[Thomson] knows pretty well everything there is to know about the art of cinema - though he might question that it is an art - and writes about it with passion, elegance and wit.

... characteristically idiosyncratic.

It is highly personal, unapologetically opinionated, intermittently whimsical, charmingly idiosyncratic and above all deeply impassioned. It reads, at times, like a love letter to the art that has moved Thomson most. Or a eulogy dedicated to a tradition, and indeed a world, he fears may be on the verge of disappearing.

Like much of Thompson’s work, it is a chatty book, written in a breezy style, filled with opinions but short on argument and analysis.

Thomson identifies as a curmudgeon, and his conversational tone is both authoritative and perplexing.

Besides his analysis, Mr. Thomson’s great strength is the literary equivalent of the sound bite.

... provocative and engagingly eccentric.

Much of this material appears in greater detail in other, better books, including some of Thomson’s own works.

... scattershot.