Sometimes the most interesting stories in cinema take place behind the camera. Ben Taylor’s APOCALYPSE ON THE SET: NINE DISASTROUS FILM PRODUCTIONS proves that page by glorious page. While hardly the first book to tackle the subject of problematic shoots, it beats the pants off the more superficial entries, such as FIASCO by James Robert Parish (who, incidentally, provides the back-cover blurb).

One smart decision that Taylor has made in choosing which films to focus on is that he didn’t pick the obvious. Another is that roughly half of the movies turned out to be widely considered as good, such as Werner Herzog’s FITZCARRALDO or Francis Ford Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW — it just took a boatload of blood, sweat and tears to get there.

And another is that one project, you’ve likely never heard of. And these days, that seriously counts for something.

Taylor starts with two tales you probably think you’ve heard enough about already: the three-death accident that plagued TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and the financial sinkhole that was Michael Cimino’s HEAVEN’S GATE. But in utilizing so many sources to cull together a concise account, Taylor presents them in a manner that proves all too irresistible.

For as much as we’ve heard about director John Landis’ trial in the ZONE case, I had not heard the allegations of arrogance leveled against him as well — the most cringe-inducing piece of evidence being his own words at Vic Morrow’s funeral: “Tragedy can strike in an instant, but film is immortal.” What an ass!

Even after recently reading a biography of James Cameron, Rebecca Keegan’s highly recommended THE FUTURIST, that devotes an entire chapter to THE ABYSS, Taylor’s treatment of the same didn’t read as the same.

From start to finish, obscure historical parallels included, APOCALYPSE ON THE SET fascinated me. Failure can be winning. Sequel, sir? —Rod Lott

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Now updated from its 1999 publication, the paperback release of Kenneth E. Hall’s JOHN WOO: THE FILMS is able to tell a more complete story of the Hong Kong director. At the time, Woo’s MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II hadn’t been released, which would mark his American commercial peak, followed by the disappointing underperformer WINDTALKERS and the downright disastrous PAYCHECK, after which the filmmaker retreated to Asian cinema.

Now, you get the whole Woo, and nothing but, in a book that doubles as biography and critical assessment, covering the director’s entire career, from his early start in throwaway martial-arts pictures and comedies to the recent epic RED CLIFF. Naturally, the focus is on his late-’80s/early-’90s body of work that redefined the action film, both at home and abroad.

Hall has a wider perspective than your average film lover, having access to his subject on the set of Woo’s U.S. debut, HARD TARGET, a Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle that suffered from studio interference (as did much of Woo’s American output, we learn). It’s good in that we get an in-depth story of what went right and wrong on that film, but bad in that it skews the conservation heavily toward that lone title; HARD TARGET accounts for 16 pages, to M:I2′s six, FACE/OFF‘s four and BROKEN ARROW‘s mere two.

However, it’s the overall look that counts, and Hall does a good job at that, exploring the director’s hallmark touches (a relationship between good guy and bad guy, a self-sacrifice upon the hero’s part, those goddamned doves) and his influences to/parallels with other brand-name helmers.

If there’s some nitpicking to be made, it’s in the rare, not-even-close error (DEMOLITION MAN Marco Brambilla is here named Bandella?!?) and quotes opening each chapter that reek of pretension. Who cares what Winston Churchill and Voltaire had to say? Just tell me about the baby urinating on Chow Yun-Fat in HARD BOILED, y’know? —Rod Lott

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If I were to list my top 10 most influential movie books, Kim Newman’s 1988 edition of NIGHTMARE MOVIES would sit snugly right alongside Danny Peary, Pauline Kael, Phil Hardy and Joe Bob Briggs.

And if I were to list my top 10 film personalities, both John Landis and William Castle would be on that list — both boisterous, larger-than-life and whip-smart directors, and both with new books. Given that Castle shuffled off this mortal coil some 35 years ago, makes his penmanship appearing now, indeed, larger than life.

But let’s begin with Landis. Famed director of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, ANIMAL HOUSE and many other pop-masterpieces, but a writer? Chronicling the history of horror cinema? Sure, I’ll bite.

MONSTERS IN THE MOVIES is a large, gorgeous, knowing and carefully assembled overview of creature features. The book is divided into many chapters, detailing the usual suspects: vampires, Godzilla, zombies, werewolves, etc. Landis writes a couple of pages about each subject, although if you know your monster movies, there isn’t a whole lot of surprises.

But where Landis’ writing comes to life is the many interviews he conducts with his peers, talking to everyone from Joe Dante, John Carpenter and David Cronenberg to Guillermo Del Toro and Ray Harryhausen. They’re jovial and illuminating, underscoring the fact that somebody oughta give Landis a permanent late-night TV gig.

Where this big book excels is the visuals. Brimming with hundreds of wonderful photographs and posters from the early classics to modern, CGI-infested train wrecks, this is a lot of fun to browse through. Some of the classic photos are spread over two large pages with incredible detail. That I personally would have preferred to see that zany HELLZAPOPPIN’ still full-size over anything from CONSTANTINE doesn’t mean that it’s mismanaged. It just means that kids today will recognize the movies they grew up with just as I will enjoy mine.

At age 12, I would have considered this The Greatest Book Ever Written. It succeeds in what it attempts, and if it’s lacking anything, it’s an attached audiobook version where Landis brings his words to effervescent life while you browse the printed pictures.

But to balance things out, novelist and horror aficionado Kim Newman has recently revised his essential NIGHTMARE MOVIES from the late ’80s. And when I say “revised,” he has more than doubled it in size. The first 300 pages contain the original text, which covers 1968 (NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) to 1988, with copious footnotes bringing these entries up to date. And then Newman adds another 300-odd pages to cover post-1988 horror cinema.

Newman knows his movies. In his articles on the genre’s auteurs, he doesn’t stop at Guillermo Del Toro and David Cronenberg, but tackles the likes of Larrys Cohen and Fessenden with equal observational detail. He can spend several pages on the career of Paul Bartel, compare Jacques Rivette to Dario Argento, and opine on the influence of Antonioni on the likes of Umberto Lenzi.

The breadth of opinionated knowledge within these covers is massive. That many titles end up being bundled with other similar films is perhaps a tad unfortunate, but at 600 pages, the pace has to be furious to keep this as compulsively readable as it is. Unlike the Landis book, this most definitely is not for novices. You don’t necessarily have to know the subject thoroughly, but you do have to be seriously interested in it.

This also isn’t a book to flip through for visuals. This is jam-packed with sharp and funny words urging you to go and see and appreciate these movies. For an overview of modern horror movies you can not improve on this. Unless Newman returns in another couple of decades, rather like Castle now has.

Of THE TINGLER fame, Castle is one of the granddaddies of horror films as entertainment. Now, some 35 years after his death, his daughter, Terry, has compiled and published her father’s annotated HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL “screamplay.” Bolstered by an enthusiastic and knowledgeable introduction by Dante, who also makes a terrific appearances in both of the preceding books, this is for the obsessive fans.

Which isn’t to say it’s not great — it’s more than brilliant — but it is of somewhat more limited appeal.

From 1959, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL is a perennial Halloween horror treat, starring Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart as a bickering millionaire couple throwing a tricked-out party packed with double-crosses, hidden passages, murderous mayhem and flying skeletons.

The punchy snappiness of the script is laced with great one-liners, and we get to observe the auteur-ial penmanship of Castle as he turns Robb White’s script from a screenplay to a screamplay.

As a historical artifact, it’s a film buff’s dream. The script is great fun, and watching Castle’s mind at work as he comments on it is pure joy. And never one without a gimmick, flicking the pages of this large, faux-leatherbound tome brings home the possibilities of “Emergo” in print just as Castle did in his films.

So whether you’re a novice to the joys of horror movies, or a battle-hardened veteran, there’s one book or more among these three that you will absolutely need. Personally, I need them all. —JT Lindroos

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Not one who could afford a subscription to THE NEW YORKER, I had read Pauline Kael’s movie reviews in sparse instances over the years. In other words, my exposure to her — this was pre-Internet, mind you — was limited compared to other film critics.

It need not matter when presented with PAULINE KAEL: A LIFE IN THE DARK, Brian Kellow’s biography of the woman, who passed away in 2001. The author does his job in letting readers know why she was important. He also does his job in not deifying her, allowing her own words and actions to stand for themselves — sometimes, that doesn’t show her in the best light, but she had only herself to blame.

How interesting can the life of someone who wrote about movies for a living be? Quite a bit, as it turns out. Quickly, Kellow gets through the least interesting part of it: childhood. Born in 1919 to a failed farmer and a detached mother, she flourished into her own person while studying at Berkeley, where she fell in love with the arts and became a magnet for gay men; eventually, her only child was fathered by one.

Her closeness to homosexuals is interesting, because it’s also where she got into the most trouble, once she landed gigs as a film critics. With comments like “this fag phantom of the opera,” she was accused of homophobia, which she denied. The way Kellow tells it, it could simply be that Kael was blunt with her wit and her pen.

That honest and directness is part of why she’s so revered; this is, after all, a woman who considered screen icon Charlie Chaplin to be “a fraud.” My favorite quote of hers in this bio comes from her review of Billy Wilder’s 1961 comedy ONE, TWO, THREE, which she wrote “pulls out laughs the way a catheter draws urine.”

By all accounts, she also lacked a social filter, which cost her friendships throughout her life, and her egotism could rub filmmakers the wrong way, perhaps most notably when she told Sidney Lumet, a legendary director even then, that it was her job to tell him “which way to go.”

But Kellow gives her credit where credit is certainly due: as a champion of maverick filmmakers and their work that shook up the stodgy Old Hollywood. Among her famous pet causes were Brian De Palma and Robert Altman, BONNIE AND CLYDE and M*A*S*H, all when precious few others gave a crap, much less ink. Love her or hate her, she fanned the flames of a cinematic revolution. Where would we have been without her? —Rod Lott

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Ever since I was introduced to the magical wonderland that is DVD, I have been an off-and-on reader of Glenn Erickson. He’s the reviewer who writes under the name of DVD Savant at DVDtalk.com. Now, some of those reviews are among the more than 100 collected in the SCI-FI SAVANT paperback from Point Blank Press. It’s endorsed by director Joe Dante, so who am I to argue? (Well, maybe a little.)

Arranged chronologically by film, the book acts as a virtual tour guide through the history of science-fiction cinema, starting with reviews of Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS — Kino’s recent restored version, to be exact — and some obscure foreign titles, and ending with one of the genre’s most acclaimed ever, James Cameron’s AVATAR.

Erickson gives thorough (and only occasionally dry by virtue of being overlong) discussions of each film, as well as the DVD itself, specific to a certain edition. This is noteworthy, as the quality from one company to another can be wildly divergent. It may frustrate you, too, that some editions are long out-of-print, but not as frustrating as the author’s off-putting insistence to refer to himself in the first person, i.e. “Savant is a booster …” or “Savant saw a full Polaroid 3D presentation …” or “Savant has a special lump in his throat …”

With poster art included, the book (edited by BOOKGASM contributor JT Lindroos, we should note out of fairness) is better utilized as a revisiting of key points in the genre’s life, rather than a work of reference. Nitpicky quirks notwithstanding (like footnotes better left in the copy), the author knows his stuff (he sure beats SCI-FI MOVIE FREAK), and I’d like to see him take on other genres in book-length format. —Rod Lott

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Noir is like pornography: difficult to define, but you know it when you see it. And you’ll see it in a light you’ve never seen before after reading THE MALTESE TOUCH OF EVIL, by scholars Shannon Scott Clute and Richard L. Edwards.

This is no ordinary text on the genre. From 31 movies cast in noir’s shadows, Clute and Edwards chop the stories up into 102 iconic pieces — “noiremes,” they call them — that the authors then arrange more or less chronologically by time placement in the film. The result is like the ultimate noir work — one that includes every trope, every trick, every turn of phrase.

Each noireme takes up a spread in the paperback, with a representative frame (sometimes two) on the left-hand page, and the examination of that scene on the right, pointing out elements such as camera placement, censorship workarounds, visual puns and self-reflexive shots. Clute and Edwards switch off on who dissects what, but on occasion, both will chime in, sometimes even to disagree.

Among the films utilized in this unique work are classics like SUNSET BOULEVARD, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, TOUCH OF EVIL, CHINATOWN, KISS ME DEADLY and D.O.A. (not the Dennis Quaid/Meg Ryan remake). It includes a few movies I now need to track down (most notably, RIFIFI and GUN CRAZY), and also some surprising choices one otherwise may not have associated with noir (BATMAN BEGINS, BLADE RUNNER, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE).

For most of the entries, you will get the point instantly; for others, you will require an explanation. Either way, you’ll probably get as hooked reading as I did. A few academic words aside — diegetic? auto-exegesis? metonymy? — their tour is highly accessible, even if you may think some of the points overreach.

For example, in ON THE WATERFRONT, when Eva Marie Saint is surrounded by rooftop antennae that could resemble crucifixes, did director Elia Kazan intend for such symbolism to be present? Or is it all just in Clute’s imagination? The interpretation is up for debate, but the point is to get you actively engaged in the film, rather than watching passively.

Your appreciation is deepened when you think about what you watch, and the authors now have a brand-new listener of their new podcast, OUT OF THE PAST, an episode guide for which appears as an appendix. But read this rather rewarding book first. —Rod Lott

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Being raised in Oklahoma City instead of New York City, I’d never heard of the FRIGHT NIGHT film showcase that brightened the tube for roughly two decades worth of Saturday nights on WOR-TV. Turns out, such knowledge isn’t needed to enjoy James Arena’s book FRIGHT NIGHT ON CHANNEL 9. As long as you fondly recall battling bedtime to catch a scary movie in the days, you’re going to fine Arena’s ecstatic vibe infectious.

In this paperback, he offers a history and appreciation of said show before digging into the real nitty gritty of an episode guide. Taking up the majority of the 216 pages, this allows Arena to offer capsule reviews on the horror, mystery and sci-fi flicks he consumed.

As he readily admits, many of them sucked. But seeing them at all was part of the fun, because back then — before VHS, DVD or the Internet brought instant gratification — choice was not an option. You took what you were given, and you liked it.

Is there much history behind the program? No, but it does allow Arena to branch off into interviewing producer Sam Sherman, who provided many a package of films for FRIGHT NIGHT, and telling his story (told better with visuals in the excellent new documentary MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED).

