“[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)
Special effects master, Ray Harryhausen has died. Ray Bradbury pays tribute to Harryhausen. All of Harryhausen’s creatures in 4 and a half minutes. Harryhausen talks about King Kong, Willis O’Brien, George Pal and his own career in 1991. John Landis interviews Harryhausen for the Bradford Animation Festival 2010. TCM remembers Harryhausen. And Leslie Hardcastle interviews [...]
Far East Films has a trailer for Comrade Kim Goes Flying, a romantic comedy about a North Korean miner who travels to Pyongyang to fulfill her dream of becoming an acrobat.
A man with dark wavy hair wakes up in an iron-framed bed in the middle of a windowless room. He leaps out from under the white sheets and stares intently at a corner of the white ceiling. Suddenly, gracefully, he spins to defeat an invisible opponent in four swift motions, finally falling to his knees [...]
“The merit of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, then – or its offence, depending where you stood – was not that it was authentic, but that it was credible. The bad dream turned out to be one that a lot of people in the world were sharing, since it asked the same [...]
“There’s a reason J.K. Rowling’s publishers demanded that she use initials instead of “Joanne”: it’s the same reason Mary Anne Evans used the pen name George Eliot; the same reason Robert Southey, then England’s poet laureate, wrote to Charlotte Brontë: ‘Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be.’” [...]
This week Trailers from Hell celebrates the films of Akira Kurosawa. First up, director Brian Trenchard-Smith discusses Rashomon (1950) in just over the time it takes to play the trailer.
The Daily Mail has a nice interview with Michael Caine and photographer David Bailey.
Author James Herbert has died. Herbert was the author of horror classics such as The Rats and The Fog. The BBC and The Guardian have obituaries. David Barnett has an overview of Herbert’s work.
At Permission To Kill, David Bailey’s iconic photograph of Michael Caine and eight artistic interpretations.
Sophia McDougall writes about “sexual assault and ‘Realism’ in popular culture.” (via @Pornokitsch)
The first of Colin Smith’s two-part interview with Kieron Gillen, the writer of comics such as Phonogram, Journey Into Mystery and the new Young Avengers. In this part, Gillen discusses Kid Loki and Journey Into Mystery: “I resisted defining myself as a fantasy writer because fantasy tends to be iffy. I became fine with it [...]
Mad Men‘s latest ad was created by veteran illustrator, Brian Sanders. The New York Times profiles Sanders and a little bit of illustration in the 1960s. “Illustrating for and watching the series was doubly meaningful for him, Mr. Sanders said, because Mad Men depicts a world he was once very much a part of. ‘The [...]
In 1965 CBC Radio adapted John Wyndham’s alien invasion story,”The Kraken Wakes.” Keep watching the skies as you listen here.
“This, then, is the story of Maxwell Knight—the man called M—and a cuckoo called Goo. Knight was a tall, patrician British intelligence officer in charge of MI5 departments dealing with counter-subversion on home ground. And yes, as ‘M’ he was the inspiration for James Bond’s controller.” Helen MacDonald recounts the story in an excellent piece. [...]
“In essence what Fleming was proposing was a team of authorised thieves and looters – mavericks who would operate ahead of the forward troops and who were instructed to do whatever necessary to capture enemy intelligence, equipment or personnel.” James Bond creator, Ian Fleming also created a special unit a commando unit for British Naval [...]
Production Designer Ray Cusick has died. Cusick is most famous for creating Doctor Who’s nemeses, The Daleks, but he also worked on Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple (1985 & 1987), Cold Comfort Farm (1968) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1975). The BBC reports on his death and the creation of the Daleks here and here.
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 [...]
Dion Fortune and the Fraternity of the Inner Light protected Britain from Germany’s occult attacks during World War II. Read more here. (via @mattstaggs)
One can receive reliable advice on introductions, cuts and other questions of Victorian etiquette and manners from Etiquette & Espionage authoress, Gail Carriger. “I would urge caution not to rely on characters from Austen as, in her very subtle way, she is often breaking the rules of courtship, in order to comment on society as [...]
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