Roll Em: Great Books About Film

 

If you're like me, you are a big film buff. Film criticism is a whole form of writing on it’s own, and not simply an extension of film fandom, but a whole field. Lots of great books have been written by film critics and scholars, and stand on their own as books worth reading. Here are a couple titles that will take you into the world of movies.

The Great Movies By Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert is arguably the greatest film critic of all time. He is certainly the most popular of all time. The first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, in 1975, for his reviews for the Chicago Sun Times, he is even more well known for his long running TV show “Siskel & Ebert” where he sparred with fellow Chicago film critic Gene Siskel. He’s also written 20+ books, and while they are all worth reading, I think his 4 volumes of his Great Movies books are the most worth reading. In these books, he writes about everything from Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights” to John Hughes’s “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” in his plain spoken but insightful way. It’s a good primer on the greatest movies to watch.

Hollywood Animal By Joe Eszterhas

Joe Eszterhas was the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood in the 90s, and he came from the most unexpected place: a scuffy overweight serious journalist who fell into Hollywood legend out of nowhere. His scripts were either praised by critics (like “Music Box”) or derailed by critics but made a lot of money (like “Fatal Attraction”) or infamous for how bad they were (like “Showgirls”). However, his story is an interesting read, as he goes from a simple family life to having affairs, being an asshole (by his own admission) and dealing with sketchy Hollywood characters like producer Robert Evans.  It’s a glimpse into a bygone era of Hollywood, pre internet and streaming, where a guy like Eszterhas could write an idea on a napkin, and sell the napkin for a million dollars to a movie studio.

State Of The Art By Pauline Kael

Film critic Pauline Kael got her job after an editor saw her have a passionate fight over a movie in a restaurant. “State of the Art” is a collection of some of her best reviews. She talks about everything from “Superman” to “Sound of Music” in her witty, literate and interesting voice. Her career ranged from 1951 to her retirement in 1991, but in that time, she was considered one of the most important film critics of her era, and was regularly cited by Roger Ebert as a great teacher of the form of writing criticism.

Mike, Spike, Slackers & Dykes By John Pierson

Filmmaker John Pierson presents a history of the independent film movement from the late 80s to throughout the 90s, when studios like Marimax (and sadly, we have to mention the head of that studio, the Weinsteins), were scooping up the counterculture films, and changing filmmaking forever. Off the era of corporate filmmaking of the 80s, Pierson presents a history of the independent film movement through the lens of Spike Lee, Kevin Smith and Michael Moore as they turn the type of films in the mainstream on its head, by simply entering it. 

So, these are some great books on film worth reading. Film is an interesting medium, and worth digging into than simply watching. Film criticism and studies is a genre worth reading, even if you never want to pick up a camera yourself. Being a film buff is enough sometimes.

Just Because It's Cancelled On TV, Doesn't Mean The Books Are

 

Something that often happens is a TV show will live on, either in book or comic book form, after it’s cancelled or reached it’s natural conclusion on TV. Here are some examples of your favorite TV series continuing as book series, and some of them are so retro, they might surprise you.

Star Trek

“Star Trek” is the most famous TV show to be adapted to print, and the most long running. Covering every single series, from the original “Star Trek” to “Star Trek: Discovery”, to even an alternative version of “Star Trek” universe novels written by William Shanter, called the “Shanterverse”, the books have been in print since 1967, and has over 850+ novels, selling millions of copies. Notable writers who have written books include Peter David and Diane Duane.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel

“Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and it’s spin off “Angel” still have novels published to this day, mainly in paperback. One of the things fans like about the “Buffy” novels is they tell you what seasons of the show the novels take place in, so you get details during the actual course of the series you might have missed or simply didn’t see in the main story. Then there’s the Angel novels, which continue the series from the series finale, and have plenty of crossovers between the Buffy series, as they are both created by Joss Wheadon. 

Monk

Everyone’s favorite OCD detective had plenty of novels after the TV series concluded.The novels seemed to have stopped being published in 2015, but despite that, if you didn’t know about them, they should still give you plenty of a Monk fix, as there are over 19 books in the series. Some are 3rd person, and some are narrated by either one of Monk’s assistants, Sharona or Natalie.

Murder She Wrote

If you want to go all the way back, they still publish Murder She Wrote novels to this day. Everyone’s favorite mystery writer and sleuth, Jessica Fletcher, might not be solving crimes on TV anymore, but is still solving crimes in books. The novels have been coming out with new ones since 1985, with the newest ones slated to come out next year. I don’t have an exact number of how many books there are, but 55 more have come out since 2000, with 2 more to be published in 2022.

Hopefully, this will give you a fix for good books based on your favorite TV shows, and you can go on some new adventures with your favorite characters instead of simply reruns.

"The Other Emily" Isn't Bad But Builds Up To A Loose End

I’m a big fan of Dean Koontz, who I think is unfairly compared to Stephen King, despite totally understanding the comparison. King was the king of the market Koontz wrote for, back in the 1980s and 1990s, when the horror paperback novel was the king of mass publishing. If King was the Coke of horror, Koontz became known as the Pepsi of the genre. The funny thing is, Koontz has actually quietly sold more copies than King has, but due to the iconicness of King’s creations, King is better known then Koontz. I’ve been reading King and Koontz for a ton of years, though, and I think they both have their charms. King is able to convey pure evil, while Koontz is able to portray good triumphing over it. If King is rock and roll in book form, Koontz is Christian rock in book form, and I’m actually fine with both of these things.

So Koontz’s latest novel “The Other Emily” was a Kindle deal on Amazon, and I picked it up. The story is about a 30 something guy named David Throne, who is obsessed with the disappearance of a girlfriend from 10 years ago named Emily. She went out one night and never came back. He is also a successful author, so he has considerable wealth, and also funds the life of a murderer named Ronald Lee Jessup in prison, a sweet seeming man who killed 27 women, kidnaping them and playing games with them in a basement, until he would murder them. He visits him in prison, under the false pretense of writing a book about him. He visits him monthly, trying to get an answer about his girlfriend, who he thinks might be one of his victims. Thorne’s life goes off the rails, when he meets a woman named Madison, who is a dead ringer for his disappeared girlfriend, and they end up having a relationship.

This book shows both the best and worst Koontz is able to do. One of the things Koontz is best at is piling on events, more and more, making things get more weird and suspenseful. Koontz is primarily known as a horror writer, but he’s great at weaving tons of genres into a narrative that doesn’t seem all over the place. Koontz’s novels follow a very straight line, as opposed to King, who often gets into bloat, and has a subplot or two which seem to just serve to make a book longer. I love King, but damn, when I was reading “It”, I often forgot there was even a clown in the book, due to 100+ pages of the personal problems of the victims of Pennywise. Koontz has these things too, as Thorne has plenty of problems that aren’t a part of the main plot, but the length of his books are often more manageable. 

However, a common problem of Koontz novels is he builds himself up to a reveal, and a lot of times, they don’t pay off. This is another book where the end has a reveal, but cuts it there, and just sorta ends. I was on board throughout the entire novel, asking myself if this is a science fiction twist of some sort, like “Blade Runner” or some supernatural thing. Was Emily and Madison a robot or clone? Her mother was blind. Was she even her baby? Koontz keeps raising the stakes, but I was a bit confused at the end, and this novel would have benefited greatly with a year later epilogue. I wanted to know if Madison and David somehow made this work or considering the overarching problem of where Madison came from, this fell apart somehow? Either way, I enjoyed the novel but wish the ending answered my question a bit better. Koontz is a master storyteller but his endings still often leave a lot to be desired.