In a summer that has seen several sequels tank, at least one doesn’t disappoint: Make My Day: Movie Culture in the Age of Reagan, preeminent film critic J. Hoberman’s trilogy-capper. As An Army of Phantoms and The Dream Life considered American cinema in the Cold War and the 1960s, respectively, Make My Day looks to the late 1970s and the whole of the 1980s; as in those works, also from The New Press, American cinema is also considered through the lens of the era’s politics, and how one informed or reflected the other. With Ronald Reagan as movie star-cum-POTUS, Hoberman certainly has a wealth of material to parse, most notably in the “warnography” of Rambo: First Blood Part II, Top Gun, Iron Eagle and, to a lesser degree, WarGames. It’s not all jets and jocks, either, with everything from the narrative quilt of Nashville to the science-fried comedy of Ghostbusters and basically everything Steven Spielberg Midas-touched. The tour is fascinating, politically charged (yet fact-based) and even thrilling. An overuse of the prefix “crypto-” and a couple of names getting botched (as Jon Voigt, Gary Marshall and Christian Glover) do nothing to diminish its excellence.

Serious question: Does Roberto Curti ever sleep? The Italian film historian has been averaging two research-heavy books a year, with his latest being Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1980-1989. Those already familiar with Curti will know this is the third in the IGHF series, which began in 2015 (1957-1969) and continued in 2017 (1970-1979), all published by McFarland & Company. The VHS-weaned generation may have been waiting on this one all along, given that the video-store era coincided with the gore-heavy auteurist period of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Lamberto Bava and others, who made some of their best work in this fertile period. Again going chronologically, Curti examines each notable title, with critical and historical appreciations that can run for multiple pages, if merited (the above men among those). If there’s a fly in this soup, it’s that Curti refers to films primarily by their Italian titles, which can get tricky if you’re not paying attention, assuming you’re also not bilingual. Molto bene!

Portable Press’ Strange Hollywood is not unlike an entry in the assumedly immortal Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader series: a chunky little book to absorb a page or two at a time, most likely during dumps, with contents only slightly less temporary. Thus, lists make up much of the 400-plus pages, from movie stars’ final roles and original titles of hit pictures to fun facts about The Muppets and memorable quips from TV’s Hollywood Squares. Occasionally, there’s even an anecdote worth your time, such as why Tommy Lee Jones couldn’t stand working with Jim Carrey on Batman Forever, resulting in the former telling the latter, “I cannot sanction your buffoonery.” All in all, the book is a novelty that might work as a stocking stuffer. —Rod Lott

Get them at Amazon.

With Glenn Kay and Michael Rose’s wonderful Disaster Movies: The Ultimate Guide long out of print, the field has been open for a title to swoop in as a no-brainer purchase for those interested in navigating the oft-campy subgenre. I’m afraid Nik Havert’s bid, however, isn’t it.

As hinted by the title, The Golden Age of Disaster Cinema: A Guide to the Films, 1950-1979, his definition of the subject is perhaps too malleable, stretched to include alien invasions produced by George Pal and ecological-revenge fantasies, rather than sticking to the perils of Irwin Allen and others who either influenced or Xeroxed the projects of his reign.

Year by year, movie by movie, Havert ticks through offerings from screens big and small, but other than the occasional emailed remembrance by someone who worked on the film, his articles follow an unfortunate formula: brief remarks of innocuous criticism preceded by several paragraphs of beat-by-beat story synopsis, each maddeningly ending with a same-Bat-time/same-Bat-channel question as repetitive as it is needless. For example:
• “Will any of them make it out alive?” (Airport ’77)
• “Can any of them escape, and will the infection spread if they do?” (The Crazies)
• “Who will survive the wall of water rushing for Brownsville, and will the town ever be the same?” (Flood)
• “Will they make it, and will anyone else survive the aftermath?” (Avalanche)
• “Will either shelter be strong enough to hold off the attacks, and what awaits the survivors further down the mountain if they make it through the night?” (Day of the Animals)

While Havert is obviously passionate about disaster cinema, he is unable to convey that in a way that engages the reader, and calls too many films “lost” that are not (like This Is a Hijack). On the plus side, the McFarland & Company paperback is thorough, packed with obscurities — where else will one learn of Flug in Gefhar? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.