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Goth Chick News: Constantine 2 is Finally (Almost) a Reality

Goth Chick News: Constantine 2 is Finally (Almost) a Reality

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Cover of Hellblazer #1 (January, 1988.). Art by Dave McKean

Everyone has a couple. You know, the movie or movies that serve as your mental comfort food. In the same way that you might long for Mac and Cheese or a PB&J when the world gets on your nerves, I bet you have movies you rewatch for the same reason. When asked, some of my day-job coworkers mentioned When Harry Met Sally, the original Star Wars, and Anchorman as films they put on to lift their spirits.

As you could probably guess, my go-to movies are slightly left of center. My top three in no particular order are Jaws (1975), the first Blade (1998) movie and Constantine (2005). I haven’t looked too closely as to why these stories provide me such a soothing mental distraction, or even what they have in common. But thankfully they are all streaming because I damaged more than one DVD of each taking them with me when I used to travel long stretches for work. I mean, nothing says “sweet home Chicago” like Bruce the shark.

Whereas both Jaws and Blade had more than one sequel, such as they were, Constantine did not. Based on a DC Comics character who first appeared in his own comic Hellblazer in 1988, John Constantine would go on to star in 300 issues, earning him third place in Empire’s 50 Greatest Comic Characters of All Time. So, it was not for lack of source material that we haven’t seen Keanu Reeves reprising his rendition of the cynical, chain-smoking occult detective, until now.

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When You’re Lost in the Darkness: The Last of Us, Episode One

When You’re Lost in the Darkness: The Last of Us, Episode One

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Hello! It’s me. Your wildly introverted author/gamer, who is very excited to be sharing my thoughts with you regarding HBO’s recent adaptation of The Last of Us from the perspective of someone who absolutely loved the game on which it is based. I’ll be examining each episode independently.

Unfortunately, due to my working an obscene amount, I have limited time, so I’ll only be able to post every second week or so. For that reason, though they’re written shortly after each episode airing, each review will be far behind the episodes as they’re released. That’s alright, though, as I reckon it will leave plenty of time for you to watch each episode and I won’t have to worry about spoiling it for you, because there absolutely will be spoilers.

So, with that out of the way, let’s just dive right into episode one: When You’re Lost in the Darkness.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Fury of the Norsemen

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Fury of the Norsemen

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The Viking (USA, 1928)

Considering there were only about a dozen-and-a-half movies about Vikings released in the first hundred years of filmmaking, they had a cultural impact far exceeding their number, establishing a clear and consistent archetype of the Viking warrior that holds true even today. All the tropes and visual hallmarks of that archetype were in place in the first full feature, 1928’s The Viking, and didn’t really change much over the subsequent 80 years. Interest peaked in the early ‘60s with a spate of films from both Hollywood and Italy, represented here by Mario Bava’s Knives of the Avenger, and didn’t get much of a rethink until Terry Jones’ Erik the Viking (1989), with its attempt to turn the genre on its head and simultaneously explore its mythic roots.

The last ten years have seen another upswing in interest in Vikings onscreen, starting with video game Skyrim in 2011 and the Vikings TV series in 2013, and there’s no sign of it slacking off, so it seems a timely moment for a quick survey of the genre’s beginnings. I hope you enjoy it.

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The Brownstone of Nero Wolfe: Death of a Doxy – And Koufax or Mays?

The Brownstone of Nero Wolfe: Death of a Doxy – And Koufax or Mays?

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We haven’t been to the Brownstone since April of last year. Pfui! So here we have the forty-third Nero Wolfe post at Black Gate. The Wolfe stories are my favorite private eye series. Which, given my Solar Pons, and Sherlock Holmes, credentials, is saying something. I am pretty much always re-reading or listening yet again to Michael Prichard’s terrific audiobooks. I never tire of Wolfe’s World.

Rex Stout was a baseball fan, keeping score at Mets’ games (and possibly NY Giants’ ones as well). Archie uses some baseball terms, and even (briefly) watches a Mets game on TV, with actual players mentioned. And of course, there’s Ron Seaver. “Three Men Out” is set at game seven of a World Series game between Boston and the Giants, though all of the characters are entirely fictional in that one.

I’ve written some baseball snippets for inclusion in future stories, including Archie annoying Wolfe by talking about the Rocky Colavito – Harvey Kuenn trade; and Archie recounting attending Willie Mays’ last World Series, against the A’s. Archie and baseball go together.

Which leads us to talking about Death of A Doxy today. This may well be my favorite Wolfe novel. And I think that A&E did a terrific episode of it. It’s got a neat little baseball reference, which I’ll tease out for this essay. But first, let’s talk about something that should be banned by law – The Epithon!

THE EPITHON

In Death of a Doxy, Archie is at Lily Rowan’s penthouse, listening to a poet read a self‐dubbed ‘Epithon.’ It is called such because it was epic, and took hours to read. Add in that the man wrote it himself, and you’ve got the idea. ‘Pfui’ isn’t strong enough.

