The 100 Greatest American Films: A Quiz Book

Those are the words I would use to describe this little gem of a book. I received this as a birthday gift (along with a DVD of the Criterion Edition Seven Samurai, I might add). At first, I just kind of went, 'Oh, a quiz book.' Boy, was I wrong. I had a blast reading this. More than anything, the book is informative. I had fun answering the questions I knew ('What is Rosebud?' Duh.), but the ones I didn't know turned out to be a treasure-trove of information on these movies. Really, really fun book. Two thumbs up!

Despite the fact that I don't fully approve of the american film institute's choices for the 100 greatest american films, I am a huge fan of a great deal of these films: sunset boulevard, taxi driver, the wizard of oz, gone with the wind, citizen kane, et al. As a film buff and amateur film historian, I felt I knew a great deal about these projects and their histories. Yet, to my amazement, Mr. Raush's book consistently brought new facts to light. While I'm not really much of a fan of quiz books, I liked this book immensely. In fact, the title is kind of misleading since its really more of film history book than anything else. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it an able companion to Roger Ebert's The Great Films book. I would heartily recommend either of these books to anyone interested in movies and movie makers.