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It Can't Rain All the Time: The Crow

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It Can’t Rain All the Time weaves memoir with film criticism in an effort to pin down The Crow’s cultural resonance.

A passionate analysis of the ill-fated 1994 film starring the late Brandon Lee and its long-lasting influence on action movies, cinematic grief, and emotional masculinity


Released in 1994, The Crow first drew in audiences thanks to the well-publicized tragedy that loomed over the film: lead actor Brandon Lee had died on set due to a mishandled prop gun. But it soon became clear that The Crow was more than just an accumulation of its tragic parts. The celebrated critic Roger Ebert wrote that Lee’s performance was “more of a screen achievement than any of the films of his father, Bruce Lee.”

In It Can’t Rain All the Time, Alisha Mughal argues that The Crow has transcended Brandon Lee’s death by exposing the most challenging human emotions in all their dark, dramatic, and visceral glory, so much so that it has spawned three sequels, a remake, and an intense fandom. Eric, our back-from-the-dead, grieving protagonist, shows us that there is no solution to depression or loss, there is only our own internal, messy work. By the end of the movie, we realize that Eric has presented us with a vast range of emotions and that masculinity doesn’t need to be hard and impenetrable.

Through her memories of seeking solace in the film during her own grieving period, Alisha brilliantly shows that, for all its gothic sadness, The Crow is, surprisingly and touchingly, a movie about redemption and hope.

About the Pop Classics Series

Short books that pack a big punch, Pop Classics offer intelligent, fun, and accessible arguments about why a particular pop phenomenon matters.

168 pages, Paperback

Published July 15, 2025

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Alisha Mughal

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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Profile Image for Mikey ಠ◡ಠ.
362 reviews27 followers
May 1, 2025
I started this book thinking I was really into The Crow and I left this book knowing I am not that into The Crow 😂 I think now it’s just a movie I like to watch when I want to lay on the couch and cry.

This book is very well researched and I think if you want to know more about the comic (did you know it was originally a comic? I did not), the artist of said comic, Brandon Lee, or counterculture in the 90s, this is the book for you!

Two gripes:

1. So so SO respectfully, I do not think The Crow is a horror movie. It’s an action movie and I would even accept it might be a fantasy movie. But horror? Sorry, no.

2. I appreciate the author sharing the meaning of the movie to her through the lens of A Boy she liked and the fall out of that relationship but, I did not care. 😬

Anyway, overall a good read!

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Profile Image for Lady W.
435 reviews4 followers
February 13, 2025
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 era.

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.
Profile Image for Alex Sarll.
7,002 reviews363 followers
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February 8, 2025
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.
1,843 reviews50 followers
May 18, 2025
My thanks to NetGalley and ECW Press for an advance copy of this personal look at a movie from the 90's that has meant much to many, a movie fraught with problems and real tragedies, but one that has spoken to many in helpful and positive ways.

Back in the early '90s I worked with a young woman who cared very little for comics, science fiction and or movies that weren't classics or romances. Somehow, someway we were friends. One day she asked me about a movie that was being talked about a lot, mainly for the death of the lead actor in the role. I told her about it, the comic backstory, and for some reason she seemed interested. So we went. I expected her to be miserable and bored, but she was anything but. She had been going through some bad things, there were a few phone calls about them, but this movie somehow made the bad things not so bad. I have loved films since seeing my first film at 4 but, I never had a catharsis like she did watching The Crow. There were tears, a few yells in the car ride home, and a nerd was born. My friend and the author of this book would get along great, as both saw something in a dark film of revenge that I and many others had missed. A story about death, miserable, ugly, savage kind of death, could be so much about living life, and letting go. It Can't Rain All the Time: The Crow by Alisha Mughal is a history of a comic, a movie, and a personal essay on getting on with life, when one thinks that there is nothing worth bothering, that the rain will never stop, the clouds will never part, until they do.

