Special Effects Master Eiji Tsuburaya
Just in time for Eiji Tsuburaya’s birthday, here’s a brief video documentary on his career in special effects for films ranging from Godzilla and War of the Gargantuas to Throne of Blood and Chushingura.
“We Do Not Want A Page On This Topic”
TV Tropes has blocked all its pages concerning rape as trope in popular culture after Google threatened TV Tropes‘ ad revenue over “explicit content.” “If you’re thinking this ineffectual censorship just highlights how ridiculous and dangerous the pressure to rid our social vocabularies of potentially ‘creepy’ words like […]
“The Shy, Elusive Rape Particle”
“One of the unlovely things that has been happening in Anglophone SF/F … is the resurrection of unapologetic – nay, triumphant – misogyny beyond the already low bar in the genre. The churners of both grittygrotty ‘epic’ fantasy and post/cyberpunk dystopias are trying to pass rape-rife pornkitsch as […]
Letters from Gene Wilder
In a letter to director Mel Stuart, Gene Wilder suggests changes to Willy Wonka’s wardrobe: “A light blue felt hat-band to match with the same light blue fluffy bow tie shows a man who knows how to compliment his blue eyes.”
Lovers In A Dangerous Time
Recently, I’ve been thinking about danger. Specifically, the kind of danger that runs through a certain subsection of Romance, often called ‘romantic suspense’. These are the stories that drop the hero and heroine into physical jeopardy in addition to exposing them to all the emotional risks of falling […]
RIP, Ray Bradbury
Author Ray Bradbury has died. Neil Gaiman writes a lovely memorial to him at The Guardian. The Kirkus Review has an obituary. Anne Thompson writes about his impact on movies. And at the dawn of the Gutter, our own James Schellenberg wrote a piece on Fahrenheit 451. (Thanks, […]
The Cultural Gutter 