Best Summed Up: The Ultimate Film Limerick Quiz Book

Cannata debuts with an amusing collection of limericks he wrote, initially, as a joke meant to “irritate my co-hosts” on movie reviews podcast The Filmcast, but which over time became a tentpole of the show. At the end of each episode, Cannata delivers a limerick that sums up the hosts’ feelings about the film under discussion. The 234 limericks, spanning the show’s reviews of new movies from 2018 through 2024, plus 20 bonus limericks for older and classic films, can get a chuckle out of even a non-fan of the show, with their often (intentionally) groan-inducing wordplay (on Ferrari: “In trying to make the best car, he / Treats everyone bad, he’s not sorry”). But it’s a bit confusing that the book has been presented and organized as a quiz book—the reader is meant to guess the movie under review. This conceit feels clearly tacked-on at times; one limerick ending “This boy and his weird little heron” obviously refers to The Boy and the Heron, and even a true cinephile may struggle to remember Velvet Buzzsaw five years after watching it. However, that also gives the book a rather intriguing time-capsule effect, provoking reflection on cinema’s swirling eddies and flows during a six-year period when the art form was widely considered to be struggling. This silly and sweet memento of the show will tickle cinephiles. (Apr.)