Danny Peary
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Danny Peary (born 1949) is an American film critic and sports writer. He has written many books on cinema and sports-related topics.
Peary remains an important and influential figure in the film reviewing field chiefly due to his three volume Cult Movies, Cult Movies 2 and Cult Movies 3, a series of oversized paperback books, all of which were published in the 1980s. Cult Movie Stars (1991) was also influential.
Peary’s informative and passionate dissection of such critically ignored (at the time) cult film hits as Night of the Living Dead (1968), Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), The Conqueror Worm (aka Witchfinder General) (1968), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), Eraserhead (1977), The Shooting (1966), and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), helped foster a growing interest in these and many other out-of-the-mainstream titles among the more general film fan audience. In all, Peary wrote lengthy reviews of 200 movies in the three books, providing thoughtful criticism and production details, including information gleaned from interviews Peary had with various producers, directors and actors. While the majority of these films have subsequently been extensively written about and discussed in other books, magazines and various genre-specific websites, in some ways the Cult Movies books can be seen as one of the first critical “Seal of Approval” acknowledgements of many of these titles. However, Peary’s response to the films under discussion was not always positive, and his writing often shows bemusement regarding the appeal of some titles (such as Emmanuelle (1974) or Zardoz (1974)), as well as occasional disgust (Blood Feast (1963)).
His other film books include Guide for the Film Fanatic, Alternate Oscars, Omni's Screen Flights, Screen Fantasies: The Future According to the Cinema, Cult Movie Stars (1991), and Close-Ups: The Movie Star Book.
Peary currently mostly concentrates on sports books but is the N.Y. correspondent for the Australian magazine, "FilmInk," as well as a contributing editor to Timessquare.com.
