Cult Films: Taboo and Transgression looks at nine decades of cult films history within American culture. By highlighting three films per decade including a brief summary of the decade's identity and sensibility, the book investigates the quality, ironies, and spirit of cult film evolution. The twenty-seven films selected for this study are analyzed for story content and in their respective transgressions regarding social, aesthetic, and political codes. Characteristic of this book is the notion that many exciting genres make up cult films-including horror, sci-fi, fantasy, film noir, and black comedy. Further, the book reaches out to several foreign film directors over the decades in order to view cult films as an intentional art form. Political and ideological controversies are covered; arresting back-story details that lend perspective on a film fill out the analysis and the historic framework for many film titles. The book, by emphasizing the condensed survey over decades and by choosing outstanding titles, differs from other general studies on cult films.

Cult Films: Taboo and Transgression

Humor & Entertainment

Havis, Allan

Movies

University Press of America

A fabulist comedy-drama of a future city-state made up of Tijuana and San Diego after a great California earthquake. The world greets the first Mexican Pope who leads the region back into recovery. "The year is 2028. A massive earthquake has reconfigured Southern California, wiping out Los Angeles and Orange County. The whole region has to be reconceived. In a controversial move, a new city-state has been proposed, combining San Diego and Tijuana into one cross-cultural community known as Nuevo California. This imaginary world is at the center of a new play premiering at the San Diego Repertory Theater. So the wall is coming down and there's a Mexican-American pope who comes to the region to bless its demolition. What follows is a wild mix of fantasy and reality - chaos and crisis, murder, mystery and a budding bicultural romance - all played out by Mexicans, Anglos, Asians, blacks, Jews, Muslims and Kumi Indians." -Robert Siegel, All Things Considered, N P R News

Nuevo California

Literature & Fiction

Solano, Bernardo

Dramas & Plays

Broadway Play Publishing, Incorporated

A factual dramatic account of the advancing history of the Brown v. Wade Supreme Court decision in counterpoint with the personal drama of Senator Strom Thurmond's unacknowledged mixed race daughter, Essie Mae Williams Washington.

The Haunting Of Jim Crow

A fantasy drama on clairvoyance and supernatural events surrounding the life of an African American PhD candidate who is researching folklore and ghost communication within immigrant communities in California. She is bothered by the contact with her father and with the arrest of a serial killer of young children. "An amazing, intriguing ghost tale that reinvests energy and wit throughout the contemporary San Diego/Tijuana landscape you'll never think of pre-school institutions and federal prisons in the same way again. This original, lyrical retelling of children's campfire boogeyman should haunt you beyond words." -Arthur Kopit

Restless Spirits

A kinky, deranged comedy built on the sale of a vintage Ford Mustang and an unidentified body in the car. Two women meet and against their better judgment cross the border into Mexico for an unusual resort weekend. "Allan Havis, who co-directs the playwriting program at U C S D, earned his reputation for mordant wit and chilling dramatic climaxes everywhere but San Diego. Now, finally, one of his weird dramas has opened here - the creepy and highly entertaining PRIVATE PARTIES ... Billed as a Thelma and Louise kind of show, it is that, but with layers and a jaunty, laid-back So-Cal tome that'll curl your painted toenails ... the fun and provocation of this 80-minute two-hander. The gals live and breathe in the writing ... You may not want to know them better, but you come away feeling that however fantastical their trip, they're the real thing." -Anne Marie Welsh, The San Diego Union-Tribune

Private Parties

"The story profiles a young California woman, Maddie Qianna Crawford, falling into QAnon beliefs and participating in the January 6th Stop the Steal rally which transformed into an insurrection at the Capitol. Upon returning home, Maddie plans to kidnap a school district board member as a countermeasure to Critical Race Theory seeping into San Diegos curriculum. The novel captures many current political frissons igniting the country from coast to coast. The narrative ironies are spiked by many direct observations within San Diego current events"--

Maddie Q

Genre Fiction

Between the Lines Publishing

Architects of the Taj Mahal

Willow River Press

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