About this Event
Join film critics Tim Robey and Ellen E. Jones to discuss Tim's new book "Box Office Poison"
'An instant classic . . . funny, sharp, entertaining.' ANDREW O'HAGAN, author of Caledonian Road
A riotous and revealing story of Hollywood's most spectacular flops.
'Failure fascinates, for all the reasons that success is a drag . . .'
From grand follies to misunderstood masterpieces, disastrous sequels to catastrophic literary adaptations, Tim Robey's hugely entertaining Box Office Poison tells an alternative history of Hollywood, through a century of its most notable flops.
Freaks, Land of the Pharaohs, Dune, Speed 2, Catwoman, Cats: what can these films tell us about the Hollywood system, the public's appetite - or lack of it - and the circumstances that saw such box office disasters actually made? Away from the canon, here is the definitive take on these ill-fated, but essential celluloid failures.
Tim Robey was born in Hertfordshire in 1978 and educated at Beechwood Park School, Oundle and Oxford University, where he read classics. Since 2000 he has reviewed films, written features and conducted interviews for the Daily Telegraph's arts pages.
He appears regularly on Radio 4's Front Row and Monocle FM Radio, contributed to R4's now-defunct Film Programme, and appeared as a sofa guest on BBC Film 2015-2017. He gave Cats zero stars, but has now seen it four times. His favourite film is Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998). He lives in East London.
Ellen E. Jones is a journalist and broadcaster. She is the co-host of Screenshot, the BBC's flagship film and TV programme, the host of the Barbican's ScreenTalks podcast and writes regularly on film and television for the Guardian and Empire magazine. She was formerly TV critic at the Independent, a current affairs columnist at the Evening Standard, i Paper and Independent on Sunday and the resident critic for BBC One's Film 2017 and Film 2016. Her writing has been published in a wide variety of other outlets, including NME, The Times, Sunday Times, Radio Times and National Geographic.
Screen Deep is a book about the immense potential of screen storytelling to defeat an evil both historic and urgently topical: racism. Everyone watches TV and movies. Everyone has an interest in building a more just and equitable world. Screen Deep goes beyond the many film books and anti-racist manuals by demonstrating the connection between these two aspects of modern life.
In Screen Deep Ellen E. Jones combines her personal experience as a mixed-race woman who cares about racism with her professional expertise as a film and TV journalist of twenty years standing, to ask - and answer - several questions: Is there such a thing as an Indigenous western? Is race comedy 'cancelled'? Where are all the films for white people? And most importantly: Can you still fight the good fight with a mouthful of popcorn?
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Wanstead Tap Ltd, 352 Winchelsea Road, London, United Kingdom
GBP 9.38
