It has spawned a reference book entitled The Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope: The Ultimate Guide to the Latest, Greatest, and Weirdest Genre Videos.
The modern horror-hound can whet his appetite with a look at the up-and-coming bright directors highlighted in Joseph Perry's always enlightening column, 'Best of the Fests' – a thoughtful examination of the newest films from future movers and shakers.
[4]Issues have included interviews with such genre and exploitation-film directors as John Waters, James Gunn, Roger Corman, George A. Romero, Walter Hill and Brian Yuzna and such cult actors as Crispin Glover, Adrienne Barbeau, L. Q. Jones, Tobin Bell, and Clint Howard.
In addition to Kane, the magazine's writers included Max Allan Collins,[5] Dan Cziraky, Terry and Tiffany DuFoe, Robert Freese, Tim Ferrante, Don Kaye, Dwight Kemper, Nancy Naglin, Debbie Rochon, Kevin G. Shinnick, Calum Waddell, and Tom Weaver.
A noble endeavor, to be sure — after all, filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron, and Ron Howard all got their start in this Hollywood basement — but Kane's wildly inconsistent critical eye (both Schwarzenegger's The Running Man and the out-of-place Apocalypse Now get 3 1/2 stars) makes the book more entertaining than useful.
[15] Joe Kane started writing professionally while attending Queens College in New York City: Actually, the first three pieces I sold were all college class assignments—an article on doomsday movies my film course teacher suggested I submit to Take One magazine; a short story/memoir my English teacher submitted to a Doubleday anthology called 'Growing Up in America'; and a media course paper on how comic strips reflected the changing culture, which New Times used as a cover story, illustrated by legendary underground cartoonist Yossarian, no less.
I also co-won the Queens College literary award my senior year, which paid cash, which, as Yogi [Berra] points out, is just as good as money.
[2]After college, living in New York City's East Village,[16] he wrote humorous pornographic stories for the periodicals Luv and Bang, and worked for three months as a file clerk at an insurance company.