Pulp International: retro popular culture and graphic novel illustration
"Yes, fifteen years ago it was. We were kids who didn't know squat about print publishing and now we're older and we don't know squat about web publishing. But we hope Pulp International manages to entertain. It's a bit different from our old Pulp, but it's similar in many ways too. We'll be looking for pulp everywhere - certainly in the usual places, like books and magazines, but also in music and art. For that matter, we'll also be looking for pulp events - that is, real-world crimes with a touch of deceit or corruption. And lastly, we'll be posting images from blaxploitation, sexploitation, noir, horror, sci-fi and psychedelia films, because these too seem like pulp. At least to us. So there you go. Nothing is permanent, and this site won't be either, but as long as it’s fun, and you enjoy it, we’ll be here."
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Minister of Chance: a crowdfunded audio science fiction series
"The Minister of Chance is an audio Science Fiction Fantasy series in the tradition of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and the best in radiophonics. It's free, and you get it by subscribing to the podcast.
The series is entirely funded by its listeners. We have very small budgets, and absolutely no money for publicity - which is why you haven't heard about it til now. You can help by telling everyone you know on Twitter, Facebook, your blog, any Sci-Fi or fantasy sites, reviewers you know, your mum...."
(Clare Eden, MoC Executive Producer)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Loom: Blade Runner style 4K short film by Luke Scott
"He is an acclaimed commercial director who has pushed through his work to step out of the shadow of his father, Ridley Scott. And now Luke Scott is transcending boundaries in video technology with a visually-arresting 20-minute short film, Loom. Shot in coordination with RED Camera, the sci-fi short features Giovanni Ribisi and Jellybean Howie, although cinematographer Dariusz Wolski just might be its star.
The film follows Ribisi's character Tommy - a lab tech who genetically modifies meat and begins a dangerous at-home experiment he struggles to perfect. It ends with a monologue taken from the conclusion of Darwin's Origin of Species, leaving many of the story's questions left unanswered. 'There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved,' says Howie's character.
Visually, Scott - who directs for his father's production company RSA - gives nod to the filmmaker's 1982 classic Blade Runner, shooting the piece in the tone and style of the dystopian thriller. Constructed for 3D, the piece was crafted to test the limits of the colour range and exposure, allowing viewers to see fine details often lost in dark scenes.
RED initially presented Loom at the 2012 National Association of Broadcasters [NAB] Show this past April. The company has since continued to screen the film, and on Wednesday President Jarred Land released it online via REDUSER, with a disclaimer for cinephiles."
(Jennifer Madison, 31 August 2012, Mail Online)
Fig. 1 published on 28 Aug 2012 by ENTV, YouTube
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Cyberpunk: the future has already happened
"Cyberpunk' is a 60-minute documentary, the ad for which states: 'What started as a book became a literary movement. What was a literary movement became a subculture'.
And that's one of the major flaws of this film. It perpetuates the general myth that everything 'cyberpunk' expanded out of 'Neuromancer' and Gibson's vision. In truth, most of the stuff covered here (virtual reality, hacking, industrial music, cybernetics, designer drugs, anarchy) was already developing quite nicely before Lord Gibson, Chairman Bruce, and the rest (Shirley, Rucker, Shiner) were kind enough to provide a fictional universe in which to fuse these disparate explorations.
The production of 'Cyberpunk' is very inconsistent, too -- some parts are professional documentary, while other parts have the odor of quick-cash opportunism. The breathy women narrator is ultimately aggravating, oh-ing and ah-ing over all this stuff.
But there is some good material here, including interviews with Gibson, Leary, Scott Fisher (of NASA/Ames), Brenda Laurel, Vernon Reed (Living Color), Bill Leeb (Front Line Assembly) and others. There's also some cool computer graphics (circa 1989) and an industrial soundtrack with Front Line Assembly, Ministry, and Severed Heads.
'Cyberpunk' is still a must-see since it's the only documentary about cyberpunk that we have."
(G. Branwyn)
Fig.1 Produced and Directed by Marianne Trench and Peter von Brandenberg, Intercon Productions, 1990.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Six Million Dollar Man: the evolution of an iconic title sequence
"The Six Million Dollar Man started off as a novel by [Martin Caidin] called Cyborg, but over the course of its development from book to movie to TV show, it not only changed name, it changed tone.
The book is essentially a thriller that tries to ground itself in reality as much as possible to make Steve Austin a super-spy. Sure he has a bionics left arm (yes, bionics in the book, not bionic), bionics legs and bionics eye. But he can't feel anything in his bionics limbs and his bionics eye won't let him see, only take pictures. And sure, he's very strong, but when he kicks a golf ball, that bionics toe of his still gets crushed by the impact.
It was bionics, but still tried to be relatively aware of the laws of physics and what was practical."
(The Medium is Not Enough TV blog, 9 July 2010)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
