A review by balletbookworm
My Year of Flops: The A.V. Club Presents One Man's Journey Deep Into the Heart of Cinematic Failure by Nathan Rabin

4.0

I liked Rabin's "My Year of Flops" column for the AV Club so I was really happy to see that his book - also titled My Year of Flops - contains extra book-only reviews and a few interviews as well. I especially enjoyed the interview with Roberto Benigni about Pinocchio, a movie I've had the misfortune of seeing (I saw the subtitled original Italian, not the dubbed-in-English-by-Breckin-Meyer one, so I'm sure it was better than the theatrical dubbed release but it was still creepy with a 50-year-old Italian man-child playing a bratty wooden puppet). Some of the movies are, yes, bad movies that result from spectacularly poor judgement on the part of directors/stars/studios/writers/producers (like The Conqueror, The Scarlet Letter, and Exit to Eden not to mention Waterworld) but some of the movies Rabin reviews are secretly quite enjoyable (The Rocketeer is one, and I'm surprised that it was considered a flop because my little brothers watched it all the time). Rabin has a great writing style and I really hope he writes more (I loved his memoir, The Big Rewind).