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| [Photo Credit: Jorge Royan] |
If you hadn't ever listened to Mark Kermode's radio reviews, you would be able to predict the tone of his latest book by its subtitle: 'what's wrong with modern movies?'. The magic of the man is that what might simply be a Grumpy Old Man rant (and it certainly is that) manages to remain wonderfully entertaining.
Kermode (or 'The Good Doctor', as he is often called on his Radio 5Live show) ostensibly turns his attention to a different topic in each chapter: multiplex cinemas, the role of the critic, the British film industry, 3D movies, and so on. In actual fact this only provides a sliver of fixed ground from which he can roam freely, spinning off anecdotes and name-dropping movies, directors and actors at a quite mind-boggling rate. Suffice to say in chapter one, which purports to be a story about a trip to a multiplex to watch a Zac Efron movie (we like Zac Efron, we do not like multiplexes), it takes 28 pages of diversionary activity (and, to be fair, descriptions of queuing) before we even make it to the cinema screen.
