An eye-catching, enjoyable, and informative celebration of iconic SF and fantasy movie scores.
A sequel catalogs SF and fantasy film soundtracks on vinyl.
As a follow-up to their previous book, Blood on Black Wax (2019), which spotlighted iconic horror movie soundtracks, Lupton and Szpirglas turn their attentions to the SF and fantasy genres. Reflecting on the significance of SF film scores in his introduction, Lupton writes: “Star Trek, Back to the Future, The Twilight Zone, Terminator? These are some of the greatest music themes ever written, and for many of us, the soundtrack to our nerdy youths.” The work is divided into nine chapters: epic SF, adult fantasy, dark dystopia, action/adventure, pop, family features, comic book/superheroes, television, and unidentified objects. Each chapter features a series of color reproductions of key album covers, such as Star Wars and Blade Runner, followed by detailed commentary. Focusing predominantly on the 1970s through the ’90s to maintain an emphasis on vinyl, the period covered ends in 1999, so newer classics such as the Harry Potter films are not included. The volume also provides revealing interviews with luminaries like the composer Christopher Young, who scored Hellraiser. The design of the book is colorful and fittingly retro, and the album covers themselves are a joy to peruse collectively. The authors offer consistently insightful commentary from a musician’s perspective. Describing the score of the 1979 movie Starcrash by John Barry, they note: “The composer also plays around with some interesting rhythmic techniques, breaking down the 4/4 time signature into more unusual chunks of 3-3-2 (such as the galloping ‘Space War’ cue).” The comprehensive study also delivers thoughtful recommendations that reflect the authors’ depth of knowledge. Regarding Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Supergirl, they tell readers: “To hear the soundtrack presented as it sounds in the film, with the synths, try the 1993 expanded re-release CD…which features music such as Goldsmith’s eerie choral work for the Phantom Zone sequences.” But the descriptive scope can become limited and repetitive at times: “Sci-fi became sexy again”; “as much a sexy sci-fi flick as it is horror.” This does not largely detract from a painstakingly compiled catalog packed with meticulous details that will prove a fun nostalgia trip for fans of the genres.
An eye-catching, enjoyable, and informative celebration of iconic SF and fantasy movie scores. (album cover photography)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-948221-14-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: 1984 Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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