Violent Screen

by Stephen Hunter

(2012)

Publisher: Simon Schuster

Baltimore Sun (and later Washington Post) movie critic (and novelist) Stephen Hunter takes aim at 13 years (1981-94) of popular movies, from film noir to teenage slashers, gangster flicks to sci-fi pics, and examines the current, and often violent, culture of modern cinema. Organized by topic, this book is a fascinating chronicle of today’s increasingly violent and alienating culture.

In this book, his first as movie critic, Hunter does what no one else has done – identified the most important or notorious 100 movies released since 1982, organized them by topic, and analyzed them for how they uniquely deal with, and what they say about, violence. Because it deals with a subject on the minds of many Americans and American politicians, Violent Screen is thus extraordinarily timely.

Yet, as a serious book by a serious reviewer, it is timeless, too. It’s also entertaining. Hunter’s movie-reviewing is rife with energy, humor, sharp-edged analysis, and intensity. He’s a man who loves the movies so much he can’t walk away from a reviewing job at a daily newspaper despite earning substantial sums on each of the novels he now writes. His first book of non-fiction will appeal to the millions of film and video lovers whose idea of entertainment is a regular trip to the movie theater or the video store, and whose idea of a good discussion is one centering on a recent or important movie they’ve seen at home or in a theater.