Movies (And Other Things)

By: Shea Serrano

Narrated by: Mario Toscano

Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's Summary

Number one New York Times best-selling author Shea Serrano is back, and his new book, Movies (And Other Things), combines the fury of a John Wick shootout, the sly brilliance of Regina George holding court at a cafeteria table, and the sheer power of a Denzel monologue, all into one. 

Movies (And Other Things) is a book about, quite frankly, movies (and other things).

One of the chapters, for example, answers which race Kevin Costner was able to white savior the best, because did you know that he white saviors Mexicans in McFarland, USA, and white saviors Native Americans in Dances with Wolves, and white saviors Black people in Black or White, and white saviors the Cleveland Browns in Draft Day? 

Another of the chapters, for a second example, answers what other high school movie characters would be in Regina George's circle of friends if we opened up the Mean Girls universe to include other movies (Johnny Lawrence is temporarily in, Claire from The Breakfast Club is in, Ferris Bueller is out, Isis from Bring It On is out...). Another of the chapters, for a third example, creates a special version of the Academy Awards specifically for rom-coms, the most underrated movie genre of all. And another of the chapters, for a final example, is actually a triple chapter that serves as an NBA-style draft of the very best and most memorable moments in gangster movies. 

Many, many things happen in Movies (And Other Things), some of which funny, others of which are sad, a few of which are insightful, and all of which are handled with the type of care and dedication to the smallest details and pockets of pop culture that only a book by Shea Serrano can provide.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Shea Serrano and Arturo Torres (P)2019 Hachette Audio

...nah...

it's just like ready player one in that it's not actually that good, but just some dude trying reeeally hard to get his Nerd-Cred Badge. and he's not even that nerdy. he just praises all the biggest budget action movies if the past 30 years or so, no matter how good they were. he tries to be witty/charming/funny... but doesn't really succeed in any except maybe a tad of the second... also very much like that ready player one book. if you liked that book, you might enjoy this, but otherwise, don't bother. pretty lame.

This is epic...and Hilarious!

Who knew Tom Hardy would be the *Spoiler Alert* “Toughest Guy to own a Dog”? These questions are awesome. I definitely have some alternative opinions (I.e. My Girl would have been better if Dan Ackroyd, not Macaulay Culkin, would have been replaced by the Rock - he plays a great dad) but I’m so glad I’m not the only one who asks these questions! And yes, the Raptors are misunderstood 🥰

Podcast in book form

Enjoyable enough, it’s like a movie podcast in the form of a book. Not surprising that the author is also a pro podcaster. He’s got an interesting perspective but not one that is too much different from your average populist movie fan, so don’t expect surprises Narrator is flat and a bit squeaky, they should have had the author do it.

Shea did it again!!!!

Five stars all around! Shea writing is a amazing and can hook anyone with just a few words!

Full of spoilers! Beware!

If you haven’t seen every single old and new movie mentioned in this audiobook you won’t need to by the end. He goes over all the top moments and surprises! He also gets certain details wrong which is strange given the amount of detail in this book. He goes on a long discussion about someone’s daughter in a movie when it was actual their sister. This is very subjective and personalized and self- indulgent. Not what you think it will be. I’m a huge movie fan and did not enjoy this at all.

not quite as good as it gets

overall an entertaining book, however there were some skippable chapters in it which is unlike his basketball book. still very enjoyable.

Disappointing

Not what I expected.

I went in expecting some interesting analysis on movies from varying genres (with hopefully some witty comments sprinkled in).

Instead I received unrealistic interpretations of different mivie scenarios along with extremely poor comparisons based on illogical points of view.

Clunky writing, annoying narration

I really struggled to finish this which is a shame because on the face of it the book was right down my street. There are a few main problems with the book. Firstly, the author sets out clear rules and parameters for his chapters and lists and then breaks them every time undermining the point of writing the chapter in the first place. Second, this feels like a book written by someone who loves films but really loves basketball and as such there are far too many basketball analogies that flew over my head. Thirdly, the author argued that Love Actually deserved an Oscar nomination and seems to suggest that Armageddon is a great film, at points like this I totally switched off. Fourth, the narrator has a completely irritating voice which is made worse by the final issue; the writing is at times lazy and really annoying. The author does this weird thing where he lists like 18 things in quick succession and starts every single point with the same sentence opener. It happens again and again, bored me to tears and made me question if the author was fumbling around trying to hit a minimum word count. All in all there were about 5 chapters I enjoyed and 25 I slogged through.