At Pornokitsch, Jared takes a look at The Dragonlance Chronicles’ influence on contemporary fantasy: “[C]ool or not, Dragonlance has done more than almost any other post-Tolkien property in influencing fantasy. Its narrative and conceptual tropes can be found in every nook and cranny of the genre, and much of the modern low fantasy resurgence can be traced [...]
Matt Singer explores two elements that recur in all of Sam Raimi’s films, Pandora’s box and, “The Classic,” a 1973 Delta 88. “Using The Classic to play Uncle Ben’s car may have just been a fortuitous way for Raimi to shoehorn in his beloved trademark, but in the larger context of his career, it imbues [...]
At Geek Juice, Josh Hadley’s “Industrialized Plagiarism” responds to a Village Voice piece, “How To Defend Quentin Tarantino.” Read them together for QT, Hollywood SOP, Harlan Ellison, homages, plagiarism and more.
Actor and director (Son of Blob) Larry Hagman has died. The Guardian has an obituary. Joe O’Shea wrote a profile on Hagman’s birthday last September, which included Hagman talking about what he wanted done with his remains: “I would like to be minced. Did you ever see Fargo, when they put the guy in the [...]
Here’s a clip from Bong Joon-ho’s The Host 2/ Gwoemul 2 (sequel to the 2007 film, The Host / Gwoemul). More river monster + a little behind the scenes look.
Lonely serial killer and film smarty Harry S. Plinkett reviews the Star Wars prequels: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Trenchant analysis aside, current favorite segments are his love advice to Anakin and “Citizen Vader”–starts here and continues. (Trigger warning for those sensitive to ladies held captive in basements [...]
comicbookGRRRL‘s Laura Sneddon has posted her full and uncut interview with Alan Moore. An abridged version, “Superheroes are our visions of ourselves,” originally appeared in The Independent. Moore talks superheroes, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Lost Girls and attracting a female readership.
This week Gutter Guest Darryl Shaw fills in for Screen Editor alex MacFadyen. “I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. [...]
Two great scifi writers, Robert J. Sawyer and Robert Charles Wilson, just published concluding volumes in their respective trilogies. Other similarities: both are Canadian, both have won Hugos, and their latest books are quite intriguing.
Call me an online oddity: I ran out of steam, years ago, on doing the whole harsh-criticism thing in my review work. For a couple of reasons, summarized as “enthused librarian who points elsewhere for sad talk.”
Star Wars Episodes IV-VI compared, simultaneously and in their entirety. Watch while it’s available. (via August Ragone)
Over at Wertzone, Adam finishes up his look at David Brin’s 6-book Uplift saga: “Heaven’s Reach is, by far, the most wildly inventive of the six Uplift novels.”
Cracked presents 10 deleted scenes–with video clips–that would have ruined movies, from the very good, Alien, to the very bad, Revenge of the Sith.
Cartoon Network has trailers for the upcoming animated shows, ThunderCats and Legend of Korra, the sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender as well as an extended look at Green Lantern: The Animated Series with a short peek at the LEGO Ninja show, Ninjago.
It’s summer time and instead of beer bottles exploding out of coolers in a shower of refreshing ice, bikini-clad hotties and fireworks as we know it should be, everything is wilting and perhaps even melting. As far as I can tell there are only two possible explanations—Hot Lava Monsters have readjusted the earth’s thermostat to [...]
“It’s the end of an era. The entertainment which has stretched across books, movies, and countless marketing tie-ins, which has captivated children and adults for well over a decade and which has, for better or worse, managed to become the defining myth for an entire generation, is winding to its close. I speak, of course, [...]
Gutter Guest Star Evan Munday reviews the dance classic and possible rival to The Empire Strikes Back as greatest sequel of all time, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo! “The makers of Breakin’ 2 know you’re here for the breakin’, and they are all too happy to provide….with only the barest lip service provided to a plot, [...]
Matthew Yglesias says “Magneto Was Right”: “The mutant pride message is a radical one. It’s too radical for those whose WASP male privilege in their non-mutant lives makes them instinctively want to identify with existing power structures. But a mutant who’s also a Jew, or a woman, or a racial minority, or has had blue [...]
Wildgrounds breaks down their most anticipated films of 2011.
Horror movies are celebrating their hundredth year in 2010, with the anniversary of the 1910 Edison Lab’s production of Frankenstein. Bloody Disgusting catalogs “some of the biggest…genre snubs in Oscar history, in Part Four of B-D’s ’100 Years in Horror’ series.”
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