The Cultural Gutter

taking the dumb out of fandom

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -- Oscar Wilde

The Monster in Me

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I’ve been spending a portion of my wee small hours (normally spent standing under a solitary street lamp on a lonely street, staring in melancholy reverie at my cigarette) revisiting old horror films. As a budding cult film obsessive, I cut my teeth on the horror films of cinema’s early decades. In the days before [...]

¡More Cinco de Mayo Celebration!

¡Comics Alliance celebrates Cinco de Mayo with el Santo comics and a roundtable discussion of Hellboy in Mexico–including at least one poster from an el Santo movie!

Let There Be Monsters

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An underground monster that can’t see, but senses your steps via vibrations. A giant ape that falls in love with a woman and fights lots of dinosaurs. And a hellish creature that fights on the side of humanity against mechanical armies and wayward elves. What do these have in common? I interrupt this critical essay [...]

10 Comics I Liked in 2008

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Here they are, ten comics I liked in 2008 that I haven’t written about yet. All ready? Alright.

Hellboy and the Hobbit

Guillermo del Toro has a lot to say about Hellboy and hobbits at the L.A. Film Festival. (Really, it’s an hour interview).

Screw-On Head and Hellboy, Unfairly Compared

Two DVDs, one day.

Really, I am trying to be good, but I’m not sure I can help it. Last month, DVD’s for The Amazing Screw-On Head and Hellboy: Sword of Storms were released on the same day. That should have been the best day ever since they’re both based on Mike Mignola’s comics. Unfortunately, releasing both projects on [...]

At The 23-Screen Stadium-Seating Nacho-Serving Cineplex Of Madness

Uzumaki is Lovecraftian cinema at its haircurling best.

Mysterious creatures. Bizarre science. A dark, snowbound fortress. The occult. Tentacled, crustacean-inspired monsters. Hellish apocalypse. Primordial evil. Madness. Hellboy, the well-received latest film from neo-post-schlock auteur Guillermo del Toro (Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone, Blade II), offers these and other delights, all of which are common motifs in the work of that impossibly influential champion of [...]

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  • Of Note Elsewhere

    “It’s easier to tell the same stories everyone else does. There’s no particular shame in it.

    It’s just that it’s lazy, which is just about the worst possible thing a spec fic writer can be.

    Oh, and it’s not true.”

    Kameron Hurley writes about lazy writing, cannibal llamas, female soldiers, and women here. (Thanks, James!)

    ~

    Patton Oswalt’s multi-franchise super-movie described in his Star Wars filibuster from Parks and Recreation, animated.

    ~

    Corrigan Vaughan writes an open letter to “Fans of Geek Things“: “I appreciate that you think I have a nice rack and that some of you even find my friends and I to be pretty. That’s very kind. I’m not, however, super in love with the fact that having a rack at all seems to preclude me from being considered a ‘real’ fan.”

    ~

    The Black Girl Nerds Podcast discusses Black girls and women in the Heavy Metal industry with author and journalist Laina Dawes and Ursula “She-Wolf” Parson from Hear Evil News.

    ~

    The Hollywood Reporter interviews director Takashi Miike about his new film, Shield of Straw: ” In Japan now, films are very safe. When I was young and went to old cinemas, they had a distinctive feel, an adult smell about them. As you got in your seat and the lights went down, there was a feeling of excitement: What if the film is scarier than I thought it’s going to be? You’re taken into that world. Nowadays, you can sit in the theater and know it’s going to be safe. That’s good for business, but not for filmmaking.”

    ~

    The Atlantic profiles Spectral Motion, creators of monsters, “effects, and other mechanical grotesqueries that have since become household nightmares, if not names.”

    ~

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