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The Phantom of the Movies'Videoscope: The Ultimate Guide to the Latest, Greatest and Weirdest Genre Videos, by Joe Kane, Three Rivers Press, 2000, 570 pages, paperback, $25.00
According to Entertainment Weekly, Kane is the "best movie critic in America." Good boy, Joe. Those sweat holes where we got our feet wet and had—in journalistic terms--a baptism in fire, has paid off for you. Your 'The Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope: The Ultimate Guide to the Latest, Greatest and Weirdest Genre Videos is probably the best such film guide available, chock full of pithy little reviews called "an almost free-associational speed-rap on genre and fringe movies," by John Sayles. Two things about this book interested me initially. One was an interview with John Waters. I was curious to see what Kane made of his 1972 film Pink Flamingoes, subtitled "an exercise in poor taste" and that became an underground classic. Also, since Kane's book photo shows him on the very scene where the 1963 movie, Blood Feast, was made, I was curious to see his review of the same. H.G. Lewis, the maker of Blood Feast, which Kane rightly calls "the movie that invented hardcore gore" had also made 1964's 2,000 Maniacs. Bothof these films annoyed me, perhaps, more than any movies ever. After seeing them in a Virginia drive-in-theatre during September, 1964, I left the theatre-lot cursing the censors. The next day I scribbled a damning letter to the Washington Post, which got published. Why, I wanted to know, did the censors pass on these two films--which showed ultimate barbarism unchecked—chopped, bloody body parts and horrendous, truly gruesome murders, while they hypocritically disallowed the showing of honest nudity and sexual contacts?
Kane divides the films by genre. Each review is accompanied with information about the director, the lead actors, release year and Kane's personal rating. Besides his interview with John Waters, Kane talks with such legendary directors as Wes Craven and such masters of horror as Clive Barker. Artwork and sidebars punctuate each chapter and a reference section includes information about Ordering videos, DVD availability and Internet resources. Other features include the "B" awards—the anti-Academy Awards—and a 'dis' list of movies to avoid.
Kane reviews 100 camp classics ("the best of the worst") including a 1980 flick, The Children, which,
He says, "has got to be the sickest entry in genredom's short-lived-lets-kill-the-kids craze."
If Al Gore, Joe Lieberman,George W.Bush or Dick Cheney want proof of moral anarchy in Hollywood with which to regale worried mothers, The Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope should provide them with what they need. And speaking of Cheney, does anyone recall the name of that dude who first played Frankenstein? It figures. Cheney. |
Author Joe Kane, aka 'The Phantom of the Movies' is published several times weekly in New York's Daily News. Kane is truly a phantom to me. Somewhere in the long-ago I worked with him in a New York publishing office, but today, dammit, I can't recall which one. Recognizing his byline right off the bat, however, I immediately formed an accurate mental picture of his appearance. Turning to the book's back cover, there he was. Yup, I knew him. But where did we work together? And why must I now be plagued by this gnawing 'senior moment?'
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