CANR
WORK TITLE: Charlesgate Confidential
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 7/27/1967
WEBSITE: http://scottvondoviak.com
CITY: Austin
STATE: TX
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born July 27, 1967.
EDUCATION:Emerson College, bachelor’s degree, 1989.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Novelist, movie reviewer, screen writer, pop culture writer. Fort Worth Star-Telegram, film critic; The Onion’s AV Club, television reviewer.
AWARDS:Maine Film Initiative, Best Maine Feature Screenplay, for The Billionaire.
WRITINGS
Writer of screenplays, including What I Like About You, and The Billionaire; contributor of articles to media outlets, including Nerve, Oxford American, Hollywood Reporter, Film Threat, and Alternative Cinema.
SIDELIGHTS
Born in 1967, Scott Von Doviak is a novelist, pop culture writer, screen writer, and movie reviewer. Based in Austin, Texas, he has published numerous books on science fiction, horror, and redneck films. His first novel, Charlesgate Confidential, features art thieves and missing loot. He writes reviews for Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Onion’s AV Club, and has also appeared in independent films, including the 1996 Apocalypse Bop and the 2000 What I Like About You, which he co-wrote with Marie Black and Ryan Wickerham.
Von Doviak’s 2005 book Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema describes the 1970s movie subgenre known as “hixploitation,” popularized by such films as the 1977 Smokey and the Bandit. Von Doviak discusses three main themes of hick flicks: good old boys, redneck sheriffs, and moonshine; truckers and backroad racers; and forest dwellers and swamp people. The popularity of hick flicks, with a mullet gag, a “Dueling Banjos” joke, or CB radio chatter, declined with the collapse of the drive-in theater. Spencer Parsons said on the Austin Chronicle website: “While forthrightly lightweight, the book’s embrace of hixploitation’s contradictory pleasures incites all sorts of questions for further study.”
In 2012, Von Doviak published If You Like The Terminator: Here Are over 200 Movies, TV Shows, and Other Oddities that You Will Love, part of the “If You Like” series. Expected to be a B-movie, The Terminator in 1984 made the careers of director James Cameron and star Arnold Schwarzenegger and redefined the science fiction genre to include spectacular special effects and film noir. In the book, Von Doviak explores the films and television shows that inspired The Terminator and the shows that took their inspiration from the film. He also presents a history of science fiction cinema from Metropolis to The Matrix, and predicts the future of the computer-dominated genre. “What sets Von Doviak apart from other mainstream film critics is both the detail with which he discusses The Terminator‘s evolution into a major franchise and how he skillfully locates Cameron’s film within a comprehensive history of sf cinema,” noted Extrapolation reviewer Andrea Krafft.
Stephen King Films FAQ: Everything Left to Know about the King of Horror on Film delves into prolific writer King and the more than one hundred film and television adaptations of his works. From Carrie and The Shawshank Redemption to The Green Mile, Von Doviak chronicles the directors like Stanley Kubrick, Brian De Palma, and John Carpenter who tackled King’s art of suspense and horror. He includes well-known films, obscurities, B-movies, and Oscar-nominated films, offering background information and trivia, as well as off-shoots like comic books and radio dramas. Online at Truth Inside the Lie, Bryant Burnette remarked: “Von Doviak is closer to being a film reviewer; he does not dig very deeply at all, and for a book about the films of Stephen King that pushes close to being 400 pages, I would have expected a bit more depth from the actual criticism.”
Von Doviak’s debut novel, Charlesgate Confidential, draws inspiration from the 1990 unsolved theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. In Von Doviak’s tale, thieves disguised as cops in 1946 steal thirteen paintings worth half a billion dollars. The case is never solved. In 1986, Emerson College student Tommy Donnelly writes a history of the school’s dorm and former hotel, the notorious Charlesgate. He is able to link the art thieves to a poker game at the hotel. In 2014, a college reunion reunites Tommy with classmate Jackie St. John who knows more about the art theft. “Von Doviak cuts constantly from one [timeline] to the other in a wildly inventive fantasia spiced with frequent revelations of new crimes and new solutions,” according to a Kirkus Reviews contributor, who added that unfortunately the last round of revelations is not more revelatory.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Extrapolation, spring 2014, Andrea Krafft, review of If You Like The Terminator: Here Are over 200 Movies, TV Shows, and Other Oddities that You Will Love, p. 115.
Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2018, review of Charlesgate Confidential.
ONLINE
Austin Chronicle, https://www.austinchronicle.com/ (February 11, 2005), Spencer Parsons, review of Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema.
Truth Inside the Lie, http://thetruthinsidethelie.blogspot.com/ (May 21, 2014), Bryant Burnette, review of Stephen King Films FAQ: Everything Left to Know about the King of Horror on Film.
Scott Von Doviak's twenty-year pop culture writing career includes three books, a stint as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and an ongoing role as television reviewer for The Onion's AV Club. He starred in the independent film "Apocalypse Bop" and co-wrote and co-starred in "What I Like About You." His script "The Billionaire" was named Best Maine Feature Screenplay by the inaugural Maine Film Initiative. "Charlesgate Confidential" is his first novel. He lives in Austin, Texas.
Scott Von Doviak
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Scott Von Doviak (born 1967) is a novelist and pop culture writer. He reviews television for The Onion's The A.V. Club and is a former film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. His first book, Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema, is an in-depth examination of the 1970s movie subgenre known as "hixploitation." He is the author of two additional nonfiction books, If You Like The Terminator and Stephen King Films FAQ. His debut novel Charlesgate Confidential will be published by Hard Case Crime in September 2018. He lives in Austin, Texas.
Von Doviak, a 1989 graduate of Emerson College, also starred in the 1996 independent feature film Apocalypse Bop[1] and appeared in the 2000 indie feature What I Like About You, which he co-wrote with co-stars Marie Black and Ryan Wickerham.[2]
Scott Von Doviak is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas. He is a contributor to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The A.V. Club, Nerve, Oxford American, Hollywood Reporter, Film Threat, Alternative Cinema and many others. His books, Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema and the brand-new If You Like The Terminator, are available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble online. His first novel Charlesgate Confidential will be published in September 2018.
Charlesgate Confidential
Publishers Weekly. 265.29 (July 16, 2018): p44.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Charlesgate Confidential
Scott Von Doviak. Hard Case Crime, $22.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-78565-717-7
An art heist turns treasure hunt for a motley crew of Boston crooks, cops, and college students in Van Doviak's highly entertaining debut, which moves the infamous 1990 robbery of Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to 1946, then jumps ahead chapter by chapter to 1986 and 2014 and back again. In 1946, at the seedy real-life Charlesgate Hotel in Back Bay, Dave T's illegal card game is held up by the Devlin brothers--and Dave realizes he has found a couple of patsies for the heist. Forty years later, college reporter Tommy Donnelly begins a history series on his dorm building, formerly the Charlesgate. And in the refurbished high-end condos of the 2014 Charlesgate, tenant Jackie St. John Osborne decides she would like the multimillion-dollar reward for the return of the stolen paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, and company. Smooth, often funny dialogue more than compensates for some left-field plot developments. Plenty of Red Sox references--it's Beantown, Jake--add to the appeal of this era-bending caper novel. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Charlesgate Confidential." Publishers Weekly, 16 July 2018, p. 44. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A547266820/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=8201e8b3. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A547266820
Von Doviak, Scott: CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL
Kirkus Reviews. (July 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Von Doviak, Scott CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL Hard Case Crime (Adult Fiction) $22.99 9, 18 ISBN: 978-1-78565-717-7
Wondering who pulled off the never-solved 1990 heist at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which netted the thieves the richest haul still unrecovered in the history of art theft? Von Doviak's waggish debut has the answer to this question--and much, much more.