Vintage ad mats, lobby cards and stills throughout help sell the nostalgia concept, to the point that I devoured the book as quickly as time allowed. I tired only of reading “Looks like FRIGHT NIGHT was pre-empted for a telethon” way too many times in the date-specific episode guide, but embraced everything else and, to no surprise, came away with a list of two dozen movies I can’t wait to track down. —Rod Lott

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I’d like to report that OF MUSCLES AND MEN: ESSAYS ON THE SWORD & SANDAL FILM is as much fun as it sounds. Instead, like a good chunk of the so-named peplum genre, it can’t live up to the hyperbolic art — in this case, not a poster, but a book cover.

Published by McFarland and edited by Michael G. Cornelius, the compilation of a dozen pieces sure seems like a ball. Just glance at some of the titles listed in the table of contents: “Homer’s Lies, Brad Pitt’s Thighs” and “By Jupiter’s Cock!” With rare exception — such as David Simmons’ aforementioned “Cock!” piece, which focuses on the campy cable hit SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND — the essays take both their subjects and themselves too seriously.

Are Steve Reeves’ starring vehicle of HERCULES and its sequels and imitators really worth dissecting? Or are they merely just B movies with no intent but to entertain? Maria Elena D’Amelio thinks the former, batting about terms like “fascist” and “autochthonous.” I highly doubt the filmmakers were thinking about addressing the Marshall Plan or responding to the death of Mussolini — certainly they were just out to shit screenplays that would make a buck. (And, no, I don’t have a reference to cite.)

The same goes for The Three Stooges movie in which they MEET HERCULES, which Daniel O’Brien discusses in terms of how the comic team parodies the masculine man, as if that didn’t already exist on the surface.

Cornelius may be the biggest offender, reading far too much into children’s action figures in “Beefy Guys and Brawny Dolls: He-Man, the Masters of the Universe, and Gay Clone Culture.” All kids’ dolls are without genitalia, sir; it doesn’t mean He-Man can’t please She-Ra.

It is tough to take Cornelius seriously from the start since, in his introduction, he makes some startling errors — not typos, but sore-thumb errors — that undermine his authority, from misspelling the name of BEASTMASTER director Don Coscarelli to saying that GLADIATOR won a Best Director Oscar. —Rod Lott

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One would think with the title BRUCE LEE, WOODSTOCK AND ME that film producer Fred Weintraub’s memoir would be right up the movie lover’s alley. And part of it is, but overall, it deals more with his less-public days as music manager than any other topic. Therefore, audiophiles with a love for pop of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s will get more from it than fans of chopsocky.

I fall in the group of the latter, and agree with Weintraub that his all-or-nothing crap shoot of mounting an international production intended to make Bruce Lee a household name on this side of the globe, ENTER THE DRAGON, is the best martial-arts movie ever made.

Perhaps sensing its enduring popularity, Weintraub begins his nonlinear autobio with a chapter dedicated to just that. While heaping praise upon Lee’s talent, Weintraub doesn’t put on blinders, either, acknowledging the star’s private faults, from chewing cannabis and regularly cheating on his wife, to the Hulk-like ego that would emerge whenever Bruce got ticked off, which turned out to be a lot.

More problematic was simply the shoot, where language barriers were only one problem. There was also the disappearing couch and the shitting birds, but the details of those stories are best left for the reader to discover. With those, and the entirely of the book, Weintraub emerges as one with a gift for turning conversations and you-had-to-be-there anecdotes into genuine storytelling. It helps, too, that he’s not above making himself look foolish.

The gamble of ENTER THE DRAGON paid off, and so did WOODSTOCK, the landmark music documentary/concert film that likely wouldn’t have happened without the passionate, 11th-hour support and assistance of Weintraub, who, having music management under his belt, knew the potential gold mine of the material. The behind-the-scenes battle to get that made reads more wrought with obstacles than DRAGON, and they continued well after the footage was in the can.

With a few pages dedicated to the forgettable Tom Selleck aviator adventure, HIGH ROAD TO CHINA, and Steve McQueen’s late-career TOM HORN, that’s about it for the movies Weintraub discusses at length. Absent, minus perhaps a line or two here and there, are the other actioners I wanted so bad to read about, including the notorious GYMKATA, the all-but-forgotten FORCE: FIVE, the killer dogs of THE PACK, Jim Kelly’s blaxploitation turn in HOT POTATO, the utterly bizarre GOLDEN NEEDLES and the early American Jackie Chan vehicle BATTLE CREEK BRAWL, all of which found him reunited with DRAGON director Robert Clouse.

Instead, Fred delves into his other career, managing acts like Mama Cass, Neil Diamond and Bill Cosby, and running a music club. And what do you think was more dangerous for Weintraub: escaping Cuba or working with Amy Irving? As with many of his tales, the answer may surprise you. —Rod Lott

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Damn you, Danny Shipka! Damn you and your new book, PERVERSE TITILLATION!

I mean, the book is a fantastic read, but it really added to my already too-long list of movies that I need to see and/or buy. For a book on films, threatening to take up much of future free time is the highest compliment I can give. And I’m going to be killing a lot of hours consuming these titles. So, again, damn you!

This one delivers on its subtitle as a journey through the revolutionary “Eurocult” genre of (in descending order of influence) Italy, Spain and France, with particular attention paid to its respective directorial titans, such as Mario Bava, Jess Franco and Jean Rollin. Italy’s reign comprises the first half.

Whether you’re a cover-to-cover reader or more of a reference looker-upper, TITILLATION should satisfy both, as Shipka’s sub-chapters for each country first give a lively, lengthy historical overview, then end with capsule reviews for the titles discussed. Note this is not a definitive video guide, but an excellent, big-picture look.

While not as outré or global-encompassing as Pete Tombs’ seminal MONDO MACABRO or IMMORAL TALES, Shipka’s book is one blast of an overseas trip. Don’t expect it to be academic, since it bears the McFarland & Company Inc. name — yes, it has footnotes and a healthy bibliography, but it is fun above all else. The wealth of poster art helps justify the admittedly high price, but this is one I’ll never get rid of. —Rod Lott

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Robert Kirkman’s THE WALKING DEAD has grown from an independent comic book series to a mini-industry spawning spin-off novels, action figures, national best-selling graphic novel compilations, and, of course, the hit cable TV series now halfway into its second series (and already renewed for a third). Not surprising then that editor James Lowder and Smart Pop Books have gathered a collection of critical essays to this popular series in its two main forms.
 
What is surprising is how much fun and informative the essays are that comprise TRIUMPH OF THE WALKING DEAD.

Several of the contributions are from academics. But these are professors who obviously spend a good deal of time away from the ivory tower and have observed and written often about the goings-on in popular culture. Thus, Kyle William Bishop of Southern Utah University effectively demonstrates how the use of pathos highlights the terror of the zombies in his essay “The Pathos of THE WALKING DEAD” without a trace of pompous stuffiness.

Likewise, Steven Schlozman, assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School, insightfully shows how science — often the last the bastion of hope in an anxious world — comes up short in the desperate search for what caused the zombie pandemic and its possible cure in “Feel better?”
 
There are also contributions from those who work more directly in the world of genre fiction. Most notable of these is “Take Me to Your Leader,” by novelist Jonathan Maberry — certainly no slouch when it comes to zombie stories. He traces the progression of Rick Grimes, the main protagonist of the series, from a man frantically searching for his family at the outset of the zombie apocalypse to the reliable but often reluctant leader of a tribe of fellow survivors.

Jay Bonansinga reveals his experiences of collaborating with series creator Kirkman while co-authoring the spin-off novels in his “A Novelist and a Zombie Walk into a Bar.” These and several other topics — 15 essays in all — are led off by an appreciative, but all-too-brief foreword by Joe R. Lansdale.
 
TRIUMPH OF THE WALKING DEAD successfully manages to do what any collection of its sort intends: Help us understand why the series is so good (and successful), while enhancing our enjoyment at the same time.
 
It’s highly recommended, with one caveat: Those just now immersing themselves in the graphic novels on which the series is based should be warned that some of the examples used in these essays are unintended spoilers.
 
Then again, think of how impressed your friends will be next time you argue about either the TV or comic series, and you draw references from some of the literary and esoteric sources used in this collection. —Alan Cranis

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Crack open THE HAMMER VAULT — assuming you’re already a hardcore Hammer fan, that is. Having already covered the legendary British-based horror film company in other books, from its poster art to its hot actresses, author Marcus Hearn now assembles a chronological, visual-driven journey through the label’s genre greats (and gaffes), from 1954′s cult classic THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT to last year’s underappreciated LET ME IN.

Because each film merits one to two pages a piece, all dotted with photos, posters and promotional material, not much room is left for words, so if you don’t already know the plot for, say, PARANOIAC, you’re not going to learn it here. (If that’s the kind of thing you seek, perhaps you should try Hearn’s THE HAMMER STORY.)

Told in blood-red color — and even in widescreen! — the gouged eyeball-ready tale in THE HAMMER VAULT is a sumptuous one, designed so well, I wasn’t sure what to look at first. I wanted to take it all in at once, no matter whether I had seen the film in question already, or never had heard of it.

Most interesting, however, is a six-page chapter, pre-revival, on the Hammer films that never were. From NESSIE and VAMPIRELLA to KALI … BRIDE OF DRACULA and THE RELUCTANT VIRGIN, announcement art and concept drawings tease and tantalize with images of What Could Have Been. —Rod Lott

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With the Farrelly brothers bringing THE THREE STOOGES to screen next spring, the beloved slapstick troupe is primed for a resurgence of fandom. Sensing this, Applause Books has released THREE STOOGES FAQ: EVERYTHING LEFT TO KNOW ABOUT THE EYE-POKING, FACE-SLAPPING, HEAD-THUMPING GENIUSES.

David Hogan’s book is not quite that. For one thing, it ignores the movies; it’s only concerned with their comedy shorts. Of course, that’s mainly what they were and are known for, so that’s really just a quibble. Nor is it a reference work, but like one giant essay.

What Hogan does here is examine in detail — emphasis on the word “detail” — the Stooges’ work, not just recounting the plots and gags of every short, but analyzing them, too, and their place in the world at that time. To underline that last bit, the book is not arranged chronologically, but in themes, such as their dealings with the opposite sex, their adventures in the old West, their encounters with monsters, and so on. It’s a daunting way to tackle such a huge body of work, but he pulls it off.

That said, this isn’t the book that newbies like myself should reach for in order to get a crash course in the gang. It’s written on the level of those who have digested and perhaps even memorized the two-reelers and want a larger, big-picture perspective. It’s not badly written by any means; it simply references things in a shorthand that is best read by the well-versed in the “nyuk.”

Profiles on supporting players pepper the sections, as do plenty of production stills and posters. —Rod Lott

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Because everybody else in I WANT MY MTV does, I’ll share my first glimpse of the world’s first all-music cable network: Our parents didn’t want us watching it, so one night while they went out to dinner with friends, I switched our cable dial over and saw a commercial for a Rush album with a dog peeing on a fire hydrant, followed by videos for Supertramp’s “It’s Raining Again” and Billy Joel’s “Pressure.”

I was hooked, so naturally, my parents canceled our cable service soon after, and the early teenage me had to get my video fix through friends with cooler folks, not to mention NBC’s FRIDAY NIGHT VIDEOS.

For anyone who grew up with MTV in their lives, Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum’s I WANT MY MTV is a deliriously fun read — a blast of nostalgia, a history lesson and a generation’s worth of gossip columns rolled into one hefty book. Luckily, it’s an oral history, so its 608 pages zoom by. Unluckily, it’s an oral history, so you’re so entertained for the length of the brief ride that you’re disappointed that it has to come to an end.

Charting the channel’s entire history from the unheard-of and unpopular idea of a 24/7 visual jukebox to today’s vehicle of insipid reality shows and hardly any music at all, Marks and Tannenbaum make judicious use of choice quotes from behind-the-scenes players and on-camera talent. We’re talking network execs, VJs, musicians, directors and even video eye candy, like Tawny Kitaen and the teacher in Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher.”

It’s captivating not only to see what a force the network would come to wield on music and eventually pop culture as a whole (and even politics), but that nobody believed in it. Bands hated making videos and their record companies didn’t think the clips had any value, so they were all too happy to give them to MTV for free — after all, they thought nothing would come of the experiment.

We all know something huge came out of the experiment, but that path is paved with an immense amount of mistakes and battles, made worse by enormous egos. Luckily for readers, I WANT MY MTV names names. If you were a “cocky bugger” (Sting), “kind of a bitch” (Madonna) or “a pain in the ass” (John Cougar Mellencamp), someone is now quoted in black ink, calling you out on your shit.

You’ll find anecdotes of Rod Stewart’s bathroom containing a bowl of cocaine, Keith Richards taking a sword to director Julien Temple’s throat, Russell Mulcahy bearing witness to the incestuous mess known as Fletwood Mac, Missing Persons’ Dale Bozzio blowing an MTV exec in the offices, Colin Quinn exposing himself regularly on the game show REMOTE CONTROL, Gerardo’s foot fetish, and Mike Tyson’s general unprofessionalism: punching all the guys, groping all the girls.

There are hundreds more great stories in store.

But the overall one seems to be how the once-rebellious outlet became a sad parody of itself, which it certainly remains today. Part of that is due to MTV morphing into the victim of its own success, after which it was more than happy to suck that corporate teet. It’s not that I didn’t think such a thing existed, but to what degree is stupefying. For example, a VJ once made a joke about Michael Jackson becoming so white, that he soon would be florescent, and the self-appointed “King of Pop” was so offended, he demanded MTV dedicate an entire weekend to his videos. They did.

Who’s laughing now? Me, for one. I loved I WANT MY MTV. —Rod Lott

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It’s purely by accident that I started reading Fred Olen Ray’s THE NEW POVERTY ROW just an hour after watching the film MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED! See, Ray’s book covers a lot of the same ground as the movies and their makers featured in Mark Hartley’s excellent documentary, so with strong mental pictures fresh on the mind, my appreciation of POVERTY ROW’s subject was heightened. I suggest you do the same. It’s a ton more fun than its rather blah title suggests.

A moviemaker in his own right, Ray relays the histories of seven indie production companies, including his own, whose names often are synonymous with their creators — Roger Corman and Sam Sherman among them. In doing so, readers get lots of little making-of stories sandwiched into one tasty dish.

