Browsed by
Category: Movies and TV

Goth Chick News: Watching Pet Sematary in a Pet Cemetery Is the Distraction We All Need

Goth Chick News: Watching Pet Sematary in a Pet Cemetery Is the Distraction We All Need

On Set Cinema

With the zombie apocalypse bearing down on us in the form of this year’s flu season, Big Cheese John O has given up and ordered the Black Gate staff to work from home. I mean, there was really no point in Clorox wipes when this office is full of boys who haven’t dusted anything since we moved in. Trying to disinfect surfaces simply resulted in swirls of little antiseptic-smelling puddles everywhere. Weeks ago, I had fully abandoned the office’s unisex bathroom as a bad bet and started dropping in at the far more hygienic bus station down the street. And since no bakery would deliver individually-wrapped donuts, the only safe alternative to keep Black Gate running was to separate everyone. Of course, there’s no telling what leaving the staff unsupervised will do to the quality of the writing, but time will tell.

So, though hunkering down for some serious binge-watching seems fairly attractive at the moment, there are still some extremely good reasons to go out, besides having the outside world pretty much to yourself.

Namely, a company called On Set Cinema.

The concept is a simple one. Kenny Caperton, owner of The Myers House NC, which is a life-size replica of the infamous Michael Myers house from John Carpenter’s Halloween, came up with the idea to show movies in their actual filming locations. Though he screens content from all genres, his focus is horror films.

Read More Read More

Neverwhens, Where History & Fantasy Collide: Witcherian Swordplay and…. er… 14th century Mullets?

Neverwhens, Where History & Fantasy Collide: Witcherian Swordplay and…. er… 14th century Mullets?

The Witcher sword fight-small

OK, this is just STUPID, assuming one likes their fingers. (If, you are also angry that a guy in vaguely
Renaissance clothing is swinging a Roman gladius at a man with a medieval longsword,
I salute your attention to detail, but you’re probably watching the wrong show.)

There’s an interesting side-effect to being a researcher and author on historical, European martial arts (HEMA), especially when you also own a large, full-time school for the same in a major city. I wish I could say that side-effect is vast wealth and fame (someone pass a Kleenex to my wife, she always tears up when she laughs), but instead it is that, every time there is a major media event involving something sword-like, a well-meaning reporter wants your take on its authenticity. This happened almost every season during Game of Thrones, until I quipped “the show is so much more exciting when everyone keeps their swords sheathed,” and perhaps the funniest one was when The Force Awakens came out and the interviewer wanted my take on Kylo Ren’s new lightsaber style with its cross-guard/vent thing. I tried to give an honest answer:

Well, that seems a great way to cut your own arms off, but it sure looks neat. As to how they fight with the saber… I have to be honest, I have no idea how a psychic, telekinetic space-wizard uses a very light, edgeless plasma-beam trapped inside a force-field.** But it was fun!

**If I bungled some detail of lightsaber technology in that reply, don’t tell me. Ignorance is bliss, and honestly, it won’t change the point — a lightsaber isn’t a real sword, doesn’t behave like  a sword, nor are Jedi normal people. Consequently, the fights can pretty much be whatever the director wants. If you’re looking for “realism” in Star Wars, and have zeroed in on critiquing the lightsaber fights, you’re so far down the rabbit hole, I can’t save you.

Read More Read More

Now This is Good News!

Now This is Good News!

Last of Us banner

Good morning, Readers!

I’m deliriously excited at last week’s HBO announcement that The Last of Us will be getting a television series on HBO. I have a deep, abiding love of this story, and this game. Strangely, the news made me far more excited than hesitant. as similar news of other properties I have enjoyed have made me (The Witcher, for example).

Part of why I’m not so hesitant this time around is that the production will be working directly with Neil Druckmann, the game’s creator. That tells me that the show is not likely to go off in crazy directions that utterly negate or disrespect the source material.

This is truly important to me. The story and the characters left such a lasting effect on me.

Read More Read More

Rogue Blades Presents: A Night with Kevin Smith

Rogue Blades Presents: A Night with Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith at The Carolina Theatre in Durham, NC.
Kevin Smith at The Carolina Theatre in Durham, NC.

Kevin Smith likes to talk. A lot. So much so that the most recent parts of his career allow him to talk more and more and more. He’s got a podcast. And a YouTube channel. And he’s spent much of the last decade traveling around giving talks about himself, his career, and most recently about his newest movie.