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Goth Chick News: “Crypt” Notes to Begin 2023

Goth Chick News: “Crypt” Notes to Begin 2023

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Knock at the Cabin (Universal Pictures, February 3)

We are a month into the new year and yet here I am writing my first post of 2023. This is the longest hiatus I have ever taken from Black Gate since beginning my tenure quite some time ago, but I have a good excuse. I recently returned from nearly a month on safari in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa, and between some amazing animal encounters and quite a lot of fine South African wine, I collected some pretty cool tales of the supernatural. I mean sure, we have ghosts here in the US, but in Africa there are demons which cause people to build their houses a certain way just to avoid them. I’ll be sharing more on this topic in future articles.

I then came back with a very unwanted souvenir in the form of Covid, and here we are on February 2nd.

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The Compelling Narratives of Video Games

The Compelling Narratives of Video Games

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The poster for The Last of Us, the HBO adaptation (left), and one of the posters for the original game (right)

My love of gaming is well known amongst my friends and friendly acquaintances, and has since before I could afford my first console. In news that would surprise absolutely no one, my preference has always been for narrative games; where the story plays as much a role in the gaming experience as any tests of skill or intellect. The best games for me strike a delicate balance between challenging gameplay — combat and puzzles — and narrative. In short, I game for the same reason I read. I game to find myself immersed in another world, diving into a story that will delight and move me.

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Cinema of Swords Book Announcement!

Cinema of Swords Book Announcement!

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Cinema of Swords by Lawrence Ellsworth (Applause, June 15, 2023)

Hellooooo, Black Gate! If you’re a regular reader, you’ve seen my circa-weekly Cinema of Swords articles about swordplay adventure films, but this week we’re here to talk about the full Cinema of Swords volume coming your way this summer, 2023, from Applause Books. This happy event is thanks in large measure to your support and that of Black Gate’s esteemed editor John O’Neill, so thank you! For an author, every new book is an anxious roll of the dice, and it’s a thrill and a relief when your work actually makes it to publication.

So, what will you find in Cinema of Swords? The book’s mouthful of a subtitle is “A Popular Guide to Movies about Knights, Pirates, Samurai, and Vikings (And Barbarians, Musketeers, Gladiators, and Outlaw Heroes) from the Silent Era through The Princess Bride.” Fully illustrated, it compiles 400+ informative short reviews of live-action movies and TV shows on those subjects up through the ‘80s, where I stopped because that’s all I could fit into one volume. I included only films and shows that an interested person can find on streaming services or disc without paying a fortune, so long out-of-print or otherwise unavailable titles didn’t make the cut.

Reviews are listed alphabetically, but in addition to a straight title index, the book includes genre indexes so you can easily find films related to a specific interest. Conveniently, that also provides a way to give you a fuller taste of the book’s contents. Let’s see what we’ve got.

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Skybound Moves Forward With Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber

Skybound Moves Forward With Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber

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The Great Book of Amber, containing Roger Zelazny’s 10-volume
Amber Chronicles (Avon EOS, December 1999). Cover by Tim White

Molly Templeton at Tor.com is reporting that Stephen Colbert has joined forces with Skybound Entertainment to develop an adaptation of Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber, bringing much-needed hope that the long delayed-series will finally be brought to the screen.

In 2016, Skybound Entertainment announced that the series was in the works, with The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman also on board. Though it’s been nearly seven years, this team is still in place, alongside Vincent Newman Entertainment and now Colbert’s production company, Spartina. Variety reports that Colbert said, “I’ve carried the story of Corwin in my head for over 40 years, and I’m thrilled to partner with Skybound and Vincent Newman to bring these worlds to life. All roads lead to Amber, and I’m happy to be walking them.”

Roger Zelazny was one of the greatest fantasy and science fiction writers of the 20th Century, and The Chronicles of Amber was his magnum opus. If you want to dip your toe into the original novels, Rajan Khanna has a splendid book-by-book reread at Tor.com.

From the Golden Age of TV Anthologies: Boris Karloff’s Thriller, Season One

From the Golden Age of TV Anthologies: Boris Karloff’s Thriller, Season One

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William Shatner in “The Grim Reaper,” in Season One of Boris Karloff’s Thriller (1961)

The late fifties/early sixties was THE golden age TV anthology genre series. Best remembered, still wildly popular and influential today is The Twilight Zone, of course, followed by Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Outer Limits. There were others, including the interesting TZ precursor One Step Beyond, and a show hosted by one of the legends of classic horror cinema: Boris Karloff’s Thriller.

Like Outer Limits, Thriller had a short run — just two seasons. But TV production schedules were much different then. Those two seasons gifted us a whopping 67 episodes — equal to somewhere between six and TEN seasons now, in the streaming era. Sixty-seven hour-long episodes crammed into two nine-month production periods, each shot on a five-day schedule. It’s no surprise then that the episodes vary in quality, but the series contains some real gems — episodes that hold their own alongside the best Twilights Zones and B-movies of their era.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Moonraker! (No, Not That One)

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Moonraker! (No, Not That One)

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The Moonraker (UK, 1958)

In many ways, 1958 was a peak year for British screen swashbucklers. On the TV screen, The Adventures of Robin Hood continued its popular run, and was joined by other series, including Ivanhoe, William Tell, and Sword of Freedom. On the big screen, the swashbuckler hit of the year was The Moonraker, a fine cloak-and-sword production that did well in Europe but didn’t really make it across the pond to America. This week, let’s take a close look at UK swords ’58.

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