The Cultural Gutter

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

Ben Wheatley’s Viral Videos and Rob Zombie’s Ads

Kill List director and suspected Pirate Captain Ben Wheatley has been secretly making commercial videos for years. Siân Elizabeth-Anne just happens to have gathered all Wheatley’s booty in one place, The Vanguard programme blog. Or most of it. Meanwhile, at the Midnight Madness blog, Chad Eberle has collected evidence of Rob Zombie’s secret life as [...]

Diabolus in Musica

“I used a descending chromatic scale throughout the score,” explains Marc Wilkinson, who was director of music at the National Theatre when Haggard approached him to write the score for Blood On Satan’s Claw. “To make it scary, I omitted the perfect fifth, which is the one true consonant in the chromatic scale, and highlighted [...]

Archie Meets KISS Preview

Comic Book Resources has a preview of Archie Meets KISS, another creative comic from Archie, which recently announced Kevin Keller’s wedding to Clay Walker and published an ambitious parallel timeline story where Archie was married to Betty in one life and Veronica in another. For their part, KISS has been in comic storylines since the [...]

More Krampusse

Nice gallery of Krampus pictures as well as a little history about Krampus.

Christopher Lee is the King of Metal

Christopher Lee conquers Symphonic Metal. Survey his Holy Metal Empire with two promos for Charlemagne, a message from Christopher Lee about the project and some track teasers.

Christopher Lee Is Metal.

Christopher Lee is Metal. “I have been metal for many years,” he says in a review of his new CD, Charlemagne:  By the Sword and the Cross.

Slash set to Nine Inch Nails

Spock forgot the safe word.

VARIETY PAK

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It’s been just over a year since I became a partner in the Mayfair Theatre, Ottawa’s oldest operating cinema. We’ve shown a lot of films in that time (we average about 40 a month), and I’ve written the synopsis for almost every one.

Soundtracks for Your Awesomeness

Let J.G. Thirlwell’s Venture Bros. soundtrack bore into your skull until your every mundane mouse tap is explosions, necromancy and two-way wrist radios.  Make your life more brutal than you’ve ever imagined with Dethklok.

Marvel’s Kings of the Night Time World

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In 1977, the most powerful band on earth was KISS with their pyrotechnics, monster boots and the largest army a band had ever fielded, the KISS Army, fully prepared to rock and roll all nite, party every day and read comics in between. Marvel had their ever-lovin’ fingers on the pulse of the youth and [...]

Go To DMC!

Go to Detroit Metal City! Or at least go to the creditless opening for the anime series… and maybe the trailer for the same series.

Lordi’s Deadache

Latex Metal menace and 2006 Eurovision song contest winner Lordi talk KISS and costumes with Artisan News Service.  (Mr. Lordi was held up in traffic). Here’s Lordi at Eurovision.

Detroit Metal City: No Music, No Dream

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We live in a time of film adaptations of comic books massive and tiny, from Iron Man and The Dark Knight to Wanted and The Surrogates. But I don’t need to see any more. I have seen Detroit Metal City and it is a testament to awesomeness.

2008 Madness Begins

The 2008 Midnight Madness films have been announced.  If you’re in Toronto then, you’ll have a chance to see movies like Chocolate, Detroit Metal City, JCVD and The Burrowers (no trailer) on the big screen. I’ma be there.

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  • Of Note Elsewhere

    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.”

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    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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    A novelist takes revenge on writers he doesn’t like via wikipedia. Slate has the story. “Qworty’s edits undermine our trust in this great project. Qworty’s edits prove that Wikipedia’s content can be shaped by people settling grudges and acting out of spite and envy. Qworty alone, by his own account, has made 13,000 edits to Wikipedia. And Qworty, as the record will show, is not to be trusted.”

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    Diane Dooley writes about Mars’ need for women and ways to subvert it.

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    “[T]he mainstreaming of Jane Eyre as a vanilla romance, or even as an exploration of a woman’s pure, uncompromising, and uncomplicated (and religious! and feminist!) integrity, says all kinds of things about our inability to speak honestly about violence and sex.” More on Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, consent, sex and submission, here. (via K.A. Laity)

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    Comic Book Attic talks about comics about comics, with plenty of pages from Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s The Newsboy Legion for your enjoyment.

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