Culture

Remember that huge Straight Dope thread a year or so ago in which countless people rewrote Lord of the Rings in another author’s voice? Now it’s been collated (original). Imperfect but amusing.

Worthy of note: Kip Manley’s City of Roses kicked off today. If you don’t recall, it’s a piece of “urbane fantasy” (his coinage as far as I know, and a lovely one) provided to us with webcomic pacing but not in webcomic form. I.e., we’ll get a piece of it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and it’s text, not pictures. Eloquent text. The setting is Portland. The magic is indeterminate. I expect it to be very good, because Kip can write.

According to DVDfile.com, Sapphire and Steel is about to see a DVD release. Sadly, I can’t find a press release on the topic, just the one mention. Still excellent news; this is some of the best of freaky BBC ATV science fiction. (Thanks to Adam Tinworth for correcting my lame knowledge of British TV.) (TINWORTH. No excuse except being up till 2 AM last night watching the baseball playoffs.)

Despite it being an LiveJournal thing, I find myself saying why not? Thusly: Your meme, should you choose to accept it, is to rank the following bands in order, from COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT to COULDN’T CARE LESS. To add value to this process, you must also add one band to the list, and remove one band from the list, before passing the meme on (including these instructions). David Bowie Bob Mould REM ...

Underworld did very impressive numbers at the box office this weekend, bringing in $22 million. That’s about a million bucks under what it cost to make it, which means it’s going to be a solid moneymaker. Expect Underworld 2 sometime in the next couple of years.

Half of me wonders if Mark Millar’s latest column isn’t a prank. But — Orson Wells as Batman (original)? In 1946? Millar mentions a Lionel Hutton as the source of the news, and there’s no trace of any Lionel Hutton on the Web. I’m thinking the column is a prank. But, hey; it’s a glorious concept, and I’ll dream of Dietrich as Catwoman tonight. (And Cagney as the Riddler. Yum.)

The Kill Bill watch continues with this review from John Tynes. He says it rocks, with incredible fight scenes, but it’s crippled by the decision to split it into two parts. He also says, quote: Speaking of executed, the film features more severings of hands, feet, arms, legs, and heads than I have perhaps ever seen in a film before. Kill Bill is all about the delirious geysers of blood. Bold statement from a man who, I believe, has seen Takeshi Miike movies.

The Movie Box has copies of the two new Kill Bill trailers (from the soundtrack CD). Not any spoilers we didn’t see in the first couple of trailers, lots of cool stuff, and a glimpse at an interesting cinematic technique I won’t spoil in case someone wants to be surprised in the theaters. I am so jazzed for this movie.

Now, see, if they’d done this (original) (warning: QuickTime ahead) in Footloose, Kevin Bacon wouldn’t have been so darned rebellious. Free State High School, in Lawrence, Kansas, has apparently been having a problem with “provocative” dancing. So they made a video to show students what sorts of things weren’t permissible. The dancer in the video, as it happens, is the school mascot in full costume.

Speaking of Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson has caused a Quicksilver wiki (original) to be generated. Clever man.