The Blurb On The Back:

The geek shall inherit the earth …

Movie Geek is a nerdy dive into popular movies, brought to you by the award-losing Den of Geek website.  Discover hidden stories behind movies you love (and, er, don’t love so much), and find out just why the most dangerous place to be is in a Tom Hanks film.

Fascinating, surprisingly and hugely entertaining, this left field movie guide is gold for film buffs, and might just bring out the geek – hidden or otherwise – within you …

You can order The Den Of Geek Guide To The Movieverse: Movie Geek by Simon Brew, Ryan Lambie and Louisa Mellor from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

The Review (Cut For Spoilers):

Simon Brew is the founder and former editor-in-chief of the Den of Geek website while Ryan Lambie is deputy editor and Louisa Mellor is the television editor.  This is an entertaining collection of articles and movie trivia structured around the life span of a film that covers a range of genres.  I’d have liked more foreign and old movies to be covered but the writers clearly love the medium and you’re guaranteed to learn something interesting.

I picked up this book because I like to dip into the Den of Geek website from time to time.  I’m a genre fan and I find it’s a good resource for news and reviews about SF, fantasy and horror (although they also cover other genres too) and I appreciate the reviews, which I find to be honest without being unnecessarily cruel and knowledgeable without being elitist.  If you haven’t visited it before, I’d recommend it.

Following an introduction by film critic Mark Kermode, the book is structured around the life span and format of a film, from development and pre-production through production, post production, watching films and credits.  Format wise, the sections are divided between longer form pieces that address a particular subject, such as how Alien: Resurrection led to the Ice Age movies or films that fell apart mid-production, and compilation sections that contain short summaries about a number of films to illustrate a particular theme or point (e.g. the things that action heroes get up to on their days off, movie villains who kill their incompetent henchmen, and brilliant opening credit sequences in movies). 

There are lots of fascinating nuggets in the book, my favourite being the section that discusses the timeline of a movie by looking at how The Hunger Games adaptation came into being.  The book covers a wide range of genres, but Star Wars does feature quite heavily.  I would have liked it if there’d been more foreign cinema covered within the book (although I understand there’s only a limited amount of space) and I also wished that older films had featured more but the writers’ love of the medium really does come through and while there were stories and facts here that I was familiar with, there was plenty more that was new to me.  It’s also the type of book that you can dip into as and when you want or read from cover to cover as you prefer and not lose anything by doing so.

If you’re a hard core movie nerd, then you might find this book a bit too basic, but if you’re a regular at your local multiplex (or, at least, you were before the pandemic!) and always check out the new movie releases on TV, then I think you’ll find this book a lot of fun and get a lot from it. </lj-cut>

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.