It turns out there’s a reason why movies are starting to feel the same: “Summer movies are often described as formulaic. But what few people know is that there is actually a formula—one that lays out, on a page-by-page basis, exactly what should happen when in a screenplay. […]
Author Samit Basu’s first American release, Turbulence, is the story of a few regular people who arrive in Delhi on a flight from London…with superpowers. Talk about baggage. Not just the standard flying, invisible, very very fast kinds of superpowers, either: each one of them gets what they […]
“Writing about Doctor Who this week got me thinking about sexism in storytelling, and how we rely on lazy character creation in life just as we do in fiction,” from Laurie Penny’s “I Was A Manic Pixie Dream Girl.” Her piece on Doctor Who is here. (via @katelaity)
Writer Richard Matheson has died. Matheson’s influence on horror, television and film was incredible–from, “I Am Legend” to episodes of The Twilight Zone, The Night Stalker, The Martian Chronicles to writing Roger Corman’s Poe films to films based on his stories like The Last Man on Earth, The […]
Kate Elliott asks, “How much sex is too much sex in your science fiction and fantasy?” (Thanks, James!)
Recent shenanigans The Cultural Gutter has been involved in: The lost Drive-In Mob Movie S.P.E.C.T.R.E. on Monster Island; a transcript of the Shaitani Dracula tweetalong organized by The Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit; and the ongoing Twitter game/story, “Tonight On Mad Men.”