December is Trash Cinema Month

December is Trash Cinema Month at the PorPor Books Blog

I usually don't review trash cinema here at the Blog, as there are more than a few blogs and websites that do that on a comprehensive basis. However, as a change of scene, especially after reading nothing but horror fiction for my special 'Fall of 2025' postings, I thought I'd devote the month of December to reviewing print media associated with trash cinema (or, if you prefer, exploitation cinema, psychotronic video, sleaze movies, transgressive cinema, etc., etc.). 

These are among the books and magazines that I picked up back in the late 1980s into the early 2000s, an era before streaming, when renting VHS and DVDs was commonplace and fascination with trash cinema was moving from the underground into the mainstream.

Back then I lived in Baltimore, and the major video rental place that stocked trash cinema VHS and later, DVDs, was a six-store chain called 'Video Americain.' They first had a store in an apartment building in the Charles Village neighborhood, right next to where I lived. The shop later relocated a short distance away to a small plaza on Cold Spring Lane. 

 

It was a place I visited regularly, but sadly, it closed in 2014, done in by the advent of Netflix, Redbox, and streaming.

So, let's go back in time 30-40 years, to the days when you got your VHS or DVD rental from Blockbuster (or Video Americain) and you popped it into your console or your dedicated player and you hoped (at least, with VHS) that the previous renter had taken the courtesy to rewind the tape before returning it to the shop, and the film was watchable. 

 

And after you got done watching the tape you of course conscientiously rewound it and popped it back into the plastic box and set it on the hallway table because you knew that if you failed to return it to the rental place by its return day, you'd be charged late fees.......

Or maybe you were lucky enough to have a theater or two that would show 'midnight movies.' Or perhaps a local university, like the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins, or the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), would screen something offbeat, and non-students were welcome to attend (nowadays you can't even open the front door of a building on these campuses without having an officially issued keycard).

In order to know which films would appeal to you, well, you relied on zines and books about trash cinema to guide your choices.......so here's stuff that I resurrected from the boxes in my basement.

One thing to note is that many of the trash cinema guidebooks first published 20-30 years ago, are long out of print, and copies that come up for sale at the usual online vendors have steep asking prices. With these overviews, I hope to give would-be purchasers some idea of what they might be getting for their hard-earned cash..........  

Book Review: The Cars Let the Stories Be Told by Bill Janovitz

Book Review: 'The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told' by Bill Janovitz

 

5 / 5 Stars

 

'The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told' was published by Da Capo in October, 2025. Author Janovitz has previously published a biography of Leon Russell, as well as performing in the longstanding Boston-area rock band Buffalo Tom. 

At nearly 500 pages in length (there is a color photograph section in the middle of book), 'The Cars' tells just about all there is to say about the band. 

 

Author Janovitz chronicles the band from the upbringing of Ben Orzechowski and Rick Otcasek in the Cleveland area, to the formation of The Cars in Boston in 1976, the advent of the debut album in 1978, their memorable Live Aid appearance, and the breakup of the band in 1988 following the release of Door to Door. 

 

Subsequent chapters cover the post-Cars careers of the band, including the recording of Move Like This, all the way up to the end of 2024. 

Janovitz's prose style flows smoothly and the pages go quickly. The only times I found myself lost were when he discussed the recording of the albums; as a musician himself, Janovitz goes into quite a bit of depth here, well over my (non-musician) head:

 

"Hello Again" is the appropriate leadoff track, swooping in with reverse-reverb a capella vocals. When they disappear between phrases, there is no sense of space, no room sound, no tape hiss, like getting sucked into a black hole. The synths enter, stacatto stereo spikes, while another plays a bass line with a flange-like sound familiar from Def Leppard tracks. The cymbals sound tinny and disappear instantly with no resonance. The guitars sound squelched and buried in the mix..........(page 321) 

 

Along with the discussion of the recording processes of the band's seven albums, 'The Cars' supplies info about a myriad of demo tracks, unreleased tracks, and B-sides that I was not aware of. Some of these songs, such as 'Are You Ready,' are little nuggets of Cars lore, and many are available at YouTube.

 

Janovitz is good about delivering framing observations and anecdotes about the band members, their wives and girlfriends, fellow musicians, and the scenester ecology of the Boston area during the 1970s and 1980s. Some of these anecdotes have a sharp bite: 

 

This was the time when Elliott suggested that Rick's only solo hit, "Emotion in Motion," was a lift of "Everything I Own," a song by Bread, which pissed off Ric. "Ric got mad and upset, and nothing happened, and nothing came of it." (page 374) 

I must confess that I listened to "Everything I Own," and the chorus.......well.........do your own investigation and see what you think....... 

 

There's no avoiding the melancholy attendant to the passing of Ben Orr in 2000 (John Cafferty has a poignant essay about befriending Orr in the later 1990s), and Ric Ocasek in 2019. However, the three remaining Cars members: Easton, Robinson, and Hawkes, continue to team up for music and sustain the band's legacy.

 

Whether you're a Baby Boomer who remembers the magic of listening to the debut album on an eight-track in 1978, or someone a bit younger who is learning about the band for the first time, 'The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told' is the go-to source for the history of the band. It's not just a biography of the group, but an engrossing overview of the advent of the New Wave movement and the role The Cars played in the transformation of the musical landscape of the late 1970s, and 1980s.

Mirrorshade Sunglasses

 Mirrorshades

From the late 1970s, and all through 1980s, a necessary accessory for anyone wanting to be cool was a pair of mirrorshade sunglasses. I have several pairs in my possession, but I don't wear them, because when I have them on, I can't see for shit...........!

