This is a genuinely hilarious book that had me cackling repeatedly. I listened to the audiobook, which is worth it alone for hearing Lindy West do the Forrest Gump voices, but is extra charming because it becomes a kind of rifftrax/MST3K by proxy for most of the movies she works her way through. I don’t know if you have to watch all the movies in this book for this book to be as funny as it was for me, but I was fortunate that she somehow only picked movies I’d seen before. Most of these are not wholly beloved films, and Lindy West clearly loves all of them a little (or a lot) except maybe American Pie and The Notebook.
Probably the best part of this book for me is that it’s written in a kind of mock “discourse” language that pervades online chatter. It’s not really talked about a lot, but it’s not until American Pie that West breaks kayfabe to actually analyze the toxicness of that movie. But it’s a refreshing break of both the horror of the world and the horror of the internet (where things must always be made less fun not through mocking but through thinking!) I think all the time, and I don’t get to laugh enough. The level of discourse in the book is mostly at the level of reacting strongly to something and barrelling through it in satisfactory ways. An example from Face/Off “….Danny Masterson (yikes!)…” West is under no illusion about the problematicness of pretty much any of these movies, but like an actual person, still wants to enjoy things.
One big thing that she misses is in her breakdown of The Rock. Why would Sean Connery’s character need to learn the precise timing of the rolling fire thingy in the basement if there’s just a door that opens freely on the prison-side of it???
(Photo: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998099-shit-actually)
