Product Description
From the same brain trust that brought you The Rock Snob*s Dictionary, the hilarious, bestselling guide to insiderist rock arcana, comes The Film Snob*s Dictionary, an informative and subversively funny A-to-Z reference guide to all that is held sacred by Film Snobs, those perverse creatures of the repertory cinema. No longer must you suffer silently as some clerk in a “Tod Browning’s Freaks” T-shirt bombards you with baffling allusions to “wire-fu” pictures, “Todd-AO process,” and “Sam Raimi.” By helping to close the knowledge gap between average moviegoers and incorrigible Snobs, the dictionary lets you in on hidden gems that film geeks have been hoarding (such as Douglas Sirk and Guy Maddin movies) while exposing the trash that Snobs inexplicably laud (e.g., most chop-socky films and Mexican wrestling pictures). Delightfully illustrated and handily organized in alphabetical order for quick reference, The Film Snob*s Dictionary is your fail-safe companion in the video store, the cineplex, or wherever insufferable Film Snobs congregate.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 10 reviews)

Fun reading, great present for coming holidays by Nikica Gilic (Zagreb, Croatia)

5 Stars
November 16, 2008
If you like classical cinema, get this funny and intelligent book... Theoretical definitions are hillarious (Apparatus), biographical entries are clever and sometimes brilliant, the view of "film culture" very insightful (film circles with 19-year olds who have already seen every film, fans with penile defficiencies who like violent films...). This is a good present for the coming holidays if you have a film buff for a friend or relative (AND it's not expensive...).

Quick and Entertaining Read on How to Become a Patronizing Elitist Bore About Cinema by Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA)

4 Stars
February 11, 2008
This compact book is quite amusing for anyone who wants to fancy oneself a cinema aficionado. It takes a certain obsessive nature to collect the inconsequential facts and nurture the exclusionary opinions necessary to be a genuine Film Snob, and Vanity Fair writer David Kamp (author of The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation), along with fellow culture maven Lawrence Levi, do a nifty job within the eminently readable format of a 114-page glossary. They show off a particular gift for smarmy but funny and observant blurbs, for example, in their brief description of 1950's actress-turned-director Ida Lupino, they summarize, "A rare female godhead for the generally estrophobic Snob community". The Criterion Collection is aptly described as an "achingly tasteful video-reissue company that...has found success by recycling old movies as lavish, extras-laden packages for deep-pocketed connoisseurs." The co-authors also provide guidance on how best to convey the patronizing tone essential to fortify your standing as a Film Snob, for instance, you can explain to your less cinematically evolved friends that "deep focus" is the "fetishized cinematographic technique that enables all the action in a shot, from the foreground to the deep background, to remain sharply focused. Hou Hsiao-Hsien's graceful use of deep focus recalls the work of Yasujiro Ozu, non?" The book opens with a brief introduction as to what makes for a Film Snob, the most stellar example being Quentin Tarantino, who went from geeky video-store clerk to world-renowned filmmaker due to his passion for such details, and most importantly, what separates them from the non-Snobs who worship at the altar of Fellini and Bergman, neither of whom show up as entries in this book. Make no mistake that this is not a ringer for the nearly 1,000-page resource film historian David Thomson has spent most of his career gathering, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, nor anything Halliwell's has produced over the years. This is just fun stuff with special feature pages included such as "A Guide to Snob Nomenclature ("Marty", never "Martin" Scorsese), the Snob Cheat Sheet for Confusing Similarities (Howard Hawks vs. Henry Hathaway, Britt Ekland vs. Elke Sommer), and Ten Lost Masterpieces (including Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole, which subsequent to the book's publishing, has finally become available on DVD...on the Criterion Collection!). It's a quick read in order to impress your friends...or at least alienate them.

stuck in a self satisfied snicker by HK

1 Stars
December 19, 2006
Let's stop the snob right here. ENOUGH. I just want to enjoy art without all the pretense of being a so-called insider. The authors are nobodies. They want to be belong to some exclusive club they are not part of. The authors don't appreciate film, they merely compile meaningless trivia, and we are suppossed to feel honored to be part of their insipid pursuit. Sadly, it is compulisvely readable, but I had a dirty hollow feeling afterward. Porn for geeks.

Unlikely to appear on the Book Snob*s list of great sequels by Jonathan Green (Los Angeles, CA USA)

2 Stars
May 06, 2006
While the Rock Snob book was both an interesting encyclopedia and a witty critique of a sub-culture, this just seems like the employees' manual from a slightly above-average video store. It doesn't seem to get the cineastes, the gorehounds, or the fan-boys in it's scope. It just seems a MEDITATION ON the slightly off-beat with a nod toward the classic. It's probably this year's gift of choice for people you don't want to drop $30 on a Criterion DVD for. But they won't find it amusing.

The funniest book of the year. by R. Handel (Brooklyn, NY USA)

5 Stars
April 30, 2006
It's funny 'cause it's true. Tom Servo owns two copies in case one gets lost. If you were born before 1970, I need only say, This Was Written By Two Guys From Spy Magazine. What are you waiting for? Also includes helpful tips on matters such as distinguishing Sydney Pollack from Sidney Lumet, which used to be a problem for me, but no more!

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