Movies In Fifteen Minutes: The Ten Biggest Movies Ever For People Who Can't Be Bothered

by Cleolinda Jones

These movies would take nearly two days to watch end to end. And that's with no toilet breaks. And all you'd get to eat and drink would be giant buckets of coke and popcorn, and six inches of horrible pink gunk extruded on a bun. And your left hand will keep wandering down to that tacky gobbet of someone else's chewing gum under your seat. You know it will.

Even if you saw one a week it would take three months: you'd miss all those trips down the pub and your friends would stop speaking to you and you'd be in danger of turning into Jonathan Ross. And no one wants that.

Or perhaps you could watch them at home on DVD and never be able to get up out of your sofa ever again. Even when the pizza arrives.

But then Hollywood Blockbusters are a guilty pleasure you'd really not want to be without. Never fear. Help is at hand. Well, in your hand actually. Ten of the biggest movies of the last thirty years. Condensed. Made (intentionally) funny. Made (intentionally) very funny. Simple really.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Short Stories, Media Tie In, Comedy, Film, Pop Culture

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 20, 2005

Reviews

[Nataliya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t believe I found this book. I thought I lost it in one of my many moves in the last decade! It’s still just as funny as I remembered it to be.

———
Just because you love a movie does not mean you are not allowed to make fun of it. Some movies are just asking for it. Right? Well, Cleolinda Jones seems to think so. This book was worth killing a few trees to get it printed.



This is how I feel about this book. It was insta-love, love from the first page. It was meant to be. It made me smile and it made me cry (granted, it was from laughter). It understands my (occasionally baffling) sense of humor.

The screenplay-format movie parodies that eventually became Movies in Fifteen Minutes (M15M) first appeared on Cleolinda's LiveJournal (also of brilliant Twilight parodies fame). This book is the result of her well-deserved internet fame. Cleolinda Jones is effortlessly funny and extremely quotable (just ask anyone who has been around me when I was reading this book!). She writes her parodies with wit, affectionate snark, a healthy dose of irreverence, and with countless recurrent jokes that never fall flat. This book is a clear example of how you can love a movie and still laugh at it. And if you like these, you can head over to Cleo's Movies in Fifteen Minutes LJ and find quite a few more there (not the same ones that are in this book though).

Among the movies that get "Cleo treatment" in this book are JURASSIC PARK ("When a T-rex saves your ass, don't ask questions"), TITANIC (based on a true story, where nothing is actually real "but the china is exactly replicated"), HARRY POTTER AND THE Philosopher's Sorcerer's PHILOSOPHER'S STONE, and ATTACK OF THE CLONES (featuring "The Traditional Crawl from the Department of Back Story").

Here are some examples of her writing, so you can decide whether this book is your cup of tea:

TITANIC:

Faux Newsreel Footage
Did you know this movie is based on a true story? It totally, totally is! Well, except for Jack and Rose. And Rose's mother. And Rose's evil fiancé. And all of the lower-class people they meet. And the fictionalized versions of real people they interact with. But the china is exactly replicated.
--------------------
HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE:

HARRY: Why did my hands burn Quirrell?
DUMBLEDORE: Your mother's love lives in your skin, Harry.
HARRY: But... then why did he have no problem strangling my bare neck?
DUMBLEDORE: I think it's time for you to rest, Harry.
HARRY: Did my mother love my neck less, or something?
--------------------
AN UNFORTUNATE STAR WARS PREQUEL, WHATEVER IT WAS CALLED:

PADMÉ: There, there. Everyone commits a little mass murder now and then. It's what makes us human.

----------------------
This book is a great read for when you need a bit of laugh - if you, like me, enjoy internet-style parodies. 5 stars without much hesitation.

[Cleolinda]

Since I wrote it, it hardly seems fair to review it.

[Ashley]

I own this and somehow it never got added to GR. I would have to read it again before I rated. I haven't read it since I bought it back in 2005, but I definitely thought it was hilarious back then.

[Goth Gone Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

My sense of humor has an incredible, unashamed weak point for parody. I happened upon the website start of this series and had to get the book. While it's tongue in cheek marketed as a time saving way to take in all ten movies, the parodies are funnier if you know the films.

With secondary characters like vengeful dolphins, owls of irony, and Scottish jailbait Oliver Woods, these are written in a fast paced script format, full of sarcasm. References to other movies, current events from the time of creation, and pop culture abound. Idiosyncrasies are gleefully pointed out, and some of the lines beg to be used often in everyday conversation.

