Customer Reviews

Midnight Movies

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This is one of the first serious film books I ever picked up. The picture of ol' Jack Nance from David Lynch's Eraserhead is what caught my eye. After reading the first paragraph of the first chapter, I was hooked.

Written by, arguably, the two best critics around -- J. Hoberman (who writes for the Village Voice) and Jonathan Rosenbaum (who writes for the Chicago Reader) -- this is an excellent look at a bygone era of movie-going. They document the midnight movie circuit that used to exist across the country for films too weird and strange for mainstream consumption. Sadly, most of these theatres are gone now -- swallowed up by the multiplex monster.

These guys clearly did their homework -- their chapters on the early careers of Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, John Waters and George Romero are definitive. Best of all, their writing style is never dry or academic but very readable (it helps that these guys write for weeklies).

This book is a must-have for any fan of cult movies (and esp. the above mentioned directors). I have read it many, many times and it inspired me to be a writer myself. Great stuff.

A lot of these directors have had entire books written about them since this book was published, but the authors manage to make this book so entertaining and fascinating that I've reread it twice-- I usually just read nonfiction once and then use it for reference. If they would put England's The Incredibly Strange Film Show (and the spin-offs Son Of... and For One Week Only)out on DVD, it would rival this book. Until then, this is the most vital source of information on cult movies.