Projections: The Director's Cut edited by John Boorman and Walter Donohue.

Projections is an annually produced film journal, a 'forum for filmmakers' full of shop talk from film industry insiders. A-list insiders at that; it's a very starry publication. Don't know about it? Then catch up with this volume which neatly collects the best of the 14 year run. Not convinced? Well, the contents page speaks for itself: Clint Eastwood on his favourite directors, or Martin Scorsese on his favourite actor (De Niro, of course), or Jodie Foster, Tony Curtis and Jimmy Stewart on film acting. This book is subtitled 'the director's cut' because the director of Projections is an actual film director, John Boorman, best known for helming Point Blank. Boorman's choices seem to be based on the content of the pieces rather than who wrote them, and so there are informative, and indeed engrossing, articles by the best people in lesser-known fields. The prime example of this is Walter Murch's piece on the far from promising subject of sound design, which somehow becomes absolutely riveting. Most of the pieces here have a relaxed style to them, as if the contributors were given time to open up about their specialist subjects. As a result, the love they have for these subjects really shows through. Ray Harryhausen and Nick Park's shared enthusiasm for stop-motion animation is bizarrely engrossing, but the overwhelmingly fascinating article is Robert Towne interviewed about his script for Chinatown – it's possibly the best screenwriting seminar ever. Obviously much of this depends on having seen a lot of celluloid, but there's plenty here that will appeal to punters and cineastes alike. [Keir Hind]