(As a side note, if you don’t know who Kevin Smith is, then you’re probably not a Gen Xer or a fan of super heroes… probably. Smith makes movies, usually funny movies, or at least that’s what he’s best known for. He’s also done other stuff, like writing, podcasting and owning comic book stores and just doing all kinds of work in movies and television.)

I can’t say I’m the biggest Smith fan in the world, though I’ve enjoyed his movies over the last few decades and I’ve generally found him entertaining when I’ve watched a video of him giving a talk, or a lecture, or whatever it’s called that he does when he’s on a stage running his mouth. Anyway, I recently had the pleasure of seeing Smith live at The Carolina Theatre in Durham, North Carolina. Smith opened with a showing of his newest movie, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, then afterwards he gave the crowded room more than an hour of his time as he answered questions and told stories.

Smith was always the gentleman (though he might not agree with that word to describe himself) and he was always patient with the crowd. His attitude reminded me somewhat of Freddie Mercury, the late lead singer for rock band Queen, in that Smith genuinely seemed to love the audience, loved to interact with the audience, and to entertain the audience — rare qualities, in my opinion.

Read More Read More

Stories That Work: “Log Entry” by Kevin J. Anderson, and “Sweetly the Dragon Dreams” by David Farland

Stories That Work: “Log Entry” by Kevin J. Anderson, and “Sweetly the Dragon Dreams” by David Farland

The War of the Worlds 1953 poster-small When Worlds Collide poster-small This Island Earth poster-small

Space-based science fiction drew me into reading hard when I started. The fact that my dad was an aeronautical engineer who worked at Martin Marietta, designing the first rockets in America’s space program, probably helped. Copies of Sky and Telescope were scattered about the house, and Dad’s amateur astronomy often became a part of dinner conversation. He ground his own mirror for a reflecting telescope he built and mounted in the backyard, and several times he invited my class at the elementary school over for hot chocolate and star gazing.

Tom Corbett, Robert Heinlein’s Space Cadet, and E.E. Doc Smith’s Skylark of Space started my fascination with space travel. When I was young I thought “space fiction” and “science fiction” were interchangeable terms. Hooray for Buck Rogers and Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds, When Worlds Collide, and, especially, This Island Earth.

However, science fiction contains way more than space-based stories even as it continues to tell them in film in Star Wars, The Expanse, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, and others.

Still, what is a reader to do when looking for short, space-based science fiction? Analog almost always features a space story or two, as do the other major magazines. But what if you want to mainline the stuff? What if you just want to strap into a ship and blast to the stars?

What if you want to feed your inner twelve-year-old space jockey?

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News: Classic Horror Fans, We Have a New Home

Goth Chick News: Classic Horror Fans, We Have a New Home

Classic Monsters World-small

Remember when you were a kid, and you had your first epic theme park experience? Maybe it was at one of the Six Flags parks, or even a local attraction like Santa’s Village here outside of Chicago. Or maybe it was one of the Disney parks which for someone under ten would have been utterly mind-blowing. Wherever it was, you probably remember thinking, “I want to live here forever!” having your every sense assaulted, jacked up on too much sugar and endorphins, and grinning until your face hurt.

That was certainly me then. And when I read this news, it’s me now.

I seriously had to check this out through several sources as it seemed too much to get my over-stimulated brain to comprehend.

Universal Studios Orlando is building a new theme park, two miles away from its current property and named Universal’s Epic Universe. It will be made up of four themed ‘lands’; Super Nintendo World, How to Train Your Dragon, Fantastic Beasts, and… and…

CLASSIC MONSTERS.

Read More Read More

Her Master’s Voice: The World of Virtual Idols, Part III

Her Master’s Voice: The World of Virtual Idols, Part III

3A - Hatsune-Miku-Project-Diva-Future-Tone-021617-small

In Part I of this 3-part series, we examined how the concept of the Virtual Idol first emerged in anime during the 1980s. In Part II we looked at how things opened up as we entered the digital age, particularly with the emergence of the whole Vocaloid sub-culture, and its popular software.

It’s no surprise that after the tremendous success of Hatsune Miku and her immediate follow-ups there has been a wave of newer virtual singers hitting the scene. Some have been in the form of additional voicebanks (with their own related character avatars) in directly Vocaloid-related products, often developed by partner companies, and sometimes they arise from separate yet similar voice-synthesizers.

The most significant of these competing programs would be the UTAU shareware, with their singer characters also being known as UTAU (or UTAUloids, unofficially). There are a few factors that have increased its popularity, not the least of which is that it can be downloaded free of charge! Although it comes with one starting voice named Uta Utane (more often called by her nickname ‘Defoko’) — who sounds a bit rudimentary, in comparison to the Vocaloids — users can also create their own singer voices, and make them freely available to others.

