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Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
STAND BY ME
In remembering the recently deceased Rob Reiner, I’ll be taking the good with the bad. Here’s the good…
NORTH
…and here’s the (very) bad.
REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND
A lesser film by Belgium’s Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet, who specialize in uniquely tripped-out takes on European genre cinema from years past
THE SHROUDS
Cronenberg’s latest, a so-so excercise in brooding despair
FILME DEMÊNCIA
A weird Faust movie in the grand tradition of weird Faust movies
JOURNALS OF THE PLAGUE YEARS
AIDS-inspired dystopian grunge from the irrepressible Norman Spinrad
PIRATE’S ISLAND
A 1960s YA book with fast-moving action and a nail-biter of a climax
THE NIHILESTHETE
An altogether unique novel that fascinates and annoys in equal measure
BETWEEN NINE AND NINE
Austria’s late, great Leo Perutz demonstrated incalculable range in BETWEEN NINE AND NINE, his comedic and fantastic second novel
THE CASE OF THE TWO STRANGE LADIES
A full blast of dementia from Harry Stephen Keeler involving a shocking double murder, multi-racial family ties and transposed heads
SALUTING THE BLOOD OF HEROES: BEHIND THE APOCALYPTIC FILM
The Second book by author Danny Stewart, who’s quickly establishing himself as one of the preeminent chroniclers of underappreciated science fiction cinema from the eighties and nineties
OMNI’S SCREEN FLIGHTS/SCREEN FANTASIES
For years this was the best book about science fiction onscreen, a title it lost only because it’s now 40 years old
PURE: THE SEXUAL REVOLUTIONS OF MARILYN CHAMBERS
The late Marilyn Chambers, was one of the most noteworthy performers to emerge from 1970s porn cinema, and this book provides a worthy epitaph
VIDEOSYNCRATIC
A book that provides a potent blast of nostalgia for those who remember the video rental era, while showing younger readers precisely what they missed
CANNIBAL ERROR: ANTI-FILM PROPAGANDA AND THE “VIDEO NASTIES” PANIC OF THE 1980s
One of the key textual resources on the “video nasties” scare that swept England in the 1980s
On SLEAZOID EXPRESS
Of the “Big Three” horror/exploitation film review zines, which included PSYCHOTRONIC and GORE GAZETTE, SLEAZOID EXPRESS tends to be the most acclaimed, and apparently boasted “The largest circulation of anything of its particular type.”
Werner Herzog, Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Nobuhiko Obayashi and MOMENTOUS EVENTS
It certainly seemed like a good idea: a Russian American co-production in which six world class directors partook in “the gigantic cinematic canvas of historical change in Russia,”
2024: Bedlam in Print
Another year, another underwhelming showing from the mainstream publishing industry
David Lynch By the Decade
A look back at David Lynch’s fifty-plus year career in film, decade by decade
2024: The Year in Bedlam
Let’s face it: the movies of 2024 by and large sucked