Reel Adventures

Susan Patrick is a librarian at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Lekich has been a journalist and film reviewer for more than 18 years
and has interviewed a number of notable stars. This volume is his
personal guide to more than 250 films that will take teens “to a place
you’ve always wanted to go. You just don’t know it yet.” Not all
of them are strictly teen movies. The selection covers a broad range of
time and genres. There are no real criteria stated for inclusion: we are
told only that these are films that the author finds memorable and that
he was striving for variety. Thus one finds screwball comedies from the
1930s, the Marx Brothers, and Woody Allen, and such teen classics as
Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause from the 1950s, along with
more recent coming-of-age, horror, comedy, and “thought-provoking”
films.

The book is organized by genre, and Lekich provides brief credits, a
plot summary, a memorable moment, and the message for each film. His
comments are rather breezy and lighthearted and the memorable moments
well chosen (e.g., the gargoyle scene in Roman Holiday). For some films,
he includes “check this out” references to similarly themed movies,
or ones with the same director or actor. Sidebars throughout the book
highlight interesting tidbits about particular films or actors. Lekich
can be a bit simplistic. Can, or should, every movie really be summed up
with a one-sentence “message” such as “it’s not always easy to
do the right thing”?

His intention nonetheless seems to be to share his genuine love of
movies, and to introduce teens to some quality films, particularly some
of the earlier ones that they might not otherwise know about. In this he
succeeds admirably. Reel Adventures is the perfect companion for a teen
to take to the video store.