101 Movies to Watch Before You Die, by Ricardo Cavolo

There are plenty of books and lists of great movies out there, but Ricardo Cavolo's 101 Movies to Watch Before You Die is unique and particularly enjoyable.  Cavolo is not a professional movie critic or film maker.  He's a guy who loves movies.  101 Movies is a sort of diary of movies he loves.  "The only thing you'll find here is me genuinely loving every single one of these movies.  This is a love story told in 101 installments."

And love these movies he does.  Each review consists of one page of text and one page of his movie poster style cartoonish illustration of the movie.  The illustrations are rather odd.  He uses bright, stark coloration, reminiscent of Mexican folk art.  And, strangely, all the people have multiple pairs of eyes.  This is apparently characteristic of all of Cavolo's work, but it's weird and not explained. 

Cavolo writes less about the particular merits of the film itself than about how the film affected him.  Sometimes it seems like hyperbole, e.g.: “Watching Pulp Fiction in the cinema has to be one of the greatest moments of my life. . . . Without a doubt it’s one of the most important movies of my life.”  But mostly he just talks about how much he loves the movie or how he saw it at just the right moment of his life.

Some of the films are consensus greatest movies that show up on list after list of greatest movies.  Some are more obscure.  Many are mainstream, very popular movies.  The author was born in the second half of the 20th century, so the titles lean heavily toward the late 20th century to the present.  I must be close in age and personality to Cavolo; his tastes ring true with my own.  He does like mafia movies much more than I do, and he loves a few movies that I hated. 

And that's what's fun about this book.  Above all else, it's fun to read about another movie lover's love of movies.  I was reminded of movies I love, and reminded why I love them.  Cavolo also inspired me to revisit some movies I've seen before and to check out some movies I've never seen.

Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!