As a first grader, I distinctly remember sitting by my dad in front of the stereo cabinet, as he recorded a friend’s borrowed Star Wars soundtrack LP to reel-to-reel tape for my brother and I to listen to whenever we wanted, which was always. My only regret at the time is I wouldn’t — and didn’t — have the cardboard sleeve to gaze at while reliving George Lucas’ movie through John Williams’ instantly iconic score. (This was before the VCR invaded American households, folks.)

Aaron Lupton and Jeff Szpirglas would understand. That’s the experience Planet Wax: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Soundtracks on Vinyl exists to commemorate and celebrate. A sequel to their last year’s Blood and Black Wax, Lupton and Szpirglas pivot from the music that fuels famous horror films to the tunes of that misunderstood genre’s more beloved big brothers of science fiction and fantasy. This follow-up is every bit the keeper.

Once again from 1984 Publishing, the full-color hardcover looks sleek and gorgeous. As with the previous volume, Lupton and Szpirglas give each featured album a page to itself, with a brief (but highly knowledgeable) essay running underneath the cover art commanding the space from left margin to right. Some discs earn extra pages, such as the multiple releases of the big Star franchises — Wars and Treks. Peppered throughout are sidebar interviews with select composers, from Stu Phillips (TV’s Battlestar Galactica) to Brad Fiedel (The Terminator).

SF fans will be delighted with the such soundtrack behemoths represented as Vangelis’ Blade Runner, Jerry Goldsmith’s Planet of the Apes, Basil Poledouris’ Conan the Barbarian (and the Destroyer) and John Williams’ Close Encounters of the Third Kind (not to mention Superman and Raiders and E.T. and Jurassic Park and …). The story behind the classical gas that is the 2001: A Space Odyssey LP is almost worth the purchase alone.

What those fans may not be as enthused about are the oddball choices the guys throw readers’ way, which actually kicks the book up several levels for me. This includes the accidentally kitsch disco rock of Cannon’s The Apple, Queen’s anthemic and unconventional Flash Gordon score, the largely electro compilation for The Matrix, the library cues used by the Spider-Man cartoon series of the late ’60s, Harry Nilsson’s much-derided Popeye songs and, of course, the chart-topping funkster known throughout the Milky Way as simply Meco. All hail Meco.

Hell, speaking of, there’s even a spread on Star Wars novelty albums! (As someone who wrote an article on the subject for issue #13 of the late Cool & Strange Music Magazine, I can attest a galaxy’s worth of those puerile platters could fill an entire book.)

You don’t have to be a vinyl collector to appreciate the wonder of Planet Wax. But if you are, do your damndest to seek out the Record Store Day edition dropping Aug. 28. Only available through participating stores, that limited edition of 1,000 copies includes a bonus 7-inch of Christopher Young’s two-part theme for Tobe Hooper’s Invaders from Mars, on an exclusive, slime-green slab! (You also get a numbered bookmark signed by both authors, but I wouldn’t attempt to play that.)

Whatever these two tackle next, my eyes — and ears — eagerly await. —Rod Lott

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In the same vein as his book on sci-fi and horror films of the same era, Mark Thomas McGee covers a decade’s worth of JD and other teenage-targeted movies with Teenage Thunder: A Front Row Look at the 1950s Teenpics. After a meaty introduction to the subgenre, McGee gets to the main course: full A-to-Z reviews of enough movies to fill a few swell jalopies, with Elvis Presley, Mamie Van Doren and Roger Corman turning up everywhere. Rather than quoting other critics to give context on the films’ reception, McGee instead quotes the actual exhibitors, which yields some lines as vicious as any from a poisoned pen; says one of Teenagers from Outer Space, “better to leave the house dark for three nights.” The BearManor Media paperback squeaks through with a few glaring errors (one “Capital” Records is forgivable; multiple instances of Dick “Clarke” are not), but the book is so much fun, it’s nearly essential. To borrow the tagline from the poster for Rock, Pretty Baby!, it’s the most! The greatest! It’s crazy, man, crazy!

Where were you in 1962? If you were alive, perhaps in a theater watching To Kill a Mockingbird, The Manchurian Candidate or any number of landmark films the year brought. With Cinema ’62: The Greatest Year at the Movies:, Stephen Farber and Michael McClellan make the case for those 12 months being an absolute peak for Hollywood celluloid. We’ve all heard similar claims laid for 1939 and, more recently, 1999, but 1962? Nope, never — not until right now. They don’t convince me — every year brings its share of four-star winners — but they do succeed in crafting a credible, critical narrative of an art form in transition, with chapters covering the foreign-film revolution, the loosening of sexual morals onscreen, the increasing influence of psychoanalysis and, naturally, the move from black and white to glorious Technicolor. In hardcover from Rutgers University Press, Cinema ’62 registers as a brainier take on Peter Biskind’s style, but not nearly as breezy and boisterous.

