BOOK REVIEW: The Grip Of Film by Richard Ayoade

Shane | 26 April 2018 | Reply

BOOK REVIEW: The Grip Of Film by Richard Ayoade
Faber
October 2017
Paperback, $29.99
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar

Comedy

8.5 /10

There are only two kinds of readers – those who will appreciate funny-without-trying-man Richard Ayoade’s dry-as-a-cracker delivery of this tongue in cheek A-Z of film making, delivered under the guise of Gordy LaSure, a man who holds the pinnacle of filmic achievement to be Road House, Time Cop and Porky’s, rather than such boring disasters as Citizen Kane… and those who will hate it for the same reasons the first group love it.

It’s hilariously inappropriate, as the foul mouthed, oft-married, dubiously moraled LaSure pontificates the rights and wrongs of film making as he sees it – and you can bet it is not going to appeal to everyone.

Those familiar with Ayoade’s delivery in The I.T. Crowd will have some inkling what to expect, whether it’s as LaSure, or in his own comic annotations to LaSure’s text. Either way, it’s good fun, absolutely not intended to be taken seriously, unlike that classic dramedy Porky’s!