Etain's Her Name, My Latest Flame

[handful_ofdust]

From the department of Stuff I’m Waiting For: Neil Marshall’s Centurion trailer is up, finally, here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiQCofKrYAI) and here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zba6lg1Z9Y). I’ve already heard people decrying the fact that it’s told from the Roman POV—ooh, the Romans, those raping, murdering colonizers! Well…yeah. ‘Cause it’s a fucking Western, basically, except for the fact that it’s set in Scotland. Maybe someday someone will write and film a Western from the colonized POV, but no, hasn’t happened yet. Meanwhile, I can still enjoy a good Rorke’s Drift narrative when I see it, especially when it involves Olga Kuryalenko cutting dudes’ heads off.

Points, BTW, to the moron commenting, on the second one: I AM A SOLDIER OF ROME…AND I SPEAK PERFECT ENGLISH! Because if you genuinely can’t figure out that they’re using accent to denote linguistic/cultural distinction…yeah, whatever. Jesus, people are tedious.

Meanwhile, there’s also Devil, the Dowdle Brothers’ next film—yes, it’s being pimped as involving the currently leprous hand of M. Night Shyamalan, but if you’re going to be a turd about it, just don’t click (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUrUlnLOzlE). I will merely confine myself to remarking that A) he’s idea-generator/co-writer/producer, nothing more and B) it’s really cool to see Los Bros Dowdle attempt something done with such faux-Hitchcock/-Spielberg classicism, as opposed to yet another shot-on-video gem (their most famous previous outings were The Poughkeepsie Tapes and Quarrantine). One way or the other, this looks really fascinating—it seems to combine haunted house/possession tropes with the truly enclosed space of a stalled elevator, though there are enough perspective breaks to open it up without dissolving the tension. Reminds me just a tad of Vincenzo Natali’s first short film, Elevated, which I sometimes used to play in two separate classes per semester; ah, memories.;)

Oh, and in answer to readingthedark’s question of Saturday night: The smallest, most obscure formative fandom I was ever in—a fandom of one, basically—was for Samuel R. Delaney’s graphic novel Empire, which was a huge influence on my first truncated attempts at space opera. It came between Star Wars and Battle of the Planets, and (along with reading hot-mess “adult” weirdness like Creatures of Light and Darkness by Zelazney and Thorns by Robert Silverberg) really did a lot to break me out of the generalized tropes of mainstream media SF. Too bad I figured out pretty quick after that that horror was really where it was at, for me…

Comments

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

I've thought about this too and I think Star Wars and then Clive Barker (age 11 or so, I was dementedly precocious) were the first obsessive interests, followed by D&D, but I've started considering that part of what defines fandom is a sense of community. Despite how odd it would sound to some, that would mean that Wicca was my first fandom. (PS - I've read Empire.)

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's certainly true...community's a good third of the experience. But the thing is, I didn't really meet any other "fans" per se until I was maybe 13 or 14, and while that was certainly exciting, they didn't actually share any of my personal enthusiasms. I remember turning up at somebody's party having just come from seeing Highlander for the first time and wibbling on about it, while everyone around me was talking serious adult talk about Harlan Ellison.

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

The Internet helped link all the little fandoms. Now the wibbling can reach the like-minded with far more signal to the noise. I also agree that someone should have a serious adult talk with Harlan Ellison. Oh, wait...

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I just watched the Devil trailer. It actually looks pretty good. People are definitely being whiny about Shyamalan's involvement, though. Like "extremely poor choice of director." OK. I would like to see Poughkeepsie Tapes sometime.

Also, Neil Marshall is a BAMF of a director, even though I don't particularly want to watch another movie about action-hero Romans.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

These Romans strike me as less action heroes than professional soldiers stuck in a "oh fuck, we went to Vietnam, except we don't know why that's significant"-type situation. Rosemary Sutcliffe Romans, or maybe even Alan Garner Romans like in Red Shift...I wonder if any of them are actually Romano-Britons?

As for Devil, like I said, he isn't the damn director. If people can't be arsed to Google before they post (or even watch the credits, which do come up right at the end), then I'm not sure why I should care.

(Not talking about you here, obviously. I'm just over-extended and annoyed in general.;))

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly they are Romano-Britons. I'm sure there will be some aspect of "blurred boundaries" a la Gladiator. Slightly OT, but I've been on a serious supernatural horror in wartime binge lately (I just watched Below and R-Point) - do you have anything to rec, by any chance?

