Best Pick

Reviews / Votes

Drawing from their award-winning podcast, actor and writer Dorney, actor and audio artist Jessica Regan, and Tom Salinsky take readers on a warm and witty trip through motion picture history, weaving in the story of the Academy Awards. Decade by decade, they explore the Oscars, who won them and why, and what happened backstage. Each chapter begins with lists of the decade's best pictures and its biggest earners, and the contrasts between the two are striking. The authors examine film trends and technical innovations in moviemaking and provide brief reviews the winners of the Best Picture award thus far, as well as immensely entertaining discussions that attempt to answer the question, "Did the Academy get it right?" (Midnight Cowboy is dubbed "a deeply affecting and confidently made film"; the authors critique the racism of The Green Book and its use of the white savior trope.) Rounding it out is an extensive bibliography. Neither dry academic treatise nor gushing fanzine, this is an informative and entertaining book for anyone who adores movies, written by three people who love them and are adept at expressing their views. A treat for movie fans: Two thumbs up! * Library Journal * Best Pick is a casual read that takes the business of Oscar-winning seriously. The three authors successfully harness their podcast chemistry for edifying debate and discussion over the Academy's top picks. -- Frederick Gooding Jr. Best Pick is the book for the awards show obsessive in your life-not only does it provide the cold hard Oscar facts we all need for our next movie trivia night, but it provides essential, incisive cultural and cinematic context to understand the history of the Academy Awards and the films and filmmakers awarded throughout the last century. -- Kate Hagen, producer, The Black List Witty, irreverent, and packed with fabulous detail, John Dorney, Jessica Regan, and Tom Salinsky's freewheeling Oscar appreciation peels back the tinsel to find the grain and texture behind 92 years of Academy history. Best Pick marries expert analysis with the red-blooded passion of natural-born cineastes and cuts through the hype to show the annual Academy Awards for what they are: a crap-shoot, a fashion parade, a random snapshot of a single moment in time that, more by luck than design, sometimes catches the right film in the frame. Smart, funny, and beautifully argued, Best Pick shows us that the Oscars have never been the best and definitive word on anything, although this book may be the best and definitive word on them. -- Xan Brooks, award-winning writer and broadcaster