Jerry Warren, perhaps best known for 1966′s THE WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN, and his Associated Distributors Productions Inc. is first, and the man gets hits the hardest in the estimation of Ray and those who worked for the guy. In discussing one of Warren’s films, Ray writes simply, “It is maddening. It is Warren.” He was a shrewd businessman who knew what the public wanted, but didn’t have the talent to give it to them — if he even cared to. He just wanted the buck.

(Yes, it’s a little amusing that Ray is often savage on these old B movies, given that so much of his own filmography — especially his recent pseudonymous work on softcore stuff like BIKINI JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF EROS — makes for really trying viewing.)

Corman’s story is the best-known, but NEW POVERTY ROW focuses only on his pre-New World Pictures days of Filmgroup, when the likes of THE WASP WOMAN and THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS were cranked out with the regularity of one’s bowels under the influence of Ex-Lax.

The chapter on American General Pictures is brief because so was David L. Hewitt’s output through the enterprise, although Jack Hill’s now-classic SPIDER BABY was one of them. Hewitt is painted as a hack of a director himself, starting with his surprise that 1965′s MONSTERS CRASH THE PAJAMA PARTY, which he wrote, wasn’t even feature-length when he was done shooting it, and anyone who’s suffered through his JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME (a public-domain Madacy favorite in DVD’s infancy) knows it to be true. His work on the bargain-basement 1967 horror anthology DR. TERROR’S GALLERY OF HORRORS yields the book’s funniest behind-the-scenes story, in which star John Carradine is completely unaware he’s eaten a sandwich made of garbage.

McFarland’s reissue of this book in paperback is a much more affordable option than the original hardback release in 1991, so if you hesitated then, you have no reason not to bite now. (It has not, however, had minor errors corrected, nor has it been updated, with Ray eagerly putting the finishing touches on his own EVIL TOONS at the time: “I am confident that … (it will be) one of our most successful independent films.”) With nearly 100 photos and posters, the book’s art is infectious, which will enhance the feeling of nostalgia the text already will grant you. —Rod Lott

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Let’s get one thing right out of the way: If you’re looking for THE FRAT GUY’S GUIDE TO TOTALLY BITCHIN’ MOVIES WHERE CHICKS GET RAPED, BRO!, this is not that book, and thank God for that. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’ RAPE-REVENGE FILMS is, as it cover states, “A Critical Study.” It may even be the FIEND magazine founding editor’s Ph.D. thesis, for all I know. If so, she deserves an A.

Heller-Nicholas examines the subgenre in such depth, you may not realize how many movies there were that qualified. Sure, there are the top-of-mind titles of Mier Zarchi’s I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, Wes Craven’s LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and Abel Ferrara’s MS. 45 (whose protagonist adorns the book’s cover), but those, the author argues, are just one type of the rape-revenge film.

They’re the exploitation type, of course, but that ignores the more mainstream efforts as Jonathan Kaplan’s THE ACCUSED, for which Jodie Foster took home Oscar No. 1, and even Otto Preminger’s ANATOMY OF A MURDER. More legal dramas than lurid thrillers, their depictions of the brutal act aren’t as tough for audiences to take, partly because they’re not — in the case of SPIT — 20 minutes long.

Another type Heller-Nicholas names is the one where the viewpoint is male: Think the vacation from hell of John Boorman’s DELIVERANCE or Charles Bronson avenging crimes to his family in DEATH WISH.

From there, she examines the different genres of rape-revenge films — which include not just horror, but science fiction (DEMON SEED), Westerns (THE SEARCHERS) and the supernatural (THE ENTITY) — and discusses examples from around the world, of which Japan’s LADY SNOWBLOOD is among the most famous.

Lastly, a chapter is devoted to today’s rape-revenge film, which can remake yesteryear’s titles, riff off them (Quentin Tarantino’s half of GRINDHOUSE) or deliver a whole new twist, from THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO trilogy to the vagina-dentata dark comedy TEETH.

This is not some academic work that aims to sway you to from one side to another, nor is it some feminist manifesto crammed with politics and writes off such pictures. It’s just a well-written, insightful, thorough look into a film genre that dates back to the days of D.W. Griffith. It does what a good critical study should do: delve and dissect. And maybe even — as it did for me — add a few more titles to your Netflix queue. —Rod Lott

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With the same care and excellence he brought to his JAWS book, Patrick A. Jankiewicz does the history of Hulk right with YOU WOULDN’T LIKE ME WHEN I’M ANGRY: A HULK COMPANION. Seriously, this is so well-done, so thorough, it’s a shame Universal couldn’t package it with THE INCREDIBLE HULK: THE COMPLETE SERIES.

Not that they would; studios just aren’t that hip. Plus, CBS’ prime-time hit series of the late ’70s and early ’80s is only one screen spin-off of the iconic Marvel Comics character, and Jankiewicz covers them all, after a brief intro to the four-color version, of course, back when the misunderstood gamma guy’s skin was gray.

Aside from Saturday-morning cartoons of the 1960s, Hulk didn’t really conquer television until Kenneth Johnson brought him into the live-action world, played by Bill Bixby as alter ego David Banner (famously changed from the comics’ Bruce, because Johnson despised the alliteration Stan Lee so loved) and Lou Ferrigno as Hulk. (Ferrigno provides a foreword here that not only lends the book credibility, but is so lengthy that it’s genuinely written from the heart.)

Because the superhero series was so popular, the bulk of HULK COMPANION is naturally devoted to it. You can view it as a detailed episode guide to the show’s five seasons — and it is that, a helpful navigator to make your way through the intimidating DVD set — but Jankiewicz is too thoughtful to end there. He also covers the made-for-TV reunion movies (co-starring Daredevil and Thor, seemingly costumed by Dollar Tree), the big-budget feature films of 2003 and 2008, and something I didn’t even know existed: a pilot for SHE-HULK in which Bixby participated.

Trust me: At more than 500 pages and boasting a judicious amount of photographs, this thing is a wealth of info. That would mean little, however, if it weren’t well-written, but Jankiewicz is a total pro. Plus, he doesn’t rely on other sources like so many fanboy guides would and do; he interviews practically everyone still alive who ever was associated with the series, from day-to-day crew to some one-shot guest star. That kind of dedication is impressive, and the interviewees seem to appreciate that by being so open.

If the phrase “Hulk smash” makes you smile, yet Joe Harnell’s end theme to the HULK TV series makes you sad, you won’t like YOU WOULDN’T LIKE ME WHEN I’M ANGRY. You’ll love it. —Rod Lott

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While not a definitive look at the genre its enticing title fronts, Sue Short’s CULT TELEFANTASY SERIES is a nonetheless welcome addition to McFarland Publishing’s “Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy” series, in which this paperback is the 30th entry.

Provided you like a majority of the show listed in the book’s lengthy subtitle, I think you’ll enjoy reading her essays on each. She focuses on their history, impact and place within pop culture, but don’t mistake this for an academic text. Yes, annotations are made and sources are cited, but this is a highly accessible work.

Each chapter centers on a different TV show, and in the order presented on the unremarkable cover. THE PRISONER‘s brief, but groundbreaking WTF run gave birth to all the series that followed. It’s a kick to recall how TWIN PEAKS gripped a nation before flaming out — arguably David Lynch’s most successful bid (if he intended such a thing) for the mainstream.

She takes THE X-FILES to task — or creator Chris Carter, to be technical — for allowing the hit to go a few seasons after it dried up creatively. More recently, LOST does not escape her critical fervor, either, especially since the show originally was constructed to last only 12 episodes; its season-after-season insistence on leaving its slew of mysteries unexplained was indeed a cop-out.

And as for HEROES … well, creator Tim Kring just plain fucked a good thing up. Its first season was brilliant, compelling television. Then it promptly hit a sophomore slump that instead of fixing during any of several opportunities to, he compounded the problem by making the show even more complex. Characters died, only to come back; with no real stakes, there was no real reason to tune in.

Short’s obviously a fan, not a snooty teacher who turns her nose up at anything not aired on PBS. It’s just that her love and admiration isn’t unconditional. That honesty is refreshing and appreciated, and for that reason, CULT TELEFANTASY SERIES plays well to those who give such shows a fervent following — people like her, people like you and me.

Following some 200 pages of essays, she offers an “A to Z” appendix of other series that fall into the genre. It makes me wish for several to hit DVD already. —Rod Lott

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When I was in high school in the late ’80s, my mom sometimes came home from the discount stores with some enormous hardcover on the history of cinema (i.e. 70 YEARS AT THE MOVIES). They were heavy in both text and photos, and comprised of essays that dropped so many names and titles, my head spun with the sudden knowledge that so much existed beyond the local video store.

I still have these books, and have pored over their pages several times; one page in particular is ingrained on my brain, likely because of a black-and-white photo of a topless Sophia Loren in her prime.

THE VAMPIRE FILM: FROM NOSFERATU TO TRUE BLOOD reminds me of those books, minus the Sophia Loren. Generously massive at nearly 500 pages, there’s simply so much content to take in, you’ll won’t be able to read it at first, because you’ll be forced to look at all the photos and poster art beforehand, which dominate each spread in vibrant color.

Skip the initial chapters on historical vampires and the creature’s roots in literature (and art and the stage and music and on and on), because after all, the key word in the title is “film.” That’s where authors Alain Silver and James Ursini get to the nitty gritty, tracking the history of the pointy-toothed monsters on the big screen, from the early days of Nosferatu, Carmilla and Dracula to the more modern outings of Vampire Bill, Lestat and, well, Dracula.

While the names have changed, the themes of bloodsucker cinema haven’t changed all that wildly. Most of the difference has come in the loosening of the ratings system and overall prudishness of the moviegoing public, allowing today’s filmmakers to show explicitly what yesteryear’s could only hint at and imply. Whether that’s a good thing is left for you to decide, but Silver and Ursini cover them all, regardless of intent (scare, tickle or titillate) and country of origin.

Particular emphasis lay with exploring themes of sexuality, primarily through the depiction of male vs. female vampires, with a sidebar study on lesbianism in the genre (the seeds were planted by Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla,” which predated Bram Stoker’s DRACULA by a quarter of a century. And in doing so, our authors reference hundreds upon hundreds of movies. Their coverage falls somewhere between academic interpretation and critical review, because it plays on both sides of that field. Intellectual and entertaining, it doesn’t bore.

With so much visual stimulus, how could it? The layout can be disorienting and overwhelming — although this is a fourth-edition update, the design looks more closer to 1993 than 2011 — as if your eyes aren’t sure where to jump to first. Block out plenty of time when you sit down with this one.

Criticisms of the book are minor. One, being a hefty paperback printed on thick stock, the spine is bound to crease. And two, the alphabetical appendix of vampire movies could lose the credits of screenwriters and cinematographers and production designers; in this age where visits to IMDb are daily, the name parade here is superfluous. The deletions could free up space for more of those awesome vintage posters, if the authors haven’t exhausted the available pool.

Still, when said filmography numbers more than 700 films, digging so deep that it includes obscurities like 1967′s Filipino BATMAN FIGHTS DRACULA, you’re doing something right. For the reel fan, this book’s a real keeper. —Rod Lott

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In Dennis Fischer’s SCIENCE FICTION FILM DIRECTORS, you have a large reference work so massive, its 767 pages needed to be split into two volumes. It’s presented as one cohesive whole, however, with VOLUME 2 beginning on page 370.

Arranged alphabetically, Fischer covers nearly a century of filmmakers in the sci-fi field, with lengthy, detailed biographic sketches on each that nicely sums up their careers, often accompanied by the ever-welcome stills. While the book settles only on those who primarily work in sci-fi, it’s interesting to see who does (Nick Park, Albert Pyun) and does not (Georges Méliès, Roger Corman) make the 79-profile cut.

Fischer’s sketches include filmographies, summaries, criticism and quotes culled from outside sources, all arranged in a highly readable manner. Only the most anal of film fans will want to read them from cover to cover (and then cover to cover for the back half), as the ABC organization is going to encourage flipping to and fro directors and films that already occupy spots in readers’ hearts.

While McFarland’s releasing of SCIENCE FICTION FILM DIRECTORS in paperback makes it greatly more affordable than the 2000 hardcover publication, the work hasn’t been updated, so it’s already dated. For instance, Robert Zemeckis’ entry ends at WHAT LIES BENEATH, thereby without addressing his fascination with motion-capture technology, while James Cameron’s concludes with 1997′s TITANIC, thus unable to cover the groundbreaking attributes of AVATAR. How far the medium has come in the decade that has passed. —Rod Lott

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There’s something you should know about Simon Sheridan’s KEEPING THE BRITISH END UP: FOUR DECADES OF SAUCY CINEMA: It stinks. But only literally. I don’t know what paper stock Titan Books used for this hardcover, but it carries the waft of B.O., crossed with perhaps a hint of eau de post-coital, so maybe it’s appropriate.

Anyway, what matters is whether the contents are worth reading, no matter how obnoxious the scent, and that is a resounding “why yes, guv’nor!” In chronicling the history of the UK “slap-and-tickle” subgenre, Sheridan whips up a big bundle of fun. The book was originally released a decade ago, but this new edition has been, according to the copyright page, “completely revised.”

Ask Sheridan in his introduction, does risqué equal sexy? Answers the remaining 300 or so pages, again, “why yes, guv’nor!” As was in America, the floodgates to depicted sex onscreen — we’re not talking hardcore porn here, it should be noted — opened only after the dawn of the “educational” health film and the “nudie cuties” that gave Russ Meyer and Herschell Gordon Lewis their starts.

Once Agneta Ekmanner gave moviegoers their first glimpse of pubic hair, in 1968′s HUGS & KISSES, there was no looking back, especially in the UK, where for a solid quarter of a century, the sex film saved cinema from the threat of television. In other words, the raunchy comedies were the CGI-laden superhero adventures of their era, making bona fide stars of physically gifted gals like Fiona Richmond and Mary Millington (an actual prostitute).

The bulk of the book is comprised of a chronological look of sex flick to sex flick, not just with lively plot summaries, but candid, behind-the-scenes bits from those involved on either side of the camera. It matters not if you’ve seen none of these movies, because Sheridan makes it entertaining reading; I haven’t seen a single one, but I came away with more than few for which to look out.