In 1946, according to Von Doviak, two fake cops who gained admittance to the museum late one night along with their confederates make off with a collection of 13 artworks by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and more, worth an estimated $500 million. Despite intensive investigation and a well-publicized, high-figure reward, the case remains unsolved in 1986, when Tommy Donnelly, a student living in Emerson College's Charlesgate student residence, a former hotel with a colorful history, sets out to write Charlesgate Confidential, a history of the place, and swiftly finds links between the Charlesgate, which in its day hosted everything from Jimmy Dryden's stable of prostitutes (sixth floor) to Dave T's high-stakes poker game (eighth floor) and the storied robbery. The most intriguing link: Days before the robbery, three gunmen swooped down on Dave T's, made off with the proceeds, and returned shortly after the robbery to execute Fat Dave, the Red Room Lounge bartender who identified them to their victim, whom he calls "Other Dave," leading to the conscription of one of the gunmen as a fake cop in the museum robbery and his violent death. In 2014--are you still following this?--a reunion of Tommy Donnelly's Emerson class spearheaded by classmate Jackie St. John digs even deeper into the past, which has now gotten pretty doggone deep.
Instead of presenting these three narrative layers in chronological order, Von Doviak cuts constantly from one to the other in a wildly inventive fantasia spiced with frequent revelations of new crimes and new solutions. The only downside: The last round of revelations doesn't carry any more weight than the others.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Von Doviak, Scott: CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A546323352/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=aadcf3f0. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A546323352
Mapping the Terminator's Family Tree
Andrea Krafft
Extrapolation. 55.1 (Spring 2014): p115+.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3828/extr.2014.7
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2014 Liverpool University Press (UK)
http://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78&catid=8
Full Text:
Mapping The Terminator's Family Tree. Scott Von Doviak. If You Like The Terminator. Milwaukee, WI: Limelight, 2012. 212 pp. ISBN 9780879103972. $14.99 pbk.
Scott Von Doviak's If You Like The Terminator is a brief and enjoyable book that should appeal to fans of James Cameron's 1984 film and self-proclaimed film enthusiasts alike. That said, readers who are unfamiliar with the Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group's "If You Like" series may find the organization of this book to be initially frustrating. The author often skips between plot summaries and discusses texts that appear to have very little to do with his central topic. Since the primary purpose of this book is to provide viewing suggestions for a popular audience, much of the text consists of thematically organized lists of films (he even provides a schedule for a Roland Emmerich "disasterthon"). However, what sets Von Doviak apart from other mainstream film critics is both the detail with which he discusses The Terminator's evolution into a major franchise and how he skillfully locates Cameron's film within a comprehensive history of sf cinema.
Fans and scholars who are interested in The Terminator will appreciate the space that Von Doviak devotes to the history of the film's production from its release date in 1984 through the franchise's most recent offering, Terminator Salvation (2009). In "Introduction: Building The Terminator," he recalls how the film community initially associated James Cameron's project with low-budget B movies. Younger readers might find the film's early reputation to be surprising, especially considering how production studios have recently engaged in bidding wars to claim the rights to the Terminator franchise (a subject which comprises much of the eighth chapter). The author traces how the rights to the film changed hands between each of its sequels, importantly observing how the tone of the films became fatalistic and humorless without Cameron's guidance. His consideration of the franchise extends beyond the films, as Von Doviak describes how The Terminator came back to life in The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008-09) and also took new form in comic books, tie-in novels and video games (a subject to which he unexpectedly devotes an entire chapter). This demonstration of how The Terminator affected material culture during the 1980s and onward reveals an often ignored aspect of the film's influence.
