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Post by redbrain on Jan 1, 2008 15:31:47 GMT
Best reads of the year, assorted and in no particular order... Moomin Midwinter... Oh, wow, just one of my favourite books!  The former Mrs Brain loved Moomin, and introduced me to the books. I've had it vaguely in mind to try to locate them. I seem to recall that the Midwinter one was especially good. |
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Post by Calenture on Jan 1, 2008 16:00:08 GMT
The former Mrs Brain loved Moomin, and introduced me to the books. I've had it vaguely in mind to try to locate them. I seem to recall that the Midwinter one was especially good. are excellent, as is Tales From Moominvalley (which is a collection of short stories). The only one I must reserve recommendations for is Comet in Moominland, which I suspect was written for younger readers!  (I think this might also be true of Moomin, Mymble and Little My, though I haven't read that one). Tove Jansson's The Summer Book is probably semi-autobiographical, the story of a little girl and an old lady on an island. This one's been described as "life-changing" (or possibly "life-enhancing"), probably in the TLS. Tove Jansson is one of those writers whose writing has a genuinely addictive quality. |
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Post by bradstevens on Jan 1, 2008 16:57:29 GMT
Event of the year was the Oldenburg Film Festival, where I was on the jury. Also enjoyed meeting several BHAH members at Zardoz.
Books of the year. This was the year I caught up with Dostoyevsky and Anne Rice, and discovered that they had a surprising amount in common. Of the newer books I read, Ray Bradbury's FAREWELL SUMMER (a sequel to DANDELION WINE) was a definite highlight: a typical 'late work', in that its language is so stripped down, so reduced to essentials, that it appears almost universal; yet, at the same time, it's virtually impossible to conceive of this novel being comprehensible to anyone except hardcore Bradbury fans.
For me, the publishing event of the year was the first ever appearance of Philip K. Dick's early novel VOICES FROM THE STREET (though I'm still waiting for my copy of this to arrive).
Films of the year were Monte Hellman's STANLEY'S GIRLFRIEND (an episode of the portmanteau film TRAPPED ASHES) and Abel Ferrara's GO GO TALES, neither of which has a UK distributor. Noteworthy horror films seen in 2007 include David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE, Jim Van Bebber's THE MANSON FAMILY, Christina Kinne's MISS LUCIFER!, Douglas Buck's FAMILY PORTRAITS: A TRILOGY OF AMERICA, Jean Rollin's LOST IN NEW YORK, Takashi Miike's IZO, Neil LaBute's underrated THE WICKER MAN (a film which only makes sense when seen as part of LaBute's body of work), Joe Dante's THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION (an episode of MASTERS OF HORROR), Tobe Hooper's MAUSOLEUM and Dario Argento's DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK?
Find of the year was a Dutch DVD of THE SWAP that I picked up for £2 in a local store. This turned out not to contain THE SWAP at all, but rather Jordan Leondopoulos' SAM'S SONG (1969), the famous 'lost' film starring a young Robert De Niro which had been withdrawn from circulation when 20 minutes of footage from it was used as flashbacks in John C Broderick's THE SWAP (1979).
On the professional front, I had the honour of being asked to record commentary tracks for DVDs of Murnau's NOSFERATU and TABU, and contribute entries to Chris Fujiwara's THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK: MOVIES.
Saddest event of the year was the loss of both Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni within a single 24 hour period.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jan 4, 2008 13:28:51 GMT
Neil LaBute's underrated THE WICKER MAN (a film which only makes sense when seen as part of LaBute's body of work), I'm intrigued Brad. Would you care to expand on that? |
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 4, 2008 15:09:58 GMT
Best books read in 2007?
Predictably, but honestly, "The Black Book of Horror". A great mix of styles and subjects, just as an anthology should be.
Stephen Volk's "Dark Corners", particularly his tales of the paranormal investigator, Venables.
Christopher Fowler's Bryant & May mysteries. Only read a couple of them but looking forward to cracking on with the rest.
Edmund Crispin's "The Case of the Gilded Fly", fun murder mystery with a Jamesian tale thrown in halfway through.
Chris Priestley's "Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror"
"Tragically, I Was An Only Twin – The Complete Peter Cook"
Favourite finds of the year?
Has to be the 27 issues of "Ghosts & Scholars" in one go from eBay in January. I've still got a lot of reading left there.
Attend any decent events? Any rubbish ones?
I rarely get out of Dundee, so, besides a splendid day meeting some of the lads and lasses from the BHF Board in Edinburgh, nothing.
Best magazines, small press, e-zines, etc of 2007?
Apart from "Filthy Creations" and "The Ghosts & Scholars Newsletter", both of which I love, I haven't really seen much else in this area. "Shivers", which I used to buy regularly, mutated into something unrecognisable.
Anything worthwhile on TV or at the cinema?
Last year, I have mostly enjoyed "Doctor Who", some of "Torchwood", "Primeval", bits of "Jekyll" (mainly the bits with Michelle Ryan in), "Heroes" and "Life On Mars".
I don't get to the cinema much. Mainly because of the other people who will be there specifically to annoy ME!
Get hold of any good DVD's?
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in "Behind the Fridge", imported from Australia.
Cook again in "The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer".
"Beyond The Fringe", imported from the USA. (I suspect I may have been in a bit of a Peter Cook phase recently.)
