David Kamp With Lawrence Levi
This slim -- and very droll -- expansion of a guide that originally appeared in Vanity Fair pokes gentle fun at those obsessives given to rhapsodizing about the joys of laserdisc over DVD (better resolution on the former, purists sniff) and renting from GreenCine instead of "intolerably mainstream" Netflix.
Tongue-in-cheek tome also contains a snob's cheat sheet for confusing similarities (Sidney Lumet vs. Sydney Pollack, Josef von Sternberg vs. Erich von Stroheim) and entries on everything from grindhouse movies to aspect ratio. Guide also explains the importance of film figures from Hal Ashby to '70s schlock star Mary Waronov. Don't look for entries on Federico Fellini or Ingmar Bergman, however. The true film snob, the authors explain, "prides himself on his populist, un-arty taste."
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Date in print: Mon., Mar. 20, 2006