When in the mid-1950s rock’n’roll as both commercial force and incarnation of teenage style invaded the charts and cinema screens, the new category was a bit too much for most common and well-aged (British and American) entertainment shows and representations on screen. In the early days, neither TV nor the film industry would grasp the […]
You are browsing archives for
Category: B. R. PopCulture
The Women of Hammer Horror: A Biographical Dictionary and Filmography by Robert Michael Cotter (2021)
No matter how a casting for British Hammer Film Productions – Europe’s epicenter of crude horror and gothic films between the 1950s and 1970s – ended, to be invited in the first place, as an actress, you had to be extremely beautiful with a bosomy figure to remember. And even if those women on the […]
Rural Rhythm: The Story of Old-Time Country Music in 78 Records by Tony Russell (2021)
The label “Old-Time Music” refers to American-made music, instrumental and with vocals, that was performed nationwide in public and privately from roughly the early 1800s until the early 1940s, although it became mostly a regional style in the early 20th century. Those (basically all white) musical groups usually featured string instruments such as mandolins, banjos, […]
Hollywood’s Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World by Ross Melnick (2022)
To understand the impact movies and in particular the American movie industry had since the 1920s, not just the messages, directors or entertaining subjects of the films were important, but also the manner how the product film was presented all over the world. For that purpose, the well-known website Cinema Treasures has collected data and […]
Triumph Over Containment: American Film in the 1950s by Robert P. Kolker (2021)
There are very many books on both the American post-war years and the films of the long 1950s, usually with the emphasis on a genre or a sociological topic. The book at hand, however, has a somewhat special approach, as it is preoccupied with the decade and its implications on the American public, as experienced […]
The Science of Sci-Fi Cinema: Essays on the Art and Principles of Ten Films by Vincent Piturro (ed.) (2021)
Originally conceived in 2010 as a short-lived project to pair a film enthusiast with the respective scientific expert on the film’s subject after presenting a science fiction movie, the idea of dialogue and curiosity, in cooperation with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, still is around today. And with each film presentation hosted by […]
Music in Cinema by Michel Chion (2021)
For those interested not only in the finished product “motion picture,” but to the students and fans who consider movie audio and its use an art form, the name Michel Chion will definitively sound familiar. The French scholar, filmmaker, and composer who has written more than thirty titles on the topics sound, film and music […]
The Return of Twin Peaks: Squaring the Circle by Franck Boulègue (2021)
There is little doubt that the TV show Twin Peaks, the brainchild of David Lynch and Mark Frost, was a very special project. This was true for the original series (1990 – 1991) that consisted of two seasons and left millions of enthusiasts hunger for conclusions, as many open threads remained and in the show […]
Hollywood’s Melodramatic Imagination: Film Noir, the Western and Other Genres … by Geoff Mayer (2022)
In four chapters, author Geoff Mayer dives deep into the meaning and the many faces of the melodrama, highlighting several aspects and decades that made audiences familiar with the endless confrontation of virtue against reckless action, true love against intrigue or simply “good” versus “bad” characters, parties or companies. Here we learn about the main […]