In addition to examining manifestations of The Terminator within popular culture, Von Doviak considers how the film irrevocably shaped the careers of both Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron. While he devotes individual chapters to both of these box-office golden boys, he seems less interested in providing biographical information than in cataloguing their filmographies. For example, his sixth chapter, "Mr. Universe: Arnold Schwarzenegger's Body of Work," primarily consists of a highly subjective ranked list of the actor's top twenty movies (including trivia and memorable quotations). He goes on to include a list of the actor's five worst movies, which might interest fans searching for campy entertainment, but otherwise feels like an indulgence of the author's personal opinions. His chapter about Cameron's career appears to be less biased than his discussion of Schwarzenegger, as Von Doviak highlights the director's antimilitary and pro-environmental themes from Aliens (1986) through Avatar (2009). My only complaint about this chapter is that Von Doviak devotes its final pages to Kathryn Bigelow on the grounds that she was briefly married to Cameron from 1989 to 1991. It seems unfair to reduce an accomplished director to a footnote in this collection, especially when her most recent film, Zero Dark Thirty (2012), stands on its own merits and has little to no relation to The Terminator.
Although Scott Von Doviak is prone to exploring tangents that are only distantly related to The Terminator, his placement of the film within the canon of sf cinema and television prevents his book from becoming just another popular culture encyclopedia. In his first chapter, "Prototypes: The Roots of Science-Fiction Cinema," he provides a brief but satisfying history of sf films, beginning with Georges Melies's A Trip to the Moon (1902). Von Doviak's extended discussion of how Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) is "the earliest direct ancestor of The Terminator" reminds readers that Cameron's film is not simply a box-office smash, but a text that fits into the well-established traditions of sf (ii). In his second chapter, he connects The Terminator to sf on the small screen as well, describing how the film evolved from episodes of The Outer Limits (1963-65). Much of this section defends James Cameron against Harlan Ellison's claims of intellectual property theft (which Von Doviak vociferously criticizes throughout the book). Whether or not Cameron is guilty of plagiarism, the Outer Limits chapter reminds us how The Terminator drew from a wide range of influences, cinematic and otherwise. In a similar vein, Von Doviak ends his book with an appendix of "100 Great Moments from Science-Fiction History," beginning with Frankenstein (1818) and ending with Portal 2 (2011), situating The Terminator as a text that is worthy of both fandom and serious study.
In fact, the bulk of If You Like The Terminator relates Cameron's film to other movies that share its central themes, as Von Doviak spends three chapters cataloguing movies that deal with robots, sentient computers, time travel, and post-apocalyptic settings. The book often feels cluttered and hurried during these sections, since the author is dealing with tropes that appear in the vast majority of sf films. However, Von Doviak provides helpful overviews of some iconic films, most notably in his discussion of Stanley Kubrick's career-long interest in "the uneasy relationship between humans and their technology" (37). He also devotes significant time to less-celebrated films, such as Michael Crichton's Westworld (1973), which he credits with inspiring Cameron's technological villain and "robots-eye-view" perspectives (49). Some of Von Doviak's choices again seem to stem from his own obsessions as a fan, a tendency that is most clear in his extended praise for the Planet of the Apes franchise (which comprises the majority of the time travel chapter). Furthermore, his discussion of the films that influenced The Terminator still feels incomplete, since he almost exclusively devotes his attention to sf. He does provide a list of "five non-science fiction movies that influenced The Terminator" (see pages 18-20), but this list is only a brief interlude in a book that primarily examines influences from one genre. However, locating all of the films that could have inspired The Terminator is a Herculean task, and Von Doviak provides a comprehensive overview of the influences behind this movie, at least within the realm of sf.
While his catalogue of the influences behind The Terminator is impressive, Von Doviak spends comparatively little time explicitly discussing how the film has influenced sf and the film industry over the past thirty years. He does demonstrate that the movie has an iconic status as an artifact of popular culture, yet falls short when he argues for its importance to the development of new subgenres. Indeed, in his tenth chapter, "Tech Noir: The Influence of The Terminator"' Von Doviak spends more time discussing Blade Runner (1982) than the noir elements of The Terminator. This seems to undercut his own argument that James Cameron helped to pioneer tech noir, as he fails to explain what The Terminator added to what Ridley Scott and cyberpunk authors had already established prior to the film's release. It was also unusual to me that Von Doviak did not spend more time discussing how The Terminator inspired visions of technological paranoia, given that echoes of Skynet appear in films such as I, Robot (2004) and novels such as Daniel H. Wilson's Robopocalypse (2011). It is in texts like these where The Terminator's influence is most evident, and I wanted to see Von Doviak explore them in more detail. He does demonstrate how The Terminator, though not necessarily creating tech noir, contributed to the emergence of dark technological visions from Gattaca (1997) to Battlestar Galactica (2004-09).
