| The Hero |
KIND OF A BIG DEAL
BOOKS
★★★★✩
SAUL AUSTERLITZ DUTTON
What’s in a moustache? Quite a lot, judging by film prof Saul Austerlitz’s dissection of Ron Burgundy’s lip rug in Anchorman. Teasing out the ’tache’s influences, origins and intent, Austerlitz shows how even the daftest element of a deeply daft comedy can bloom under close study.
Brimming with allusive wit, insight and quotes, Austerlitz’s book mounts a deep dig into How Anchorman Stayed Classy and Became the Most Iconic Comedy of the Twenty-First Century (to give its full subtitle). Starting with the film’s origins in SNL and Will Ferrell’s ‘suburban-dad’ persona, Austerlitz traces the writing process to show how Ferrell and director Adam McKay created a fully rounded world: crucially, Anchorman was no mere expanded sketch. Everything from casting to costume design is anatomised, with Christina Applegate’s mercurial performance fulsomely honoured. A study of McKay’s on-set environment adds illuminating insights into improvisation at work; meanwhile, explorations of homophobia, race and toxic cultural appropriations prove alert to the film’s thornier issues.
Themes of fragile masculinity and ascendant feminism are also navigated, Austerlitz making light work of complex ideas even when he’s name-dropping lit-crit don Harold Bloom. Interviews flesh the narrative out nicely, before a celebration of a post-Ron golden age in comedy maps out Anchorman’s influence. Between nods to everything from Spartacus to Freud, Austerlitz draws on film theory’s deepest wisdoms to reiterate one clear reason why the film holds up: ‘It is,’ he writes, ‘really fucking funny.’
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Scares, space flicks, super-spies…
HORROR UNMASKED
★★★✩✩
Brad Weismann’s guidebook plots a century-plus history of horror with fan-ish fervour, making up in enthusiasm for shortfalls of binding argument. Starting with Caligari and Chaney and closing with ‘post-horror’, it’s a sketchy but voracious survey. KEVIN HARLEY
OUT THERE: THE SCIENCE BEHIND SCI-FI FILM AND TV
★★★✩✩
Author and NASA adviser Ariel Waldman puts the plausibility of sci-fi tropes to the test in this informative and accessible volume. If the text feels a little too reliant on familiar themes – and film/TV examples – it’s still a lively read for genre geeks of all ages. LINDA MARRIC
RESISTING JAMES BOND
★★★✩✩
Environmental injustice? Unthinking urbicide? Daniel Craig’s tenure as Bond was guilty of all that and more according to this stimulating essay collection. It’s not all withering: recent Bonds earn brownies points for condemning torture and developing the Moneypenny character. NEIL SMITH
BURN IT DOWN
★★★★✩
MAUREEN RYAN HARPER COLLINS
Subtitled Power, Complicity and a Call for Change in Hollywood, this is a searing exposé from veteran entertainment journalist Ryan. Gathering frank interviews with those who were in the rooms where it all happened, the Vanity Fair writer drops a series of bombshells regarding, among other things, the Lost writers’ room and the SNL studio, calling out the abusers and enablers as she goes. Where the first half of the book kicks the doors down, the second offers solutions. Urgent and revealing.
CLINT EASTWOOD: THE ICONIC FILMMAKER AND HIS WORK
★★★★✩
IAN NATHAN WHITE LION
‘This is not a career – it’s a landscape,’ says Nathan, who creditably attempts to traverse Eastwood’s hefty output in 176 pages. Masterpieces The Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby merit chapters; duds like The 15:17 to Paris barely get a paragraph. But Nathan rigorously distinguishes between ‘Clint’ the star and ‘Eastwood’ the artist as he considers the icon’s place in pop culture.
CONAN THE BARBARIAN: THE OFFICIAL STORY OF THE FILM
★★★★✩
JOHN WALSH TITAN
Author and filmmaker Walsh leads a fun and full-bore expedition through the making of the 1982 Schwarzenegger smash. The hardback tome’s sizable dimensions and depth of colour allow plenty of scope for showcasing Conan’s pulpy origins and artist Frank Frazetta’s essential work on the character. Includes set photographs, concept art and interviews with the cast and crew.