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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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