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Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
IVAN VASILIEVICH CHANGES HIS PROFESSION
This is, quite simply, THE Soviet time travel comedy
NAKED TANGO
An ambitious 1990 production you probably didn’t see
THIS IS ME…NOW
In which the 54-year-old Jennifer Lopez, a.k.a. J.Lo, celebrates herself and her new album
FAMINE ’33
A chronicle of the Holodomor, or Artificial Famine, that afflicted Ukraine in 1932-33, engineered by Stalin to (it’s been claimed) crush Ukrainian resistance to Soviet rule
ROLLING THUNDER
One of the finest action films of ithe seventies, offering up naturalistic drama and brutal action in equal doses
ZARDOZ
A novelization as weird as just about any you’ll read, and no wonder: the film it novelizes, the 1974 science fiction oddity ZARDOZ, is one of the absolute nuttiest releases of its decade
HEARTSNATCHER
Boris Vian’s final novel, combining surreal fancy and disturbing child abuse
BEYOND THE THRESHOLD
The most morbid and sensationalistic funeral home expose you’re ever likely to encounter, written by an actual funeral director
THE SECRET SCHOOL
The most outlandish of Whitley Strieber’s “nonfiction” alien contact books
THE DICE MAN
This novel, about a man who makes decisions according to a roll of the dice, is said to have inspired many people around the world to live in just that manner
KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT
This is one of the most famous anthropological accounts in existence, and also one of the most misunderstood.
IF I DID IT and “The Killer”
Here we have the end product of one of the most bizarre sagas in publishing history
ANARCHY AND ALCHEMY: THE FILMS OF ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY
A long-overdue volume, and in my view an essential one, a thorough study of the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, arguably the premiere wild man of the cinema.
THE AMERICAN NIGHTMARE: ESSAYS ON THE HORROR FILM
Here was have what may be the most widely discussed yet least read genre study of all time.
AMERICAN GOTHIC
The utterly distinctive photographic artwork of Carlos Batts, as presented in this book, falls somewhere between the harsh naturalism of Weegee and the horrific surrealism of J.K. Potter. Over the past 15 or so years Batts has provided illustrations for numerous album covers, magazines and comics…
Stuart Gordon: 1947-2020
You may not know the name Stuart Gordon, but the chances are good that if you’re a fan of post-1980 horror cinema then you’re a Stuart Gordon fan
TV Flashback: AMERICAN CHRONICLES
A half hour documentary program produced by Lynch/Frost Productions, it was one of three failed TV series that followed in the wake of TWIN PEAKS
1986: The Year in Bedlam
Fact: anyone who says the eighties were a “golden age” for film is wrong, wrong, wrong, as the year 1986 proves quite amply
TV Flashback: AMAZING STORIES
With a rebooted AMAZING STORIES debuting on Apple TV+ next week, it seems like a good time for a look back at the show’s 1985-87 inspiration
Remembering that Which is Better Forgotten: 666 and 1000
An example of “Prophecy Fiction” describing the events of the rapture and resulting tribulation period, 666 was not the “first” book of its kind, but it was a trailblazer