New and longtime Cronenberg fans will devour this intelligent, earnest, and comprehensive tribute.
This collection of essays, interviews, and short fiction explores the provocative themes and undeniable impact of a cult filmmaker.
David Cronenberg enthusiasts place his more popular movies, from Videodrome to The Fly, in the “body horror” subgenre. They’re perhaps best remembered for scenes of deliriously grotesque and fleshy metamorphoses. But this book’s editors, Kelso and Rice, spotlight seven early works from the Canadian writer/director—shorts, feature films, and episodes of TV anthology series from the 1960s and ’70s. A variety of contributors examine Cronenberg-ian themes, like “aberrant sexuality” and horror coming from within (without a tangible “external threat”), which run throughout the filmmaker’s oeuvre. Even without the visceral imagery, readers will easily see his distinctive tone and the abstract concepts he expresses physically (for example, telepaths in the film Stereo reaching elevated states of consciousness via “sexual experimentation”). Not surprisingly, linking so many of Cronenberg’s movies sparks many analyses of his later filmography as well, especially throughout the ’80s and ’90s. While much of the text dissects cinematic themes, the volume does touch on the auteur’s intriguing background as he began working in a subgenre that was relatively unknown in his home country. Elsewhere in this collection, writers deliver short fiction inspired by Cronenberg’s legacy or his early work. Matthew M. Bartlett’s “The Lie Chair,” for example, adapts a 1976 TV episode but adds a clever twist. Notwithstanding a potpourri of voices, the fictional stories boast a Cronenberg-ian flair. In Elle Nash’s incisive “artGOD,” she writes: “My toes graze the revolting flesh. / Her fist is a veiny organ.” The editors round out their book with illustrations by various artists as well as interviews with other filmmakers, novelists who have collaborated with Cronenberg, and the director himself, who’s as intriguing and indelible as the movies he’s bestowed upon the world.
New and longtime Cronenberg fans will devour this intelligent, earnest, and comprehensive tribute.Pub Date: June 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-948687-57-7
Page Count: 358
Publisher: 11:11 Press
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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
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