cover image Now Showing: Unforgettable Moments from the Movies [With DVD]

Now Showing: Unforgettable Moments from the Movies [With DVD]

Joe Garner. Andrews McMeel Publishing, $29.95 (160pp) ISBN 978-0-7407-3836-4

Multimedia book expert Garner (Stay Tuned; And the Crowd Goes Wild; We Interrupt This Broadcast, etc.) turns his eye from TV and radio to film in his latest""best of"" compilation. Garner admits up front that certain studios prohibited him from using films for this book, so his list of the silver screen's 25""unforgettable moments"" is necessarily limited. Nonetheless, it's a fine assemblage of memorable movies. Beginning with 1939's The Wizard of Oz and ending with 2001 and 2002's Lord of the Rings movies, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, Garner shares a few film stills and discusses the cast, crew and filming specifics. For example, in the chapter on Field of Dreams, Garner details the difficulty of finding the right location for shooting and in Some Like It Hot he explains that Tony Curtis's famous, mid-seduction leg lift was designed to avoid the ire of Hollywood censors. Though hardly comprehensive, this is still a fun look at American cinema's evolution, complete with a DVD featuring commentary from Dustin Hoffman.