Janina Müller’s study (“Music in classic film noir”) takes a close look at the scores of mostly the popular films noir and a few rather unknown ones. Here it means studying, juxtaposing and evaluating the scores of several films, while their uniqueness in comparison with standard Hollywood movies is questioned. As there is hardly one […]
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Category: B. R. Film
A Green and Pagan Land. Myth, Magic and Landscape in British Film and Television by David Huckvale (...
In his latest book, former BBC radio presenter and author of several books on horror and occult films, soundtrack composers and Gothic literature David Huckvale digs deep into the origins of British media obsessed with pagan rituals and ancient cults. Before magic or pagan fantasies informed movies, it was, in part, present in the national […]
L.A. Private Eyes by Dahlia Schweitzer (2019)
Los Angeles and New York always have been the top locations for the fictional hard-boiled detective, both private or in law enforcement. L.A. can boast about being home of such heavyweights as Philip Marlowe, Mickey Haller, Lew Archer, Ezy Rawlins and several others. Crime, murder, abuse, corruption and horror will not show in L.A. as […]
George Herriman’s “Krazy Kat”. The Complete Color Sundays 1935–1944 by Alexander Braun (ed.) (2019)
Once again, German comic book historian Alexander Braun has written a long text with lots of photographs, sketches and drawings that document a comic book superstar’s life and heritage. George Herriman (1880 – 1944) the inventor of Krazy Kat is the subject of this mega book. His comic strip would become the first of many […]
The Many Lives of The Evil Dead: Essays on the Cult Film Franchise by Ron Riekki and Jeffrey A. Sart...
Michigan director Sam Raimi in 1981 with a tiny budget and main actor Bruce Campbell shot the story of a powerful ancient book and the consequences of citing from it aloud in the Tennessee woods. The horror movie The Evil Dead was first presented at the Cannes festival in 1982 (where Stephen King praised its […]
From Ameche to Zozzled: A Glossary of Hard-Boiled Slang of the 1920s through the 1940s by Joe Tradii...
The hard-boiled fiction from the 1930s and the many films noir later, apart from several other similarities, shared a special gangster jargon and streetwise language that lent an extra air of authenticity to those works. As the many weird expressions, prohibition-time lingo, proverbs and often sexists, racist and plainly offensive words used there quickly went […]
Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return by Antonio Sanna (2019)
Finally, while a huge fan community worldwide was hoping for more than two decades for a continuation of the tales of Agent Dale Copper in the Twin Peaks universe, in 2017 Showtime aired the series‘ third season. Twin Peaks The Return, with all episodes co-written by Mark Frost and David Lynch, did not disappoint audiences. […]
The Star Wars Archives: 1977–1983 by Paul Duncan (2018)
The Star Wars universe, presented in nine movies and several spin-offs so far, animated TV series, comic books, novels and other media is a fantastic location. What the first three episodes, Episode IV: A New Hope, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (that are still held in high […]
America Goes Hawaiian. The Influence of Pacific Island Culture on the Mainland by Geoff Alexander (2...
What began on the American mainland in the 1850s, when the first hula dancers were presented to the public and what was promoted by Hawaiian music only a few years later – the promise of paradise on earth, an Eden in endless summer – the Hawaiian way of life, for the vast majority of Americans […]