Snape: I hate all of you. But particularly you, Potter.
Draco: *perks up*
Snape (to Draco): Perhaps I hate you a little less.

Love it, this will always be in my library.

[trishtrash · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE READER: Is late to the party

CLEOLINDA JONES: Is funny like a fox

THE READER: Will stop this at once because it’s obvious and annoying

It’s been a long, long time since I told myself ‘hey, I really must get a copy of M15M so that I can read the first Harry Potter film parody and whatallever else she’s got hidden away for paying eyes only *mutter*. Then the book sort of fell off my reading radar. Okay, I don’t have one of those. I forgot. But when I remembered again I was right on it. And, even though it had waited around for a long time for me to get to it, it was still eye-scrinchingly funny. So, let this be a lesson to you; if you’ve forgotten to buy this book, GET ON IT.

[disclosure: for some odd reason, these things come across as very slightly more hilarious online. Maybe it’s the screencaps and links, maybe it’s the 600+ commenting fans all leaving ‘BWAHAHAHA’ messages, making it a sort of communal movie-lovers love-in, but I find it helps to hum like a gently overheating CPU while reading].

[disclosure the second: despite the sub-title ‘for people who can’t be bothered’, these things are also very slightly more hilarious if you’ve seen the films. Even once, ages ago. So you might want to check the index and weigh your ratio of seen/unseen blockbusters. Or not].

[Stephanie A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is HILARIOUS. I was/am a huge fan of the original blog and movie parodies in general, and it never gets old. There's nothing quite like suddenly having the content of 13 different webpages conveniently packaged together in a manner you did not have to collect, print out and/or sew together yourself.

They're all fantastic, but if I had to pick a favorite...well, I'd still have a tough time picking between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, or maybe even Titanic. Nearly infinite reread value here.

If I may share just a small sample from Titanic I happen to have lying around:
Lovejoy gets up, punches Jack in the gut, pockets the key to the handcuffs, and leaves.
Jack: Man, are you just the most ironically named guy in the history of ever, or what?

(Also, I bet you didn't know evil dolphins were involved in this story.)

Go forth and enjoy. The best part is that you can still read various parodies online for free to see if you like the style first.

[Lois · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should be required to read this book. It is hilarious, even if you haven't seen the movies, and ten times more so if you have. I adore every page.

Movies in Fifteen Minutes lives by my bedside, and it helps cheer me up if I've had a rough day, or if I just want a good laugh. I liked the ones posted online so much that I bought a copy from a bookstore in England (and let me tell you, the shipping to Alaska wasn't cheap). I have never regretted it for a second.

One last thing-- once, my family and I went on vacation to a sort of retreat outside Homer, Alaska. There was no television or even electricity. I brought this book with me and my parents and my brother and I sat out on the porch, overlooking the cove, and read Jurassic Park and Independence Day. My parents are in their fifties, and they were almost rolling on the ground, they were laughing so hard.

[Susanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the blog, LOVE the book. Cleo has this way of condensing dialogue into the bare meaningful minimum, and doing so with so much hilarity it'll explode the coffee right out of your nose.

May I quote an example from the blog entry on Hidalgo (still my favourite Movie in 15 mins)?

JAZIRA: Whatever. I must go. If they catch you sexing me up, they will kill us both!

FRANK: Who said anything about sexing you up?

JAZIRA: *bats lashes*

FRANK: Oh no! Someone is coming! I fall on you in the defensive missionary position!

:)

[Jessie Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cleolinda is just plain hilarious. Her on-the-nose snarky observations, her brilliant pop-culture references and keen humor are spot-on. It is remarkably quotable and witty. The only detriment this book had missing from the originals online was the fact that linking to tie-in jokes is not possible. Entertaining, sarcastic and laugh-out-loud funny, this book will send you scurrying to her website (http://cleolinda.com/) for the online, unpublished editions. All I can say is, read, enjoy and you'll never look at your favorite movies the same way again.

[Abbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of parodies was developed from Cleolinda's unusually successful "Movies in 15 Minutes" blog entries. As such, it's not going to change anyone's life, but I leave it on the guest room nightstand. It has been uniformly popular.

