How to Go to the Movies - Softcover

Crisp, Quentin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 031229994X ISBN 13: 9780312299941

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2003

Synopsis

Since moving to New York City over a decade ago, Quentin Crisp has brought his love of the cinema and his notorious wit together in a series of essays on films and film stars. A veteran film-goer of seventy years who has kept a vigilant eye on changing Hollywood styles and the public tastes that follow, Mr. Crisp discusses both films and stars with his typical panache and dexterity and leads his readers with polite madness to a clear, straightforward moral, proving himself to be an unexpected champion of good sense. Along the way Mr. Crisp shares his personal encounters with the likes of Lillian Gish, John Hurt, David Hockney, Divine, Sting, and Geraldine Page. Prefaced by longer essays on the essence of stardom, the nature of Hollywood, and the deplorable state of that town today, Mr. Crisp's book is a delight to read.

About this title

About the Author:

Quentin Crisp is the author of How to Go to the Movies, among other books.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this collection of film reviews from Christopher Street magazine, Crisp ( The Naked Civil Servant ) declares that "the way to go to movies is incessantly . . . reverently . . . critically," yet he follows only two of his dicta. His almost compulsive movie-going is the basis for highly entertaining reviews that reveal a shameless appreciation for stars--the bigger the name, the better--as well as a fairly simplistic critical approach. But what sets Crisp's work apart from most film reviews is humor ( My Dinner with Andre is "as boring as being alive"); his eye for style (actor Richard Gere looks like Errol Flynn "with the edges beveled"); and a store of off-the-wall remarks ("Mr. Proust was a weirdo"). Unfortunately, the repetition of certain pet peeves (especially the evils of television) underscores a lack of judicious editing, and Crisp's star-worship reveals a fairly reactionary view of the sexes, as in his lamentation that women's liberation "was the final nail hammered into the coffin of stardom."
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 031229994X
• ISBN 13: 9780312299941
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240