Category: <span>Book reviews</span>

While there isn’t a definitive definition of what makes a cult film, there is an essential agreement among film fans that these movies are not business as usual. The description “cult” evokes thoughts of bizarre, potentially uncomfortable, or even controversial cinematic expression. In Cult Filmmakers: 50 Movie Mavericks You Need to Know, Ian Haydn Smith explores the works of fifty filmmakers that he categorizes as cult, following that essential definition.

Book reviews

Is there any other animal more beloved in the movies than dogs? For a while horses were in the running, but when you examine the past century of film, it is clearly canines who have dominated. In the lightly amusing Citizen Canine: Dogs in the Movies, Wendy Mitchell writes about the performances of sixty cinematic pooches in their signature roles.

Book reviews

Orson Welles began filming The Other Side of the Wind in 1970. He died fifteen years later, the film incomplete. It was to be his masterpiece, as important to him as Citizen Kane (1941), if not more so. The Making of The Other Side of the Wind, reveals the whole fascinating, frustrating story of its production, up to the present day, where the effort to release Welles’ final work continues.

Over the fifteen years of its production, Welles constantly sought funding, cast members died, marriages were destroyed and everyone involved did everything possible to complete the film. While money was always an issue, the biggest roadblock was its director, who could never commit to an end date, always striving to bring his work even closer to perfection.

Book reviews

With The Female Gaze: Essential Movie Made by Women, Alicia Malone’s follow-up to last year’s Backwards and In Heels, the film reporter, host, and writer continues her invaluable quest to promote the work of women in film. Her message is two-fold: she is diligent in promoting the varied and rich works of female filmmakers, but consistently reminds her audience that not nearly enough women are allowed the opportunities in film their male counterparts are afforded.

Book reviews