Overall, Scott Von Doviak's If You Like The Terminator firmly locates James Cameron's film as a core text within the history of American sf. Scholars involved in genre studies could benefit from the author's apparently exhaustive knowledge of popular culture; he catalogues a significant number of films and television shows that have emerged over a nearly 100-year span. Moreover, readers interested in casual entertainment can turn to this book for numerous plot summaries that might lead them to watch unfamiliar films that deal with technological anxiety, time travel, or post-apocalyptic scenarios. A recent rumor about the production of a fifth Terminator movie, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger may revive his iconic role, confirms Von Doviak's claim about the influential nature of the 1984 film. It seems that The Terminator will never permanently say "hasta la vista" to its fans as it continues to come back in new yet strangely familiar forms.
doi: 10.3828/extr.2014.7
Krafft, Andrea
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Krafft, Andrea. "Mapping the Terminator's Family Tree." Extrapolation, vol. 55, no. 1, 2014, p. 115+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A367199047/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=89a2138e. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A367199047
If you like the The Terminator...here are over 200 movies, TV shows, and other oddities that you will love
Reference & Research Book News. 27.5 (Oct. 2012):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
Full Text:
9780879103972
If you like the The Terminator...here are over 200 movies, TV shows, and other oddities that you will love.
Von Doviak, Scott.
Limelight Editions
2012
212 pages
$14.99
If you like
PN1997
Von Doviak, who writes about film, television, and pop culture, provides this guide in the If You Like series, which focuses on the films, television shows, and other works that inspired or have drawn inspiration from The Terminator. He describes the history of science fiction, including The Outer Limits, films about killing machines, time travel, post-apocalyptic settings, and five movies that influenced The Terminator; the history of The Terminator franchise and its sequels, television series, comic books, novels, and video games; the 'tech-noir' genre it helped spawn, including Blade Runner, Robocop, The Matrix, and Battlestar Galactica; and the films of Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron. An imprint of Hal Leonard.
([c] Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"If you like the The Terminator...here are over 200 movies, TV shows, and other oddities that you will love." Reference & Research Book News, Oct. 2012. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A304011577/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=598837a3. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A304011577
Stephen King Films FAQ
Internet Bookwatch. (June 2014):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2014 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Full Text:
Stephen King Films FAQ
Scott Von Doviak
Applause Books
c/o Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group
19 West 21st Street, Suite 201, New York, NY 10010
www. halleonard.com
9781480355514, $24.99, www.applausebooks.com
Stephen King Films FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the King of Horror on Film is recommended for any who relish King's unique style of horror, and provides a in-depth review of King's films covering everything from well-known movies to obscure creations. From flops to acclaimed films, this covers films that influenced King and those that followed his works, unmade projects, and works in other media. By expanding the focus to the entire 'King genre' of movies not just works by King himself-this offers a wider-ranging series of works that include other filmmaker efforts and provides a fine analysis key to any Stephen King enthusiast and collections catering to them.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Stephen King Films FAQ." Internet Bookwatch, June 2014. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A372693196/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=41dfeb59. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A372693196
If You Like The Terminator… by Scott Von Doviak (book review).
