Just read Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002), which I often hear hailed as his best novel. I don’t know — I think the premise is good, while the execution leaves something to be desired. This is especially apparent when compared with Henry Selick’s excellent film version from earlier this year, which improves quite considerably upon the…
“the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth” — Paul Krugman The picks of the week from around the web. Busy times, but this week I’ve had a little time to poke around the web. Here’s what rose to the top. The New York Times:…
The picks of the week from around the web. The New York Times: “The Making of an Iran Policy”. Roger Cohen on the Obama administration’s Iran policy, its major players and the challenges they face. A fascinating look behind the scenes by an informed observer. Writings of Perry Anderson. I was only vaguely aware of…
Lars von Trier’s Antichrist is, at one and the same time, amongst his subtler works and one of the most blunt and, frankly, simplistic. It’s his first movie since Europa (1991) in which the artifice of the cinematic image is explored for illusionistic effect, but that film was simultaneously emphatically Brechtian with its jarring, intellectual…
I owe Michael Jackson a huge debt. In many ways, he gave me a music I could call my own. Thriller hit at just the right moment for me, opening a musical path different from that of my parents. Youngsters were already popping and locking on the corners around my neighbourhood and tags were being…
The picks of the week from around the web. New York Times: Errol Morris — “Bamboozling Ourselves”. Famously, the picture above was sold to Göring as a Vermeer at an astronomical sum in 1943. Hard as it is to believe, it had prominent experts fooled. Read the story behind one of the most high-profile fine…
The picks of the week from around the web. Frank Rich: “The American Press on Suicide Watch”. Rich cuts to the chase in this piece on what seems increasingly to be imminent demise of print journalism. Donald Richie on Japanese cinema. Great on-stage interview with the gaijin dean of Japanese cultural studies, with special focus…
Just watched the three-parter that marked the return of British SF-comedy sitcom Red Dwarf after ten years in the movie development wilderness, which ran on the digital network Dave TV over Easter. I had absolutely no expectations for this — the last two seasons of the show, VII (1997) and VIII (1999), had been rather…
“The White House knew he’d been tortured. I didn’t, though I was supposed to be evaluating that intelligence… It seems to me they were using torture to achieve a political objective. I cannot believe that the president and vice president did not know who was being waterboarded, and what was being given up.” — Former…
The picks of the week from around the web. Big Numbers #3, by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz (assisted, infamously, by Al Colombia). (Everyone’s posted this, but what the heck). Bits and pieces of it have been flowing around for years, but finally Pádraig Ó Méalóid has assembled the whole story and put it online.…
Det er med stor sorg, at Metabunkerens redaktion erfarer, at den mangeårige tegneserie- og populærkulturformidler, samt tegneserieforfatter, Kristoffer Mogensen er død. Jeg selv mødte ham desværre kun en enkelt eller to gange, men husker ham som et ualmindeligt venligt og imødekommende menneske. Han var måske den første person jeg ikke kendte, som viste interesse for…
The first thing I remember hearing director Zack Snyder say about his film version of Watchmen — at that time still in the works — was that that they were going to change the Nite Owl character’s costume to make it ‘cooler.’ That seemed to me pretty much to say all about his take on…
Your picks of the week this week will be all Watchmen. Just in case you’re not already fed up. (Sorry!) Reviews of the film. I basically read two stand-out reviews: A. O. Scott’s for the New York Times and Tom Spurgeon’s at the Comics Reporter. For a really asinine and ill-informed one, check out Anthony…
For our Danish readers. This coming Tuesday and Wednesday will see a number of shortfilm screenings under the Future Shorts umbrella at Gloria, City Hall Square, Copenhagen. The programme includes works by such greats as Kaige Chen and Abbas Kiarostami, acting as locomotives for a bunch of films by emerging directors, one of which is…
Lars Bukdahl har fået fingrene i T. Thorhauges seneste tegneserie Jørgen Leth. Som afslutning på en karakteristisk pikaresk om Leths genfundne popularitet, giver han den følgende ord med på vejen: “Sidste værk i bunken af Lethiana er T. Thorhauges lillebitte, virtuost tegnede og karikerede hæfte Jørgen Leth, hvor tegneseriefiguren Leth, mens han fremsiger blanke visdomsord…