At the end, as the sex film moves from theaters to home living rooms via VHS, where they can be better — ahem! — appreciated, Sheridan includes brief bios of some of the subgenre’s superstars. Whether or not they’re covered in that section, it is interesting to note how many of the players are known to those shores: You have not only actresses like Joan Collins and Ava Cadell (an Andy Sidaris mainstay), but legit mainstream directors at various stages of their careers, including Jack Arnold (THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON), Michael Winner (DEATH WISH) and perhaps most notably, Martin Campbell (GREEN LANTERN).

None of this would amount to anything if KEEPING THE BRITISH END UP were just text. It’s lavishly illustrated with stills and poster art throughout. While there’s a color insert, it’d be nice to see all of the art not in black and white, but just be glad it survives and that, hey, boobs aplenty. Keep it away from the kids, and close to your never-ending to-watch list. —Rod Lott

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There’s a word used among professional writers that describes those who refuse to write anything for which they do not feel a deeply emotional connection: unemployed.

Those of us who have been fortunate enough to manage on occasion to make a living putting words to paper understand that writing is first and foremost a job, and not a form of personal expression. On occasion, you may be lucky enough to work on a project that you love, but it will almost invariably pay far fewer bills than the ones you loathe.

Two men who understand this better than almost anyone are Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, former members of the MTV comedy group The State and two of Hollywood’s most successful comedy hacks (THE PACIFIER, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM and HERBIE: FULLY LOADED, among many others). In the nonfiction WRITING MOVIES FOR FUN AND PROFIT: HOW WE MADE A BILLION DOLLARS AT THE BOX OFFICE AND YOU CAN, TOO!, they explicitly detail the unpleasant (but amusing) realities of being a successful screenwriter in the studio system, most of which are guaranteed to send anyone with even the slightest pretension of creating art or experiencing personal fulfillment running screaming to Austin, Texas, where they’ll spend the rest of their life talking about the brilliant independent movies they’ll never make.

As frequently hilarious as it is, Lennon and Garant’s book is not satiric in its intentions. They mean everything they say in it, and chances are, the people who need to hear their hard-earned wisdom the most are the ones least likely to heed it.

The fact is, the nature of the studio system is such that most of what gets produced is going to be shit. That’s irrelevant. All that matters to those who write that shit is this: Did it make money and, if it did, did I get credit for it?

Like I said, many readers will undoubtedly find this revelation to be extremely cynical and antithetical to the creation of art. Those readers are wrong. Lennon and Garant truly understand the medium and business they are working in. Unlike most of the people who’ll end up buying and reading WRITING MOVIES FOR FUN AND PROFIT, they are working writers, and in Hollywood, that occasionally means having two weeks to rewrite two completely new drafts of a Martin Lawrence movie, much of which involves indulging his desire to include a scene where he resuscitates a parrot.

If you read that line and immediately thought, “I’m not a whore. I would never do that!,” don’t read this book. It’s not for you. Keep working on the script for your silent, black-and-white Nikola Tesla biopic. I’m sure it’ll get made someday. On the other hand, if the only thought that occurred to you was, “How much would I get paid for that?,” this book is an absolute must-read.

Truth be told, a lot of what Lennon and Garant tell you to do is pretty obvious. The problem is that most people enter the industry assuming that their talent is going to give them a free pass and allow them to write their own rules. The book squashes this myth as hard as it possibly can. Hollywood doesn’t want you to be the next Charlie Kaufman — it already has one of those. What it wants is someone who will take their notes — all of them — and apply them to the script, regardless of how badly it fucks the whole thing up.

Sometimes, Lennon and Garant’s wisdom is counterintuitive. For example, they explain that in many cases, the best thing that can happen to you is get fired (and, they add, you will get fired at some point; it’s inevitable). Usually, this means the studio still wants to make the script you’ve been working on. If enough of your material makes it into the final product, you’ll get a credit, which means making money without having had to do all of that extra work.

Their advice about dealing with the stars who can get your script produced is equally intriguing. Never, they warn you, ask a movie star for anything, even if it’s just a glass of water to quench your thirst. Stars spend their whole day dealing with other people’s requests, and the last thing they want is someone else on their back. And you have to take their notes and put them in the script. No matter how stupid they are. Remember Martin Lawrence and the parrot?

Time is also spent on such seemingly petty details as formatting your script (the rules actually change from studio to studio), how your studio parking space is the best indicator of your status in the industry, and the importance of living in Los Angeles if you want to be a successful screenwriter (it’s really, really important).

The one area where they don’t waste a lot of energy is telling you how to write a script. Robert McKee (the world-famous “story consultant” of BARBIE AS THE ISLAND PRINCESS) has made millions telling folks how to write the perfect screenplay, but Lennon and Garant reduce the formula to a much simpler equation: Watch DIE HARD, then do that.

It’s smart advice from a smart book that manages the neat trick of being highly entertaining, genuinely informative and hilariously cynical at the same time. WRITING MOVIES FOR FUN AND PROFIT is a solid dose of reality that many aspiring screenwriters will insist doesn’t apply to them. I hope they have fun working at Starbucks. —Allan Mott

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Here’s the thing everyone should know about Pam Grier’s autobiography, FOXY: MY LIFE IN THREE ACTS: It wasn’t written by a Pam Grier fan.

If it had been written by someone who was as obsessed with Grier’s film career as much as any other responsible B-movie buff, there would be whole long chapters about the making of COFFY, FOXY BROWN and SHEBA, BABY. There’d be anecdotes about working with William Marshall on the set of SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM, Jim Backus on FRIDAY FOSTER, and what it must have felt like co-starring as a slave in the studio-made DRUM, just a few years after playing such strong female lead characters in lower budgeted non-studio films.

But this book wasn’t written by a Pam Grier fan. It was written (with the help of Andrea Cagan) by Grier herself, so you have to temper your B-movie-buff expectations and instead go into it knowing that you are about to read the story of a strong, dynamic woman who has led a fascinating life, and who doesn’t give a fuck about the classic movies she made in the ‘70s. At least not the same way you do.

Fortunately for her readers (if not for herself), Grier has led a compelling, dramatic life that would be just as worthy of writing about if her name was Pam Smith and she had never even heard of Roger Corman or Jack Hill. So it’s no wonder she’d rather focus on the personal events and relationships that have helped define who she is as a person, rather than an icon.

Still, I cannot help but assume that most fans of such an iconic performer will come away disappointed. One of the great bummers of being a fan is that very often we know and appreciate more about the history of our enthusiasm to a far larger degree than those who actually participate in it. Athletes often know nothing about the teams they get paid millions of dollars to play for, musicians with hit records might stare at you blankly after you make a Beatles reference in their presence, and film legends like Grier cannot even be counted on accurately keeping track when different films were made and released, even when finding out is merely a matter of checking out the IMDb.

For example, in the chapter where she discusses her troubled relationship with her GREASED LIGHTNING co-star Richard Pryor, she writes that when they were together, he was riding high on the success of 1980’s STIR CRAZY. But then, a page later, she talks about coming home to his house from the set of 1976’s DRUM. One easily assumes she actually meant SILVER STREAK when mentioning his breakout hit, since it fits the timeline she provides, but it’s the kind of careless, easily caught and corrected mistake that defines her overall indifference to the enormous part of her life the majority of the book’s audience are actually interested in.

That said, this same part of FOXY also happens to feature a story about the time a pack of dogs attacked Pryor’s beloved pet horse, Ginger, compelling Grier to load the wounded 400-pound animal into the back of her Jaguar and race to the closest veterinarian, while a line-up of cars formed behind her as other motorists followed to find out why exactly Pryor was weeping in the passenger side of a sports car with a small horse stuffed in the back.

So, yeah, FOXY is a book filled with some great stories about a fascinating woman who has led a tumultuous life, but it’s also one where her relationship with CHICO AND THE MAN’s Freddie Prinze gets far more page time than JACKIE BROWN, making it a Pam Grier book seemingly written for people who have never actually seen a Pam Grier movie, which is certainly a wide audience, but maybe not quite the right one to go for. —Allan Mott

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There are two types of film lovers in this world of ours. One enjoys a movie so much — like, say, George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD — that he wants to read more about its making. To that group, I’d recommend — which I already have — reading Joe Kane’s book about just that: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE MOST TERRIFYING HORROR MOVIE EVER.

The second type enjoys a movie so much — like, say, George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD — that he wants to dissect and discuss it, perhaps over a cappuccino, to find out “what it all means, man.” To that group, I’d recommend — which I do to you now — Kevin J. Wetmore Jr.’s BACK FROM THE DEAD: REMAKES OF THE ROMERO ZOMBIE FILMS AS MARKERS OF THEIR TIMES.

In all seriousness, there can be room for both on movielovers’ shelves. The title is a misnomer, however; it suggests the book skips Romero’s own films, which is certainly not the case, as they comprise a bulk of the text. Plus, Wetmore compares how the remakes differ from the originals — not in terms of quality, but social and political themes they portray.

The entire approach strikes me as somewhat funny, since film scholars long have read a strong message of race into 1968′s NOTLD, at which Romero has scoffed, saying that was never the intent; the best guy for the role just happened to be black. But wars both Cold and Vietnam War sure linger over the movie, and that gives you a clear picture of what Wetmore sets out to do with his book: examine how each entry in the series holds up a mirror to the society that existed at the time of production.

Therefore, and most famously, with its shopping-mall setting, 1978′s DAWN OF THE DEAD can be viewed as a sharp critique of consumerism and commercialism, while Zack Snyder’s 2004 remake captures post-9/11 angst. So does the 2006 remake of DAY OF THE DEAD, whereas Romero’s 1985 original is more concerned with America’s fears of nuclear Armageddon in the Reagan age.

If you abhor such theses, thinking an academic mind takes all the fun out of watching movies, by all means steer clear. One can argue that the respectively filmmakers may have been influenced only subconsciously in including such themes, and Wetmore agrees. His take-it-or-leave-it style — as opposed to a raised-nose, shoved-down-your-throat attitude — makes BACK FROM THE DEAD accessible, engaging and easy to stomach. —Rod Lott

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The Yardbirds. Cream. Blind Faith. All classic groups in rock ‘n’ roll’s still-brief history, and all three having Eric Clapton in common. His rise from background player to solo guitar god is chronicled in CLAPTON: THE ULTIMATE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY by Chris Welch. Befitting of the title’s third word, this is another handsomely produced coffee-table book from Voyageur Press.

Other Clapton bios would give you just the bio. And Welch has done that, too, but supplemented it with a wealth of photographs, concert posters and related images, like a 1965 ad pushing a John Mayhall and His Bluesbreakers show with the enticing line of “Free sweets! Ciggies! Discs!” The work closes with an illustrated discography. The book’s only drawback? Other than that it’s for fans only, Clapton’s far from through, of course. —Rod Lott

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ANNE FRANCIS: THE LIFE AND CAREER may not be all that an intriguing biography of the recently deceased Hollywood star, but Laura Wagner’s book is the one that finally convinced me I’m missing something by not having the HONEY WEST spy series in my DVD collection. I will right that wrong.

And I’ve always found Francis sexy, ever since I first laid eyes on her in FORBIDDEN PLANET. Those two projects represent the apex of the actresses’ career, but hardly her only highlights. In both films and television, the woman kept very busy.

One could argue the book is really two in one. The first half is the chronological biography — culled from other sources, rather than original interviews, sadly, which has it read like an extended blog post — while the second is an episode guide to HONEY WEST. Both halves are thoroughly illustrated with vintage photos and stills that showcase Francis’ comely charms, right down to that lip-nearing mole.

Unless it’s mere photos you seek, Wagner’s book may be best received in the hands of her hardcore fans, and not the curious or casual; a better-written book may await them someday. —Rod Lott

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Based on a manga that’s literally dozens of volumes long and still going strong, the Japanese action epic GANTZ has a premise both unique and head-scratching as its title. Students Kei (Kazunari Ninomiya) and Kato (Kenichi Matsuyama) meet an untimely death via subway car, yet are transported at the point of impact to what seems to be an alternate dimension.

At any rate, it’s a sterile-looking, unfurnished apartment, barren but for the giant black ball in the room’s middle. The sphere is to this film what the monolith is to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY: one big mystery. Via textual cues, it informs Kei, Kato and the few other perplexed newly dead peeps with them — naked cutie (Natsuna Watanabe) included — that they are to suit up, grab a gun and play its game.

In basic terms, that’s ridding Japan of aliens, which take on wildly varying forms, from onion-headed mutants and a clockwork robot to statues that come to life, all of which the players shoot with powerful, energy-pulse weaponry that results in exaggerated explosions of gore and grue. Die in the timed game, and you die for good; survive, and you can return to your former life, but remain at the ball’s nightly beck and call.

Combining elements of horror and sci-fi — and initially reminiscent of the great CUBE — GANTZ is a high-velocity thrill ride with only slight lulls between rounds of go time. Like many effects-driven Asian films, it’s a little too long, but it certainly delivers bang for your buck, not to mention some sly laughs and more than a few WTF moments. The two-hour affair doesn’t offer closure so much as a breathing point before the forthcoming sequel, GANTZ II: PERFECT ANSWER, and I’m perfectly primed for another leap into its imaginative world. In the meantime, I’m intrigued to the point of seeking out the comics.

New to DVD and Blu-ray, GANTZ comes with a bonus disc featuring a lengthy, subtitled interview with director Shinsuke Sato, as well as a music video-style mix of trailers from the some company. A couple of titles look as wonderfully insane as this. —Rod Lott

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Who knew there was even a history to CRACKED magazine worth telling in a book? Before its tarnished brand was reborn as a successful website, it was a poor man’s MAD from its birth in 1958 to death in 2007. Mark Arnold chronicles every step up through the 1980s in IF YOU’RE CRACKED, YOU’RE HAPPY!: THE HISTORY OF CRACKED MAZAGINE, PART WON.

Don’t be fooled by the thickness of the volume: Although the book numbers more than 550 pages, less than 150 of that is actual story; the rest of that is a page-by-page index to every issue. With that caveat out of the way, you can know what you’re getting: somewhat of a “how not to run a magazine” cautionary tale. Too bad Arnold’s research is presented without a narrative.

While the tale is told in a roughly chronological format, names are dropped without always having received proper introduction first. This can leave the reader scratching his head trying to remember how each fits into the piece and relates to one another. Several anecdotes stand out above the muddled fray, like John Severin’s invaluable contributions (having illustrated nearly an entire early issue by himself), publishers re-running material without paying the creative talents, a ridiculous amount of covers featuring the Fonz, a young Liv Tyler appearing in a photo feature, landing the legendary Steve Ditko, and the breast-tacular drawings of Bill Ward.

