Recent reading

[troisoiseaux]

Read Extra Salty by Frederick Blichert, a novella-length retrospective on cinematic masterpiece Jennifer's Body, part of a series of pop culture commentaries published as cute little pamphlet-sized books by ECW Press. Thoughtful recap of the movie's themes and the horror tropes it embraces and subverts, how the studio's mismarketing (and general societal misogyny) contributed to it being critically panned on its release in 2009, and its afterlife as a cult classic and then as a movie for the #MeToo moment that came out a decade too early to be appreciated.

Followed this up with Right, Down + Circle by Cole Nowicki, a love letter to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater from the same Pop Classics series. More personal than Blichert's, it's as much a memoir about what skateboarding, video games, and this particular video game about skateboarding have meant to the author as it is the story of how Pro Skater came to be and its pop culture impact. (This was actually my favorite of the two, although - or maybe because? - I was less familiar with Pro Skater as a piece of media.)

Comments

[sovay]

Read Extra Salty by Frederick Blichert, a novella-length retrospective on cinematic masterpiece Jennifer's Body, part of a series of pop culture commentaries published as cute little pamphlet-sized books by ECW Press.

Ooh.

[troisoiseaux]

It's such a fun concept! The other books cover everything from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Twin Peaks to Elvis Costello to Nicolas Cage.

[kore]

Read Extra Salty by Frederick Blichert, a novella-length retrospective on cinematic masterpiece Jennifer's Body, part of a series of pop culture commentaries published as cute little pamphlet-sized books by ECW Press.

Ohh I NEED this.

[adore]

how the studio's mismarketing (and general societal misogyny) contributed to it being critically panned in 2009

I want to check out this book now. I don't know if you like video essays but there's a good one by Yhara Zayd called Jennifer's Body and the Horror of Bad Marketing.

[troisoiseaux]

It's available as an ebook! (Which is also how I've been reading these, although the physical copies caught my eye when I was at a local indie bookstore last weekend.)

[troisoiseaux]

This was the part of the story I hadn't already known— or rather, I think I had heard that Jennifer's Body was originally marketed towards teenage boys, except that's such an idiotic concept I guess I pushed it out of my mind immediately. I genuinely laughed out loud at the book's quote that someone (studio exec? film critic?) described it as "Twilight for boys", although the overall story of the mismarketing/backlash is actually pretty depressing, esp. in terms of how Hollywood treated Megan Fox. :(

[lunabee34]

I have never seen Jennifer's Body. I have always thought it was a horror movie, and I typically don't do horror because I get scared too easily.

[troisoiseaux]

I mean, it's horror-comedy— I'm also a horror movie weenie, and I didn't find it "scary", but of course mileage may vary.

[lunabee34]

Ah, okay. That's good to know. I usually can do funny-horror.