Monday, January 15, 2018

Books read in 2018: No. 2 -- Cinema and Sorcery: The Comprehensive Guide to Fantasy Film

by Arnold T. Blumberg and Scott Alan Woodard

Started: Jan. 5
Finished: Jan. 15

Notes: I picked this one up last year at the 2017 Origins convention in Columbus, Ohio, and was quite excited to discover it. I've been meaning to get to it before too long before it might become outdated. I'm fully expecting to enjoy this.

Mini review: This was a fun read, but as might be expected, I do feel a number of films were left out of this book. As a general fantasy compendium, it's not bad, a good place for your typical D&D fans to start. However, the authors do state early on that this is meant to be a collection of Sword & Sorcery movies, and for Sword & Sorcery purists, there is much here left out. For instance, there's no mention of The 13th Warrior, which technically might not include any magic, but magic is alluded to by the existence of an oracle and talk of dragons (even if this tale is meant to be more historical and the magic isn't real); while some might not love The 13th Warrior, I do believe it is a film steeped in the S&S sub-genre of fantasy, more so than most of the movies listed in this book. And while many movies which do make the cut here are great fantasy movies, such as The Princess Bride, by no means would I call them S&S movies. But really, these are just quibbles on my part. This is a good, fun read, and while not totally inclusive, it does go over nearly 500 movies from the silent era up to just a couple of years ago, so it is a worthy read.

1 comment:

Charles Gramlich said...

I've probably seen most of 'em. Sounds like an interesting read though