But Arnold makes no effort to shape this material into anything compelling. It’s evident many of the interviews were conducted via email, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it is the responsibility of the author — or a professional editor, in which this is of dire need — to correct the instances of words in all capital letters, multiple exclamation points and the like.

Furthermore, just because a subject said something doesn’t mean it’s worth quoting word for word — especially when they go on for paragraphs, even pages. Arcane facts with no bearing can be removed; utterances of “I wish I could help,” “I don’t know” and “I don’t remember” should be excised, since the men clearly have nothing of value to add.

Most of all, why leave in sentences like this one received by artist Angelo Torres, other than to pat yourself on the back: “Good luck with your history of CRACKED. It should be great fun going back all that wonderful work by John Severin and others.”

Torres is right: It should be great fun, especially since so many people in the text remark how bad they think CRACKED was: a third- or fourth-rate imitator of the groundbreaking MAD. But this book is not fun. It’s a rambling collection of facts, figures and quotes that has not been cleaned up adequately enough for public presentation, and for those paying $34.95, they should expect it to. (Couldn’t he have called upon CRACKED’s janitor mascot, Sylvester P. Smythe?) Should you disagree, however, PART TOO awaits. —Rod Lott

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I must admit that when I decided to read EVEL: THE HIGH-FLYING LIFE OF EVEL KNIEVEL: AMERICAN SHOWMAN, DAREDEVIL, AND LEGEND, I did so less out of any enthusiasm for its subject than my appreciation of author Leigh Montville’s excellent 2008 book, THE MYSTERIOUS MONTAGUE: A TRUE TALE OF HOLLYWOOD, GOLF, AND ARMED ROBBERY.

That nonfiction work detailed the fascinating tale of the rise and fall of John Montague, a large, boisterous golf hustler whose reputation as the best trick-shot artist in America was quickly undone by his inability to play in front of large crowds and — more significantly — his being arrested and tried for an armed robbery committed years earlier.

Having now read both books, they serve as rather remarkable companion pieces, essentially telling the same story, but in dramatically different eras. Like Montague, Knievel was a con man with a history of criminal activity whose rise to fame was based just as much on hype than actual accomplishment. The key difference is that for all of his faults, Montague remains a somewhat tragic, sympathetic figure, while even in his best moments, Knievel is never anything but one of the world’s most epic assholes.

That said, EVEL is far from being an Albert Goldman/Andrew Morton-esque hatchet job, designed to sell books through controversy. Fact is, most of the people willing to devote time and money to a book about Knievel are likely the kids who spent hours revving their toy stunt cycles on kitchen floors in the early ’70s and I’m guessing they would probably prefer a less-honest look at their late=childhood hero.

So it’s commendable that Montville has ignored the demands of nostalgia and instead told the unvarnished truth: Evel Knievel, for a brief period in the ’70s, was the celebrity equivalent of one of those deadbeat dads who is worshipped as a god by his son, who is too young and desperately in need of an idol to appreciate what a douchebag his ne’er-do-well father really is.

I suspect, however, that how you come away from the book will largely depend on how you go into it. For some, the story of Knievel is that of one of the last American heroes — a man unafraid to put his body and life on the line for the entertainment of the masses — while for others, it’s the story of the first “reality TV star” who ultimately grew more famous for his public failures than his actual successes.

Montville does an extremely admirable job detailing his subject’s rise to fame, starting all the way back Knievel’s childhood in Butte, Mont. (which sounds, as he describes it, like the last American frontier town), and his genesis from insurance salesman/petty crook into red-white-and-blue-clad motorcycle show-jumper. As a B-movie buff, I especially enjoyed the detailed account of the making of EVEL KNIEVEL, the 1971 biopic that starred George Hamilton and helped turn Knievel into a national celebrity.

As should be expected, extra time is spent on Knievel’s two most famous stunts, both of which he fucked up. The most startling revelation in the chapter on his Caesars Palace fountain jump is that Knievel went into it knowing full well he couldn’t make it. “I’ve done the math,” he reportedly told filmmaker John Derek (whose then-wife, DYNASTY’s Linda Evans, actually shot the event’s most infamous crash footage), “and I’m going to be short.”

Again, for some, this will serve as a proof of Knievel’s integrity and heroism, while for others, it’s clear indication that he was a whore for fame at any cost. Those with the latter attitude then will find much Schadenfreudic amusement in the details and outcome of Knievel’s most ambitious stunt, the Snake River Canyon jump, which even the most ardent Knievel apologists will have no choice but to classify as a massive clusterfuck that resulted in one of the biggest anti-climaxes in the history of hype.

For fans of pop culture, probably the most apt and amusing chapter is the one devoted to the making of a live daredevil TV special CBS aired in 1976 that was supposed to climax with Knievel jumping his motorcycle over a water tank filled with 13 man-eating sharks.

Reality proved much less thrilling, as man-eating great whites proved impossible to find and were substituted by much smaller, much less dangerous specimens (only six of whom managed to survive the whole ordeal). It was all for naught, though, since the stunt had to be scrapped when Knievel injured himself during rehearsals and thus spared the world the sight of him literally ending his career by “jumping the shark” on live television.

If I have one gripe about Montville’s book, it’s that it feels rushed once Knievel’s fame comes to an end. The biggest disappointment for me came when he brought up and dismissed Knievel’s lone attempt at movie stardom, VIVA KNIEVEL!, in less than a full page, despite having spent so much time on Hamilton’s biopic. Those who’ve seen VIVA know it as one of the most absurdly over-the-top vanity projects of the era, so I was looking forward to learning how it came to be, as well as details of its production. Montville’s failure to provide this information is — for me, at least — inexcusable.

Despite this severe shortcoming, EVEL is a great book about a pretty terrible guy: a crooked, lying, abusive, violent, alcoholic who was, for a short period, one of the most famous men in America. Although his many faults render him unsympathetic, his story remains compelling and should be required reading in an age where being famous for being famous has become its own virtue and reward. —Allan Mott

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Most of us who remember Ed “Big Daddy” Roth or his work, remember all those crazy T-shirt ads in every single decent magazine (and some not-so-decent) you could buy from the ’60s through the ’80s. A massive bug-eyed monster with a walloping tongue lolling out from between its grinning gator teeth, riding a red-hot hot rod with a ridiculously oversized engine primed to either explode into orbit or run over a gaggle of grannies.

Or maybe you remember Roth’s hilarious bastardization of Mickey Mouse, Rat Fink, as a slobbering foul-smelling, speed-freak cartoon you’d be just as likely to spot on hopped-up 32′ Ford coupes as you would on the fender of a 10-year-old kid’s chopper bike.

Gearheads remember Roth from his cars: futuristic, custom-built vehicles that made headlines and toured the world before they were turned into bestselling Revell model kits brats of all ages would build and paint with care in order to own a piece of Big Daddy’s brand of cool.

Any which way you look at it, Roth made a massive impact into popular culture from the early ’60s on, and even if the man has receded into a distant memory in the cultural gestalt, those waves he made are still landing on unsuspecting hipsters today.

Pat Ganahls’ book, ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH: HIS LIFE, TIMES, CARS, AND ART, is a step toward reclaiming his impact. It tells Roth’s story from an insider’s perspective, tackling every aspect of his prodigious talent and outta-this-world character. Hell, you can trace everything from REN & STIMPY and SOUTH PARK to Kustom Kulture and Bustedtees back to Roth’s irreverent approach. He was one of those key people who sidetracked popular culture from corporate pap back to the underground garage.

A distinct lack of pretense and a sizable amount of honesty goes a long way towards making this a terrific nuts and bolts overview of a neglected pop culture subject. To my ears, it was refreshing to hear a biographer state that “I was there, but I don’t remember,” or mention that he couldn’t find any information about Roth’s whereabouts and activities during these years here and those over there. And not for lack of trying: Roth just dropped off the grid, adding to his own myth.

If there is a complaint about Ganahl’s book, it’s that the writing is not as exciting and exuberant as one hopes for a subject as boisterous as this one. The design follows suit by being a bit dry for all the paint splatter, Hells Angels smackdowns and grease the subject contains. But the thick, glossy paper riddled with stupendous photos both in vivid black and white, and lurid color helps you push the deficiencies into the background.

Even lacking panache, ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH: HIS LIFE, TIMES, CARS, AND ART delivers the goods. If you’re into the cars, Ganahl delivers in spades. I hatched plans to pinstripe my Corolla after finishing it. —JT Lindroos

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Each year, the Los Angeles-based Gallery 1988 holds a wildly popular CRAZY 4 CULT art show that we’re not fortunate, rich and/or cool enough to attend, in which really contemporary artists turn scenes and/or characters from cult films into eye-popping works. The oversized CULT MOVIE ART coffee table book is your consolation for not being able to go.

Skip the introduction by Kevin Smith, unless you’re a Kevin Smith fan. Although he’s partly responsible for the exhibit even existing, I find his words and humor to be off-putting. (Couldn’t he have skipped the dick jokes for just this one page?)

In nearly 200 thick, glossy pages, some weird, wild, wonderful art awaits — new, but definitely influenced by the surrealist movement. You’ll find Leatherface frolicking among Oompa-Loompas, the Torrance family in a Sears-portrait pose, and The Dude as a plush toy.

There’s really not a bad piece among the work. My only problem with the book lay in the depth of the artists’ scope. I don’t know if they were restricted to certain titles, but their definition of a cult film seems rather narrow, with too many pieces devoted to the filmography of Tim Burton and Smith. Where’s the really obscure stuff? Perhaps in the next volume. —Rod Lott

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Ever since I read Jason Zinoman’s VANITY FAIR article three years ago about the horror-film revolution of the 1970s and learned it was to be expanded into a full book, I eagerly awaited the result. Now it’s here, as SHOCK VALUE: HOW A FEW ECCENTRIC OUTSIDERS GAVE US NIGHTMARES, CONQUERED HOLLYWOOD, AND INVENTED MODERN HORROR, and it did not disappoint.

This is not a history of a decade in horror, but a true narrative of how a few select films broke rules — some completely by accident — and ended up changing the face of the genre. Without intending to, the filmmakers dragged horror from its standing a hair above pornography to something lauded by AMPAS. Most of them were just out to make an honest buck.

Through personal interviews and other sources, Zinoman weaves an utterly addictive tale of how the oft-guerilla making of these movies hit the cultural landscape so hard, their impact is still felt today. Wes Craven’s lack of proper equipment gave THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT a documentary feel that was hard to shake, announcing that this was as far from Vincent Price and Roger Corman as one could get.

But ever more disturbing, perhaps, was its moral ambiguity — a theme that resonated strongly through Roman Polanski’s ROSEMARY’S BABY and Brian De Palma’s CARRIE. William Friedkin’s THE EXORCIST crossed lines of taste and taboo to shock audiences, even if its creators insist in calling it a thriller, not horror. The miserable heat on the set of Tobe Hooper’s THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE contributed to its dangerous feel more than anything in the script.

Thanks to DVD commentaries, fanzines and the like, it’s likely that horror fans already have heard the behind-the-scenes stories of these movies. But Zinoman weaves them together in a true narrative in which A connects to B, and B begets C, and C influences D, and so on. With a cast of characters that includes a sour William Castle pushed away from the property he bought, and a perhaps crazy Dan O’Bannon, whose friendship with John Carpenter went kaput as soon as DARK STAR was over, and the latter went on to helm HALLOWEEN, which kick-started an entire new set of rules and copycats.

From the way it’s introduced, Sean S. Cunningham’s FRIDAY THE 13TH seems as if it, too, will get the same treatment as the other titles above, but it doesn’t. It’s glossed over as soon as it’s mentioned, and Zinoman moves on. That’s not a complaint, because the stories he chooses to tell in his overall tale are fascinating, and perhaps it didn’t quite fit the way he wanted it to.

Okay, maybe it is a complaint, because if there’s anything I found wrong with SHOCK VALUE, it’s that I wanted it to be twice as long. By page 238, the narrative is all wrapped up with a twist … of a certain possessed girl’s head. Oh, sure, there’s closure and a logic, but when you’re talking about one of my favorite subjects, the hook is still happily in my cheek. I wasn’t ready for it to be removed, and for me to be thrown back into my world.

Yes, it’s a must. The power of Christ compels you to buy this book! —Rod Lott

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Whether you’re praying for the confirmation of a fourth manuscript or just awaiting the David Fincher remake to hit cinema screens, DRAGON TATTOO fans can — and should — make do with THE TATTOOED GIRL: THE ENIGMA OF STIEG LARSSON AND THE SECRETS BEHIND THE MOST COMPELLING THRILLERS OF OUR TIME. How many novels — at least those not actually geared toward children — get their own nonfiction companion?

Edited by Dan Burstein, Arne de Keijzer and John-Henri Holmberg, the unauthorized collection contains dozens of pieces by nearly as many contributors, each examining a different facet of the books, their impact or their author.

Unsurprisingly, many of the initial essays deal directly with the “girl” of Larsson’s trilogy herself — the one who played with fire, the one who kicked the hornet’s nest, the one and only lesbian punk hacker, Lizbeth Salander. A new feminist icon, she’s compared to everyone from Pippi Longstocking to Holden Caulfield.

Others focus on the books’ revisions, its stage and film adaptations, the rape scenes, the influence of Swedish culture, and other Nordic crime novelists. While certainly those who will get the most out of THE TATTOOED GIRL already will have digested the whole of the “Millennium” trilogy, even fans of the films who haven’t yet ventured into their print origins will be sucked into the considerable contents. —Rod Lott

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My eldest is 13 years old, so he doesn’t like to talk to me much, especially when grunting will do. Apparently, I’m not cool enough to merit the energy of conversation. Only when I can discuss one of his three favorite things — professional sports, Katy Perry and zombies — does he perk up beyond a surly murmur.

Well, I loathe playing and watching sports, and dislike the music of Perry, despite my love of big breasts; but zombies? Hell, I know these zombies. With him, I can bond over Jovanka Vuckovic’s ZOMBIES!: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE UNDEAD. He might even appreciate the still photo of a full-frontal blonde from 1982′s THE LIVING DEAD GIRL, which somewhat crosses over into his second interest.