The Crow was a comic book first, created, written and illustrated by James O'Barr and dealing with the darkest moment of his life. A moment in a series of dark days. O'Barr was a child of foster families, his one skill art was derided by his foster family as a waste of time. The only thing that brought James joy was love, a love that was taken from him by a drunk driver. As time passed and nothing in his soul was healing, O'Barr took to art and created a comic, The Crow. The Crow was about a man who along with his love was murdered. A year later the man returns to the world with a Crow companion to revenge himself on the killers. The comic was popular, popular enough to get a movie deal. And a lead actor in Brandon Lee. The movie seemed cursed, with accidents, with violence, and bad weather. The final curse was the death of Brandon Lee in a gunshot incident involving a blank round. The movie was finally released, and along with a soundtrack that is still amazing, hit crowds in different ways. I thought it was a fun romp with lots of violence. My friend had her mind blown, the heart fixed, and her soul cleansed. The author found understanding, and a need to go on.

A different kind of book about a movie that still holds up. Just don't watch the sequels, nor the remake. The movie is dark in many ways. Knowing the lead actor died for the movie adds an onus to filmgoers that Marvel films don't. However on a rewatch I could see what the author, and what my friend could see. There is a lot of violence, dark gritty evil that men and women do violence. However there is love, and hope. The author uses a lot of their experiences in life to explain why the movie speaks to them. In addition this is a really good summary of the making of the movie, and the comic, with interviews and lots more. I really liked the personal reasons why the author feels so much for this movie. The writing is very good, and really engaging, which makes for a very good reading experience.

I enjoyed this for a lot of reasons. Remembering a movie I haven't watched in years. Listening to a soundtrack that still hits hard, and thinking about my friend who went back to school and on I hope to bigger and better things. I hope she is still reading comics, still a nerd, and I hope she is doing well. The same for the author for all the feelings this book gave me.
Profile Image for Carmen.
377 reviews35 followers
March 7, 2025
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 The Crow and memoir. The introduction works to establish the two as being on parallel tracks and how her first viewing of The Crow 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.
Profile Image for Siobhan.
Author 3 books117 followers
April 4, 2025
It Can't Rain All The Time is another entry in the Pop Classics series which explores pop culture through a fun critical and personal lens, this time look at 1994 film The Crow. In this book, Mughal explores the film, the original graphic novel, and the people and mythology around them, arguing that they are about death and life, but also hope and emotion. Later, she argues that the film's sequels and reboots aren't as true to this meaning as a different successor: John Wick.

I love The Crow and was obsessed with it as a teenager, and this book is a real love letter to the film and graphic novel, and to Brandon Lee's performance as Eric Draven. Unlike some pop culture-memoir blend books, this one brings the critical analysis to the front, and uses the memoir elements as short interludes highlighting the emotional resonance of the film. I really enjoyed the comparison between The Crow and John Wick, which I hadn't considered before, and I liked how the book didn't just focus on Lee's death or try and turn it into a mythical event.
Profile Image for Jarrett Connolly.
35 reviews5 followers
February 13, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and ECW Press for this eARC

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.
Profile Image for Alex Beckett.
18 reviews1 follower
March 25, 2025
"It Can't Rain All The Time" is an intelligent analysis of a cult classic on the surface, but aside from the clear understanding and thought-provoking points, it is an honest love letter to how we can be touched and find solace in even the darkest experiences.

Taking both Proyas' film and O'Barr's original graphic novel as the main focuses of this analysis, the author delves into not only key context surrounding the artwork, but also the humanity which can often go overlooked.

I highly recommend this to any fans of The Crow, it is an accessible read to both casual enjoyers and intimately familiar fans.
Profile Image for Josh Landry.
59 reviews
February 25, 2025
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
Profile Image for Kate.
1,102 reviews54 followers
July 25, 2025
#gifted @ecwpress

IT CAN'T RAIN ALL THE TIME

The Crow is a dark show. I have seen this movie a handful of times, something about it is drawing. The on set death of lead star Brandon Lee will forever be tied to the lore of the film but there is something else about his character and performance that pulls you in. Something that audiences haven't let go of since! I loved how Alisha Mughal explores this in the latest Pop Classics release from @ecwpress. These little books are gems!

For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
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