Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/gutadmin/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-twitter-timeline/wp-twitter-timeline.php on line 236

The Cultural Gutter

the cult in your pop culture

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

The Longing And The Short Of It

heart

 Ah, mid-February.  That time of year in which Romance authors are hounded by the media for sound bites and wink-wink, nudge-nudge style “advice” for hackneyed articles about Valentine’s Day, most of which will appear under headlines made awkward by ham-handed double-entendres*.  I’m all for Romance writers getting some press, but the box-checking, paper-thin nature of [...]

The Many Faces Of Man. Or Rather, Men.

smalldavinci

Alex’s excellent article last week prompted Gutter Overlord Carol to suggest we each use this month to write about masculinity in our own particular capacity. Having been by odd coincidence right in the middle of reading The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine (a fascinating look at the physical and hormonal characteristics unique to, um, the [...]

Steve Coll on Zero Dark Thirty

Ghost Wars: The Secret Wars of the CIA author Steve Coll writes of Zero Dark Thirty: “Zero Dark Thirty was constructed to bring viewers to the edges of their seats, and judging by its critical reception, for many viewers it has succeeded in that respect. Its faults as journalism matter because they may well affect [...]

Moral Failure, Procedural Success and Zero Dark Thirty

“Recall that Bigelow wanted to make a movie about the failure to capture bin Laden, before the whole world knew, as she puts it, that he’s dead. Consider that she has still made a movie about a failure, a moral failure, our failure, embedded in a procedural success.” Sarah Nicole Prickett has more about Kathryn [...]

“Django Unchain My Heart (And Set Me Free)”

Jim Emerson ponders what he finds good and bad in Django Unchained and a lot of the good is Christoph Waltz: “Quentin Tarantino has found his actor in Christoph Waltz — someone who can speak Tarantinian fluently and still make it his own.” (via Roger Ebert)

“Tarantino Unchained”

Jelani Cobb considers Django Unchained and history at The New Yorker.  “Tarantino’s attempt to craft a hero who stands apart from the other men—black and white—of his time is not a riff on history, it’s a riff on the mythology we’ve mistaken for history. Were the film aware of that distinction, Django would be far [...]

“Man the Mast-heads! Call All Mates!”

Beloved shipmates, Joe Hill has started a Moby-Dick  big read along. The New Bedford Whaling Museum is holding its annual Moby-Dick Marathon today. And the Moby-Dick Big Read Podcast is still downloading a chapter a day with such dauntless readers as Tilda Swinton and ! It’s enough to keep you from knocking off gentelmen’s hats [...]

Top 10 of 2012

The Serpent Sea thumbnail

It’s the end of the year; I work in retail; I have the flu.  All  of which means that for the past couple weeks I’ve been re-reading rather than reading. Mostly Eva Ibbotson, whose warmth reminds me not only that I love reading, but why.  Which makes this a good time for a retrospective list. [...]

The Measure Of Success

I’ve been thinking about heroes and archetypes again (which is not actually news: story archetype is a sandbox in which I happily spend a lot of time). Feels like it’s everywhere these days.  A few weeks back I was on a panel at the World Fantasy Convention that discussed love and monsters. Alex and Carol [...]

RIP, Hideji Otaki

Character actor Hideji Otaki has died. Otaki worked with directors including Akira Kurosawa, Juzo Itami, Masahiro Shinoda and Koreyoshi Kurahara in films such as Kagemusha; Minbo: The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion; A Taxing Woman; Gonza the Spearman and Black Sun. The Japan Times and The Kyodo News have brief English-language obituaries.

Nice Guys, Sewers, And Other Relics Of The Past

I’ve been on a bit of a historical binge recently: testing some new authors, re-reading old favourites.  This trip down the historical record lane is due largely to author Sherry Thomas.  More to the point, to her recent novel Ravishing the Heiress.

RIP, Herbert Lom

Actor Herbert Lom has died.  The Guardian, The New York Times and the BBC all  have obituaries.  Lom is probably most famous as Inspector Dreyfus in The Pink Panther films, but he also starred in many other films including, Night And The City, The Seventh Veil, Spartacus, The Phantom of the Opera and Count Dracula.  [...]

Hitting The Books, Hard

As I said this time last year, I like back to school season.  I love the energy of it.  I miss the sense of anticipation, of knowing I had lots of new things to look forward to.  At least, usually I do.  Perhaps I’m just feeling particularly curmudgeonly this season, or maybe summer was just [...]

  • Of Note Elsewhere

    At Sequart, Julian Darius makes the case that Star Trek: Into Darkness damages the Star Trek franchise and that “Starfleet must be destroyed.” (via Mike White)

    ~

    This tumblr collects many bad jokes kids have invented.

    ~

    “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 Book!

    From ETC Press

  • Obsessive?

    Then you might be interested in knowing you can subscribe to our RSS feed, find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter or Tumblr.

    -------

  • Weekly Notifications


     

  • What We’re Talking About

    1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s action adaptation animation art Canada capitalism China comedy comics fandom fantasy feminism film history games geekery gender history horror interviews Japan martial arts monsters movies music RIP romance science fiction space superheroes the ladies trailers tv UK USA video writing

  • Thanks To

    No Media Kings hosts this site, and Wordpress autoconstructs it.