Known for her work on the excellent but overpriced RUE MORGUE magazine, Vuckovic has assembled has a fairly slim but very fun paperback that will appeal to my son’s generation of zombie newbies, just now getting into them via TV’s THE WALKING DEAD and video games like LEFT 4 DEAD, as well as well-established like me, who’ve grown up with them in the VHS golden age.

The first section is the one most likely to teach longtime fans a thing or two, covering the historical origins of the “zombie” from travelers’ stories about Haiti — some popularized on our shores by a satanist! Chapter 2 skims over early examples of the undead in books and on the screen — such as ARABIAN NIGHTS and WHITE ZOMBIE, respectively, before the subject of Chapter 3 changed everything: George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, duh.

Purely by accident, that revolutionary film established the “rules” of zombiedom we still abide by today, as well as kicked off a subgenre in horror cinema. Vuckovic examines the United States’ various post-NOTLD efforts, including Romero’s own sequels, before diving head-on into Chapter 4′s focus on the gorier Italian works.

Later chapters encapsulate the zombie revival of that past decade, starting with the big-screen, but now stumbling into all media, including television, novels, comics, music and video games.

On all items, the author speaks with considerable knowledge, but also an occasional bit of bias. Just because she doesn’t like the RESIDENT EVIL movie or the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake doesn’t mean they should be discounted so harshly. In a book that’s a pop-culture overview rather than a work of critical review, such sniping feels out of place, especially when such opinions are not among the majority. Still, those instances are few.

ZOMBIES! is the kind of book that is so well-illustrated that it earns the exclamation point of its title. In these days of the publishing apocalypse, St. Martin’s Griffin deserves commendation for springing for full color throughout, in order to best displays the hundreds of photos, posters, stills, artworks and other graphics, with at least one on every page. In other words, this is one of those books that would suck in an electronic format. Glad they had the, yep, “brains.”

If you’re looking for a history of zombie movies, this is not the book — try Glenn Kay’s ZOMBIE MOVIES: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE and/or Jamie Russell’s BOOK OF THE DEAD — but for an overall glimpse across all media, I can’t think of a better buy. The only true drawback is that by striking while the iron is really hot, a lot of notable projects aren’t going to be included. —Rod Lott

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I think it’s safe to say that Rob Lowe and I are about as different as two life forms can be and still be classified as belonging to the same species. It is equally safe to say that given the evolutionary choice, nature would definitely select him over me. This should make me resent him, and I do (I really, really do!), but not enough for me to not recommend his very entertaining new autobiography.

Beyond having a title guaranteed to encouraging legions of stalkers to show up at his house, STORIES I ONLY TELL MY FRIENDS also manages to pull off the nigh impossible trick of being extremely likable for a memoir detailing the supermodel-humping adventures of the prettiest of all pretty-boy Brat Packers.

Lowe achieves this mostly by refusing to acknowledge the inescapable realities of his visage in favor of describing a childhood spent as self-described drama geek. Transplanted to California following the divorce of his parents, Lowe found that his theatrical experience scored him little points amongst Malibu’s popular teenage surfing clique.

Those of us, however, who actually were geeks in high school probably will suspect that Lowe protests too much, especially when his pubescent charms lead to such memorable early experiences as visits to the sets of STAR WARS and THE MUPPET MOVIE, the latter of which occurred after he met and impressed Richard Hunt (the puppeteer responsible for Scooter and Janice) at a Dodgers game.

Lowe fails to mention that Hunt was gay (or even his last name, for that matter), implying that the invitation resulted purely as the result of Lowe’s pluck and their mutual devotion to the same baseball team. That he actually seems to believe this is an essential part of the book’s charm. At times, Lowe comes across as the male equivalent of one of those ever-happy hot girls who believe the world is a wonderful place because everyone is just so gosh-darned nice to them.

I like those girls. I find their naïveté charming. Plus they’re hot.

In a book filled with gripping chapters, perhaps the best is the long section dedicated to his role in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic ode to cute thugs from the wrong side of the tracks, THE OUTSIDERS. Having not seen the movie in decades, I struggled to remember Lowe being in it.

Turns out there’s a good reason for this, as Lowe describes the sensation of spending months giving his heart and soul to the project, only to discover that his part was almost completely cut out during post-production. It’s a reality of Hollywood life that you frequently hear about in passing, but seldom get to read about in such excruciating detail. You can tell that it still bothers him even 30 years later.

Equally enjoyable for film buffs are his behind-the-scenes tales of roles he didn’t take in what would eventually become some of the biggest flops of all time. Offered the part Kyle MacLachlan played in DUNE, he balked at the contractually obligated sequel commitment, especially when he found out his character’s head was replaced by a sandworm’s in the third book in the series. And his tale of meeting with Roman Polanski in Paris about starring in PIRATES (back when it was supposed to star Jack Nicholson instead of Walter Matthau) is made memorable by a chance encounter with Bill Murray, whose loneliness while filming THE RAZOR’S EDGE leads to Lowe receiving a special gift.

To his credit, he doesn’t gloss over his failures, cheerfully devoting several pages to projects most other memoirists would dismiss in a single sentence. Instead of skipping past a debacle like Peter Bogdanovich’s ILLEGALLY YOURS (the 1988 fiasco that halted the momentum of both of their careers), he bravely digs in and describes what he thought went wrong. In this case, Bogdanovich — riding high on the success of MASK — decided to trust his own genius (which had served him so well on DAISY MILLER and AT LONG LAST LOVE) and cast Colleen Camp against type as Lowe’s love interest and rewrote the script to give his talentless, 20-year-old girlfriend (who just happened to be the sister of his murdered centerfold lover) a featured role.

Sadly, not all is smooth sailing as you glide through Lowe’s prose. Throughout the book, he repeatedly commits what has to be one of the most aggravating literary crimes a celebrity memoirist can commit: waiting until the end of an anecdote to reveal the identity of another famous person, even though we already guessed who they were the second they were introduced. At least a half-dozen times in the course of STORIES, you will experience moments like this (please note these are not direct quotes):

Lowe: My agent asked me to have lunch with a young actress from New York who was currently playing the lead role in ANNIE on Broadway.

Me: Hmm, he wouldn’t be telling us this unless that young actress eventually became someone famous. … Who’s the most famous person to have ever played Annie on Broadway? Oh! It has to be Sarah Jessica Parker!

Lowe: I went to the restaurant with my girlfriend, and we met a pretty girl with curly brown hair named Sarah.

Me: I knew it! It is Sarah Jessica Parker

Lowe: My girlfriend quickly grew bored as the two of us talked about acting and the theater. Sarah asked me if I was going to keep on being an actor when I grew up. I said wasn’t sure. She said she was. “I love acting more than anything,” she told me.

Me: We know she does. She’s a big star. She’s Sarah Jessica Parker.

Lowe: We left the restaurant and said goodbye to each other.

Me: Only to meet again years later when you’re Rob Lowe and she’s Sarah Jessica Parker? Am I right?

Lowe: Twenty-five years later, I would see her –

Me: Who? SARAH JESSICA PARKER?!?!?

Lowe: — again when I was nominated for a Golden Globe for THE WEST WING –

Me: And she was nominated for SEX AND THE CITY, because she’s Carrie fucking Bradshaw!

Lowe: — and I watched as Sarah Jessica Parker ascended the stage to accept her award for best actress in a TV comedy.

Me: FUCK YOU, ROB LOWE!

I admit this might seem like I’m over-reacting, but Lowe does this a lot in STORIES I ONLY TELL MY FRIENDS. So much so I think I kinda earned the right to sucker-punch him at least once if we ever met.

That said, his memoir is as honest and humble as any book written by a guy who got laid more in a long weekend than most of us will in our lifetime could be. Filled with tons of memorable stories and fun insider details, this is a must-read for any fan of celebrity bios or ’80s pop culture.

Plus, as the title clearly indicates, Rob and I are now close enough for me to crash at his place whenever I’m in Santa Barbara! —Allan Mott

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There are 8 million stories in the naked city, nearly as many fondly remembered television series that told them. If some of your favorite boob-tube hours were spent with detectives, cops and other do-gooder authorities, you’ll have a ball reacquainting yourself with many in Ray Starman’s TV NOIR: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

Heavy on hard info and informed opinion, the paperback covers a little more than 50 shows among 50 years of prime-time programming, in concise essays that set the scene of each show, discusses its application of noir themes, and examines its impact. Few have none, suggesting Starman chose his titles wisely.

With five chapter separated into chronological eras, TV NOIR then shuffles the covered shows into subgenres, from “Police” and “Private Detective” to “Spies” and even “Science Fiction,” from TREASURY MEN IN ACTION to THE X-FILES. Among the series highlighted are stalwarts like THE FUGITIVE and DRAGNET, the lesser-known 87TH PRECINCT and HARRY O, and cult chestnuts MIDNIGHT CALLER and TWIN PEAKS.

Scads more are mentioned that don’t even make the contents pages, which makes TV NOIR a little tough to navigate, like a TiVo that’s run out of info to load. It’s sorely lacking an index that would make this a good reference guide to keep handy on your shelf; that’s one of a few things that keep it from being essential, but this is nonetheless entertaining. —Rod Lott

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Here’s the good news: TEENAGE WASTELAND: THE SLASHER MOVIE UNCUT exists. Here’s the bad news: I came out of it with a list of “must-see”s so long, I’d need to get rid of my family just to afford the money and time to track the titles down, not to mention watch them.

Author J.A. Kerswell has lovingly assembled an all-encompassing guide to perhaps the most critically reviled subgenre of horror … which is exactly why you’ll want to read it, provided you know which FRIDAY THE 13TH sequel contains the Fake Jason. And if you have no idea, it doubles as a primer. Hell, with the dozens and dozens of slashers in my DVD collection, even I learned something. Actually, I learned a lot.

Kerswell begins with the slasher forefathers of Grand Guignol, Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO, Germany’s Edgar Wallace adaptations, Italy’s giallo and British Gothic shockers before digging in — with butcher knife, naturally — to the real meat of the movement: the golden age that began in 1978 (nice to meet you, Michael Myers!) and ended in 1984 (and you, too, Freddy Krueger!).

Although the slashers’ heyday consumes the largest chunk of the paperback, subsequent chapters follow to delve into the VHS revolution, the SCREAM-ignited postmodern rebirth and its new blood (i.e. HATCHET).

The full-color paperback is eye candy, with photos and posters adorning each and every page. Another plus is that TEENAGE WASTELAND isn’t limited to American movies, casting its net all around the world. The guy knows his stuff, and horror hounds will be happy to share in his knowledge, from the mainstream to the deathly obscure.

Unfortunately, this isn’t in print in the States. When I bought it, I paid a pretty penny to import it from Amazon’s UK site, but it was worth every cent. It’s since been added to regular ol’ Amazon, albeit currently only through third parties. No matter how you get it, I highly recommend it for fright-film buffs. It’s a true keeper. —Rod Lott

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Although I am by no means a stranger to the genre of completely unnecessary autobiographies dedicated to aging actors whose relevance as celebrities ended before I was born, I can’t say that I picked up this latest entry out of any enthusiasm for its subject. As much as I love 7 FACES OF DR. LAO, if you were to ask me which gorgeous blond star from a classic ’60s sitcom about a magical beauty prone to creating comic situations whilst attempting to help the man she loved owned my heart, I’d say Elizabeth Montgomery without a second’s hesitation.

It wasn’t out of any interest in Barbara Eden’s life and career that compelled me to listen to the audiobook version of JEANNIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE, which is credited to her and (I presume) the actual author of the work, Wendy Leigh, but rather a personal interest in the subject of ghostwriting itself.

I can’t explicitly state the reason why I find myself compelled to consume as many ghostwritten books as I can, but I really don’t think it’s that hard to guess. The thing I find most fascinating about the art of the ghostwriter is that the better you are at it, the less likely you are to receive any credit for your work. The greater your skill at sublimating your voice in favor of your subject’s, the more likely your audience is going to assume they wrote the whole thing without any help.

Although I understand the reasons why some ghostwriters receive credit for their work while others do not varies from book to book, I am always wary of those with two names on the cover. Not because it breaks any sort of illusion (does anyone really think Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi is the sole author of A SHORE THING? Especially since this would mean her having written a book without ever actually having read one), but because it seems like an admission of failure — the implication being that the ghostwriter did such a shitty job, there was no way to hide it.

I freely admit that this is a completely unfair prejudice on my part, but then again, books like JEANNIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE do little to convince me otherwise. I listened to the audiobook version instead of reading the traditional text, as that is easily the best way to judge how well the author managed to capture the subject’s voice. Done right and it sounds as those the words are coming freely from their own mouth; done wrong and it sounds contrived and awkward.

JEANNIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE does it wrong. Listening to Eden read aloud her own life story, you get the sense that she could easily be describing someone else for all the connection she has to the words she’s speaking. This is because rather than writing a personal memoir, Leigh has instead written an impersonal biography using a first-person narrative.

This comes across most in the moments where “Barbara” describes the people she’s worked with in the past. Rather than coming across as personal impressions of famous cultural icons, they instead read like robotic listings of the career accomplishments found on their Wikipedia pages.

Leigh tries to disguise this by filling the book with nonlinear digressions, rather than simply telling Eden’s story in a straightforward fashion. Instead of just giving us a chapter about what an asshole Larry Hagman was on the set of I DREAM OF JEANNIE, for example, we also have to put up with a chapter at the beginning of the book about how such a chapter is going to appear later on.

It also doesn’t help that Leigh and Eden want to have their cake and eat it, too. They insist on being honest, yet at the same time, refuse to do anything that might burn a bridge. Thus, for every Hagman-did-something-shitty story, there’s a paragraph about what a talented guy he was and how much Eden respects and likes him today. After a while, you get the sense that if you took out all of the backsliding in the book, it would be half as long.

And it’s a shame because Eden does have a potentially interesting story to tell that goes beyond Hollywood stardom and into the subjects of depression (she suffered from it after the miscarriage of her second child), drug abuse (her son was an addict) and personal loss (her son died at the age of 35 as a result of said addiction).

It’s only until the very last moments of the book, where Eden admits that she will never completely get over the death of her son, that you feel any sense of her involvement. I can’t say how it reads on the page, but in her voice, it’s devastating. The emotion is still raw and powerful, and a little more of that feeling and honesty could have saved the book if the effort had been made. —Allan Mott

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Even those who aren’t fans of the rockabillly genre can recognize the appeal of ROCKABILLY: THE TWANG HEARD ‘ROUND THE WORLD: THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY. Here, editor Michael Dregni has assembled an all-star portrait of the musical movement and the men and women who made it rock, and continue to do so.

