devinsf's reviews
131 reviews

Does what it says on the tin! This book is a broad overview organized chronologically and by school of design (including a short preface on pre-20th century Chinese artistic and calligraphic traditions). Each section gets a couple pages' worth of text and plenty of pictorial examples (often in full color).
Being new to Chinese history, this book also serves to illustrate how artistic styles are an interesting lens through which to view China's social and political changes; in particular, the contrast between the Shanghai school of design from the 30s & 40s and the postwar revolution styles which succeeded it (sometimes by strict political mandate) was startling. All-in-all, an interesting and informative read, with lots of fantastic art.

Checked this out from the library, and it was a great summer book. Some of the directors are more interesting in interview than others, and some of the movies they select make for better interviews. Best read in small chunks rather than long sittings.

This book is a bizarre gem: a collection of lengthy academic essays centered around Horror movies and "Horror" in general. It's organized into a-dozen-or-so broader topics, on which there will be 2 or 3 essays. The individual essays cover quite a bit of ground within this broad heading; from a single film, to larger bodies of work (eg Italian horror, or 1980s Chinese demon movies), or other structural (one is a history of the zine culture which developed around under-the-radar and B movies), or use one or two movies to discuss broader cultural interfaces with a specific idea.

Be warned that most of the writing here is straight-up academic... so be prepared for lots of 10¢ words and references to texts you might not be familiar with. However, I can safely say the content was absolutely interesting enough to wade through this style of writing (which is not normally my cup of tea).