I ragazzi degli anni '50

This movie is very entertaining and should be mentioned in the same context as movies such as Porky's, Fast times at Ridgemont High, and American Pie. While it lacks the perversion of those films, it makes up with a dynamite cast and a very good storyline. Its got its memorable and embarrassing moments. The party scene and the birthday candle for Shank are my favorites. If you enjoy good old fashioned high school flicks check it out.

I remember the first time I saw this movie. I was about 12 or 13, starting high school soon. I was absolutely amazed with it; the story, the actors and of course,the set. As an avid fan of the 50's and the 60's in America, immediately i fell in love with the film. The cars, the music the way of life... unfortunately the only way i could experience something like that was through films(since born in late 80s,far away from the US),and this film did an awesome job in doing that. I was so thrilled with "The book of love" that I wanted to see it again the very next day,but the problem was i didn't catch the first few minutes of the film, and someone threw the papers with the TV guide from that day, so i didn't know the title...Internet wasn't that big at the time,and it's not a well known movie so hope was lost. For months later, i'd check the TV guides to see if there was any sign of it,but since i didn't know the title,I'd read the plots of any movie I'd think it could be the one, I didn't have any luck,obviously. And then, few years ago, I remembered the film...without recollecting any of the actors names, I started to google. I googled and googled and I remembered the actor who plays an adult John Twiller,Michael Mckean, and i started googling him. Finally I found it... "The book of love". Honestly, I didn't want to watch it again,although i was eager after all these years, after more then a decade. Why? As the title says, different perspectives. I knew i would see it with different eyes now. Something i once considered a masterpiece (12 year old kid,LOL) could turn up to be a complete rubbish. A film I was looking for so long, a film which once made me even more jealous about the teens from the 50's and 60's, a film which made me daydream even more about those beautiful times. What if it disappoints me now? Almost twice the age? Well, a year later I finally saw it again...Is it a masterpiece? No,far from it, but will you enjoy it? Absolutely yes if you are nostalgic for those beautiful times, I know i did. Maybe not as much as the first time,but I am sure this wasn't the last time I opened "The book of love"...

Book of Love is one of my favorite comedies: the cast is very good, and the performance of the actors is surprisingly fine for a film of that kind. It would have deserved more fortune than it had because it's far better than other acclaimed movies such as "American Pie" or "There's something about Mary".

The Book of Love is yet another addition to the cinematic tradition of the desperate teen virgin, a genre prevalent throughout most 80s teen comedies. However, this was only a mildly funny film that exaggerates the desperate attempt of four 1950s suburban teen friends to lose their virginity, complete with the typical wild imagination of the boys who still have to fill in the gaps of the largely unexplored territory of females, complete with parallels to comic book superheroes and buff movie stars, but it serves better as a nostalgia trip for those obscure films with your favorite 80s teen stars (most notably Chris Young, Keith Coogan, and Danny Nucci). It promises a few laughs but, unless you are one of the few that have immortalized it as a cult classic, you'll probably only wind up watching it once.

Here is a well worn scenario, I as the viewer, view the movie first and

then read the book thereafter. Cynics would cast judgement by saying that the movie could never hold a candle to the written source or vice versa is almost common place in today's transworld transference of book's into movie's.

For myself, i had always been a fan of this nostalgia genre, whereby characters hark back to the past so as to rekindle that something they think is missing. Movies like "Back To The Future" "Mischief" and "Stand By Me" with the exception of the first named the last two were good old fashioned trips down memory lane.

Based on the book "Jack In The Box" by the author William Kotzwinkle, who also wrote the script, The movie is a veritable cavalcade of what was best and somewhat naughty about being a teenager living in the 1950's, and who better to adapt the source novel than that of the original scribe himself, who one gets a sneaky suspicion the lead character is based.

Now the curious thing about this whole production is that looking at it now, compared to then, this movie represents a who's who, who went onto what in the genre field. Firstly the company behind the movie and the director Robert Shaye, produced (i make no apologies for missing out the obvious) the classic "Alone In The Dark" and "Xtro". The Scripter surprisingly penned the story/script for "Nightmare On Elm Street 4" (Theory installed here was a two picture deal, scribble a story for Freddy and then we'll translate the novel).

As for the cast Chris Young turned up in "Runestone" "Warlock 2" Danny Nucci appeared in "The Rock" and some other overblown Simpson/Bruckheimer productions. Finally John Cameron Mitchell transformed his offbroadway musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" into a really offbeat movie experience.

In the novel there exists only one main character, that of Jack Twiller, an extreme dreamer from another age, everything he went through in the book was by turns funny and very graphic, but what the author did, was split the character of Jack into two character's giving Jack in the movie a younger brother named Peanut, who discovers like Jack did in the novel all things sexual.

Regardless of what those jaded persons out there unknown might think of this movie and others like it, you just can't beat, it represents an age we children of another time (myself being a seventies child) never new. A great soundtrack, well rounded characters, outlandish scenes of major pornography allbeit of a PG13 nature pushing the envelope of an R rating.

To this day "Book Of Love" is a movie that i cherish dearly, discover it and discover yourself, set aside that critic and appreciate a movie where everything works.

A resounding 10 out of 10