It's basically parodies. Good parodies, with an underlying narrative thread, but parodies. If you grew up reading Mad magazine and National Lampoon, you will do fine.

[T Gadding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well-written and thought out. While some jokes lose a bit of their sharpness when re-read a few years later, none of the humour has gone stale. Excellent fun and very quote-able, you can enjoy the book even if you haven't seen all the movies it dig its claws into. And when you do get around to seeing one of these flicks, just you try and not quote lines from Movies in Fifteen Minutes aloud!

[JD Waggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious! It works better when you've seen the movies being parodied, but it's not necessary. I highly recommend this for movie buffs, parodiers, or just people who like comedy; Jones's easy style and smooth adaptation of internet language with spoken make for some wonderful jokes and great humor.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant! Not only does it do what the title says, but it also provides a very funny summary of the 'fandom' of each film. If you're already familiar with the film, the parody is bound to be funnier, but if you haven't seen it, the parody is still hilarious.

[Sparker Pants · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Cleolinda Jones, who has a hilarious blog and whose real name is Lauren something. You should read her book and love her too. I cannot word today.

[Kayleigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Warning: Has been known to induce hysterical giggling. Do not read in public, unless you want to be stared at.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made of absolute awesomesauce!

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grabbed this from thriftbooks due to an overwhelming fit of nostalgia. I remembered reading the M15M parody of Troy back in college on a library computer, and the way my sides hurt from stifled laughter. These affectionate send-ups are still fun, and funny, and well-preserved little pieces of early oughties internet culture.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Self published book of a series that originated on livejournal (not kidding) still hilarious. Re-read because I'm feeling down. Love it. Recognize ways in which I emulate the comedy in it all the time. I wish she had written more. It's crazy to me that one of my favorite writers ever is someone who just wrote for free on livejournal.

[Becca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silly, funny-ish book written like a script. There are important moments from the movie in each script, tossed in with humor. There are some curse words and dialogue that stray from the movie plots. It was a fun but quick read during a power outage and we missed TV.

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those who love movies, but who also love to see tired tropes and certain acting flaws roundly mocked.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is hilarious. I’ve seen all of the movies in this book, but Cleolinda Jones’ sense of humor had me rolling the entire time.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

2023 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge: A book you read more than 10 years ago

[Georgette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I m rather fond of online-to-real-life publishing successes such as two of those previously featured in this column. Sharing origins with Everything Matters and RealLivePreacher.com, Movies in Fifteen Minutes (M15M) hails from one user on LiveJournal.com (LJ), who came back from watching Van Helsing and wrote an entry that somehow became a 2500-word parody.[return][return]Her friends loved it, linked to it in their own LJs and emailed it to their friends. This LJ user, who goes by the name Cleolinda Jones, saw Troy the following week and Troy in Fifteen Minutes followed. [return][return]Through the very viral nature of the online community, the M15M phenomena hit nearly every corner of the Internet and Jones was approached for book deal.[return][return]This resulting tome, aptly subtitled Hollywood Blockbusters for people who can t be bothered , contain the parodies of 10 movies (12, if you want to count all LotR movies individually) - Braveheart, Gladiator, Harry Potter and the Philosopher s Stone, Independence Day, Jurassic Park, The Matrix, Spider-Man, Star Wars II, Titanic and of course, all three Lord of the Rings& which may run a little over 15 minutes.[return][return]To the uninitiated, the book looks like a collection of bizarre scripts at first glance. If you ve never ventured into that side of the internet chat language, I have no room to explain the lingo to you here.[return][return]But once you get into it, you realize that Jones has it nailed. Take a movie, whit it down to its barest minimum and rewrite the script with appropriate amounts of irreverence, sarcasm and wit. Instant quotables.[return][return]Now she doesn t hate the movies here. In her Acknowledgements in front of the book, she states that this book is for everyone who loves movies so much they can laugh at them anyway. Laugh they did.[return][return]Picture this: Harry Potter asking a muggle porter how to get to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and the porter retorting with, God, I hate this time of the year. [return][return]There were jokes that reoccurred throughout the chapter, like Legolas and his habit of staring the obvious. There were jokes that crossed over into other movies, like Darth Saruman. There are section titles like The Cliff of Manly Weeping in the Fellowship of the Rings chapter (I ll leave you to guess what scene that is!).[return][return]Van Helsing, Troy, Phantom of the Opera and a slew of other M15M parodies do not appear in the print version. Thanks to the fact that M15M was first seen on the Internet, you can still read them at http://community.livejournal.com/m15m if you poke around a little for them.[return][return]Read it, laugh and share it with a friend. And no, you can t borrow my book.[return][return](2006)

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Cleolinda's Movies in 15 Minutes reviews because they're hilarious and oh, so true. The snark is strong with this one. An excellent recent example is Avengers in 15 Minutes. Love it.

