I've just finished Peter Biskind's wonderfully horrifying Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.

In the meantime I'm going to read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo before I watch the film, but I'd love to read another film book after this.

Any pointers? I'm open-minded and pretty much up for anything at all.

I can highly recommend:

"Seventy Light Years" by Freddie Young

"The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film" by Michael Ondaatje

"Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists" by Steven Bach

"The Horror People" by John Brosnan

"An Animated Life" by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton

"The Aurum Film Encylopedia: Horror" and "The Aurum Film Encylopedia: Science Fiction"

Fantastic, thanks very much.

Seventy Light Years looks like it'll be the one to go for first for me.

Is there not a follow up to Easy Riders Raging Bulls? I read one that had a similar cover that went on about the Weinsteins. That was OK.

'Big Bosoms and Square Jaws' Russ Meyer book.

'Cronenberg on Cronenberg'. Goes up to 'Crash'. Fantastic book.

'The making of Star Wars'. Massive silver covered coffeetable book but also available in stripped down paperback. Obviously indespensible to fans but great nonetheless. Apparently rubbish stuff they had in prequels like the 'midi'chlorians' were being thought about before the original trilogy. ESB is getting the same treatment this year. Cannot wait. Even though it is the best of the saga (OK thats not saying much when we have the likes of the prequel trilogy to compare it to) the amount of material on its making has always seemed a bit wanting to me.

'Lynch on Lynch'. Wonderful insights into his films.

'Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, and Oliver Reed (Hardcover)' Robert Sellers. Incredibly entertaining book about the exploits of the 4 mentioned actors packed full of the kind of anecdotes you would imagine.

'The best scif fi films never made.' Bit outdated now as some of the films have been made (and even some were made before this book came out). Details the Jodorowsky Dune in some detail.

I think the follow up was Gods & Monsters - I'll get round to it, but wanted something different ie. non-Hollywood really - kind of underwhelmed and shocked out how incredibly egotistical the likes of Schrader, Lucas, Friedkin and Bogdanovich were - complete and utter arseholes.

Read the Cronenberg on Cronenberg and Lynch on Lynch - insightful and fascinating indeed. Loved the Herzog on Herzog too.

Read Hellraisers a few months ago. Really enjoyable and headache inducing when one realises just how much booze they consumed - they don't make 'em like that anymore.

I'll hunt down the Russ Meyer book and The Best Sci-Fi films never made - always fascinated by Jodorowsky's vision of Dune.
I watched a great doc. about the artist Moebius a while back, and it was pretty heavy on Dune - great interviews with Jodorowsky, O' Bannon, Geiger and El Topo himself.
Incidentally Empire had a big feature on it last year with some of Chris Foss's concept art - WOW.

Thanks for the tips.

No problem. Put "The Conversations" next on your list after that; it and the documentary film "The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Film Editing" have substantially enriched my viewing experiences.

I read that empire article. It was good but I don't think it had much that the book didn't have and was mostly based on a fan site (I think) which I looked up afterwards.

I met Chris Foss once as he used to live near me. Didn't really know how influential he was so kicking myself I didn't quiz him on his career.

Duly noted. Money pending of course.

Woah, what a shame. Opportunity missed

If memory serves he showed me some photos of a model he had made out of the carcass of a crab which he had sprayed silver. Did you know he did the drawings for the Joy of Sex books?

**I ordered the hardcover book today after seeing it here.

I wanted Harryhausen's An Animated Life but the f**king thing isnt available direct frm amazon where i usually order.

I got that Harryhausen book from the library. Very good. The guy's determination was extraordinary. For some reason his faith in the tortuously long winded stop motion technique reminds me of the invention of real time record mixing. Was it Grandmaster Flash? I don't know but the story I heard of someone locking themselves away for a year to try and master this new technique they had dreamt up required pretty amazing intuition that it would be worth it in the end.

The SW making of is incredible. The extra stuff about the script development and the stuff Lucas gave to people to extrapolate on into the comics after SW was a success shows how consistant his vision was. Midi chlorians are in there somewhere. Jambe Davdar's series on youtube is as brilliant a fan made 'making of' as I think we can expect.

The Empire Strikes Back version of the big making of format is out soon. Can't wait. Of all the films its the least well served by the making of treatment and the most deserving of it as after SW it could have been taken in a few directions and so ESB set the tone for the rest of the films, for better and worse!

Got the Mark Kermode book from library. Didn't like it.

I thought it was pretty amusing, but I have a very high tolerance for him.

One of my mate's threw it across his room in disgust and another took his copy back to the shop and got a refund!

I have respect for the guy but his podcast style is a bit too rambling and unfocused. The book was too chummy. Didn't click with me. His championing of The Devils I greatly appreciate. I saw it when it was broadcast in the late 80s/early 90s and I thought it was incredible.

His blogs are better than his podcasts I reckon as they average about 4 mins.

It feels a little like him and Mayo have let all the Sony awards go to their heads, but saying that they do get some interesting guests of late such as: Eddie Marsen, Philip Ridley, Ian Hart and one pissed off Russell Crowe