October 28, 2012 | By UncleGeoff | Reply
‘If You Like The Terminator…’ is part of a series of books that primarily points out material you might like if you like the key product. Do you need a clue as to which 1984 film that is? This is the only one hooking into our genre in the series so far. In some respects, that could be seen as boring subject choice does also point out all the likely influences that went through director Jim Cameron’s head up to that time. I do think it a bit weird and a little unnecessary to point out material post-Terminator in relation to this, simply because it couldn’t have been an influence on the film, unless you had a time machine and was seeking this out as well as rescuing Sarah Connor. However, it’s also supposed to be a whistle-stop tour beyond influences and a look at material that shows some similarity which would appeal to you. Sorta like certain shopping websites that think because you bought one item want other items to collect your set simply because other things were on other people’s shopping lists. Mind you, mine also shows things from my own shopping list, but that’s a different story.
This whistle-stop tour does have a bit more depth and when it comes to the two hundred movies and TV series on the cover, it tells you enough about them for you to make a judgement call as to whether you want to see if you can locate them on DVD if you haven’t seen them. I did spot-check some of the more obscure films and found that they were on DVD. Therefore, you are told about robot films, post-apocalypse and time travel films, although no motor-bike movies. You’re also given insight into many Schwarzenegger and Cameron films as if you haven’t followed their careers.
Occasionally, it was a bit disconcerting that writer Scott Von Doviak referred to the actor rather than the part describing the events in some films. Granted with the likes of George Pal’s ‘The Time Machine’, Rod Taylor’s part didn’t actually have a name but he was always referred to as the time traveller when referenced elsewhere.
Things I learnt. The 1978 film ‘The Driver’ was a big influence on Cameron’s car chase in ‘The Terminator’. The 5th of November is the time travel date was also used in ‘Time After Time’ in 1983 and again in 1985 with ‘Back To The Future’.
Von Doviak points out that there have been a lot of theories to the Terminator time-line on the Net although must have missed my theory that it was Skynet manipulating events to ensure its own survival.
His look at blatant rip-offs includes one called ‘The Terminators’ who plot resembles ‘Blade Runner’, which oddly is the subject of his next chapter and yet he doesn’t make the connection considering he does with other films. That’s only a minor quibble because on the whole, he’s kept a decent level of accuracy and looking at his bibliography, gone to great lengths to check details.
Although I suspect that the real SF experts won’t need this book, I did find a lot of info or connections that I didn’t. ‘Terminator’ fans born after 1984 and want to see how far their taste extends will find this book an asset and I doubt if more films added to the franchise won’t mean an immediate update neither.
GF Willmetts
(pub: Limelight Editions/Hal Leonard. 212 page illustrated indexed small enlarged paperback. Price: £12.50 (UK), $14.99 (US). ISBN: 978-0-87910-397-2)
check out website: www.limelighteditions.com
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
A Review of Scott Von Doviak's "Stephen King Films FAQ"
According to Wikipedia -- and also to everything else I've ever seen or heard in my entire life -- the acronym "FAQ" stands for "frequently asked questions."
With that in mind, when you see the title Stephen King Films FAQ, what sort of mental concept does it conjure for you in terms of what the content and structure of the book will be? If you answered, "a book about the movies of Stephen King, arranged in the form of a series of ostensibly-frequently-asked questions about same," or some variant of that, then congratulations: you came to the same conclusion I reached.
It might or might not, then, surprise you that this particular book is not in any way structured around a series of questions -- frequently asked or otherwise -- about the movies of Stephen King. Whether or not it surprises you, odds are good that you won't much care. You'll care even less when and if you discover that Stephen King Films FAQ is part of a series of books with FAQ in the title, each based on specific subjects and published by Applause. The series editor is filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, so I suppose I ought to be blaming him. This is fine; it gives me something to blame him for, whereas before I only had him encouraging Frank Miller to direct (which led to Miller's film The Spirit, surely one of the all-time cinematic losers).
[UPDATE: A commenter informs me that this is not THE Robert Rodriguez, but a different person altogether. We regret the error, but are too tied to slamming The Spirit to fully remove the above comments.]
The idea, I guess, is that these books serve a similar function to what a website's FAQ section serves: to introduce, to explain, to clarify, and to forestall. None of this lessens the truth of the meaning behind the acronym itself; you cannot label something an FAQ and decide to simply ignore what the "F," the "A," and the "Q" mean.