Spoiler Alert!: The Badass Book of Movie Plots is part screenwriting manual, part humor title and part graphic novel. From the minds of Stephen Espinoza, Kathleen Killian Fernandez and Chris Vander Kaay (the latter two of whom co-authored 2018’s Indie Science Fiction Cinema Today), the Laurence King Publishing paperback is nothing if not colorful. But it’s more than that, too, breaking down the beats of 38 film subgenres — e.g., Teen Sex Comedy, the Disaster Movie, the Superhero Origin Film, the Erotic Thriller, the Animal Attack Horror and so on — in three acts. The result is like a bunch of Mad magazine parodies of movies that don’t exist … except they kinda do! The authors have nailed the hundreds of clichés still permeating the pictures produced today. While the book is well-designed, its cutesy-verging illustrations belie the mildly wicked humor to be found in the word balloons. —Rod Lott

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With the much-awaited No Time to Die just a few weeks several months away from hitting theaters, the flood of 007-related books has begun, with none more desirable than Nobody Does It Better: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of James Bond. If you’re familiar with co-writers Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross’ previous treatments on Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you know what you’re in for: a real wrist-strainer! But also your money’s worth — and then some. From Forge Books, the 720-page behemoth takes the reader through the making of all the Bond films, one by one — yep, even those deemed unofficial — using interviews from the actors, filmmakers and fans. The latter group can offer the occasional bit of fluff, like this contribution from Spy Kids papa Robert Rodriguez in full: “I love James Bond movies.” Wow, what insight! (Note that weird bit of italics, too — a practice carried throughout as if “James Bond” were part of the films’ titles … which they are not.) Other than that, Miss Moneypenny, the book is almost as much fun as a roll in the hay with Pussy Galore.

The story of the late Burt Reynolds can be told through the man’s filmography: He paid his dues (TV’s Gunsmoke), became a star (Deliverance), achieved box-office superstardom (Smokey and the Bandit), squandered it with baffling vanity vehicles (Stroker Ace), paid his dues again (Breaking In), landed a comeback with his finest role (Boogie Nights) and squandered it with baffling choices all over again (Cloud 9, anyone? Anyone?). Okay, so there is more to it than that, which I leave to Wayne Byrne, who spells it all out in Burt Reynolds on Screen. This retrospective of Reynolds’ career takes a chronological look at the legendary actor’s work on screens large and small, from the bit parts to big hits to roughly a decade and a half’s worth of movies you’ve never heard of. While each entry stands on its own, a full read paints a richer picture as Byrne is concerned not with synopses, but critiques of the work and considerations of their time in Reynolds’ life. Sprinkled throughout are interviews with a few former co-workers, but don’t expect Loni or Sally; the biggest names belong to Rachel Ward and Bobby Goldsboro.

Many years ago, renegade filmmaker Alex Cox (Repo Man) wrote an embarrassing, half-assed book about spaghetti Westerns. Hey, don’t shoot the messenger! Those are his own words, right on the back cover to this, the second edition of 10,000 Ways to Die: A Director’s Take on the Italian Western; with the benefit of 30 years having passed, Cox has updated the book to add entries, alter opinions and correct errors (but didn’t catch them all, cries one “Gordon Herschell Lewis”). As published by Kamera Books, the paperback is more compact and reader-friendly than the heavier edition of the past. What’s not changed? Cox’s enormous passion for these pictures, which carries over to the reader, whether he’s discussing Dashiell Hammett’s influence on the genre, the transgressive violence of Sergio Leone’s Fistful of Dollars, Terence Hill and Bud Spencer as the Italian Laurel and Hardy, or the terrifying prospect of Peter Bogdanovich nearly directing Leone’s Duck, You Sucker! Speaking not only as a fan but a filmmaker, his insight is more interesting — and entertaining — than the average bear: “Why does a producer do such things? Why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can.” —Rod Lott

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Right on the jacket, Flatiron Books makes a so-bold-it’s-ballsy claim about Sam Wasson’s The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood: that it “will take its place alongside classics like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and The Devil’s Candy as one of the great movie-world books ever written.”

I can’t go that far. But I will call The Big Goodbye one of the best-written movie-world books (and yes, there is a difference). Consider this bit on Jack Nicholson, which reads like the very thing it describes: “Amazed by his staggering ability to draw out the shortest line of dialogue, to make a meal of crumbs, he realized that Nicholson’s innate mastery of suspense, of making the audience wait and wait for him reach the end of a line, added drama to the most commonplace speech, and Nicholson’s monotone, rather than bore the listener, inflected the mundane with an ironic tilt.”

That’s poetry! And yet, to be honest, I found more delight in Wasson’s 2010 bestseller, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman, even though I have no strong affection for the Blake Edwards romantic comedy at its chewy center.

But let’s leave “Moon River” for an L.A. reservoir. Instead of a linear chronicle of the making of Paramount Pictures’ 1974 classic, Chinatown, the author uses The Big Goodbye to tell the making of four key creatives — Nicholson, director Roman Polanski, writer Robert Towne and studio exec Robert Evans — and how their individual histories informed the shared one they would create.

Polanski is first up; unfortunately, his story is the one least in need of retelling — especially this year, in the wake of the Manson murders’ 50th anniversary, the release of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood and the ongoing furor over his crimes of sexual abuse, both alleged and proven.

