Never Coming to a Theater Near You: A Celebration of a Certain Kind of Movie

I'm not sure I consider myself a film buff. Friends often ask me to recommend a film or DVD, claiming I see "everything" which is hardly the case. Some even call me a film buff but I believe I've never earned the title. Friends of mine who can name any actor/actress/director in films well known and obscure, as well as release dates, studios, and quote Pauline Kael the way some people quote scripture or Shakespeare are in my estimation film buffs. I'm only a dabbler in comparison. Yet when I purchased NEVER COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU, I realized how many wonderful films I have seen and became even more appreciative that I live in a major metropolitan area that still has a few good small theatres and a theatre that shows great independent films. NEVER COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU will be enjoyed by anyone who is an enthusiast for film and anyone who wants to watch great films that were critically acclaimed and loved by audiences, albeit smaller audiences than the blockbusters. Most are easily available on DVD/video. The book is a collection of film reviews by Kenneth Turan, a critic for both NPR and THE LOS ANGELES TIMES. Turan does not use the book to lambaste the state of Hollywood or criticize the quality of the most popular films released today. Instead, he gives readers the opportunity to read reviews of films that are of good quality but may have been overlooked when they were released. Most of the films included are contemporary independent and foreign films. Turan focuses on these films rather than the better known releases believing that reviews of these films, including reviews penned by Turan himself, are readily available. Most of the films he reviews in the book were released during his tenure as a critic though he does include a section on classics that were panned by critics but in time were deemed brilliant. He also includes some writings about miscellaneous film topics such as Yiddish films, films released by Hollywood before the code, and Chinese martial arts films (I haven't acquired a taste fro these as of yet). This is a book I wished had been penned about ten years earlier, when I began building my video and now DVD collection. It will be a great guide for anyone interested in film or who is beginning to develop an interest in film or for anyone who loves a good story and enjoys being pleasantly surprised when discovering a worthy film in a video store.

This is a book that highlights movies that we, as a society, desperately need. They cover a wide range of emotions, topics, times and places and yet they all have one thing in common - they make us think. I could have added a few myself (Memento, Contact, Facing Southwest, etc) but the listed movies are enought to keep even the most avid fan busy. Divided into four parts.types - English language, Foreign language, documentaries and Classics, each is interesting not only in its own right but how it relates to the culture from which it sprung. Thus, VERTIGO, originally panned and dismissed, has emerged in the running as one of the greatest movies of all time. Some of the descriptions are artistic statements in themselves - I am thinking of the almost poetic notes on Glenn Gould's 32 Variations or the Decalogue's Polish origins & interpretation. The author is quite catholic in his tastes, eschewing well-worn political or religious labels. THis is a good book, an important one and deserves a wider audience.

I live sort of in the sticks--nothing plays at the local theaters except the big blockbusters. So this books serves as a great resource to all the movies I missed: independent films, foreign films, and (my personal favorite) documentaries. After reading this book, I now have many more movies to add to my Netflix queue. I have already seen quite a few of the films Turan reviews in this book, and I enjoyed them all, so I feel I can trust the other reviews in this book. The "retorespectives" section at the end of the book is also valuable, and will serve as a good introduction for me to several genres and oevres. I do have one complaint about the book, in that it is already a couple of years out of date. I hope Turan comes out with an updated edition soon.

What a wonderful idea for a book! Kenneth Turan has brought together 150 reviews representing the top 5% of the films he sees as film critic for the Los Angeles Times. The result is a collection of movie reviews for (a) little-known and under-sung films that are (b) for grownup audiences instead of teenagers and (c) available on VHS and DVD. Altogether there are reviews of movies from 39 countries, most of them released over the last dozen or so years, half of them English-language films. The other half are foreign language and documentaries. Turan also includes reviews of 12 classic movies and nine short essays on subjects ranging from Chinese martial arts to pre-code Hollywood films. There are no blockbusters here and very few films you're likely to have seen on HBO. They are instead the movies made with a nod to the inner adult - original, entertaining and wise, while touching on real emotions. While I'd seen most of the English-language films Turan includes, and said "yes!" to each choice (like "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries" and "Uncle Vanya on 42nd Street"), it was the foreign films and documentaries I knew far less about. And with a short list quickly picked from those sections, I went straight to Vidiots in Santa Monica, which had all of them. Starting with two French comedies, "The Dinner Game" and "Un Air de Famille," we were greatly entertained on a lazy Thanksgiving afternoon. Turan has his sensibilities and his film sense all finely tuned. You can trust him to pick the good ones. And you can wonder at the other 95% of not-so-great fare he had to wade through to get to these gems.

The kind of movies that Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan is talking about in this fine collection of his reviews are those that are "sophisticated, mature, [and] always entertaining." (p. xiv) His point in the title about such films "never coming to a theater near you" is a good one since most of the films reviewed here had either a short life on the large screen or went directly to video and DVD. (The exceptions are classics like The Third Man (1949), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), and others which were produced before the advent of video and DVD.) The reason, as every veteran film viewer knows, is that most movies shown in theaters today are aimed at a relatively young and unsophisticated mass audience, an audience that demands (producers believe) the sort of film that most of us have grown out of. Turan's book is in five parts, English Language Films, Foreign Language Films, Documentaries, Classics, and Retrospectives. Characteristic English language films are, Election (1999), Heavenly Creatures (1994), Manny and Lo (1996), Proof (1991), 12 Monkeys (1995), to name some that I have seen and reviewed myself, and 66 more. Some foreign language films are, Autumn Tale (1998), Un Coeur en Hiver (1992), The Dreamlife of Angels (1998), Red (Trois Couleurs: Rouge) (1994), and 39 others. There are 20 documentaries including, Black Harvest (1994), Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control (1997), The Saltmen of Tibet (1998), etc. The classics include Das Boot (1981), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Vertigo (1958), and nine others. What the selections in this eclectic assemblage have in common is that they are all very much worth seeing--at least the ones that I have seen. Indeed several of them--Un Coeur en Hiver, Red, Das Boot, A Streetcar Named Desire, etc.--are among the best movies I have ever seen. Turan's reviews are mostly appreciations (which is not surprising since these are his favorite films) written in a clear, informative style infused with the sort of background information and historical perspective that only an expert on film can provide. Reading this volume is a film education in itself and a pleasure. And for most people I think the value of the book is consistent with Turan's intent: that is, to point to films that the serious film-goer may have missed and to demonstrate why those films are very much worth seeing. The "Retrospectives" are essays inspired by "a specific film event" centered around individual film makers like Anthony Mann or the largely forgotten Frank Borzage, and others; or they are about genres or movements in cinema that Turan wanted to learn more about such as the Yiddish film or the Chinese martial arts film. There is an essay on "Pre-Code Hollywood." Bottom line: if you are like me and have to screen three or four films (i.e., actually rent them or buy them) to find one worth watching, then this book is a godsend. Turan knows quality in film and he tells you why the film is worth watching,