A selection of Soviet era Star Wars posters, few of which actually illustrate the films:
"Yuri Bokser and Alexander Chantsev created this poster, along with three others (all below), to commemorate the lifting of the ban. Some critics have described Star Wars as a ‘space Western’ but Bokser and Chantsev make visualised the idea. Perhaps they were just ahead of the curve, though – the bounty hunter Cad Bane wears the Star Wars’ version of a cowboy hat on the Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series and there was a kind of horse-racing in The Last Jedi." [BBC]
Welcome essay from Mona Eltahawy about teaching girls how to rage:
"One day when I was four years old, a man stopped his car on the street under my family’s balcony, pulled his penis out of his pants and beckoned for me to come down. He did the same to my friend who had been talking to me from her family’s balcony across the street. I was so small that I needed a stool to see my friend from above the balcony railing. I was enraged. I waved my slipper at him to frighten him away." [NBC News]
"One day when I was four years old, a man stopped his car on the street under my family’s balcony, pulled his penis out of his pants and beckoned for me to come down. He did the same to my friend who had been talking to me from her family’s balcony across the street. I was so small that I needed a stool to see my friend from above the balcony railing. I was enraged. I waved my slipper at him to frighten him away." [NBC News]
Margot Robbie receives the Harmony Cousins treatment in The Guardian and she sounds like incredible company:
"When Robbie got her gig in Pan Am, which was broadcast for a few months before its cancellation in 2012, she found it “lonely. You were supposed to be all segregated into different departments, which felt weird. I remember knocking on other people’s doors and saying: ‘Uh, do you want to hang out?’ ” She liked the informal nooks where the runners and makeup deputies and third-rung assistant directors (the third ADs) killed time. “I don’t know, I was closer in age to them. They seemed more like my friends from back home.”" [The Guardian]
"When Robbie got her gig in Pan Am, which was broadcast for a few months before its cancellation in 2012, she found it “lonely. You were supposed to be all segregated into different departments, which felt weird. I remember knocking on other people’s doors and saying: ‘Uh, do you want to hang out?’ ” She liked the informal nooks where the runners and makeup deputies and third-rung assistant directors (the third ADs) killed time. “I don’t know, I was closer in age to them. They seemed more like my friends from back home.”" [The Guardian]
This Collider article repeats what I've been saying for years. Streaming is no substitute for a physical disk.
"I started collecting DVDs in my senior year of high school, and continued to collect them throughout college, which, in retrospect, was not the smartest idea since at the end of every school year I would have to pack up boxes and boxes of DVDs to either send home or store with family who lived near campus. And yet I don’t regret collecting these DVDs because it gave me a valuable resource and a way to dive into movies. The age of DVDs was a bit of a renaissance for film fans since A) we finally got our movies in the correct aspect ratio as opposed to the days of pan-and-scan on VHS; B) there could be a wealth of special features that sometimes functioned like film school in a box; and C) there was an easy way to share movies I loved with friends." [Collider]
"I started collecting DVDs in my senior year of high school, and continued to collect them throughout college, which, in retrospect, was not the smartest idea since at the end of every school year I would have to pack up boxes and boxes of DVDs to either send home or store with family who lived near campus. And yet I don’t regret collecting these DVDs because it gave me a valuable resource and a way to dive into movies. The age of DVDs was a bit of a renaissance for film fans since A) we finally got our movies in the correct aspect ratio as opposed to the days of pan-and-scan on VHS; B) there could be a wealth of special features that sometimes functioned like film school in a box; and C) there was an easy way to share movies I loved with friends." [Collider]
Big Finish have brought the entire original Torchwood team back together and hopefully it'll be set during the half decent second series rather than the mostly rubbish first or be better than both as is customary with audio Torchwood:
“It’s been ten years since there's been an adventure featuring Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Tosh and Owen,” says writer Guy Adams, “and coming up with something big enough – and complex enough – to need them was great fun. After all, taking down an entire religion isn’t easy. But if anyone can do it…” [Big Finish]
“It’s been ten years since there's been an adventure featuring Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Tosh and Owen,” says writer Guy Adams, “and coming up with something big enough – and complex enough – to need them was great fun. After all, taking down an entire religion isn’t easy. But if anyone can do it…” [Big Finish]
Samantha Bee, one corner of my Oliver/Myers/Bee US satire info triangle, interviewed:
"“That’s the loudest, most unfiltered version of me that exists,” she says. “In my private life, I’m not like that at all. I don’t kick doors in and walk into meetings wowing everybody with my Entertainment Personality. It’s a wonderful 21-minute catharsis, once a week, but I don’t need to be that person in my day-to-day life.” Her 65-strong team of writers, producers, technicians and graphic designers is notable for its diversity: half of the staff are female and a third are non-white. “It’s not like we have solved the world’s diversity problem, but we do think about it all the time,” she says. “When we need to hire people, we think: let’s try to find a woman for this.”" [The Guardian]
"“That’s the loudest, most unfiltered version of me that exists,” she says. “In my private life, I’m not like that at all. I don’t kick doors in and walk into meetings wowing everybody with my Entertainment Personality. It’s a wonderful 21-minute catharsis, once a week, but I don’t need to be that person in my day-to-day life.” Her 65-strong team of writers, producers, technicians and graphic designers is notable for its diversity: half of the staff are female and a third are non-white. “It’s not like we have solved the world’s diversity problem, but we do think about it all the time,” she says. “When we need to hire people, we think: let’s try to find a woman for this.”" [The Guardian]
Ben Jackson's Racist Past.