Granted, we live in a culture that has within my lifetime decided that the word "literally" does not literally have to mean "literally" anymore.
With this in mind, I am considering adopting an if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em stance, and becoming a trailblazer in the saying-stupid-ass-shit field. I haven't settled on a final approach yet, but my first idea is to begin referring to every movie and television show as a Harry Potter. I myself saw a good new Harry Potter a few weeks ago; it was one of the best ones ever that had the Muppets in it. I especially liked the songs, all of which reminded me of the ones from that Harry Potter HBO did a few years back, the one where Harry Potter was played by Jemaine Clement from the Outback Steakhouse commercials. I think this is because the other guy who played Harry Potter on that series wrote the songs for this new Harry Potter.
If we, as a people, can make "literally" mean "figuratively," then we can sure as fuck make all movies be Harry Potters.
If a book that is titled an FAQ but is not actually an FAQ doesn't bother you the same way it bothers me, then you are probably in better shape long-term than I am. And title issues notwithstanding, Scott Von Doviak's book is pretty good. It isn't going to redefine the way you think of Stephen King movies as a whole, although it might help to reshape the way you think about a few of them individually. It also won't redefine the way you think of film criticism. But it will likely entertain and educate you, and that's a pretty good thing to say about a book.
The book opens with 38 pages worth of chapters discussing the history of the horror genre on film leading up to 1976 (the year the first King-based film, Carrie, opened). This is similar to the manner in which a great many biographies of people begin: with the backstory of their parents, their grandparents, their great-parents, their uncles and aunts and the towns in which these various people lived. I'm by no means a rabid reader of biographies (though I'd like to be), but I've read enough of them to know that most of the good ones begin in this fashion.
Why? It's necessary; that's why. If you want to know who Ian Fleming is, or Bob Dylan, or Bruce Springsteen, or whoever, then you want to know where they came from: the people, the circumstances, the society.
A book of film criticism is not a biography, but it shares a belief with that literary genre: that subjects do not exist in a void, and that understanding their context is essential. Not only do I not have a problem with Von Doviak's book beginning in this fashion, I think it was in some ways essential that it do so.
My problem is that I don't necessarily feel as if Von Doviak achieved the goal. He begins by talking about A Trip to the Moon (1902) and concludes by talking about the rise of Tobe Hooper and John Carpenter. In the seventy-plus years lying between those two points, there are a great many cinematic touchstones, and Von Doviak discusses more than a few of them. But to what effect? He doesn't go in-depth into anything, which means that he does not do much in the way of illustrating why these films are important to an understanding of the films of Stephen King (if indeed they are).
Was King only influenced by horror films? What about non-horror movies and television? What of the stacks upon stacks of novels and short stories and comic books that he read? What of the pop music of King's childhood? If you know anything about King's work then you know that those elements -- and plenty others besides, many of which would be outside of our ability to know and understand (familial connections, etc.) -- were at least as influential upon him as were horror films. So while these opening chapters are entertaining, they don't ultimately have much of anything to say on the subject at hand, and are too shallow to be genuinely worthwhile in and of themselves.
From here, the book begins to delve into the actual movies themselves. A representative chapter discusses a bit of the history behind the writing of the book or story, then spends some time on the behind the scenes of the film's production, and includes comments from Von Doviak in terms of his assessment of the film's (and, in some cases, the book's) quality. Some chapters have "Bloodlines," i.e. (as one example) further explorations into the works of the director. Von Doviak has found lots of quotations from magazines and newspaper articles to flesh out and illuminate certain aspects of each chapter, and there is a lot of good stuff to be found there.
