Ebert's "Bigger" Little Movie Glossary

If you work as a filmmaker or in television, whether as a hobby, your profession or your obssession, YOU NEED THIS BOOK. Screenwriters for both film and TV especially need this, since it deals largely with storytelling cliches, but it also lists visual ones in cinematography, in angles, in casting and in general mise-en-scene that it is absolutely crucial for the director to avoid. This book will make you a better filmmaker just on virtue of being aware of what's been done to death.It's also useful across the board. While it usually rips into the more standardized genres (like slasher flicks or action movies), it also chainsaws such common cliches as "The Pet Homosexual" ("he can talk endlessly about sex, provided he never has any himself", most recent offender: "The Next Best Thing" and "Will and Grace"), "Baked Potato People" (the gentle lunatics in the asylum that show the outside world is crazy; most recent offender: "K-PAX"), and more subtle ones like the Fat Guy rule; if a group of men are planning an escape, the fat one usually can't be trusted.This is a very funny book, but it's also very true, and if we made everybody currently making movies sit down and read the damn thing, we'd have better movies, or at least different cliches. Fun for the armchair film freak, but absolutely crucial for the filmmaker.

You will really appreciate this book after you've read through it two or three times. After that, you'll find yourself watching a movie and yelling out, "fruit cart!" or "antiques of death!" thereby cracking yourself up, and irritating those around you who haven't been blessed with this book. :) The best thing to do is this: buy it, make your friends buy it, and spend some time reading your favorites out loud to each other. Then the more movies you watch, the more cliches you'll start spotting, and even bad movies will be more entertaining.

These items are things that are true, but you wouldn't necessarily think about unless they were in front of your face. I would recommend it to any movie fan.

This is a very amusing book of film cliches, some which will make you smile wryly, others make you laugh out loud. Robert Ebert is my favourite film critic, which is why I bought this book and I found it to be a worthwhile buy. I keep it by my bed to dip into when I can't sleep and it always makes me smile. Would also make an ideal present for a film buff ...

this book is one of the funniest things I've run into, and every director (and most writers) should keep a copy handy to help them avoid being too predictable.