Liz Knox
Synopses
Vancouver, Canada: Self-published, 2013 
[115 pp.], 21 x 14 x 1 cm., softcover
Signed and numbered edition of 50
 
Scenarios for fifty-five films are laid out, one to a page. At times they sound like they could be read by the voice-over artist in a particularly ambiguous trailer:
 
One kiss. A duel. Two men with bandages on their heads. 
 
Others read like descriptions for comedic shorts:
 
A woman loses her robe. A man teases her. 
 
In fact, the films are classic Hollywood features. The above two are Michael Powell's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. Others include Guys and Dolls, Torn Curtains, How To Steal a Million and Dr Strangelove.
 
The descriptions are like found poems, lifted directly from user-generated content advisories posted to the Internet Movie Database. Idiosyncratically reductive, the texts reveal contemporary North American taboos:  nudity, sex, violence, smoking and drinking.