Product Description
When we think of '70s cinema, we think of classics like The Godfather and Taxi Driver . . . but the riches found in the overlooked B movies of the time, rolled out wherever they might find an audience, unexpectedly tell an eye-opening story about post-Watergate, post-Vietnam America. Revisiting the films that don't make the Academy Award montages, Charles Taylor finds a treasury many of us have forgotten, movies that in fact "unlock the secrets of the times."
Celebrated film critic Taylor pays homage to the trucker vigilantes, meat magnate pimps, blaxploitation "angel avengers," and taciturn factory workers of grungy, unartful B films such as Prime Cut, Foxy Brown, and Eyes of Laura Mars. He creates a compelling argument for what matters in moviemaking and brings a pivotal American era vividly to life in all its gritty, melancholy complexity.
Celebrated film critic Taylor pays homage to the trucker vigilantes, meat magnate pimps, blaxploitation "angel avengers," and taciturn factory workers of grungy, unartful B films such as Prime Cut, Foxy Brown, and Eyes of Laura Mars. He creates a compelling argument for what matters in moviemaking and brings a pivotal American era vividly to life in all its gritty, melancholy complexity.
Reviews/Praise
"Movie criticism's Dostoyevsky . . . Taylor reveals a national identity forged from the innocence we claim to have lost but never had in the first place." —Steve Erickson, author of Zeroville
"A day when you can read a long, meaty, brilliant new essay by Charles Taylor cannot be a bad day." —A. O. Scott
"A terrific film critic . . . His writing packs soul in a Greil Marcus sort of way." —Dwight Garner
"An influential and compulsively readable film critic . . . He called it like he saw it, often employing the sorts of provocative turns of phrase that spark arguments in parking lots . . . Such vivid commentary affords readers a pathway into movies." —Slant Magazine
"You can tell when someone's writing about what they love, and whether it's the empty sky of Vanishing Point or the neurosis of Eyes of Laura Mars, Taylor's having a blast." —NPR
"Opening Wednesday is an intelligent, opinionated and fascinating introduction to some great lower-profile 1970s films. Film buffs will find Taylor's guide illuminating and indispensable." —Shelf Awareness