Look, here is everything I dislike about Austin Trunick’s The Cannon Film Guide: Volume I, 1980-1984:
• Volume II is not yet available.
• Volume III is not yet available.

Otherwise, this book is B-movie gold.

Anyone who has seen Mark Hartley’s amazing 2014 documentary, Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, knows that when it comes to The Cannon Group — and Israeli cousins/co-owners Menahem Golan and Yoran Globus — no shortage of great stories exists.

Whereas Hartley was limited to a manageable running time, print carries no such burden, and Trunick takes full advantage of that freedom — as if the behind-the-scenes book being broken into a trilogy weren’t already a dead giveaway. For example, Hartley’s doc recounted Golan and Globus’ decision to flip the order of the first two films in Chuck Norris’ Missing in Action franchise, but Trunick shares the full, more complicated details. While he may not have A-list access in terms of interviewees, he has the luxury of getting to plumb the depths of the deets … and strikes the mother lode.

Starting with 1980’s The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood, Golan and Globus’ first release after purchasing Cannon, Trunick devotes a chapter to each movie they theatrically released in the United States. Yes, that means The Last American Virgin and Ninja III: The Domination, but it also means such forgotten oddities as Seed of Innocence and Over the Brooklyn Bridge — the latter of which was advertised and opened with the wrong iconic bridge, the Manhattan, which Golan brushed off thusly: “Eh, a bridge is a bridge.”

While the standout chapters are — no shock — about the making of Cannon’s bread-and-butter classics (those referenced on the book’s cover tagline: “Ninjas! Breakdancers! Death Wishes!”), I confess it may be even more fun to read about Cannon’s legendary failures and the misbehavior that contributed to their downfall. For example, That Championship Season’s legitimate awards-season bid goes up in flames at the premiere when notorious alcoholic Robert Mitchum decides to hurl a basketball into a woman’s face. Then there the diva demands of Brooke Shields’ mother, Teri, “working” as a first-time producer on the flop adventure Sahara with bold displays of ego strokes — and swaths! — bested only by John and Bo Derek on the ill-fated sex romp Bolero. (And that’s really saying something when we also have Faye Dunaway at play, as The Wicked Lady.)

The misbehavior extends to Golan and Globus, of course, particularly in getting a Hercules sequel out of Lou Ferrigno under the guise of reshoots, so they wouldn’t have to pay him!

The book is well-researched, with only a few factual nits to pick, from incorrectly identifying the boxing drama Body and Soul as the first time Leon Isaac Kennedy and Jayne Kennedy shared the big screen (don’t forget Death Force!) and the campus comedy Making the Grade as the movie that gave us Andrew “Dice” Clay (it was Wacko), to denying poor Robert MacNaughton his due by giving credit for his role as the big brother in E.T. to Sean Frye. (Elsewhere, I’ll let the misspelling of Jon Voight’s name slide since the man has become a lunatic.)

When available, Q&As with key players supplement the film discussions. Again, Trunick may not have landed interviews with above-the-title talent, but everyone he did get adds considerable insight and value, including The Apple’s Catherine Mary Stewart, frequent helmer Sam Firstenberg (Revenge of the Ninja) and uncredited Exterminator 2 director William Sachs.

Published by BearManor Media and numbering more than 525 pages, this first Cannon Film Guide is as thorough as you’d hope it would be. Initially, I thought I might skip reading about the movies I disliked or had no interest in seeing, but that proved futile, because Trunick’s work is excellently entertaining. Less than 48 hours later, I had devoured every word. Given that Volume II promises to spotlight Cannon’s golden age, I cannot wait for more. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon or BearManor Media.

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

Get it at Amazon.

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

Get them at Amazon.

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

Get them at Amazon.

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

Get it at Amazon.