Richard Crouse

Introduction: Hello and welcome to the Great Books Tent at Word on the Street… I thought I’d start by telling you a bit about why we’re all here today…

In addition to having just written The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen for ECW Press, I also host a movie review show called Reel to Real… it’s Canada’s longest running show about movies, and each year my co-hosts (Geoff Pevere and Katrina Onstad) review 200 plus movies, which means that I spend most of my time alone, and in the dark… and then, when I emerge into the light, I have to come up with — hopefully — clever things to say about them, which is harder sometimes than you would think…

I find the top 10% of movies and the bottom 10% the easiest to discuss… in other words the best and the worst are easy to review, but it is the middle 80% of mediocre films that are really, really hard to discuss… so when I was choosing the movies in the book I dismissed about 80% of the movies I have ever seen… much like most of the movies that were released this summer… so many  sequels, it seemed like every movie that came out this summer had a number in the title… Charlie’s Angel’s 2… Legally Blonde 2… Bad Boys 2… Jeeper’s Creepers 2… there was a lot of number two at the theatres this year, if you know what I mean… anyway, I ruled out sequels from the book…

It seems that we are surrounded by bad movies… so to remedy that we go to the video store to find alternatives and generally all we find are more bad movies! Stats say that most people spend about 12 minutes in the video store when searching for something to rent, and never even make it past the new releases rack… so where do you think the chain stores put most of their energy???

So, keeping this in mind, and considering my job as a film critic, although I prefer “consumer advocate”… the Ralph Nader of cinephiles… I decided to put this book together, to help people choose good movies to rent… but keep in mind you must choose your video store very carefully!!! If everyone in the store is wearing the same colour t-shirt — a uniform — you’re probably in the wrong place… The corporate stores aren’t likely to embrace the movies contained within…

Look for the mom and pop shows and stores run by people who try and engage you in some kind of conversation… IE: When you try and rent Pearl Harbour… if the video store clerk doesn’t look at with a disappointed look on his or her face and then try and steer you toward maybe picking up Tora! Tora! Tora! instead then you are in the wrong store… anyway…

There are other reasons I wrote this book, and one of them is detailed in the introduction to the book…