Customer Reviews

The Movie Lover's Tour of Texas: Reel-Life Rambles Through the Lone Star State

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This beautifully written book is a history of movies set in Texas or filmed there. This fact-filled account is a superb tour guide, with maps and detailed directions to locations where these movies were filmed or set, along with information about Texas history and geography, and native Texas actors and their home towns. Its author, Veva Vonler, is a Ph.D. scholar of literature and cinema, and her engaging and conversational tone is a pleasure to read from cover to cover, especially while exploring the Lone Star State.

I received this book as a gift, and even so, was very dissapointed (to say the least). Having a film degree myself, and armed with quite a bit of film knowledge, not to mention a bookshelf full of film reference books (and about 12,000+ DVD's and VHS tapes on my sagging shelves), I found this particular book sorely lacking in the meat and potatos department (this being the understatement of the year). The writer may have a PhD, but she comes off like a bored housewife with a barely passing knowledge of the films (or film in general) presented, and heck, her "knowledge" even seems Googled to me (basically, it's as if she read the reviews on IMDB for the films then re-wrote them in her style: very, very bland). For instance, "Rushmore" is a "strange little comedy." What? That's it? Are we talkin' the same ground-breaking Wes Anderson film here? Anderson, who went on to make "The Royal Tenenbaums," "The Darjeeling Limited," "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," and his masterpiece (along with "Bottle Rocket") gets the simplistic "strange little comedy?" Ummmm, okay. Each synopsis is very brief, and she left out quite a few classic films that diehard film lovers will find simply unforgivable. "Rolling Thunder" anyone? It only happens to be on Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez' top ten favorite film list year after year, and with Rodriguez (El Mariachi, Spy Kids series, Machete, Predators, Planet Terror, etc.) doing more for Texas filmmaking - since he shoots all his film in Texas, and brings many more here - than any other living filmmaker/producer in Texas (well, him and Richard Linklater) in recent memory, I would think it might get a small inclusion (being it was filmed at the famed Hot Wells Hotel in San Antonio, the stockyards, Sunset Station, among many, many other famous locales in San Antonio). As for regional horror films, forget it, buddy, all we get here is standard big Hollywood fare (with very few exceptions; "Race with the Devil" gets a brief mention though, I was shocked to read, although it's a Hollywood production shot by non-Texans). Famous comic artist and early San Antonio newscaster Pat Boyette's San Antonio output (namely the Ed Woodian cult classic "Dungeons of Harrow") is flat-out ignored, as is S.F. Brownrigg's famed cult Southern Gothic ouvre. Uber-rare Texas drive-in mess (in a fun way) "Enter the Devil," (AKA "Disciples of Death," 1972) shot in Terlingua and Lajitas? You're not going to read about it here, folks. What about the SA-lensed Douglas Sirk-wannabe amputee drama "Prelude to Happiness?" A virtual postcard of early 70's San Antonio? It's very rare, only played a few drive-in's, sure, but a little bit of digging will get you a copy. Where are the films of Dale Berry? H.G. Lewis (yes, "The Godfather of Gore" made the non-gore political film "Year of the Yahoo" in San Antonio)? I could go on and on. Anyway, you get my drift. My opinion, if you're really serious about Texas film locations, hit Google and get to work, this book leaves out so much information it's criminal. One step above vanity press. And by the way, I write all this from memory, so that should tell you something (and I ain't got no PhD, just a decent knowledge of the films of Texas, and films in general). Skip it.