VideoHound's Independent Film Guide

The only video guide devoted exclusively to movies made outside the Hollywood studio system. Here are reviews of 1,000 films, many of which have moved out of the art houses and into mainstream theaters. The book brims with attitude and humor, trivia, 50 intriguing sidebars of information, and approximately 100 photos.

VideoHound's Independent Film Guide is exclusively for lovers of independent cinema, movies made outside the Hollywood mainstream. If you're a fan of epics such as Burnt by the Sun and The English Patient, obscure black-and-white classics such as Dead of Night and He Ran All the Way, foreign oddities such as Matador and The Lair of the White Worm, or contemporary cult favorites such as Crash and Fargo, you'll find much to treasure here and some good tips on what to see next.

Most movie guides are group efforts, but this book was composed by a single author. Monica Sullivan's prose is as free spirited and idiosyncratic as the films she reviews. In reading the volume you'll become well enough acquainted with the author's enthusiasm for the cinema and her personal likes and dislikes to measure your own tastes by them. Digressive, idiosyncratic, but nevertheless rewarding, VideoHound's Independent Film Guide is as much a movie reference as it is an autobiography, the chronicle of one reviewer's personal engagement with some of the most extraordinary films ever made. The guide opens with an introduction by indie actress Mare Winningham and concludes with indices of actors, directors, and alternate titles for the films reviewed as well as a list of indie film Web sites, a guide to movie distributors, and the specialty of the VideoHound house: a quirky category index that classifies the films in the book under traditional headings such as "Action Adventure," "Comedy," and "Foreign," and also under a variety of atypical headings, including "Showbiz Dramas," "Female Bonding," and "Religion"--even "Killer Bugs"!