TV One of my Christmas presents this year (last year now?) was the superb The Doctor Who Audio Annual: Multi-Doctor stories, in which a variety of stories from the old World Publications have been recorded in the style of the Target novelisations by various luminaries, usually a companion from that era.
The stories in the earliest books, from the 1960s, are notoriously off-piste in their characterisation of the Doctor and his companions as is demonstrated in the choice of 2nd Doctor story, The King of Golden Dead from 1968.
"Dr. Who" and Ben and Polly land in an Egyptian tomb, recently buried and none of them come out of it well in moral terms, the bad place beckons. The Doctor spends most of the "adventure" obsessed with trying to discover if its the final resting place of Tutankhamun, whilst trying to convince his companions not to rob the place.
Eventually an antagonist arrives in the form of some contemporary grave robbers attempting to find a way through which leads to a conversation in which, whoevers writing this, takes Ben's already pretty stupifying cockneyness into the teritory of a racial slur when describing their potential assailants:
Did you spot it? The only reason I noticed it is because I'm reading along with the annuals so I can enjoy the illustrations with the narration. For the most part the readings are accurate, a missed paragraph here, misunderstood letter or punctuation there.
On this occasion the script is rewritten for Anneke Wills who may not even have been aware of the original text. Instead she says, "If there's so many take to his lark of robbing tombs of the mummies ..." which is perfectly fine and gets the point across even if the whole thing is entirely out of character for Mr Jackson.
When plenty of us folk were complaining about the treatment of the First Doctor in this year's Christmas special (last year?) with anachronistic language being used in an out of character way all of it was sexist, none of it racist.
But notice that back in the 60s, the use of this word was considered fine in a children's annual, admittedly not put in the Doctor's mouth. Perhaps a realistic depiction of Ben would have included this word, but it still jars, since it still feels fundamentally wrong for a character in this series who's supposed to be the hero.
That's the 60s annuals for you.
The stories in the earliest books, from the 1960s, are notoriously off-piste in their characterisation of the Doctor and his companions as is demonstrated in the choice of 2nd Doctor story, The King of Golden Dead from 1968.
"Dr. Who" and Ben and Polly land in an Egyptian tomb, recently buried and none of them come out of it well in moral terms, the bad place beckons. The Doctor spends most of the "adventure" obsessed with trying to discover if its the final resting place of Tutankhamun, whilst trying to convince his companions not to rob the place.
Eventually an antagonist arrives in the form of some contemporary grave robbers attempting to find a way through which leads to a conversation in which, whoevers writing this, takes Ben's already pretty stupifying cockneyness into the teritory of a racial slur when describing their potential assailants:
Did you spot it? The only reason I noticed it is because I'm reading along with the annuals so I can enjoy the illustrations with the narration. For the most part the readings are accurate, a missed paragraph here, misunderstood letter or punctuation there.
On this occasion the script is rewritten for Anneke Wills who may not even have been aware of the original text. Instead she says, "If there's so many take to his lark of robbing tombs of the mummies ..." which is perfectly fine and gets the point across even if the whole thing is entirely out of character for Mr Jackson.
When plenty of us folk were complaining about the treatment of the First Doctor in this year's Christmas special (last year?) with anachronistic language being used in an out of character way all of it was sexist, none of it racist.
But notice that back in the 60s, the use of this word was considered fine in a children's annual, admittedly not put in the Doctor's mouth. Perhaps a realistic depiction of Ben would have included this word, but it still jars, since it still feels fundamentally wrong for a character in this series who's supposed to be the hero.
That's the 60s annuals for you.