Peppered throughout, you will also find plenty of examples of Von Doviak's opinions about these movies. It is likely to be this material that makes or breaks the book for most readers. Ultimately, I have to say that for me, it broke the book. Not that I disagreed with Von Doviak all that much; I did on a few occasions, but overall, we agreed more than we disagreed. No, my problem is that Von Doviak simply doesn't have all that much to say. There is a difference between a film critic and a film reviewer, and while the line between the two is not a rigidly defined one, I think you could certainly place any critic (or "critic") on a spectrum closer to one pole or the other. Von Doviak is closer to being a film reviewer; he does not dig very deeply at all, and for a book about the films of Stephen King that pushes close to being 400 pages, I would have expected a bit more depth from the actual criticism. Either that, or for it to have been less opinionated; as is, I don't think it's occupying a particularly comfortable place, and feels like either a compromise or an overreach, depending on what you want from the book.
But I myself am perhaps being overly opinionated. I think most people who would wish to read this book -- fans of Stephen King films -- will not care about some of that sort of stuff that I care about. They are much more likely to read their way through the book and enjoy the ride.
I myself enjoyed reading it, and since much of my disappointment is due to wishing Von Doviak had dug a little deeper, I suppose that what I am really saying is that I had fun with it and wish there had been more.
So, do I recommend it? If you've read my review and thought that it sounds like my head is up my ass, then I'd say this is a book you will absolutely enjoy. If some of what I've expressed concerns about is the sort of thing that would concern you, then you are apt to feel -- as I do -- a bit more conflicted about it.
Either way, I hope I've given you a useful opinion.
In Print
Scott Von Doviak's 'Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema'
By Spencer Parsons, Fri., Feb. 11, 2005
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Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema
by Scott Von Doviak
McFarland & Company, 232 pp., $35 (paper)
For years, it had no name, and even for many who remembered, that thing from the swamps remained conspicuous mostly by its absence. Deprived of its natural habitat as drive-ins folded in the early Eighties, an entire species more or less disappeared from American movie screens and consciousness, only to be glimpsed in hairy, Sasquatch-like flashes: a mullet gag here, a "Dueling Banjos" joke there, or very rarely and blessedly, for the length of an entire Patrick Swayze vehicle. But now Austinite taxonomist Scott Von Doviak names the beast "Hixsploitation," examining its range, its feeding habits, and its leavings in his intoxicated and intoxicating beginner's field guide to the genre. It's a bluegrass-scored world of good ol' boys and bubba sheriffs, where moonshiners give chase in speedboats, 18-wheelers, and souped-up muscle cars, keeping up a steady stream of CB chatter through scrapes involving shotguns, shot glasses, homicidal hillbillies, bigfoots, and assorted vixens in criminally short cutoffs. Less celebrated and discussed than blaxploitation, its contemporaneous urban-grind-house cousin, the hick flick might finally get its due if enough cinephiles take this slim but provocative volume with them to the video store, now that we've all but given up on that Burt Reynolds comeback.
In a mere 200-odd pages, the book hits obvious classics and cult items, but goes further to champion true oddities like the shape-shifting oeuvre of Ron Ormond, a "Dixie DeMille" with work encompassing both The Monster and the Stripper and the ultraviolent evangelical exploitation of The Burning Hell, "a Jack Chick comic come to life." Hick Flicks not only directs the reader to ultraobscure curios like Deadhead Miles, a Terrence Malick-scripted trucker movie starring Alan Arkin(!), but also links the origins of NASCAR to moonshine running; hints at an essential influence on the New Hollywood aesthetic of the Seventies; and glances at the racial, class, and sexual concerns at work in the films without condescension, endorsement, or PC finger-wagging. While forthrightly lightweight, the book's embrace of hixploitation's contradictory pleasures incites all sorts of questions for further study, like, for instance, whether Democrats might do well to quit their hand-wringing and set about reviving the drive-in circuit. But politics and culture aside, the titles index is inspiration enough: White Lightning. Thunder Road. Eat My Dust!. Dixie Dynamite. The Legend of Boggy Creek. 'Gator Bait. Shanty Tramp. Honey Britches. Viva Knievel!. The Year of the Yahoo. 10-4, good buddy. See you on the flip-flop.