Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business by David Mamet

Mamet's non-fiction book on the movie business is one big piece of sheer cynicism – and intellectual superiority. Be prepared. A true cinema buff like myself, I was humbled by the vast amount of names and movies I have missed entirely or haven't seen at best. And many things I didn't know – well, I don't know some of them still.

The book is smart, but it ain't an easy ride. When you have every line as a punch line, I tend to miss a few punches. Like some say, your brain is a muscle, and here you are forced to train it.

The most interesting part – the section on Genre. You can read all the Cinema Scope, Sight & Sound, Искусство Кино, etc etc – but this bit is obligatory reading for all the movie zombies like me. You could've skipped War and Piece at school (like I did, miraculously), but you mustn't miss this.

If the shark makes us say “ooh”, it has earned our few dollars. If the filmmaker can make us say “ooh” of a shot of the empty water, give him his private plane.

The observed rule in Hollywood is: “Feel free to treat everyone like scum, for if the desire something from you, they'll just have to put up with it, and should they rise to wealth and power, any past civility shown towards them will either be forgotten or remembered as some aberrant and contemptible display of weakness.”