Read More Read More

Let’s Go Questing!

Let’s Go Questing!

The Quest Banner

Good morning, Readers!

I think it’s fairly evident by now, after one year of writing for this eZine, that I am a gigantic dork. I have come to terms with this, accepted it, learnt to love it, even.

So it is entirely without shame that I proclaim how deeply in love with the show The Quest I fell when it aired some five years ago. Four? Hang on, let me check. I was right the first time. Five years ago.  Holy mackerel. Five years ago. When the season ended I was, along with a small, but dedicated group of fans (waves vigorously at The Quest Army (also, despite being a huge fan of the show, I only discovered The Quest Army last year, and I’ve never been happier than knowing that these wonderful folks exist)), eagerly waiting for news of another season. That news never came. And so, we gathered in our small corners of the internet, writing letters, begging for news, hoping against hope.

Well, not three weeks ago, our hoping, writing and begging paid off.

The Quest is finally, five years later, getting its second season.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m fairly sure that at least half of you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.

Read More Read More

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: The 1973 Ditmar Award for Best Dramatic Presentation: Aussie Fan, directed by John Litchen

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: The 1973 Ditmar Award for Best Dramatic Presentation: Aussie Fan, directed by John Litchen

John Litchen in Tahiti 1964-small

John Litchen in Tahiti, 1964

My previous article about the 1973 Ditmars covered the winner for Best Australian Fiction, “Let it Ring!”, by “John Ossian.” That story was written in part in support of the bid for an Australian Worldcon to be held in Melbourne in 1975. That bid was eventually successful.

I was surprised to see that “Let it Ring!” beat out three novels for its award, and I was likewise surprised to see that an obscure movie called Aussie Fan beat out A Clockwork Orange, Slaughterhouse Five, and Tales from the Crypt for the Dramatic Presentation Ditmar. So of course I turned to the experts, people who were in fandom back then, and who know where the bodies are buried.

The great Australian fan (and Ditmar winner on his own) Bruce Gillespie had the answer:

The ‘Aussiefan film’ that won the Best Dramatic Presentation would have been unmissable by anybody attending American SF conventions in 1972 and 1973. John Litchen in Melbourne produced and directed what is essentially a humorous home movie in order to promote the Australia in 75 bid. It ‘stars’ quite a few members of Melbourne fandom, with Paul Stevens as the wascally ‘Anti-fan’ who is determined to wipe out the members of the Aussiecon committee. Malcolm Hunt, who portrays the heroic Aussiefan, disappeared from fandom after his starring role. The film arrived at LACon in 1972, and Jack Chalker (long before he began his writing career) criss-crossed the country, attending a convention almost every weekend from then until Torcon II in 1973, showing the film continually. It was probably the main reason why our bid in 1973 at Torcon was assured before I and about twenty other Australian fans did the presentation (led by Roger Zelazny on the platform) and won the day.

Minnesota-based fan Denny Lien added some details about the reception of Aussie Fan in the US.

Read More Read More

Her Master’s Voice: The World of Virtual Idols, Part II

Her Master’s Voice: The World of Virtual Idols, Part II

2A - Hatsune_Miku_a001_feature_prm

In Part I of this 3-part series, we looked at how the concept of the Virtual Idol first emerged in anime during the 1980s, featuring some of the more popular storylines and prominent idols to make an appearance in this genre, a phenomenon which could be seen as the precursor to an eventual reality where technology would let them enter our lives more directly. This is the reality that unfolds before us now!

As we enter the digital age, the possibilities open up considerably. Idols can go beyond just appearing in a futuristic context — and actually manifest as creations on our own computers!! The giant leap forward comes with the arrival of a line of software products called Vocaloids. Created by Crypton Future Media, and using technology developed by musical equipment giant Yamaha, a Vocaloid is a type of speech synthesis program which converts words and melodies designated by the user into an electronic singing voice.

There are some parameters for tweaking the sound, but for the most part each version of the program is based on one specific voice, and is tied to a related character avatar representing the singer. The first two major entries in the series featured a female singer named Meiko, along with her male counterpart Kaito. They remained somewhat obscure for most people though, at least in the beginning. It was the next entry, the first in the newer ‘Vocaloid2’ line, who was to become the star that would launch a massive cultural revolution in Japanese music — the virtual idol known as Hatsune Miku!!

Read More Read More