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Rating: 
Summary: Here we are now, entertain us
Review: Alternately playful and earnest, erudite and silly, these are delightful essays and perfect vacation reading. Most of the authors use this as an opportunity for some sort of memoir, some are deft at film criticism, some spend too much time laboriously recounting a plot, but the vast majority of the pieces are astutely observed, unpretentious, and immediately likeable.
Rating: 
Summary: 26 writers + 26 movies = 1 great book
Review: Reading Writers at the Movies is nearly as engrossing as seeing the movies that are the subjects of the book's 26 essays. Of course, that's probably to be expected when writers such as Susan Sontag and the infamous Salman Rushdie offer their takes on movie classics.The typical take on movie criticism is that anybody can be a critic, since everyone has an opinion. But when a writer who can appreciate the craft of character creation gets ahold of a movie (or should I say, vice versa), it can quickly illustrate the difference between an artist and a hack for hire. Rick Bass's critique of Buffalo '66--a movie that, as he confessed in his essay, I had no desire to see because of its gimmicky subject matter--vividly illustrates what I call The Pauline Kael Theorem: The feeling that, even if you don't agree with a review from a given critic, you're still thrilled to read his or her take on it. There's a wide variety of movies covered, too. The expected classics are here, such as The Wizard of Oz (Rushdie's take on it is, you should pardon the expression, one for the books) and The Godfather. But the book also covers some underrated gems (such as Frederick Wiseman's documentary Titicut Follies) and some critical howlers (Titanic) that will make you either look at old favorites in a new way or make you run out the video store in search of an unseen gem. This book should be required reading in courses on movies, criticism, or just plain old writing.
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