Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an early copy of this book.

I have such a fondness for film criticism with a mix of memoir, but I still get hesitant. Oftentimes, I find the memoir to be too much and not even criticism. However, with this book, the author has a perfect blend of critical analysis of <i>The Crow</i> and memoir. The introduction works to establish the two as being on parallel tracks and how her first viewing of <i>The Crow</i> happened after the dissolution of a situationship/an almost something/a thing between two people that wasn't ever properly defined with a person she calls the Boy. The rest of the chapters are broken into two sections: "Literal Death" and "Visceral Life." The "Literal Death" section details how the origins of the graphic novel and the troubled film production are all surrounded by death. In the "Visceral Life" sections, the author sketches out how the film's themes of grief and love work brilliantly. There are interludes, much shorter pieces than the other chapters, where the author's memoir comes through where she returns to the parallel track of talking about the Boy. I thought this was beautifully done by reinforcing a theme that was everywhere in the book: the search for hope and self-forgiveness.

I absolutely enjoyed this book and am strongly thinking about buying a physical copy because the analysis of the film was spot on and deeply enjoyable.

I'll have to check out the other books in the Pop Classics series and wait in anticipation for more film criticism from Alisha Mughal.

If your a fan of the crow then you might want to read this one .I like the fact it take some of the scene from the movie

There was so much packed into this book that I didn’t already know. I’m a huge fan of the 1994 movie… and I honestly didn’t hate the remake as long as you take it as its entirely own entity.

This book elevates everything I thought I knew and encapsulates it beautifully within the authors own perspective and life experience.

Probably not one I’d rush to read again but one I enjoyed wholeheartedly.

Fascinating breakdown of one of my favorite movies. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I really enjoyed the perspective given. Author did a good job on this and did the actual original movie justice.

I watch The Crow every year. Usually around October 30th but sometimes later, it’s a tradition that has become ingrained in me. It’s a precious film to me, a beautiful and tragic love story that I consider integral to me.

I was admittedly nervous about this book, especially coming out so close to the atrocious version released last year. But wow, this wasn’t just a book about the production and legacy of The Crow, it broke down the themes of the story and how events in James O’Barr’s life and American culture led to this film’s birth. This was also a deeply personal reflection on The Crow. Mughal opens up about her own struggles with mental illness and how The Crow appeared to her during a difficult period.

Ultimately, this is probably the best retrospective on the film I’ve read and perfectly encapsulates why this gothic film from the 1990s still means so much to people.

For albums there's 33 1/3, for respectable films there are the BFI books, and for everything else in the world there's Object Lessons – but until I saw this on Netgalley it hadn't occurred to me that there was a gap in provision for a similar series of little books promising in-depth treatment of the films that don't get invited to the Sight And Sound party, so bless publishers ECW for filling it with this Pop Classics range. Although the fact that they've given themselves a name which will make readers of a certain age think of also-ran wrestlers, and that at least in the case of The Crow that age is surely the default age to be a fan of the film, indicates a certain issue here. Mughal opens by talking about her first encounter with the film, as a thumbnail on Shudder, and later mentions that she was born on the same day the movie completed production. This gave me pause – can babies get book contracts? Are they allowed Shudder subscriptions? – before I ran some unwilling maths and engaged in my own reckoning with mortality, albeit less operatic than the film's.

The thing is, when it comes to the film itself, and James O'Barr's original comic, she's clearly packed an awful lot of viewings, readings, thought and research into the few years she's been living with it. Hell, she's watched another Brandon Lee film, which is more than I ever did, enabling her to talk about Eric's fighting style as performance choice, the ways in which it's a trained fighter moving as if he isn't, and how that feeds into a film which is curiously non-macho for saying it fits into that old and sometimes noxious template of a man violently avenging a violated and murdered woman. I knew about Lee's death, obviously, but not the extent to which filming had already been considered cursed before that; I had a vague sense of O'Barr not having had a happy life, but Mughal gives the chapter and verse which really helps make sense of the comic's tortured mood. Hell, I didn't even know that it had been inspired by Eisner's Spirit, pretty much the only 'Golden Age' comic I can actually read with enjoyment.

But here's where the problem creeps in, because Mughal talks about how the Spirit "is unsmiling in an existentially fraught manner, sidling around corners and lurking in smoky blue shadows", which is definitely true of some strips, but ignores all the ones that lean in other directions, sometimes as far as outright farce. I can be more forgiving when she talks about O'Barr's other big influence, Michaelangelo, taking at face value the notion that he found here a realistic understanding of anatomy at odds with the ludicrous physiques of superhero comics. This is obviously nonsense – Michaelangelo is all about the ludicrous physiques, a Renaissance Tom of Finland, and his women especially make Rob Liefeld's look plausible. But it's nonsense the world at large has subscribed to for centuries, so I've grown almost inured to it. More concerning, though, is the paragraph on Joy Division, "a direct precursor to today's EDM", which talks about the band's "sensitive masculinity" in terms that anyone familiar with the band's biography will struggle with, before making the chronologically implausible statement that their work was "Produced under Thatcherism and Reaganism".

Still, as long as you approach any treatment of the hinterland with a pinch of salt, the book's core is strong. And that's not just the film itself, but the heartbreak which put Mughal in the right place for it to appeal so strongly. Some of this makes for tough reading, and I don't just mean the suicide attempts, but the apology that "It might seem anticlimactic or boring or unimportant, maybe even anti-feminist, to say that my fascination with The Crow was first sparked by a man who didn't love me back. But it's the truth." What kind of world have we made where someone feels the need to apologise for getting into sad art over a bad break-up? That's what it's for! It's only the people who get into eg fascism after they're dumped who should apologise, and sadly they never do. But – spoiler – she does eventually find her way back towards the light, and that's part of what makes the book work so well, all the times she points out how the film is a love story, a tale of forgiveness as well as vengeance.

She's also very entertaining when she sticks the boot in to the sequels and remake.

I received this ARC from Netgalley. I have a new found love and appreciation for The Crow. I requested this book solely based on the title. Any time someone complains about the rain, I always quote the line. Some get it. Some don’t. I like The Crow. I’ve watched the first movie and read some of the graphic novels, but I’ve never watched the sequels, the remake or played the video game.

Prior to reading this book, my knowledge on The Crow, was only from my high school days of 1994.

When The Crow was released I had painted mine and 6 of my friend’s faces like The Crow (I volunteered in Drama at school, so obviously, I was a professional) and we went opening weekend. We had no knowledge of Brandon Lee’s death until we came out of the theater and overheard people talking. The Crow was set in Detroit and we lived in the Metro Detroit area and we loved that. In October, we watched it again, I painted our faces again and we snuck into our high school football game and made a scene until security chased us out. Needless to say, we loved The Crow and it was a part of our Nirvana induced Grunge area.

In 2000, me and my boyfriend (now husband) drove an hour to rescue a white cat with a heart murmur. Who we promptly named Gabriel.

Back to my review:

There is so much that I did not know about the making of The Crow, the creator of The Crow Graphic Novels and Brandon Lee.

I can’t tell you how many times I had to stop and tell my husband what I was learning. I don’t want to post any spoilers, but my heart absolutely broke reading about Brandon and what was supposed to happen the very next month. Oh my heart!! Eliza 😭

The author’s connection with the movie had my heart too.

I really enjoyed this book! I requested the book to be put on Fable so I can review it there too.