In full-color pages flush with album art, photographs and other memorabilia, the lively hardcover is like a crash course in music history, spotlighting not only the likes of Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Duane Eddy, Ricky Nelson and Jerry Lee Lewis, but their instruments as well.

Among those interviewed are rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson (still going strong and enjoying a revival, thanks to Jack White), “Blue Suede Shoes” wearer Carl Perkins, and modern-day acts like Brian Setzer and the Rev. Horton Heat. In one chapter, Dregni’s book also dives into regional performers who made their mark.

Love rockabilly? Then you probably need this book. That’s right: not want, but need. —Rod Lott

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Much like the recent KEYBOARD PRESENTS SYNTH GODS, there’s another new collection of profiles and interviews torn from the pages of a niche music magazine, in GUITAR PLAYER PRESENTS GUITAR HEROES OF THE ’70S.

Culled from issues printed between 1970 and 1984, the book spotlights a solid 40, well, heroes of the guitar, just as the title promises. I’ve never so much as touched an issue of GUITAR PLAYER, but it was quite popular among the stoners who rode my school bus in junior high.

The names are largely of the household/superstar variety, across a variety of musical styles, including Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Jerry Garcia, Eddie Van Halen, Bonnie Raitt, John Fogerty, Pete Townshend and Carlos Santana. Then there are those who are well-known more by their group than as an individual: Robin Trower, David Gilmour, Neal Schon, Brian May, etc.

With “‘Dy-No-Mite’ Discs!” sidebars recommending three albums for each artist (great for newbies), the interviews are presented in the ever-breezy Q-and-A style, but some are really super-short. José Feliciano has less than two pages of text; luckily, he won’t know if we don’t tell him. —Rod Lott

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As far as I’m concerned, the 1973 Academy Awards was the setting of what has to be the biggest upset in the event’s history. That year, the Oscar for Best Picture went to a film you might have heard of called THE GODFATHER, but instead of awarding the prize for Best Director to Francis Ford Coppola, the Academy’s voters instead gave it to Bob Fosse for his work on CABARET.

Can you friggin’ believe that? Have you heard anything so completely bug-nuts insane? There’s no way THE GODFATHER should have gotten Best Picture!

Okay, so I realize that mine is probably the minority view, but its not for nothing that despite losing out the top prize that year, CABARET totally kicked THE GODFATHER’s ass, with Fosse’s film taking home eight Oscars (including Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Cinematography) to Coppola’s measly four.

As Stephen Tropiano documents in MUSIC ON FILM: CABARET, his far-too-brief book about the making of Fosse’s first cinematic masterpiece (he would go one to make at least one more with ALL THAT JAZZ), the reason for this is simple: THE GODFATHER merely took a disreputable genre and gave it class, while CABARET took a dying genre and completely reinvented it in such a way that it was never really the same again.

In his chapter on CABARET’s critical reception, Tropiano points out that a common theme amongst the critics who wrote about it was that it was a musical for people who hated musicals, with some going so far to argue that it wasn’t even really a musical at all, despite the number of songs performed. This was because the film represented the first attempt to avoid the fantastic conventions of the genre and instead pursue the kind of verisimilitude previously found most often in European arthouse cinema.

Sure, there had been a musical with an unhappy ending like WEST SIDE STORY, but it still remained an absurd spectacle where supposedly dangerous “thugs” used their switchblades as props they waved around while they danced threateningly at each other. For all its exquisite theatricality, it bore no relation to any observable human experience.

CABARET changed that. By removing all of the songs from John Kander and Fred Ebbs’ Broadway production that took place outside of its titular location (a decision Tropiano credits to the film’s producer, Cy Feuer), it credibly set the film right in the middle of Weimar Germany, rather than the usual musical fantasyland. And rather than take you out of reality, the songs that remained were used to either serve as ironic counterpoint to what we were seeing or comment on the action in a way mere dialogue would never allow.

For people like me who consider the film to be one of the most important the ‘70s ever produced, Tropiano’s book is a must-buy, even though I suspect it will leave you craving much more. A small paperback of little more than 100 pages, its contents can be absorbed in a single sitting and sticks almost entirely to the facts, avoiding any attempts at personal commentary.

This focus on history rather than criticism makes the book a fun read, and I was happy to pick up some anecdotes and facts I was previously unaware of (my favorite being one where the film’s screenwriter, Jay Presson Allen, eased the film’s financiers’ concerns about the script’s references to anti-Semitism by telling them she was half-Jewish herself, only to admit to Feuer after the meeting was over that she had lied because she didn’t want to go into the meeting with an “ethnic liability”). That said, I would have loved if the author had spent at least one chapter discussing his own feelings about the film and why he was compelled to write about it.

As is the case of virtually everything I seem to review for this site, this is a book whose appeal is largely restricted to a small selection of the population, including film geeks, Fosse freaks and scholarly gay dudes. If you happen to be a member of this select group of individuals, I highly recommend it, especially since its cover price of $9.99 is significantly less than what you can expect to pay for similar books published by other companies. —Allan Mott

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As much as I love movies, I’m not one to look forward to films based upon whose name appears above the title. It’s the actors who may be the last name on the poster who appeal to me: the unsung heroes known as character actors. Scott Voisin interviews 15 of them in CHARACTER KINGS: HOLLYWOOD’S FAMILIAR FACES DISCUSS THE ART & BUSINESS OF ACTING.

As RIVER’S EDGE star Daniel Roebuck notes in his introduction, these are the actors whose names you may not know, but whose faces you do. And they’re fine with that. For one thing, it means their work is making an impression on viewers, but without having to be targets of the paparazzi. Win-win!

Among the performers interviewed — all men, interestingly, hopefully by accident and not design — include such genre favorites as SAW‘s Tobin Bell, RE-ANIMATOR‘s Jeffrey Combs, ROBOCOP‘s Ronny Cox and TWIN PEAKS‘ Ray Wise.

It’s possible Voisin scored the final interview with Paul Gleason (THE BREAKFAST CLUB) before his death, and the icing on the cake is that the author landed a genuine Oscar nominee in Robert Forster of JACKIE BROWN (incidentally, one of the 10 best performances I think I’ve ever seen).

Each is presented in a Q-and-A format, and while Voisin may appear more fan than journalist (many a chapter begins a question like “How did you get started?”), the results read like the conversation was one you’d want to listen to via a tapped line. His subjects are kind and pretty open, and most mention how happy they are just to be earning enough to make a living at it, since the odds are so stacked against them. —Rod Lott

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When I was 5, I asked my mother to buy me a superhero poster, because I really liked superheroes and, even at that young of age, I abhorred an empty wall. I made my request with visions of Superman and Batman floating in my head, but I would have happily settled for a Spider-Man or a Hulk as well. Hell, I would have made do with a freakin’ Aquaman if it came down to that.

Instead, she returned home with a poster of Lynda Carter dressed as Wonder Woman and I was fucking devastated.

My reaction had nothing to do with an innate distaste for Ms. Carter, Wonder Woman or the TV show that combined them together into the image that poster depicted. In fact, I watched WONDER WOMAN whenever I could, specifically because there was something about its beautiful star that activated the pleasure center of my brain. It was the same reason I watched THE DUKES OF HAZZARD although I didn’t give a fuck about cars and could care less about what happened to Bo and Luke: Daisy was where I was at.

What disturbed me so deeply was that the poster would be taken as a tacit admission of my Amazonian enthusiasm, and my time thus far served in kindergarten had taught me that this was pure social suicide. As tough as she was, Wonder Woman was still very much a girl, which meant that only girls were allowed to like her. It was sacred playground law — so clear and unforgiving it might as well have been considered the 11th commandment: Putting up a poster of Wonder Woman on your wall was essentially no different than putting on a dress.

But the poster had been paid for, so nothing I could say or do (including the shedding of actual tears) could stop its application upon my wall, with the result that during an important part of my emotional development, I woke up each morning to the image of a gorgeous, large-breasted brunette dressed in a glorified swimsuit and matching cape.

Fast-forward 30 years later and I’m writing this while drinking out of a Wonder Woman coffee mug, sitting a few feet away from a shelf full of Wonder Woman “action figures.” At work, a Wonder Woman bobblehead nods approvingly when I move my Apple’s Magic Mouse across my Wonder Woman mousepad, while a short, squat Wonder Woman vinyl figure looks on.

So it’s clear that unwanted poster had a definite effect on me. To this day, I remain fixated — some would say obsessed — with gorgeous, large-breasted brunettes.

Oh, and I also really like female superheroes, too, most of whom — fortunately for me — turn out to be gorgeous, large-breasted women featuring a wide variety of different hair colors. But, despite what I just wrote, my attraction to them is actually only partially related to my attraction to them, if you get what I mean.

The fact is that as an obsessive consumer of popular culture, I have always preferred tales of strong female protagonists over those of their male counterparts. Probably the best explanation I’ve found for this preference is not my own, but rather comes from one of my favorite comic book bloggers, Devon Sanders, who in his essay, “Dignity in Satin,” wrote:

“To be a Black man in this world is to know that with almost every new room you walk into, you will be upon sight sized up, scrutinized and possibly underestimated. I can’t say for certain but I have always imagined this to be a bit of what it is to be a woman.

Wonder Woman is the voice of the underestimated.”

Replace “Black man” with “white guy who stopped growing at 5-foot-2 in grade seven,” and the sentiment is pretty much the same (if not completely equitable, considering I’m pretty certain Devon gets laid a lot more than I do). People latch on to the characters they most identify with, and I’ve always identified most with those who have to fight against unfair preconceptions of what they are capable.

In other words: chicks.

I’ve long come to accept that among a significant percentage of my peers, my enthusiasm for female superheros is a sign of possible perversion and/or innate immaturity, but the simple fact is that — like the horror movie “final girls” I worship and adore — when you dig beyond the immediate surface, what you’ll find are the most complex and interesting characters of their kind in almost any medium.

And thankfully, I now have additional ammunition for this argument in the form of Mike Madrid’s THE SUPERGIRLS: FASHION, FEMINISM, FANTASY, AND THE HISTORY OF COMIC BOOK HEROINES, a book which was originally published in 2009, but whose newly released audiobook edition I excitedly absorbed via my iPod over the course of three days.

Like me, Madrid found himself drawn to female superheroes right from the start (although he appears to have been more fearless in showing his appreciation of them), and it is this innate enthusiasm that elevates THE SUPERGIRLS from a potentially dry history lesson into a fun and entertaining book that will please both the dedicated (who will return to it often) and the uninitiated (who might find themselves converted in the process).

Authors who attempt to write projects like this have to walk such a fine line that they often seem like direct recipes for failure. If they are too general, they’ll alienate the fans most likely to want to buy the book in the first place, but if they become too mired in the obscure, details we geeks can sometimes fixate on they remove all hope of appealing to a larger audience.

Madrid does an admirable job striking this balance, as he delves deep into characters’ histories while avoiding getting trapped in the black holes of narrative insanity many of those histories present (for example, whole books could be written about the hilarious attempts over the years to justify the logically troublesome existences of Power Girl — a grown-up version of Supergirl with an infamously bodacious rack — and Donna “Wonder Girl” Troy).

As a fan, I can’t say that I really learned anything shocking or new from THE SUPERGIRLS, but that has far more to do with the fact that I’m the kind of guy who’ll spend two hours on the Internet researching an obscure, single-panel joke in a Geoff Johns comic than Madrid’s thoroughness. Instead, it was enough for me to have much of the information I already had stored in my head reshaped and contextualized in such an enjoyably readable fashion.

Considering the vast scope of his subject matter, Madrid does a good job deciding on which specific characters to focus on over others. He does pretty much limit himself to specifically heroic characters and ignores “girlfriend” types such as Iris West, Sue Dibney and Alicia Masters, with the exception of the most famous and important of all superhero love interests: Lois Lane.

Madrid’s long discussion of the history and exploits of “Superman’s girlfriend” is probably the most satisfying and successful part of the book. Having been there from the very beginning, Lane is (as much, if not even more, than Wonder Woman) a year-by-year, decade-by-decade exemplar of not only comic’s attitude toward women, but the entire culture’s as well. For the past five years, I’ve devoted myself to trying to collect the entire run of her eponymous 1958 to 1974 series, and although I’m currently only halfway there, his insights did a good job in inspiring me to carry on.

Chances are, if you are a geek, you will find something to quibble with in the course of Madrid’s text (I, myself, was dumbfounded by his failure to even mention a fan favorite character like Zatanna), but there’s a reason why we’re called “geeks” and not “normal rational human beings.”

Speaking as a “geek,” if you happen to be one of those “normal rational human beings,” I urge you to give THE SUPERGIRLS a chance. It’s fun, it’s informative and — most importantly — it’ll help you understand why I happily display three different plastic versions of Captain Marvel’s adorable sister, Mary, on my bookshelf. —Allan Mott

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Tina Fey is the funniest voice Generation X ever produced. Not the funniest female voice — the funniest voice period-full-stop-that-means-boys-are-totally-included. A controversial statement? Definitely, but I’m happy to make it. Why? Because she might someday Google herself, find this review and decide to reward my declaration with an awkward sexual favor. Far-fetched? Probably, but I know for a fact she has a thing for short guys, so — fuck it I’m swinging for the fences.

That said, as someone who considers himself to be a knowledgeable student of comedy history, Fey truly does deserves to be considered one of the greats of our time. Both her Mark Twain Prize and her first book, BOSSYPANTS, more then backs this up.

Like most first-time books written by comedians, BOSSYPANTS is less a traditional autobiography than a blatant attempt to fill in the required word count in the allotted period of time the publisher provided. But unlike most of her peers, Fey lacks a lifetime of standup material to fall back on and recycle in prose form, which forces her to do what she’s been trained to do best: improvise.

This is the quintessential book to read for every celebrity who suddenly finds themselves famous enough for the public to demand their autobiography, but who haven’t actually lived a life full of enough dramatic incidents to merit one. Beyond the terrible childhood slashing incident (which she only mentions to say she isn’t going to mention it) that left a permanent scar on her face, and a honeymoon ocean cruise cut short by catastrophic engine fire, her life hasn’t been that dramatic. Yet instead of being handicapped by this, she turns it into her advantage.