"Doctor Who – The Key to Time" boxset, mainly for the inclusion of "Late Night Story", but some great stories and extras.
"Brian Clemens' Thriller" the Complete Series boxset. Sometimes silly, sometimes scary, always hugely entertaining.
"Cribb" Alan Dobie as Peter Lovesey's Victorian detective. Terrific fun.
Sites, forums, blogs, etc?
Here, the BHF and G&S, mainly.
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Post by andydecker on Jan 4, 2008 20:13:52 GMT
Lurker!
Ghost and Scholars are insofar known to me that Karl Edward Wagner always had a story in his DAW Anthology. And I seem to remember reading somewhere that it isnt published any longer.
Was it a regular magazine or a real fanzine? What did they do except short stories?
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 4, 2008 22:06:37 GMT
Hi, Andy, Ghosts & Scholars was a small press magazine, A5 size with card covers, that ran to 33 issues between 1979 and 2001. It started as a one-off, featuring stories in the Jamesian tradition, but the founder and editor, Rosemary Pardoe, found she had enough material for a second issue and it then led to an annual publication which later became twice-yearly. It featured mainly new stories in the Jamesian mold, features on MRJ, his contemporaries and other writers in the tradition, book, film and TV reviews, etc. It also published various forgotten stories by MRJ himself as well as fragments of his uncompleted tales. After the original magazine folded, Rosemary has continued to publish a twice-yearly "Ghosts & Scholars M.R. James Newsletter". This doesn't feature any fiction and is focussed mainly on articles and reviews centred on MRJ's life and works. There is an excellent Ghosts & Scholars website, though technical problems mean that it hasn't been updated in a few months. It does have a large archive of material that featured in both the original magazine and the Newsletter. It can be found at; www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/GS.htmlThere is also a thread on G&S and other publications from Rosemary's Haunted Library imprint in the Small Press, Fanzines and E-Zines section on this forum, with information on the contents of various issues (and where I hope to add more soon on the issues I've managed to get hold of). vaultofevil.proboards75.com/index.cgi?board=gandsCheers, Lurker |
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Post by sean on Jan 5, 2008 13:37:12 GMT
Best books read in 2007? Get hold of any good DVD's? Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in "Behind the Fridge", imported from Australia. Ah, that should have the wonderful taxi scetch on it...superb. I wish they'd been able to do more stuff as dark as that! |
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Post by bradstevens on Jan 5, 2008 13:42:36 GMT
Neil LaBute's underrated THE WICKER MAN (a film which only makes sense when seen as part of LaBute's body of work), I'm intrigued Brad. Would you care to expand on that? LaBute has always been obsessed with the 'war' between men and women. In his first film, IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, two men decide to humiliate a deaf woman as their way of taking revenge on womankind. In THE SHAPE OF THINGS, a woman sets out to seduce and manipulate a man as part of a conceptual art project. The film can thus be seen as the flip side of IN THE COMPANY OF MEN. In THE WICKER MAN, the single vengeful female becomes an entire island run by a matriarchy which has reduced men to the role of servants, and collectively undertakes to destroy the male protagonist (Nicholas Cage's character). It's as if the gender war with which LaBute tends to be concerned has shifted onto a wider (virtually apocalyptic) stage; the final scene in which Cage screams "Bitches!" at the women who are burning him has tremendous resonance for the student of LaBute's work - the deaf woman from IN THE COMPANY OF MEN has now been well and truly avenged. |
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jan 5, 2008 22:42:16 GMT
Many thanks for that Brad. I'm unfamiliar with LaBute's ouevre. I've heard him described as a misogynist. People who admired his earlier work have been unimpressed by The Wicker Man, but then it does carry rather a lot of baggage.
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Post by andydecker on Jan 6, 2008 17:23:39 GMT
@ Lurker
Thanks for the info! Appreciated.
Andy
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 7, 2008 19:21:12 GMT
Best books read in 2007? Get hold of any good DVD's? Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in "Behind the Fridge", imported from Australia. Ah, that should have the wonderful taxi scetch on it...superb. I wish they'd been able to do more stuff as dark as that! The Taxi Sketch isn't on this one, as the Australian "Behind the Fridge" show predates the UK one and I think it was written for the UK version. It is in the BBC production "Excerpts from Behind the Fridge", which I've also seen recently. You're right, though, it is a wonderfully dark and worrying sketch, with a nice touch of "Dr Strangelove" in Cook's single black glove. That said, there are still some brilliant sketches in the Australian version that I'd never encountered before. But talking of Peter cook has reminded me of one of my other happy finds of last year. I got a handful of back issues of "Publish & Bedazzled", the Peter Cook "fagazine" from eBay and, in one issue, Ramsey Campbell introduces "Bric-a-Brac", a short horror story Cook wrote when he was 17. It's a splendid little story about a girl hired by a rather odd couple to babysit for their infant in the nursery above their creepy old shop. As Campbell says, it becomes easy to imagine a world where Cook went on to become one of our foremost horror authors. |
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Post by sean on Jan 9, 2008 11:38:23 GMT
Sounds like an interesting story. I can sort-of imagine PC writing, if he could have settled to it without getting bored... With all the script books etc that have come out in the last few years, maybe it'll find a more permanent home one day. And if anyone has a few mins they need to kill, the taxi sketch is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLvPNVQXia0 |
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