When in July 1944 Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity hit American cinemas, it was only moderately successful. The movie performed well enough at the box office to be considered reasonably profitable, with estimated earnings between $2.2 and $2.6 million, which was sufficient to return a good profit for Paramount Studios. The film ranked 51st in box […]
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Category: B. R. Literature
Book reviews, mostly covering literature.
Perplexing Plots. Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of Murder by David Bordwell (2023)
Generally, storytelling, narratives, modes of presentation and the story behind them, define most works of fiction and movie plots alike. As those techniques changed over the decades (as did audiences who step by step were introduced to this), new and exiting ways of shooting film and presenting characters entered popular forms of entertainment. The simple, […]
Critical Approaches to Horror Comic Books by John Darowski and Fernando G.P. Berns (eds.) (2022)
For those interested in superhero comics and the many connections to heritage, cultural standing and so forth associated with the category, there is no shortage of academic and popular titles. Fortunately, there are several new studies each year. With horror comic books, however, things are different. The horror genre, when approached from the perspective of […]
Noir Fiction and Film: Diversions and Misdirections by Lee Clark Mitchell (2022)
With some interesting observations and a huge collection of data about genres in the book under discussion here, there are some good and fresh points concerning style, method and procedure, even when hard-boiled fiction and films noir are reduced to their most basic configurations. Naturally, there are variations of the stereotypes and, with regard to […]
The History and Politics of Star Wars. Death Stars and Democracy by Chris Kempshall (2022)
As the most successful movie franchise in history, Star Wars has generated millions of fans worldwide, not to mention the billions of dollars revenue it has created already. Soon after the first movie release, critics and academics began their study of the background, intentions and inspirations of the saga. This project until today remains mostly […]
Film Noir and Los Angeles: Urban History and the Dark Imaginary by Sean W. Maher (2022)
Movies of the film noir genre, shot in the US, usually had two favorite locations when it came to large cities and a setting that would breathe the air of crime, provide sinister plots, gunmen and desperate main characters: the pictures were either set in New York City or Los Angeles. As with Los Angeles, […]
Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950–1985 by Andrew Nette and Iain McInty
Kicking off roughly in the early 1950s, British and American science fiction authors of the new breed, labeled New Wave later, brought massive changes to the genre and changed the way the future of mankind was perceived. They spoke for a growing readership that was hungry for new visions and speculative prospects, now being prepared […]
Toys in the Age of Wonder: Science Fiction, Society and the Symbolism of Play by Mark Rich (2020)
As it has happened so often before, fiction by authors of early wonder and adventure tales, such as H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe, William Rice Burroughs, and others, have provided man (and particularly children and youngsters) with hopes and fantasies about machines that feature technology not yet been invented to dream a […]
Deconstructing Dr. Strangelove: The Secret History of Nuclear War Films by Sean M. Maloney (2020)
The Cold War, with all of its threats and visions of mass destruction and apocalyptic scenarios appears far away these days. However, when the menace of nuclear weapons that possibly would be launched if wrong decisions were made by a few incompetent men in the military back in the 1960s, stories, novels and mostly movies […]