Film Freak
Christopher Fowler
It’s the late 1970s and 20-something Christopher Fowler is a film freak, obsessively watching lousy films in run-down fleapit cinemas. He longs to be a famous screenwriter and put his dreams on the big screen. And so he heads for Wardour Street, Britain’s equivalent of Hollywood.
But he’s made a spectacular mistake, arriving just as the nation’s filmmakers are falling to their knees, brought low by the arrival of video and the destruction of the old movie palaces. The only films being made are smutty low budget farces and TV spinoffs and instead of being asked to write another
'Bullitt’, he's churning out short films advertising boilers and nylon sheets. Somehow, against the odds, he finds success – although in a very different guise to the one he expected.
From the sticky Axminster of the local cinema to the red carpet at Cannes, Film Freak is a grimly hilarious and acutely observed trawl through the arse-end of the British film industry that turns into an ultimately affecting search for friendship and happiness.
Product Details
About Christopher Fowler
Reviews for Film Freak
Daily Telegraph
A master storyteller, he slips deftly from fiction to fact: I've rarely read a better analysis of the movie business...This is a beautifully written and often hilarious book.
Sunday Express
a natural autobiographer, charming, funny, perceptive and mercifully free of the usual egomaniacal windbaggery.... I was so smitten with this book that I read it through from cover to cover in one sitting. At times, I found myself laughing loudly and lengthily. Above all, though, I was moved.
John Preston
Daily Mail
An homage to pre-digital cinema, an elegy for a vanishing London of almost half a century ago and a tribute to friendship, gonzo-style. Two thumbs up for this triple-billing.
FINANCIAL TIMES
He's written a roomful of books, including the Bryant & May series of crimers, but his memoirs are just as much fun... Hugely entertaining this.
Sunday Sport