Possibly the world’s first old dark house movie, The Haunted House (1908) by Segundo de Chomón and the first vampire/Satanic castle movie, Le Manoir du Diable (1896) by Georges Méliès. (Thanks, Keith and Teleport City!)
Effects artists Tyler Ham and Tom Spina talk practical vs. digital effects with Miguel Rodriguez at Monster Island Resort. My favorite line from the episode? “You can’t compare The Fly to Sharktopus.” And make sure to check out Spina’s restored film prop galleries,, from Ewoks to Sleestaks and Critters to Gremlins as well as stop-motion [...]
Special effects master Carlo Rambaldi has died. Rambaldi is probably most famous for his work in ET, The Extraterrestrial; Alien; and Dune, but Rambaldi also worked extensively for Mario Bava. The New York Times has an obituary. Here are a video homage, another by Il Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia di Roma and a clip of [...]
“Depth, light, sound, music: Stephen and Timothy Quay speak on the many dimensions of film,” both animated and live-action, at Keyframe.
S1E1‘s Jessi and CNN Geek Out‘s Genevieve Dempre have some things to clear up for CNN Geek Out!‘s Joe Peacock, including that models paid by companies to work at conventions are different from cosplaying attendees. “The other problem with this whole conversation about which women are legitimately geeks and which women are just faking it [...]
Deceptacon Transformer Starscream faces My Little Pony Rainbow Dash in a battle to the death at Death Battle! Start about halfway through the video to get straight to the battlin’!
“[It] strikes me as a bit counterintuitive that I would enjoy Derek Yu’s Spelunky as much as I do, while I remain estranged from Dark Souls. Aren’t both games super-cruel dungeon crawls, presenting maddeningly difficult challenges while swiftly and severely punishing the slightest error?” Jason McIntosh ponders the differences in how each game frames the [...]
The FantAsia site is up and running with many, many trailers to get you ready for the festival. (Or at least, what films to keep an eye out for).
Just in time for Eiji Tsuburaya’s birthday, here’s a brief video documentary on his career in special effects for films ranging from Godzilla and War of the Gargantuas to Throne of Blood and Chushingura.
TV Tropes has blocked all its pages concerning rape as trope in popular culture after Google threatened TV Tropes‘ ad revenue over “explicit content.” “If you’re thinking this ineffectual censorship just highlights how ridiculous and dangerous the pressure to rid our social vocabularies of potentially ‘creepy’ words like ‘rape’ and, oh, ‘vagina,’ have become, you’re [...]
“One of the unlovely things that has been happening in Anglophone SF/F … is the resurrection of unapologetic – nay, triumphant – misogyny beyond the already low bar in the genre. The churners of both grittygrotty ‘epic’ fantasy and post/cyberpunk dystopias are trying to pass rape-rife pornkitsch as daring works that swim against the tide [...]
In a letter to director Mel Stuart, Gene Wilder suggests changes to Willy Wonka’s wardrobe: “A light blue felt hat-band to match with the same light blue fluffy bow tie shows a man who knows how to compliment his blue eyes.”
Recently, I’ve been thinking about danger. Specifically, the kind of danger that runs through a certain subsection of Romance, often called ‘romantic suspense’. These are the stories that drop the hero and heroine into physical jeopardy in addition to exposing them to all the emotional risks of falling in love. When done well, they share [...]
Author Ray Bradbury has died. Neil Gaiman writes a lovely memorial to him at The Guardian. The Kirkus Review has an obituary. Anne Thompson writes about his impact on movies. And at the dawn of the Gutter, our own James Schellenberg wrote a piece on Fahrenheit 451. (Thanks, @SFSignal!)
“The magic of childhood is the strangeness of childhood, the uniqueness that makes us see things that other people don’t see.” “I’m just clearing the decks for a simple death. You’re done with your work. You’re done with your life. And your life was your work.” –Maurice Sendak, TateShots: Maurice Sendak and Tell Them Anything [...]
Comic artist Tony De Zuñiga has died. Zuñiga is best known as co-creator of Jonah Hex and Black Orchid. Not only did he leave us with some fine art, but Zuñiga worked hard to get recognition for fellow Filipino artists. Comic Book Resources has an obituary and a gallery of his work. Here’s a video [...]
A silent fantasy/folktale film from 1921 Japan, Jiraiya the Hero / Goketsu Jiraiya. (Thanks, Keith!)
George R.R. Martin talks about the religions in Game of Thrones.
Pornokitsch has a new entry in their ongoing reviews of David Gemmell Award finalists with Mark Lawrence’s Prince of Thorns. Reading the book, Jared wonders “why? Why is it necessary to have a protagonist that’s so aggressively, angrily vile? Bret Easton Ellis did something similar with Patrick Bateman. American Psycho (1991) was the vivisection of the young, [...]
Comics Editor Carol did a quick review of Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines for the ActionFest Blog. “[I]t’s not just about letting little girls know that they can be heroes, that they can be anything they want. It’s about knowing that as adults we have great power and great responsibility. We can [...]
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