
	Aimee & Jaguar	166
	Un Air de Famille	168
	Autumn Tale	170
	The Blue Kite	172
	Celebration	174
	The Circle	176
	Un Coeur en Hiver	178
	Cronos	180
	Cure	182
	The Dinner Game	184
	Divided We Fall	186
	The Dreamlife of Angels	188
	Dry Cleaning	190
	Eat Drink Man Woman	192
	The Fast Runner	194
	How I Killed My Father	197
	Intacto	199
	In the Mood for Love	201
	Italian for Beginners	203
	Lamerica	205
	Leolo	207
	Lumumba	210
	Ma Vie en Rose	212
	Monsoon Wedding	214
	Nowhere in Africa	216
	Prisoner of the Mountains	218
	La Promesse	220
	Read My Lips	222
	Red	224
	Russian Ark	227
	A Self-Made Hero	230
	A Single Girl	232
	Spirited Away	234
	The Terrorist	237
	Time of Favor	239
	Time Out	241
	Tito and Me	243
	Together	245
	The Town Is Quiet	247
	The Vertical Ray of the Sun	249
	Y Tu Mama Tambien	251
	Yi Yi	254
3	Documentaries
	Introduction	258
	Black Harvest	260
	Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary	264
	Bus 174	266
	The Cockettes	268
	Crumb	271
	Dark Days	273
	The Decline of Western Civilization, Part III	275
	East Side Story	277
	Fast, Cheap & Out of Control	280
	Freedom on My Mind	282
	Genghis Blues	284
	Licensed to Kill	286
	Lost in La Mancha	288
	One Day in September	290
	Rivers and Tides	292
	The Saltmen of Tibet	294
	Speaking in Strings	296
	Spellbound	298
	Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey	300
	When We Were Kings	302
4	Classics
	Introduction	306
	Beauty and the Beast	307
	Das Boot	308
	Decalogue	311
	Eyes Without a Face	314
	Once upon a Time in America	317
	Peeping Tom	319
	Pepe Le Moko	321
	A Streetcar Named Desire	323
	The Third Man	328
	Touch of Evil	331
	Vertigo	334
	The Wild Bunch	339
5	Retrospectives
	Introduction	344
	Jacques Becker and Robert Bresson	345
	Frank Borzage	347
	Anthony Mann	352
	Jean-Pierre Melville	357
	Max Ophuls	360
	Edgar G. Ulmer	363
	Chinese Martial Arts Films	366
	Pre-Code Hollywood	370
	Yiddish Film	376
	Indexes
	Countries	381
	Films	384
	Names	388

Editorial Reviews

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. Agent, David Halpern. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

As a remedy for the lack of exposure for small, quality films, Turan, critic for the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio's Morning Edition, offers this compilation of a decade's worth of reviews, a "guide for the perplexed viewer looking for something different." Divided into categories of English and foreign-language films, documentaries, classics, plus some career retrospectives, the reviews are brief and accessible but grounded in solid film history scholarship. The author tries to indicate what makes each film special and why the reader should seek it out on cable television, video, or DVD. Some of the films, e.g., Whale Rider, may already be familiar to the discerning filmgoer, and some readers might wish for a greater length and depth to the essays. Turan lacks the intensely personal voice of Pauline Kael, but his uncluttered prose is inviting, and the collection fills a niche as one of the better recent surveys of independent film. Recommended for public and academic film history collections. Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Los Angeles Times/NPR film critic Turan presents a book-length favorites list. Whip-smart and to the point, the author's cogent movie reviews are perfect for reading in the newspaper over your morning coffee, and he's even better on the radio. Unfortunately, these brief pieces don't work as well between hard covers. The premise of here is admirably simple: these are the films that have affected Turan the most, and for the best. The result is a joyously hopscotch catalogue of cinema, everything from John Sayles to John Frankhenheimer, highbrow to lowbrow (though not surprisingly, indie critical faves are overrepresented), but since the pieces are uniformly positive, a numb feeling soon sets in. And since the reviews are not long enough to really get into the meat of a film, Turan is forced to present his views rather plainly, with laudatory adjectives paraded one after another to the point of sounding like a press release ("Prepare to be astonished by 'Spirited Away' "). Blame it on the format, but that still doesn't make this a compelling read. Agent: David Halpern/Lucas, Alexander & Whitley

Kirkus Reviews