Ghosts in the Machine: Speculating on the Dark Heart of Pop Cinema

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Summary: "Must" reading for students of film history & pop culture.
Review: Ghosts In The Machine: Speculating On The Dark Heart Of Pop Cinema is a compilation of diverse essays exploring movies as the modern equivalent of medieval folktales and antiquarian mythologies with respect to their influence on shaping contemporary language, cultural mores, and social expectations. Michael Atkinson draws upon his considerable expertise as a young film scholar and critic in drawing together his essays on "The Planet of the Apes" film cycle; the work of Cornell Wilde, road movies, film noir, rock biopics, live-action cartoons, the contributions of Ray Harryhausen, and a great deal more. Ghosts In The Machine is "must" reading for all students of film history, cinematic pop culture, and anyone else who has ever sat in a darkened theater absorbing the values, mores, customs, and ideas embedded in those flicking images up on the screen.