Clockwise, from top left: still from a video by George Faber and the Stronghold, MTV, 1983; advertisement for mirrorshades, 1980s; Sting, photoshoot for the album Synchronicity; 'Mirrorshades,' edited by Bruce Sterling, 1988; New York City policeman, photograph by Miron Zownir, 1982; Dew Westbrook, article from Esquire magazine, September 12, 1978 issue.

Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future.

 

Rik Ocasek of the Cars at Live Aid, 1985.

 

Stewart Copeland of the Police sporting some mirrorshades, late 1970s.

 

Karen Allen, modelling 'leatherman' apparel in a still from the 1980 movie Cruising.

 

 

An essay on mirrorshades and their iconic status in the genre of cyberpunk is available here.

Book Review: Stellar 4 edited by Judy-Lynn Del Rey

Book Review: 'Stellar 4' edited by Judy-Lynn Del Rey

 

3 / 5 Stars

'Stellar 4' (230 pp.) was published by Ballantine / Del Rey in May, 1978, and features cover art by H. R. Van Dongen.

By 1978 the 'Stellar' series was a success, validating editor Judy-Lynn Del Rey's belief that the sci-fi readership at large was tiring of the New Wave aesthetic, and well ready to embrace anthologies that provided content in a more 'traditional' style. 

As she states in a 1975 interview, at which time she was the sci-fi editor at Ballantine Books (and just two years away from founding the Del Rey imprint), 

Basically, I’m looking for stories…with beginnings, middles, and ends. A story that will entertain the reader, keep him interested, make him want to come back and buy more Ballantine books. I’m not interested in the purely literary works that are around, unless they have a good story. They have to have a plot.

These deep philosophical novels that are being turned out by students from philosophy classes, you know, it sounds terrific to them, but it’s the same old stuff to us. It’s not adding anything, it’s not telling a story, and the idea that if somebody manages to sit down and type out sixty-thousand words, and those sixty-thousand words deserve to be published―it’s ridiculous. 

My capsule summaries of the novelettes and stories in 'Stellar 4': 

We Who Stole the Dream, by James Tiptree, Jr.: the Joilani are a race of diminutive, grey-skinned, pacifistic aliens, with the misfortune to have been living on a planet colonized by Terrans. These Terrans have forced the Joilani into slavery, of a particularly brutal and inhumane nature. But the Joilani have a desperate plan to escape the planet and make for a distant sector of space where, if the star charts are correct, their homeworld resides.......

This story has a grim, transgressive quality that contains notes of splatterpunk (!), and I was not expecting to see it in a 'Stellar' anthology. But it seems Del Rey was willing at times to embrace such material. 'We' can be seen as an allegory for the American involvement in Vietnam. It's the best story in the anthology, and in my opinion one of the best stories Tiptree, Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon) ever wrote.

Animal Lover, by Stephen R. Donaldson: in 1978, Donaldson was riding high on the success of his 'Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever' trilogy, and obviously he had a good working relationship with Judy-Lynn Del Rey, hence his inclusion in 'Stellar.' This novelette is something of a surprise. It's set in a near-future, dystopian USA, where the government encourages people to conduct canned hunts on private nature preserves, as a way of sublimating violent impulses. 

One such preserve, the Sharon's Point Hunting Preserve in Missouri, has a disturbing record of high fatalities among its patrons. Federal Special Agent Sam Browne is sent on an undercover mission to find out what's going on at Sharon's Point.

'Animal Lover,' with its clipped, action-centered narrative, reads more like a men's adventure novel of the era (think 'The Executioner') than overwrought storytelling that characterized the Thomas Covenant franchise. I guess Donaldson deserves kudos for showing he can be versatile in his approaches to fiction writing.

Snake Eyes, by Alan Dean Foster: this novelette features Foster's Young Adult franchise characters 'Pip' and 'Flinx,' first introduced in his 1972 novel 'The Tar-Aiym Krang.' Pip is a miniature dragon, and Flinx, a human boy with burgeoning esp capabilities. 

The plot involves an alliance between Flinx and a prospector to recover rare jewels from an inhospitable desert on the planet Moth. Some calculating members of the Mothian criminal element want in on the action. There are some complications, but in the end, a happy ending.  

The Last Decision, by Ben Bova: the aging Emperor of the Federation is told that Earth's Sun is going to go nova, eliminating the home world of mankind. A young woman has a plan to save Earth, but the scientific establishment deems her plan unworkable. What will the Emperor decide ? Bova intended this story to demonstrate his allyship with feminism, but the story is very lumbering and overwritten. And, Bova never details how the plan to save Earth actually will work ! Constructing a story around a plot point that never is disclosed to the reader is just dumb.

The Deimos Plague, by by Charles Sheffield: testifying against the mob makes Henry Carver a marked man. Desperate to find a safe hiding place, he decides to emigrate to Mars. The only ship immediately available is the Deimos Dancer, a decrepit freighter needing a deck hand to tend to some 'special' cargo......a good story from Sheffield, ably plotted, with a twist ending.

Assassin, by James P. Hogan: the first half of this novelette is a well-plotted, technical account of an effort by an assassin to track down and execute a defector from the Mars colony. Unfortunately, the second half of the novelette consists of one long discourse on politics and economics, with some contrived, off-camera plot points involving matter transmission tossed into the mix. I was hoping for something better from Hogan. 

Summing up, I'm going to give 'Stellar 4' a Three Star Rating. The entries from Tiptree, Donaldson, and Sheffield are among the better examples of late 70s sci-fi, and make obtaining this anthology worthwhile.