Nicholson’s story is one of temper and talent, indelibly linked. Evans’, one of legendary largesse, which puts the jacket flap’s boast right in line with his wavelength of exaggerated arrogance: “You know I’ve gotten more women pregnant than anyone in history. You know how? Love Story!”

Naturally, the tale that’s most interesting among these highly, highly flawed men is the one least known to the public: the lower-than-low-profile Towne. Wasson paints a full portrait of the enigmatic man and the screenplay’s long gestation period, abandoned plot points and characters and all. The most revelatory aspect of The Big Goodbye is the issue of Chinatown’s authorship, with Towne relying heavily on longtime friend Edward Taylor on building the noir-soaked narrative of the SoCal water wars — a backdrop Polanski more or less turned into a MacGuffin. Read The Big Goodbye for this story, if no other.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, although she’s not one of the four focal points, Faye Dunaway does play a part … and doesn’t emerge as a saint, either. Then again, she never does. —Rod Lott

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After the 2015 documentary Doomed!, one might wonder what’s left to be said on the unreleased Fantastic Four film. Turns out, plenty! For BearManor Media, William Nesbitt has written Forsaken: The Making and Aftermath of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four. While I initially felt misgivings upon learning the book does not present a front-to-back narrative, its structure of nearly 30 individual Q&As actually works well; because the interviews don’t have to be read in order, so you can pick and choose those whose viewpoints interest you most. I most recommend those of principal actors Carl Ciarfalio and Alex Hyde-White, screenwriter Craig J. Nevius, director Oley Sassone, producers Corman and Bernd Eichinger, storyboard artist Pete Von Sholly and Film Threat’s Chris Gore. (Elsewhere, Stan Lee and Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman seem nowhere near as untrustworthy.) One small quibble: the title. I would’ve gone with Foursaken, because c’mon!

Cleaver Patterson could have collected various essays on fright films, but where’s the fun in that? Instead, he does something unique for this paperback, which you can probably infer from its title: Don’t Go Upstairs! A Room-by-Room Tour of the House in Horror Movies. Many of the approximately 60 blueprint entries cover the iconic works, from Psycho’s cellar and up The Exorcist’s stairwell to Poltergeist’s kitchen. But making the book all the better is that Patterson doesn’t forget exposing readers to more obscure titles, including the guest room of The Uninvited or the conservatory of Symptoms. In each case, the scene(s) in question is discussed and reviewed, rather than the movie itself. The McFarland & Company release isn’t essential, but its different angle is much appreciated.

If nothing else, you will gain an enormous amount of knowledge of and respect for the craft of film editing after reading Academy Award winner Paul Hirsch’s autobiography for Chicago Review Press. A Long Time Ago in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away: My Fifty Years Editing Hollywood Hits ― Star Wars, Carrie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Mission: Impossible, and More delivers exactly as promised, brimming with film-by-film remembrances of epic battles and epic solutions inside and outside the editing room. While Star Wars will attract the lion’s share of attention to the book, other chapters have no trouble sharing delightfully unfiltered stories. Those include Tom Cruise’s incredible generosity with coconut cake, John Hughes’ habit of suddenly cutting people out of his life, Tim Robbins’ crankiness at having to loop dialogue, Julia Roberts’ epic disgust of co-star Nick Nolte, and Joel Schumacher’s HR-unfriendly blowjob talks on set. But why no Extreme Ops anecdotes, dude?

One activity lost in this internet age: poring over movie ads in the newspaper. As a child, it was about the only way to get a taste of films I wasn’t allowed to see. Throughout middle school, I would cut out ads for movies I saw or desperately wanted to, and posted them on my bedroom bulletin board alongside admission ticket stubs. (Why, yes, I was a hopeless nerd! Why do you ask?) Minus the crushing embarrassment, all those feelings came rushing back while reading Ad Nauseam II: Newsprint Nightmares from the 1990s and 2000s, Michael Gingold’s immediate follow-up to last year’s original Ad Nauseum. Although the years it covers may be less revolutionary for the horror genre, this sequel is superior to the first book based on the “story” it tells. The chronological coverage amounts to an actual narrative arc as the glory years of Voorhees, Krueger, et al., fade to a near-death. Notes Gingold, 1994 saw a mere nine titles for fright films … and then came Scream and Paranormal Activity, and suddenly, horror once again was — and still is — a Very Big Deal. The proof is in the pages, detailing quite a comeback. Meanwhile, sci-fi suffered no such doldrums, in part because the public views it as an Eagle Scout compared to horror’s high school dropout. That hardly makes Ad Astra: 20 Years of Newspaper Ads for Sci-Fi & Fantasy Films less enjoyable. Rather, the all-SF&F companion — released in tandem with Nauseam II by 1984 Publishing — enriches the Gingold experience as a whole; both come highly recommended. Hailing from New York, the author had exposure to more movies than we flyover states got, resulting in some true obscurities: Wired to Kill, War of the Wizards, Freeze Me and more. Page after page, these books bring back the glory days of phone recordings (Call D.A.R.Y.L.!), day-one freebies (Henry II: Portrait of a Serial Killer T-shirts, anyone?) and genuinely great marketing (“Who Is Darkman?”). Now do action, Gingold! —Rod Lott

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