The Marx Brothers are universally considered to be classic Hollywood's preeminent comedy team and Duck Soup is generally regarded as their quintessential film. A topical satire of dictatorship and government in general, the movie was a critical failure and box-office let-down on its initial release in 1933. J. Hoberman's study of the film traces its reputation history, from the initial disappointment of its release, to its rise to cult status in the 1960s when the Marx's anarchic, anti-establishment humor seemed again timely. Hoberman places Duck Soup, alongside analogous comedies-Dr. Strangelove (1964), the Beatles films, Morgan! (1966), The President's Analyst (1967) and The Producers (1968). It attained canonical stature as a touchstone for Woody Allen and would be recognized by the Library of Congress in the 1990s. Hoberman's analysis provides a historical and political context as well as an in-depth production history, drawing on primary sources and emphasizing director McCarey's prior work along with the Marx Brothers as well as the situation at Paramount, a substantial synopsis, and an account of the movie's initial reception, concluding with its subsequent elevation to comic masterpiece.

Reviled, rioted over and banned as pornographic even as it was recognized by many as an unprecedented visionary masterpiece, Jack Smith's "Flaming Creatures" is one of the most important and influential underground movies ever released in America. J. Hoberman's monograph details the creative making--and legal unmaking--of this extraordinary film, a source of inspiration for artists as disparate as Andy Warhol, Federico Fellini and John Waters. Described by its maker as "a comedy set in a haunted music studio," the story of "Flaming Creatures" is here augmented with a dossier of personal recollections, relevant documents and remarkable, previously unpublished on-set photographs by Norman Solomon. Expanding on notes originally prepared for the 1997 retrospective on Jack Smith at the American Museum of the Moving Image, the monograph includes further material on his unfinished features "Normal Love" and "No President," as well as shorter film fragments.

A fascinating survey of pioneering work in experimental cinema and art from 1905 to the present day, revealing the high stakes and transformative potential of these forms This generously illustrated publication surveys the work of filmmakers and artists who have pushed the material and conceptual boundaries of cinema. Over the past century, the material, optical, abstract, spatial, and tactile properties of film have been tested at a level of experimentation and utopian ambition that is generally unrecognized. Whether creating synesthetic or 3-D environments, projective or non-projective installations, generations of leading-edge artists have explored how technology transforms experience. The essays published here offer an intensive look at the themes of cinematic space, formats of the screen, animation and CGI, the body and the cyborg, and the materiality of film. Contributors place particular emphasis on the idea of the cinema as a sensorium and on the ways in which it defines the human body, both through representation and in relation to the projected image. An immersive plate section brings together rarely seen and previously unpublished stills, in addition to concept drawings from historic and contemporary films. Distributed for the Whitney Museum of American Art Exhibition Schedule: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (10/28/16-02/05/17)

In this important volume, Jay Sanders and J. Hoberman explore the vibrant underground performance art scene of 1970s New York. Focusing on little-known and long-forgotten works, which were often performed in live/work lofts, storefronts, and alternative spaces of the city's SoHo district, often for an audience comprising a handful of fellow artists, this catalogue makes newly visible a critical period in the development of performance art. Rituals of Rented Island examines the disparate yet related practices of twenty artists, including Stuart Sherman; collaborators Yvonne Rainer and Babette Mangotle; Julia Heyward; Jill Kroesen; Richard Foreman; Squat Theatre; composer-musician John Zorn; and legendary playwright and filmmaker Jack Smith; among others. With an array of previously unpublished images, including installation photographs, scripts, handwritten notes, and other ephemera, drawn from the artists' own archives, this volume illuminates the eccentric singularities of the performance art of this era and its relevance today. Distributed for the Whitney Museum of American Art Exhibition Schedule: Whitney Museum of American Art (10/31/13-02/02/14)

Testosterone has inspired dreams - of restored youth, recharged sexual appetites, faster running, quicker thinking, bigger muscles - since it was first synthesized in 1935. This provocative book investigates the complex, bizarre, and sometimes outrageous history of synthetic testosterone and other male hormone therapies. Exploring many little-known social arenas - both inside and outside the medical world - in which these substances are becoming increasingly available and accepted, "Testosterone Dreams" examines the implications and dangers of their use in professional sports, in the workplace, in our sex lives, and beyond. "Testosterone Dreams" tells the story of testosterone's growing and sometimes concealed influence in our culture over the past 70 years. It explores such controversial topics as the invention and marketing of the male menopause, the disturbing history of hormonal and other medical treatments aimed at boosting or suppressing women's sexuality, and hormone doping in sporting events such as the Tour de France and the Olympics, and in Major League Baseball. It brings to light the hidden use of hormone doping by policemen, soldiers, and other workers in a variety of jobs. It also discusses the burgeoning steroid use in the gay community and its relation to AIDS, and takes a hard look at the pharmaceutical industry's promotional campaigns to create new markets for testosterone products. "Testosterone Dreams" is the first book to bring together the whole story of testosterone and to consider its social and ethical implications: Where does therapy end and performance enhancement begin? How are changing medical technologies affecting how we think about our identities as men and women and the elusive goal of 'well-being'? This book will be essential reading as we move inexorably toward the wide-open, libertarian pharmacology that is now making these drug regimes available to a wider and wider clientele.

One of the world's most erudite and entertaining film critics on the state of cinema in the post-digital--and post-9/11--age. This witty and allusive book, in the style of classic film theorists/critics like Andre Bazin and Siegfried Kracauer, includes considerations of global cinema's most important figures and films, from Lars von Trier and Zia Jiangke to "WALL-E," "Avatar" and "Inception."

A new anthology from one of America's foremost critics of movies and culture