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The Cultural Gutter

we've seen things you people wouldn't believe

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

The Daughter of Dawn

The 1920 film, Daughter of Dawn has been restored. Daughter of Dawn is set before European settlers landed in the Americas and features a cast of 300 Kiowa and Comanche actors, including the children of Quanah Parker, White and Wandada Parker, and also includes footage of the Tipi with Battle Pictures, an important part of [...]

“They All Sing Yabba-Dabba-Doo!”

Black Lodge Singers perform the theme from The Flintstones pow-wow style (via @WFMU).

Crimewave!

It seems like when people think of comics, they think of superheroes, but there was a long time when crime and comics were synonymous. And now it seems like some of the best comics around are crime books. There’s a new golden age, a new crimewave in comics. I’ve been meaning to write about it, [...]

“The Pagan Pilgrim”

Ronnie Pontiac writes a fascinating essay on Thomas Morton, inciter of Puritans and founder of the Enlightenment Utopian experiment Ma-re Mount, “the American melting pot boiling hot” in the New World: “In May 1627 Tom decided to celebrate May Day with the locals. There would be food, drink, a maypole, music, dancing, and hopefully wenching; [...]

RIP, Frank Pierson

Screenwriter and director Frank Pierson has died. Pierson wrote such films as Dog Day Afternoon, Cat Ballou, The Anderson Tapes and Cool Hand Luke. Pierson also wrote teleplays for Have Gun Will Travel, The Naked City, Lakota Woman: The Siege at Wounded Knee, Mad Men and The Good Wife. The Hollywood Reporter has more on [...]

“Why I Write ‘Strong Female Characters’”

Greg Rucka shares the short answer and the long answer to the question he’s asked most frequently, “How Do You Write Such Strong Female Characters?” My favorite line: “This is a matter of respect, for both the story itself and for the audience receiving it. The reader is smarter than you. The reader is always [...]

Disney Princesses in Period Dress

Illustrator Claire Hummel reinterprets Disney princess costumes to make them more historically accurate. (via The Bookshelves of Lesser Doom)

Badass Women of the Pulp Era

14 Badass Women of the Pulp Era from around the world. 

10 Comics I Liked in 2010

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Sometimes it’s easy to forget why I like comics and 2010 was a particularly tough year, in comics and otherwise. But here are 10 that reminded me why I do like them. There’s a lot of crime, anthropomorphic animals, gorgeous art, silly fun, people dealing with things the best they can, and plenty of Greg [...]

“Tresspassing on Sacred Ground”

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As part of TCM‘s Race & Hollyood: Native American Images on Film” festival, Movie Morlocks has posted part 1 of an essay on Native Americans in horror movies from The Werewolf a 1913 Canadian silent to J.T. Petty’s The Burrowers and Twilight: New Moon: “The inclusion of Native Americans into actual horror movies boils down [...]

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.

The Avatar Treatment

Pascal writes a treatment for Avatar by making a few changes to Pocahontas.

Talking More Twilight

Gabe Lezra hits a nerve when he writes about the white man’s burden in Twilight and New Moon and wonders why there’s no Team Bella and the comments at The Wesleyan Argus are all kerfuffled.

Shooting Fully Automatic

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When James Warren and Archie Goodwin started Blazing Combat in 1965, they made a war comic that might, in Warren’s Words, love guns but hate bullets (195), depicting war as sometimes necessary but always hateful and horrific. Blazing Combat was fully automatic for four issues

John Wayne Can’t Save You

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This month we’re mixing it up at the Gutter with each editor writing about something outside their usual domain. This week Carol Borden writes about movies. She can normally be found here. Blood Red Earth has been on FEARnet for weeks now. A horror movie set in the Old West with a Native American cast? [...]

Stick to the Man in his Regions!

The Man got you down? Too focused on his “Regions?” Won’t let you watch US content outside the US? Saving your searches? Well, I’m not recommending anything. Just saying Hotspot Shield might’ve done some good and it might help you watch some fine programming here and here.  And don’t forget here.

Blood Red Earth at FEARnet

Feel all the horror of tainted meat as FEARnet streams J.T. Petty’s Blood Red Earth, the Lakota-language prequel to The Burrowers. 

Blood Red Earth

Get ready to squirm–there’s a prequel to The Burrowers, the sure-to-be-squicky, Lakota-language Blood Red Earth.

Keep Playing, It Might Get Better

Why am I still playing this?

There comes a point in every game where the player asks themselves why they’re wasting time on a terrible game. It’s a scenario no gamer wants to be presented with – and it’s a developer’s worst nightmare. Depending on how the storyline is integrated with the game, a game’s quality can be easily determined within [...]

Getting Riel with Chester Brown

Louis Louis

When I visited him in 2003, he was living in a posh, modern mid-rise, its lobby ablaze in polished surfaces that gleamed like gold teeth. A waxed baby grand languished near the concierge’s desk. His apartment on the 10th floor seemed an affront to the cool gloss below: homey, dishevelled, hot as an incubator. And [...]

  • Of Note Elsewhere

    This tumblr collects many bad jokes kids have invented.

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    “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!)

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

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    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.”

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    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.

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    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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