Interview with John Woo
Andrew O’Herir interviews John Woo, harbinger of “Chinawood,” and reviews the international version of The Battle of Red Cliff (“Doves, lots of doves!”)
A Cast of Thousands and Still Token Females
Marie Brennan over at SF Novelists looks at epic fantasy and the Bechdel test: “Two hundred pages into the book, and there’s been three named female characters. One is evil. The second existed only for a brief scene, for the purpose of highlighting how attractive the third one […]
Komik Indonesia
Devil Dog de la Rosa! The Blind Man from the Ghost Cave! Gundala, Son of Thunder and the Mahabharata’s own Bisma! Komik Indonesia has a huge gallery of cover art! Glaaar! (onomatopeia for thunder in Indonesian).
Sita, Rama, Annette Hanshaw
Sita Sings the Blues is a multilayered Ramayana, an amazing display of animation prowess and Sita sings in the voice of 1920s jazz singer Annette Hanshaw. It’s neater than I make it sound. Make some time.
An Engineer and a Dreamer
Sad news: Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer and inventor/scientist, died recently – at the age of 90, he had a full life, but it’s still a great loss. To mark his passing, I picked up my favourite of his books, Childhood’s End, and gave it a re-read. […]
Young Man’s Burden
It’s one of the most successful fantasy series of all time, and the author died while writing the twelfth and final volume. What to do? The show must go on, but who would want to take time out from their own work to finish the damn thing? A […]
The Cultural Gutter 