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Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
SATURDAY THE 14th
My first-ever horror movie viewed on a big screen, which explains why I like this film as much as I do
SOLARBABIES
I’ll confess I was hoping this 1986 “LITTLE RASCALS of the future” bummer would improve with age. It hasn’t.
STIGMA
A shockingly low-key grindhouse feature, starring a debuting Philip Michael Thomas
CANADIAN BACON
The last film appearance by the late John Candy and the first (and only) fictional film directed by Michael Moore. It plays exactly as you’d expect it to.
SELF DRIVER
A nifty Canadian low budgeter from 2024 that functions as both a cunning psychological thriller and an eccentric horror fest
THE GLASS CAGE
An “unconventional detective story” by the inimitable Colin Wilson
FADE
It feels wrong to criticize a novel for being too ambitious, but this would-be epic about invisibility is too ambitious
MYTHAGO WOOD
The first of Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood saga, about a mythologically endowed British woodland
RAPTOR RED
The 1990s dinosaur craze found a most unexpected apotheosis in this Cretaceous Period set novel told from the point of view of a raptor
DEUS IRAE
In science fiction terms this book marked a true dream collaboration, it being the first and only novel by Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny
MY ADVENTURE WITH SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE: THE MAKING OF THE MOVIE SHEENA
This entertaining memoir offers further proof that even the lousiest movies have interesting histories
SHOOTING MIDNIGHT COWBOY
It’s taken 52 years, but we now have a thorough account of MIDNIGHT COWBOY’S making and reception
THE LONG-LOST AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GEORGES MELIES
Possibly the most important film book of 2020, and one that fills a longtime void in silent film studies
I APPEARED TO THE MADONNA
Contra Mundum Press deserves credit for publishing this, a book whose potential readership is not what anyone would call broad
MY FILMS WITH CARMELO BENE
One of the more pleasantly surprising developments of 2020 was the inrush of attention paid to the work of Italy’s late Carmelo Bene
1982—The Greatest Summer Movie Season Ever?
I say yes!
Four Films Called ELDORADO
Edgar Allan Poe, diptheria, improvisation, an unlikely road trip, slumming stars and eldorado!
On WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP
A rare (perhaps sole) example of surreal history
On LES VAMPIRES
The legendary French crime saga from 1915 that’s not actually about vampires.
Ray Liotta and The Slide
The May 26, 2022 demise of actor Ray Liotta has thrown one aspect of his career into extremely sharp relief