"Fiasco"

Fiasco: A History of Hollywood's Iconic Flops (James Parish)

A lightweight examination that follows Hollywood's history by tracing the flops, this book starts with Cleopatra up through (fairly modern) bombs like Battlefield Earth. Parish always keeps the book moving, so you never go too in-depth on any of the movies, but I like how you get a sense of the buisness changing as you go from movie to movie. Parish steers clear of movies that already have extensive post-mortems, so there's no Heaven's Gate or Bonfire of the Vanities on here; Instead, this is a nice, breezy starting place if you're interested in this genre (or want to see if you're interested in this genre, I guess).

Grade: B+