I wanted really badly to like this book, but…it didn’t work out that way.   Parish, the author, is, I think, extremely knowledgeable about film history, and I think I would enjoy talking with him about these movies — Cleopatra, Cutthroat Island — that went so horribly awry, but the book is not nearly interesting enough given the subject.   First of all, he is absolutely head over heels in love with the word “costly,” and uses it literally on every page.   Second of all, very few people read a book like this to place the flop in the context of film history; we read it to get the dirt on the production.   Parish spends a lot of time giving background on producers, distributors, where distributors were born, what had been happening in the studio system up to that point, blah blah blah, I don’t care.   I don’t care what Elie Samaha’s parents did for a living; I want to hear behind-the-scenes dirt.   I want to read several paragraphs about Terl and Ker’s makeup in Battlefield Earth and what the hell they were thinking.   I want actual recreations of Liz Taylor meltdowns.   I want insults directed at Elizabeth Berkley’s “acting.”   I want a kick-line of eyewitnesses to talk about what a douche Kevin Costner was on the set of Waterworld.   The much-dryer presentation in this book suggests that Parish couldn’t get that kind of commentary, and while it’s not a bad book by any means, it’s just not really what I’d hoped for.   (3/26/06)

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