A thought experiment given form

Authentic back-cover blurb

Since April 1997, Christian Sauvé has been posting capsule reviews on www.christian-sauve.com about every single film he’s seen.  The 2019 Movie Guide is a cut-and-paste reprint of those capsule reviews up to February 2019 – regrettably unfiltered, unabashed, unprofessional, uncut and unabridged.

It features hot takes on 4,300 movies informed by idiosyncratic personal preferences, no formal film education, blatant crushes on some actresses, a merciless hatred of slasher horror films and undying devotion to the Fast and Furious series.

It’s great to pick a Saturday evening movie, or for hitting people over the head with more than twenty years’ worth of film opinions.

Thick in all senses of the word

It’s as big as a phone book for a reason: 22 years of work, 4,300 reviews, 1.1 million words, 666 pages (no, really) for C$40 — shipping and taxes included.

Density in form and content: simplistic reviews crammed in 8-point type. (Click on the picture to zoom… or don’t)

So stylish, inside and out

Slap-dash minimalist cover

Simple but effective interior typography.

Exceptional riffling potential

The mark of quality: An actual inner title page

The debut title of a new imprint

The first title from Sciurus Libris, the only authoritative source for Christian Sauvé egomania in paper form. (Oh, OK: It just seemed weird to have L’écureuil pressé on an English-language book)

Not available for sale

You can’t buy it — it’s a proof of concept.  Christmas is coming up, but even begging won’t help. (Oh, all right: Later editions may be made available.)

What’s that about later editions?

Thanks to my backlog, I only have entries up to February 2019.  Guess what I’ve been doing during the pandemic lockdown?  That’s right — watching movies.  Expect roughly 4,500 more entries by the time I catch up to September 2021. lulu.com has an 800-page limit.  I may end up with two volumes.

The dirty, dirty technical details

WordPress post entries -> XML export -> Excel XSLT data manipulation -> HTML text + Lulu.com US Letter template -> Word styling + PowerPoint cover design -> PDF proofs -> lulu.com printing and shipping (6 days)

The process is so automated and there’s so much content that I have no recollection of what’s printed on most pages — I just spot-checked a few entries.

So what?

It’s a really cool object. ’nuff said.