Amazon.co.uk: Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler: Celluloid Tirades and Escapades: Joe Queenan: Books

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America's Cynic Laureate does it again, 4 Nov 2000

By A Customer

While not as good as the outstanding "If Your Talking To Me Your Career Must Be In Trouble", Joe Queenan has once more produced a book of side-splitting hilarity. Some might find his tirades against the entertainment industry and its alummni tasteless and offensive, but they would have to agree it is done with style and applomb. I can think of no other writer who could come up with the "Blarney-o-metre", a device for measuring the Irish-Cliche content of any given movie. He also spends time cataloguing damage doled out to ears, male genitalia and faces of various movie stars, concluding that to be a STAR means being fairly well mushed up during the early stages of your career. Queenan does not confine his wit to the perpertrators of the modern movie business, but likes to involve the audience. He details his stint as the "Bad Movie Angel", whereupon he gave out refunds to anyone unfortunate to sit through G.I. Jane or Texas Chain-Saw Massacre IV, inevitably giving up when he realised he was not appreciated and that anyone willing to sit through Gone Fishin' in the middle of the day was just asking for it. He also puts himself through the wringer for his loyal fans, plunging into the freezing Atlantic to see if Leonardo Di Caprio could really last that long at the end of Titanic, trying to learn Portuguese in 20 minutes a la John Travolta in Phenomenon or carrering down 2 flights of stairs the way Mel managed to in Conspiracy Theory. No-one is safe from Queenan's eye, fans of "If you're talking to me...." will be delighted to know that his love affair with Streisand continues, he trashes nuns, dentists, foreign movies, canibal movies, Spike Lee, models and bad hair. If nothing else, one has to admire a man willing to sit through the entire output (almost) of Merchant and Ivory. Dedication to duty rarely comes this full-on. A gem.

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More of the same from Joe Queenan..., 1 Feb 2005

By	J. E. Davidson (UK) - See all my reviews

...but very funny for all that. If you are familiar with Joe Queenan's articles/essays (he is frequently published in the Saturday Guardian) then you will know what to expect. If you are unfamiliar with his work then you need to be prepared for probably the nastiest film critic in the business.

As usual he skewers a wide range of targets with reckless abandon - some come in for the full treatment while others are merely impaled on withering asides (or gratuitous side-swipes as the cover calls them).

This is an irreverent book full of bile, invective and cynicism but it is very funny.

This book is essentially a selection his work from Movieline covering some reviews (e.g. a Mirror has Two Faces), some interviews (Spike Lee) and a larger number of articles typically featuring his "practical" film criticism.

Practical film criticism involves going out onto the street (or into the cinema) and testing your theories. This includes:
- The continuation of his "Don't try this at home" series where he attempts to replicate famous scenes from movies and demonstrates that by and large they are not a great idea (particularly the hot wax from Body of Evidence).
- Heckling in cinemas to try to get a reaction other than 'Shhh!' (there are also great heckles if you want to recreate the experiment: "Potato chips can't drown out subtitles" at a Mexican film; "Eat Vincent Spano first!" during Alive)
- Interviewing cinema-goers to find out if anybody knows or cares who the director is.
- Attempting to watch all the films of Merchant/Ivory without lapsing into a catatonic state and avoiding self-harm.
- Bad Movie Angel - where he gives people back their money after they have sat through terrible films.

There is also a good dose of the more standard vitriol. Entertaining targets include Faux Irishness; Barbra Streisland (boy, does he not like her!); Spike Lee (doesn't much like him although he does like his films); Dentists; Kidnappers; hair dos; models who attempt to act; genital mayhem and many others.

It is a little dated - the films referred to are now more than a couple of years old - but it is hilarious (if you can tolerate the bile and almost complete lack of respect for everything and everybody).

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