A real eye opener: "Un Chien Andalou."
“Leonard Maltin’s 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen” (new in paperback from Harper Studio) all but ignores the films of the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s that are close to his heart. Most of the underappreciated gems Los Angeles’ celebrated movie maven focuses on in this volume were made in the past two decades. I’ve seen about 20 of his 151 picks, and some are languishing on my 400+ Netflix queue; most I’ve never even heard of and I wager you haven’t either—but that’s precisely the point. Maltin’s highly readable discussions will entice you to check out many of these unjustly overlooked flicks.
Next we have Aussie movie buff Michael Adams. Highbrow he ain’t; in fact, he thrives on drek. “Showgirls, Teen Wolves and Astro Zombies: A Film Critic’s Year-Long Quest to Find the Worst Movie Ever Made” (in paperback from itbooks) is an entertaining read. It’s one man’s personal journey through celluloid hell—from blockbuster turkeys to classic shlock, from IMDb’s Bottom 100 to the winners of the Razzies—while pondering just what makes a truly bad movie.
It remains one of the most provocative images in the history of cinema: a razor slashing through an eyeball. Henry Miller called the 17-minute film “a gob of spit in the face of art.” Elza Adamowicz’s “Un Chien Andalou” (one of a series of French Film Guides in paperback from I. B. Tauris) lucidly examines the same-named 1929 Surrealist masterpiece by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali in the social and cultural contexts of its era.
Barbara Kosta’s “Willing Seduction: ‘The Blue Angel,’ Marlene Dietrich and Mass Culture” (in hardcover from Berghahn Books) offers a new interpretive framework for another classic of the early sound period, the 1930 Josef von Sternberg film that made Dietrich a star and an enduring cultural icon.
Another hardcover volume in Berghahn’s Film Europa: German Cinema series, “Bela Balazs: Early Film Theory,” rescues a renowned literary figure from near oblivion. Balazs, a Hungarian Jewish film theorist-screenwriter-director, was forced into exile for Communist activity after 1919; two essays are included here in their first full English translation.
Hot tip: “The Bad Arm,” Maire Clerkin’s comic memoir of her misspent youth as an Irish dancer, is for me one of the unexpected highlights of the Hollywood Fringe Festival. It plays again June 25 and 27.
More from Jordan:
LA Conservancy revives classic ‘Peter Pan,’ Houdini silent escapes on DVD
First Hollywood Fringe Festival to celebrate arts and creativity
Kino’s American Film Theatre set preserves great plays on DVD
‘American Slapstick’ DVD sets rescue silent clowns from obscurity
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