February 2012
8 posts
“It doesn’t affect me because I look at the internet as the new radio. I...”
– Neil Young on music and Steve Jobs: ‘piracy is the new radio’ | The Verge
WatchPsychedelic doom.
WatchStoner doom.
WatchIntense sludge doom.
January 2012
22 posts
WatchTreat your ears right. Listen to this album.
5 tags
New publication
My article ”Body Refractions” which has just been published over at Academic Quarter examines Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and the notions of character identification and bodily transformation, arguing that the digital morphing of Black Swan suggests a different relation to the cinematic image, one which can only be understood in terms of affect rather than representation. It can be...
“I recently had two go-arounds with OUP for handbooks. In both cases, I felt a...”
– Work for Hire and Oxford University Press / Another reason to boycot Oxford University Press.
1 tag
“In other words, OUP is being quite systematic in usurping authors’ rights. If we...”
– Work for Hire update « The Pinocchio Theory / I also support the boycot of Oxford University Press.
WatchTreat your ears right. Listen to this track.
3 tags
Why SOPA is a bad idea
William Gibson's Future Is Now →
Distrust That Particular Flavor - By William Gibson - Book Review - NYTimes.com
2 tags
1 tag
“But actually the New York without the television is more mysterious, because...”
– Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 211, William Gibson
Social Text: Periscope: Socialist Irrealism: an... →
Insightful as always.
December 2011
12 posts
WatchTreat your ears right. Listen to this album.
7 tags
Dream House (Jim Sheridan 2011)
Yet another ghost film about the instability and insecurity of our homes; although not a haunted house tale in the traditional sense, Dream House engages with a number of conventions and tropes, if only to play around with them. What sticks out the most for me, is the significance of the house and Will Atenton’s (Daniel Craig) relationship to it. It is a new house recently purchased by the...
5 tags
Ever Since the World Ended (Calum Grant & Joshua...
A fake documentary about survivors after the world ended. I hesitate calling it a mockumentary, since for me that suggests that the documentary format is parodied or mocked in some way, which it is not here. Instead, the documentary style is used to great effect to suggest the hopelessness and bleak outlook for life after a virus has devastated the world. Beautiful images of an abandoned San...
4 tags
The Thing (Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. 2011)
A prequel/remake of a remake but supposedly based directly on the short story “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, Jr., this film tries hard to reach the heights of paranoia which John Carpenter’s 1982 version reached, but never truly gets there. While the effects are obviously better than in Carpenter’s film, the attempted recycling of mood never takes off because the...
2 tags
Bag of Bones (Mike Garris 2011)
As a ghost story, Bag of Bones differs from many of the recently made ghost stories such as Paranormal Activity or American Horror Story (Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk 2011) in the way that Bag of Bones is a classic ghost story, where the ghosts are sites of memory and index of past traumas and crimes. While Sara Tidwell (the main ghost) is out for revenge, she has to mainly act through...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-11) →
Massive Attack (62)
Illdisposed (48)
Burial (35)
Russian Circles (25)
The Raconteurs (24)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
November 2011
10 posts
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-11-27) →
Otis Redding (94)
My Dying Bride (51)
Queens Of The Stone Age (22)
Motörhead (17)
Novembers Doom (14)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
4 tags
The Butterfly Effect 2
A less than stellar follow-up to the original, this film does take seriously the premise of the original’s director’s cut, if nothing else. An interesting story but the execution - from acting, directing to camerawork - fails to live up to the original film.
5 tags
Paranormal Activity 2
Much more successful than the first one, this prequel actually succeeds in being scary. The pacing is much better and the characters much more interesting, creating a narrative which is far more engaging. The scares also work better and the primary use of surveillance cameras means that we do not have to worry about the shaky-cam of the first film. Paranormal Activity 2 makes me think of a quote...
3 tags
Dead Silence
A reasonably successful horror thriller about ventriloquist dummies, with an interesting combination of ghost and dummy. The acting, especially by Ryan Kwanten, does drag the film down somewhat, though.
Steen Ledet Christiansen - Google Scholar... →
I now have a Google Scholar Citations profile, which shows the immense citational impact of my research.
Scope | Issue 21| Book Reviews →
My first review for Scope on Hollywood cinema.