Throughout the book, Fey underplays the most momentous moments of her life, focusing instead on their most humorous aspects, rather than building them up as major milestones. Her description of the job interview with Lorne Michaels that got her hired as a writer on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, for example, is all about the terror she experienced trying not to finish his sentences, even as they took eons to come out of his mouth. She’s equally blasé about the audition that put her in front of the “Weekend Update” camera and eventually turned her into a household name.

What I found very appealing about BOSSYPANTS is its message that hard work and merit can sometimes win out in the end. The textbook definition of the term “late-bloomer,” the story of Fey’s success allows us to indulge in the fantasy that someday we’ll be given the chance to transcend our exterior limitations and find the success we’re looking for simply because everyone suddenly realizes we’re really awesome at what we do. If Fey can go from being a 24-year-old virgin with a bad haircut to a lifetime achievement award winner/movie star/magazine cover girl just because she has a gift to make everyone laugh, why can’t we do the same?

Because life doesn’t work that way, that’s why. Fey knows this better than anyone, which I suspect is why so much of her energy is dedicated to self-deprecation and deglamorization (BOSSYPANTS’ hairy-armed cover being a perfect example of this). If we ever believed she took her success seriously, we’d resent her for it. That she seemingly finds it more mystifying than we do is a major part of why we love her. (My favorite moment in the whole book comes when she insists that instead of the hip, cult show it became, 30 ROCK was actually developed to be a mainstream success: “We tried to create HOME IMPROVEMENT and failed.”)

But then none of this would matter if BOSSYPANTS weren’t funny. I can happily report that you’re going to laugh a lot reading this book. Not just “That is a most amusing observation” in-your-own-head laughs, but the kind that cause you to visibly shake while attempting to stifle them in public. Fey’s gifts in this arena are such that even when she risks cliché, she manages to produce genius. (A chapter devoted to her answering “questions” left by abusive trolls on online message boards, for example, had me hyperventilating with the line, “You know who does have a funny bone in her body? Your mom. Every night for a dollar.”)

Right up there with the best books of its kind, BOSSYPANTS is a must read for anyone who’s interested in comedy, show business or brunettes who somehow get hotter when you throw a pair of glasses onto them. However — if you can — I suggest you skip the printed edition and seek out the unabridged audio version instead. Like all books written by comedians, it’s truly the best way to enjoy it. —Allan Mott

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When I was in first grade and expressed interested in drawing comics, I remember my mom special-ordered (this is pre-Internet, kids) a how-to cartooning title from the bookstore that proved to me of little help. Today’s generations need not worry; Ivan Brunetti’s CARTOONING: PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICE is essentially a 15-week course in around 75 pages, for only $13.

You can thank Yale University Press, especially since you won’t need to apply for financial aid to acquire the instruction. Brunetti makes for an easygoing, friendly teacher — no surprise given his simple style. Week by week, he takes readers from sketches and single-panel gags up to four-panel cartoons and the beloved Sunday full strip.

Brunetti offers plenty of his own examples throughout, which makes this worth at least a flip-through from anyone interested in reading comics, rather than creating them. After all, who hasn’t wanted to see J.D. Salinger’s classic novel THE CATCHER IN RYE distilled into a dead-on single panel — and in a FAMILY CIRCUS-style circle, at that! —Rod Lott

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If there’s one thing I love as much as genre films, it’s books about genre films. So when I noted on the back of John Wooley’s current, recommended WES CRAVEN: THE MAN AND HIS NIGHTMARES that the author also was responsible for a 2005 tome titled THE BIG BOOK OF BIKER FLICKS: 40 OF THE BEST MOTORCYCLE MOVIES OF ALL TIME, I wondered, “How the hell did slip under my radar?”

Turns out, there’s a perfectly good explanation for that: It was released by the small, Tulsa-based HAWK Publishing Group, which no longer goes by that name or has its old website, presumably following the legal troubles of its founder, bestselling novelist William Bernhardt. But don’t hold that against it. In fact, if you’re at all interested, I’d snap this up now, before you no longer can.

With cohort Michael H. Price, Wooley zooms through their picks, each getting its own chapter that briefly discusses its genesis, plot, reception and influence (if any). Luckily, the duo gains more than a sidecar’s worth of credibility by not daring to rank these in order of quality; instead, they go the smart route of chronological, which takes readers on a route that begins with 1953′s THE WILD ONE and ends two decades later at 1974′s ROAD OF DEATH.

If you noted that goes from a Marlon Brando classic to a movie you’ve likely never even heard of, that’s one of the book’s greatest strengths: The authors know their stuff. Unlike a lot of entertainment texts on the shelves, this isn’t a case of someone trying to capitalize on a trend and churning out something with the aid of Wikipedia; Price and Wooley saw much of these flicks upon their initial release and share those remembrances, which is another thing that grants it a solid recommendation. They’re fans, yes, but — and this is a most important distinction today — they’re fans who can write.

Hell, I’m just amazed they can keep all those soundalike movies straight: THE WILD ANGELS, DEVIL’S ANGELS, HELL’S ANGELS, HELLS ANGELS ON WHEELS, NAKED ANGELS, ANGELS AS HARD AS THEY COME, ad nauseum.

Yes, EASY RIDER is here, as are the Roger Corman productions that arguably kicked off the craze. Among the more notable inclusions are Al Adamson’s uproarious SATAN’S SADISTS, the MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 target THE SIDEHACKERS, the gay comedy THE PINK ANGELS, the immortal pairing of Joe Namath and Ann-Margret in C.C. AND COMPANY and the horror-oriented WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS. In other words, the breadth of the work is outstanding.

All this would be for naught if the book looked like crap. But going against the grain of so many small-press titles, its graphic design is a total pro job. For one thing, the BIG of the title means it: The book is oversized, allowing designer Carl Brune a lot of room to have a lot of fun with a lot of images. BIKER FLICKS is overflowing with poster art, photo stills, lobby cards, newspaper ads and other imagery that makes it a visual winner. —Rod Lott

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Flipping through DARK STARS RISING: CONVERSATIONS FROM THE OUTER REALMS, my mind was taken back instantly to nearly 20 years ago, when zines were a huge part of my life, and outré books like the RE/SEARCH series were required reading.

Shade Rupe’s collection of Q-and-A interviews with fringe stars from every medium — film, music, art, freaky-ass shit — looks exactly like one of those publications, albeit one that runs more than 550 pages. Just so there’s no confusion, that’s a compliment.

It’s not a Crazy Creatives 101-type of guide designed to lure newcomers; it’s for people whose interests already exist well past the mainstream — hip, open-minded folks who care about Richard Kern, not Richard Hatch; Jim Van Bebber, not Jim Carrey. When Crispin Glover and Teller are your biggest names, you’re doing something right.

Highly reminiscent in look and attitude of the old FILM THREAT VIDEO GUIDE — which was often so dirty, I felt like I had to hide it from my mom and little brothers — the book weighs pretty heavily toward the very independent film side, with discussions with John Waters fixture Divine; Gaspar Noé, who shocked everyone with IRREVERSIBLE (and recently bored me to tears with ENTER THE VOID); William Lustig, director of MANIAC and the MANIAC COP movies; and the lusty Tura Satana, star of cult classics from Russ Meyer and Ted V. Mikels; weirdo actor Udo Kier; and EL TOPO helmer Alejandro Jodorowsky.

I’m not going to pretend I was familiar with everyone interviewed. For example, artist Floria Sigismondi and singer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge weren’t on my radar … and still won’t be, but that doesn’t mean at least a portion of their talks wasn’t interesting. I wish I could unsee the things I saw in the Hermann Nitsch chapter.

Yes, DARK STARS RISING is illustrated, and that’s kind of an understatement. The Headpress book is heavily designed, with a photo — or photos, plural — on every page. Visually, it’s almost like being hopped up on sugar and then reaching for another Twinkie: overload! That matches the DIY energy of the project, however, even if the page numbers are hard to find, squeezed into the recesses toward the spine.

If the Internet has you missing the days of sending stamps and a few bucks for something run off at Kinko’s that told of underground gems you’d never find at Blockbuster Video, look to the STARS. —Rod Lott

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Watch any interview with Wes Craven concerning his creation of Freddy Krueger and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and you’re going to hear the same old story about how the filmmaker, as a child, looked out his window to see a spooky man in a sweater glaring at him. How many times have you heard that? So many, it’s tiresome.

Thankfully, John Wooley’s biography of the horror director, WES CRAVEN: THE MAN AND HIS NIGHTMARES, goes much, much deeper — not only into ELM STREET, but the entirety of his career, from the highs and the lows, and the projects that never were (Wes Craven’s BEETLEJUICE and SUPERMAN IV, anyone?).

For the imminently readable book, Wooley — who once wrote an novel optioned for the screen by Craven — had interview access to his subject. It may have been only one conversation, but what a conversation, as Craven spills the beans and speaks honestly about his super-strict religious upbringing and its effect on his work; how he never intended to make only fright films, but that he’s happy to play the hand he’s been dealt; and his love-and-hate relationship for the genre as a whole.

The early chunk detailing his first film, THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, and the notorious controversy that surrounded it, is perhaps the most interesting, especially in an era when horror was equated with pornography. But, like sex, horror sells, which led the man to bigger and better projects, although not without many an uphill battle.

In the book, you’ll read about how SHOCKER was an attempt as creating another Freddy Krueger-esque franchise, but one that would allow Craven — and not the studio — to reap the financial results; how DEADLY FRIEND was intended to be a lighthearted romantic fantasy along the lines of WEIRD SCIENCE, until Warner Bros.’ meddling changed all that; and why CURSED was essentially filmed twice. And there are plenty more.

Wooley’s book not only makes me want to rewatch several of Craven’s best, but also revist the ones that didn’t click with me, perhaps to see if they get better when viewed from the director’s perspective. The author also doesn’t limit the book to Craven’s theatrical works; near-equal time is devoted to his TV projects, both long- and short-form.

I devoured it in a weekend. For fans of his films — or fans of about half of them, as the case may be — it’s highly recommended. —Rod Lott

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It’s a good thing Rosa Blasi no longer chases athletes, because I’m a happily married man and used to be on a soccer team. Okay, so it was first grade, but still, judging from her sexual memoir, JOCK ITCH: THE MISADVENTURES OF A RETIRED JERSEY CHASER, she’d get into a relationship with practically any pro sports player with a brain, and many of them without.

The STRONG MEDICINE actress details her entire bedroom history with men who’d end up cheating on her, as if they ever stopped their wandering ways. She finally learned her lesson, but only after marrying New York Giants fullback Jim Finn — or Tim Fish, as she refers to him here.

And that union lasted all of four years, because she alleges he was a drug addict who trolled Craigslist for hookers and even slept with one of Rosa’s BFFs on their own wedding night.

If you want juicy dirt on pro sports figures and that whole world, you’re going to get it. Alex Rodriguez is an “a-hole,” while for Troy Aikman, it appears “English is not his first language.” The athletes she’s slept with are hidden behind aliases or mere first names — like “Moose,” so named for his mammoth genitalia — but with the included photos showing only their eyes blacked out, any regular SPORTSCENTER viewer can figure it out. And when she talks about Jim/Tim screwing a PLAYBOY Playmate named Nichole, well, there’s only been one centerfold named Nichole (and she was smoking hot, so way to go, Mr. Finn/Fish, and I totally hate you).

Lest you think Rosa’s out to target everyone but herself, JOCK ITCH is nothing if not self-deprecating. Why else would she go into such TMI detail about the time laxatives and a MAXIM photo shoot didn’t mix for her: “I had barely sat down before a rocket carrying bright, mustard-yellow baby poop took flight from my freshly bronzed and spray-tanned ass.”

An amusing read, this one, if not exactly deep. No pun intended. —Rod Lott

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“Pete had no ‘bat’ to speak of. Where a penis would normally be located, there was a skinny, sad Popsicle stick. I was sure it could be bent and damaged upon touch. It was more beef jerky than hot dog … as it stared back at me, affixed between two completely shaven balls with traces of baby powder on them. To this day, I can’t look at Dunkin’ Donuts munchkins without thinking about them.”

TIED IN: THE BUSINESS, HISTORY, AND CRAFT OF MEDIA TIE-IN WRITING is a perfect book for the Bookgasm audience. When this site started, it was books like tie-in novels that were the impetus, since at the time, no other places would dare cover them. Edited by Lee Goldberg, this collection of essays and interviews gives a wide overview of those books that populate countless bookstores, supermarket aisles and airport gift shops.

As someone who grew up reading tie-in novels — mainly of the DOCTOR WHO variety, they were the only way I could read stories that sadly were lost to time or that my local station would never show. But back to this top-notch work, which collects pieces from a variety of authors who’ve worked in the genre, like Lee’s brother, Tod, who reminds us about “real” writers who wrote tie-in novels, lest we forget Jim Thompson and Kingsley Amis.

Max Allan Collins reveals two stories that were heartbreaking to him. The first deals with his novelization of Warren Beatty’s DICK TRACY movie, where Collins fleshed out the story and made the mystery just that: a mystery. He was told corrections had to be made, but things worked out in the end. The second deals with the novelization of the Tom Hanks film ROAD TO PERDITION. The movie was based on Collins’ own graphic novel, but his tie-in had to be cut down and have huge chunks taken out. It’s this piece that clearly shows if you are a tie-in writer ,don’t get attached to your own material, since you will have to answer to higher-ups.

Donald Bain gives a history lesson of his tie-in output, as the sole writer to all those MURDER, SHE WROTE books. Elizabeth Massie explains how she had to condense a season of THE TUDORS into one book — a challenge she has now completed twice. Paul Kupperberg goes into material he has covered on this site about turning comics into prose novels, while David Spencer gives a historical piece about TV tie-in novles from the 1950s to the 1970s, when writers were given free reign, for the most part.

Jeff Ayers writes about how he wrote a book about the STAR TREK novels and their authors. One of the best essays deals with a movie barely anyone saw, as Burl Barer explains how he filled massive plot holes when writing the novelization of STEALTH — you know, the movie where a plane has a mind of its own. There is a shortened and reprinted interview with Raymond Benson about his time writing for the James Bond series. Be warned: There are spoilers for some of them.

These are just a few of the pieces that make up this fascinating look into books which most people just think of as guilty pleasures. But we here at Bookgasm have nothing but love for them. —Bruce Grossman

Buy it at Amazon.