Kicking off roughly in the early 1950s, British and American science fiction authors of the new breed, labeled New Wave later, brought massive changes to the genre and changed the way the future of mankind was perceived. They spoke for a growing readership that was hungry for new visions and speculative prospects, now being prepared […]
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Category: B. R. Film
Broadcasting Hollywood: The Struggle Over Feature Films on Early TV by Jennifer Porst (2021)
Even if the topic of Porst’s book, with regard to today’s video watching agenda that includes streaming media, Netflix, or any Internet-based platform consulted to watch movies, documentaries or series, may look a bit outdated at first sight, Broadcasting Hollywood actually is a highly interesting study, as it chronicles how we, as audiences, originally “learned” […]
Star Trek, History and Us: Reflections of the Present and Past Throughout the Franchise by A.J. Blac...
To talk about present-day science fiction realms and the impact fictional stories had on popular culture or the way people imagined a better future without touching on Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek is hardly possible. When the first episodes of the show were broadcast in 1966, they were immediately recognized as basically an action and entertainment […]
Doctor Who and Science. Essays on Ideas, Identities … by M. K. Harmes and L. A. Orthia (eds.) (2021)
No other TV series can boast of presenting the most exciting, thrilling and colorful adventures for decades and also featuring the most unusual protagonist, namely the Doctor(s), aka the Time Lord in the English TV program Doctor Who. It was first launched in 1963 by BBC One and, with some interruptions, is still running today. […]
Toys in the Age of Wonder: Science Fiction, Society and the Symbolism of Play by Mark Rich (2020)
As it has happened so often before, fiction by authors of early wonder and adventure tales, such as H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe, William Rice Burroughs, and others, have provided man (and particularly children and youngsters) with hopes and fantasies about machines that feature technology not yet been invented to dream a […]
Deconstructing Dr. Strangelove: The Secret History of Nuclear War Films by Sean M. Maloney (2020)
The Cold War, with all of its threats and visions of mass destruction and apocalyptic scenarios appears far away these days. However, when the menace of nuclear weapons that possibly would be launched if wrong decisions were made by a few incompetent men in the military back in the 1960s, stories, novels and mostly movies […]
The Modern Myths: Adventures in the Machinery of the Popular Imagination by Philip Ball (2021)
The days when (ancient) myths – be they Greek, Nordic or from whatever region – were rather important to man as they served as guidelines and offered counsel are long gone; or so it seems. Because popular culture has created books, tales and stories that are inhabited by artificial men, werewolves, vampires, ghost hunters or […]
Pulp Empire: The Secret History of Comic Book Imperialism by Paul S. Hirsch (2021)
Comic books as media today would not raise much attention if they featured heavy use of violence or representations of vigilantes who take the law into their own hands. On the contrary, the media now is deeply absorbed into the popular canon of the US. “The comic book, whether in the form of a collectible […]
Projections of Passing: Postwar Anxieties and Hollywood Films, 1947-1960 by N. Megan Kelley (2021)
The debatable term of “passing,” initially used to describe a basically 19th and 20th century strategy of African-Americans to pass for white (and avoid Jim Crow laws, absurd segregationist rules and social exclusion), in the mid- 1950s took on other forms and meanings. Actually, then it depicted new ways of passing/acting out or incorporating somebody […]