Ahaha, no, I know. These people probably didn't even watch the trailer, y'know. Like "article mentions Shyamalan, must destroy!" Even after watching Airbender I still don't think he's like OMG awful, especially because I feel like at least he tries, most of the time. Besides, I love The Sixth Sense and Signs too much. There was a time when he was one of my favorite directors!

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Below and R-Point are great! Other supernatural horror during wartime I've also liked includes:

Deathwatch, set during the First World War, with Andy Serkis as a complete lunatic in a sheepskin vest who scalps German soldiers and Jamie Bell as the well-meaning but way-too-young protag. Like R-Point, it all gets a bit metaphorical near the end, but you can't beat a haunted friggin' trench...

Or can you? Fast-forward to World War II, with The Bunker, whose similarly wonderful cast of Brits (including Jack Davenport and Jason Flemyng) here plays for the other team, as kill-weary Wehrmachters caught between the advancing U.S. forces and their own crazy, about-to-be-overrun bosses. The titular Bunker is located in the Black Forest, on top of a massive plague-pit; nothing good can come of this, you might think. And indeed, nothing does.;)

Then there's Outpost, ostensibly rooted in the here-and-now, which nevertheless involves a group of mercenaries (led by Titus Pullo himself, Ray Stevenson) who get tricked into trying to repossess a piece of Nazi pseudo-tech obviously based on die Glocke, their infamous phase-shifting machine, research into which was thankfully thrown off by the detonation of the Atom Bomb.

And finally, there's Red Sands, by same dudes who did Dead Birds (which itself takes place during the Civil War, even though it's mainly a Lovecraftian shunned-house tale, so check that one out, too): A bunch of U.S. grunts in Afghanistan who've already been dumb enough to deface a local statue meant to represent a djinn take refuge in a bombed-out house, and receive a visit from a mysterious veiled woman who speaks no English...

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I knew you wouldn't let me down! Thanks!

dumb enough to deface a local statue meant to represent a djinn take refuge in a bombed-out house

Man, this must be some kind of Last House on the Left version of horror stupidity. If you're going to do something terrible and/or stupid - for God's sake, take shelter in your own place.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know if it's so much supernatural horror as more science fiction, but there's a movie called The Objective by the writer and director of the Blair Witch Project. American soldiers are trying to find a religious figure that could help turn the populace against the Taliban, whilst investigating a radioactive heat signal that's been picked up on surveillance photos. I haven't seen it myself, so I apologise if it's not very good, but it does look interesting.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I've wanted to see that for quite some time myself! I don't know if they ever got any sort of distribution deal, but it does sound really interesting, potentially.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing about/watching the trailer for that movie, and I remember thinking the same. Then I never heard anything about it again.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

IIRC, they're pretty far in-country and get cut off by a sandstorm, so...but yeah, it's death warrant time!

[(Anonymous)]

If you get to see it, please let me know what you think.

- jackal_lies

[autobotsrollout.livejournal.com]

Maybe someday someone will write and film a Western from the colonized POV

Uh, Dances With Wolves? White-guy lead aside, that's pretty much what it is.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. But most people--though not smart ones like you or I--would tend to dismiss it because of the white-guy lead, and I've yet to see one which completely dispensed with that trope.

Bibliography and Next Collection

[(Anonymous)]

Allo Gemma,

With so many uncollected stories, is there any chance of your posting a bibliography here or elsewhere? Or is it possible that I have overlooked one somewhere on the wilds of the net? Additionally, since your first two collections were essentially babes left in the woods by Prime, any chance of including the best work of those collections with the next? A collection with "each ting i show you is a piece of my death, The Jacaranda Smile, Spectral Evidence, Kissing Carrion, The Emperor's Old Bones, Maya Nox," et al -- would be a very strong collection indeed.

Re: Bibliography and Next Collection

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I don't want to go hugely into it until it's finalized, but I'm currently discussing the possibility of A) two new collections with two different venues and B) the idea of republishing both my previous collections, which have very securely reverted to me in terms of rights. This would certainly solve the problem of "But where do I find your earlier stuff?", as well as putting most of the things I've written since The Worm in Every Heart together in (two) place(s).

A bibliography would be a smart idea, though, absolutely. And I may seek permission to perhaps put one or two more of the very recent-yet-obscure-indeed offerings up on my pro-archive, Dark is Better; I've already done that for "Heart's Hole", "Dead Voices on Air", "Jack-Knife" and (of course) "The Emperor's Old Bones".