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
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.
The acclaimed director displays his talents as a film critic.
Tarantino’s collection of essays about the important movies of his formative years is packed with everything needed for a powerful review: facts about the work, context about the creative decisions, and whether or not it was successful. The Oscar-winning director of classic films like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs offers plenty of attitude with his thoughts on movies ranging from Animal House to Bullitt to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Big Chill. Whether you agree with his assessments or not, he provides the original reporting and insights only a veteran director would notice, and his engaging style makes it impossible to leave an essay without learning something. The concepts he smashes together in two sentences about Taxi Driver would take a semester of film theory class to unpack. Taxi Driver isn’t a “paraphrased remake” of The Searchers like Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? is a paraphrased remake of Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby or De Palma’s Dressed To Kill is a paraphrased remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho. But it’s about as close as you can get to a paraphrased remake without actually being one. Robert De Niro’s taxi driving protagonist Travis Bickle is John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards. Like any good critic, Tarantino reveals bits of himself as he discusses the films that are important to him, recalling where he was when he first saw them and what the crowd was like. Perhaps not surprisingly, the author was raised by movie-loving parents who took him along to watch whatever they were watching, even if it included violent or sexual imagery. At the age of 8, he had seen the very adult MASH three times. Suddenly the dark humor of Kill Bill makes much more sense. With this collection, Tarantino offers well-researched love letters to his favorite movies of one of Hollywood’s most ambitious eras.
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311258-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
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