This book is not quite as bust-a-gut funny as I was anticipating, but that's probably because I'm familiar with her style. Certain comedic beats are familiar and lack that LOL-inducing impact, but overall it's still really funny.

Readers should have a reasonable awareness of genre movies, pop culture and fandom(s) otherwise some jokes will sail by. (The Snow White and the Huntsman reference in Avengers, for example.)

Movies included in this book:
- Braveheart
- Gladiator
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
- Independence Day
- Jurassic Park
- Lord of the Rings (all three)
- The Matrix
- Spider-Man
- Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
- Titanic

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a while since I read this, but I remember reading it in one sitting. My sister and I are both big fans of Cleolinda from her Livejournal and her previous Movies in 15 Minutes.

The ones in the book are not available online and include the first Harry Potter and the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy. They are very entertaining and most make me literally laugh out loud. They have a short-story quality to them so that you can easily read one of the movies in about 20 minutes.

They are written exactly like the ones on the internet, in a script like format. I really enjoy her voice. I recommend this to anyone who likes her movies in 15 minutes, as well as anyone who is a movies fan and needs a good laugh at the tropes and idiosyncrasies.

[Vic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely hilarious- I love this collection of movie parodies. As an avid follower of Cleolinda's blog (http://cleolinda.livejournal.com) I naturally couldn't resist this gem. I've lent it to my boyfriend and sister and they weren't as keen, but they are the funniest parodies I've read. The Lord of the Rings and Spiderman ones are particular treats, and I can't wait to go and re-read Troy in Fifteen Minutes now that I've (finally) seen the film- although it was pretty funny even without seeing the film, which says a lot for the quality of writing.

The humour is witty, snarky, and often a bit immature (the many many jokes about Harry and his wand for example) but if you're like me, that's the best bit!! A cracking read that had me literally laughing out loud

[Reeny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to read Cleolinda's movie parodies on her LJ many years ago and loved all of them. So when I found out she was having a book published, I was thrilled. I ordered it all the way from the UK where the shipping cost more than the actual book itself because no American publisher picked it up (even though the author is American, weird, right?)Anyhoo, the reason it took me so long to get through the book was because I had actually never seen in entirety some of the movies in the book. But I finally have. And her parodies, written in script format, are all great. Her sense of humor is awesome and her thoughts often reflect mine.

The parodies collected in this book are not available anywhere online, but many of her other parodies are. http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/

[melydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've long been a fan of the original Movies in Fifteen Minutes blog, as well as Cleolinda's writing in general, so I sort of expected to enjoy this. That said, I was giggling almost nonstop through this book. I don't know how much I would have appreciated had I not seen all the films being condensed, but now I want to go back and re-watch all these movies just so I can then go back and appreciate the m15m versions all the more. I loved the endless footnotes and the jokes that repeated through multiple films. And like most books I really enjoyed, I have basically nothing to say about it. Pick up a copy if you can find one - it's a gem.

[rinabeana · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOOHOO! I finally got my hands on Cleolinda Jones's book without paying shipping from the UK. As I was going to England to visit some friends, I ordered the book from Waterstone's, though I could see that it was available in many of the stores (but why take chances?). So I picked it up when I got there and read the whole thing (between doing fun touristy-type activities, of course) and it was everything I hoped it would be! I could babble on about every funny joke, but I don't have that kind of time, so suffice it to say that if you've never read any of her parodies, you should definitely buy the book and/or check out her community. http://community.livejournal.com/m15m...

[Laura Martinelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you haven’t heard of Cleolinda Jones, do yourself a favor and check out the Movies in Fifteen Minutes site. (I recommend all four parts of the Twilight Saga, personally.) This collection is no exception to her sharp wit and eye for comedy, covering ten movies between 1993-2003. My only issue is that the print version isn’t as fully linkomatic as the online parodies, so some of the jokes fly over my head. However, this collection is still one of the funniest things I have ever read.