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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 791.4375 EAN: 9780306815669 ISBN: 0306815664 Label: Da Capo Press Manufacturer: Da Capo Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 256 Publication Date: October 06, 2008 Publisher: Da Capo Press Studio: Da Capo Press Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: Successor to the "A and X Lists" - this time the National Society of Film Critics picks its favourite genre movies, low-budget beauties, and cult classics. Once the B movie was the Hollywood stepchild, the underbelly of the double feature, the scrambling lab rat of cinematic innovation; 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'.This is precisely where "The B List" takes a stand. Taste, at least in the sense of decency, decorum, and propriety, is subjective, transitory, and evolving. With that in mind, this book throws caution to the proverbial wind, zooming in on movies that demand attention despite their lowly births, squalid upbringings, and dubious character traits. What admirable qualities the pictures have - and they have such qualities galore - are cheerfully irrelevant to the properties that define Oscar movies, although some of our selections are, in fact, Oscar movies. The essence and importance of the films in "The B List" lie precisely in their being offbeat, unpredictable, and decidedly idiosyncratic. And that's why we love them. Average Rating:
 Rating: - Hollywood's Step-ChildrenB-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 ... Read More Rating: - Misleading Title for a Hodgepodge of Essays on (Mostly) Cult ClassicsIt 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] ... Read More Rating:  - Great little bookThe reviews are brief but wow did they do a great job picking the films to be in this collection. Being an editor for the Film Noir of the Week blog I was interested in the film noir and neo-noir films in the book and they don't disappoint. Some excellent writers here. An excellent addition to my film book collection. Rating: - In Praise of Low-Budget BeautiesSequelitis struck books long before it began to strike movies, but books about movies seem particularly prone to follow-ups; a condition, perhaps, of cinema's perpetual status as a work in progress. (Never mind digital video, when do we get the holographic porn?) A few years ago, the National Society of Film Critics compiled THE A LIST (Da Capo, 2002), a collection of rah-rah essays in praise of "100 essential films." By way of answering the question, "what does it mean to call a film 'essential'?", ... Read More 
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