Detailed analysis of the sound editing in Olivier Assayas's Personal Shopper:
"The most effective tool in Assayas’ gilded box are the noises of indiscernible origin ginned up by his foley team. While most of the e-ink related to this film has been understandably spilt over the much-ballyhooed sequence in which KStew gets cyber-bullied over the course of one working afternoon, the most crucial scenes come a bit earlier, when she spends the night in Lewis’ former home. Here Assayas inserts sounds while only suggesting their point of origin to force us into surrogacy with Maureen as she futilely grasps at understanding. The hand of a director can be as light as any ghost—to the point of imperceptibility." [The AV Club]
"The most effective tool in Assayas’ gilded box are the noises of indiscernible origin ginned up by his foley team. While most of the e-ink related to this film has been understandably spilt over the much-ballyhooed sequence in which KStew gets cyber-bullied over the course of one working afternoon, the most crucial scenes come a bit earlier, when she spends the night in Lewis’ former home. Here Assayas inserts sounds while only suggesting their point of origin to force us into surrogacy with Maureen as she futilely grasps at understanding. The hand of a director can be as light as any ghost—to the point of imperceptibility." [The AV Club]
Elizabeth Wurtzel on her cancer and lack of fear thereof:
"I have breast cancer as a result of the BRCA gene, so it was preventable. All Ashkenazi Jewish women should get tested for the BRCA mutation, we now know, because half the time there is no way to know that you have the gene, and one in forty Ashkenazi Jews carries it. At one time it bothered me that I have a disease I could have avoided through prophylactic mastectomy. I don’t feel that way anymore. I like the person I am with cancer and because of cancer. Yes, that thing happened. I evolved." [The Guardian]
"I have breast cancer as a result of the BRCA gene, so it was preventable. All Ashkenazi Jewish women should get tested for the BRCA mutation, we now know, because half the time there is no way to know that you have the gene, and one in forty Ashkenazi Jews carries it. At one time it bothered me that I have a disease I could have avoided through prophylactic mastectomy. I don’t feel that way anymore. I like the person I am with cancer and because of cancer. Yes, that thing happened. I evolved." [The Guardian]
Eleven female directors reveal the sexism they've experienced in the film industry, experienced professionals treated with less respect than newbie males:
"On my first assignment when I went by to meet the executive producer, he came out to the lobby, his hand outstretched to greet me. Then he stopped in his tracks, withdrew his hand, and said, “You’re a woman!” Guess the name “Marty” caught him off guard. He never did shake my hand. The next day, I was off the show and a guy was reassigned. Years later, I was having meetings regarding directing, and was often told by producers, “We had a woman director last season, and it didn’t work out too well.” I never asked if any of the men “didn’t work out.”" [The Wrap]
"On my first assignment when I went by to meet the executive producer, he came out to the lobby, his hand outstretched to greet me. Then he stopped in his tracks, withdrew his hand, and said, “You’re a woman!” Guess the name “Marty” caught him off guard. He never did shake my hand. The next day, I was off the show and a guy was reassigned. Years later, I was having meetings regarding directing, and was often told by producers, “We had a woman director last season, and it didn’t work out too well.” I never asked if any of the men “didn’t work out.”" [The Wrap]
Patrick Stewart writes about auditioning for the late John Barton, co-founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company:
"On a cold, wet November evening in 1965, I plodded nervously across the Bancroft Gardens in Stratford-upon-Avon. I had at last been accepted to audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company, although a Sunday evening would not have been my occasion of choice. I was in rep at the Bristol Old Vic company and Sunday was my only day off. I would have preferred the afternoon, but what the hell – they were seeing me and I had waited four years for this day to arrive." [The Guardian]
"On a cold, wet November evening in 1965, I plodded nervously across the Bancroft Gardens in Stratford-upon-Avon. I had at last been accepted to audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company, although a Sunday evening would not have been my occasion of choice. I was in rep at the Bristol Old Vic company and Sunday was my only day off. I would have preferred the afternoon, but what the hell – they were seeing me and I had waited four years for this day to arrive." [The Guardian]
The BBC's new arts slate includes actual Shakespeare productions shot in a theatre setting:
"The trilogy comprised of Julius Caesar (first seen at the Donmar in 2012), Henry IV ( 2014) and a new production of The Tempest. All three plays were first performed together in a new purpose-built theatre behind King's Cross station in 2016. [...] Julius Caesar will air on BBC4 in 2018, with Henry IV and The Tempest available to watch on the iPlayer." [What's On Stage]
"The trilogy comprised of Julius Caesar (first seen at the Donmar in 2012), Henry IV ( 2014) and a new production of The Tempest. All three plays were first performed together in a new purpose-built theatre behind King's Cross station in 2016. [...] Julius Caesar will air on BBC4 in 2018, with Henry IV and The Tempest available to watch on the iPlayer." [What's On Stage]
Romola on Measure for Measure.
TV Shakespeare Unlocked was a documentary series which ran on the BBC during the season of Stratfordian mayhem in 2012. A later series was broadcast on Sky Arts and now a third run has been announced with the remarkable news that future Doctor Who Romola Garai will be presenting an episode about Measure for Measure (in which she played Isabella at the Young Vic in 2015):
"In addition to Hunt, Season 3 hosts and the plays they explore include F. Murray Abraham (The Merchant of Venice); Brian Cox (Julius Caesar); Simon Russell Beale (The Winter's Tale); and Romola Garai (Measure for Measure). A host has yet to be announced for an episode about Richard III."The USA Today version of the story chooses to focus on Helen Hunt and Much Ado. It is a very good line up.
Months and months.
About After the films and seasons, this year's title bars on this blog will be months. So firstly it's ...
January Jones
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