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.)

[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.

[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.

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.