By the by: if you’re on Letterboxd, let’s connect: I’m here. Sometimes you just need a nudge to get something done. Andy Miller tweeted that he wrote about the challenge of ‘getting back to normal’ for the NYT and about heading to London to celebrate Kneale’s centenary. He’s come to same conclusion as many: ‘normal’…
Tag: television
Film for a Friday: Laura (1955) #noir
LAURA (1955) Two words appear absolutely nowhere in this made-for-tv boiled down version of the story: Vera Caspary. Instead we get a ‘Screenplay by Mel Dinelli’ so I conveniently blame him for the lacklustre 43 minutes we have here. Which isn’t really fair, but come on! Erasing the author is never cool and when it’s…
Cannibal Comfort
Is it weird that one of my comfort watches is a series about cannibalism? Considering how sad most of my other televisions choices are (Bleak House, Sense & Sensibility [2008], Jane Eyre [2006]) I suppose it’s not. Also it’s stunningly beautiful, a masterpiece of hapticity that makes you want to caress the screen. While Mads…
TOA/V: The Living and The Dead
This programme aired last month but in the midst of the Brexit madness, it seemed to miss its audience. Folks in the Folk Horror Revival group mentioned it enthusiastically so having caught up with series three of Black Sails we were casting about for a new show and decided to give The Living and The Dead…
Review: Upstart Crow
The final episode of the first series of Upstart Crow has aired and David Mitchell, who stars as the bard himself, confirmed on Twitter that there will be a second series. It follows the adventures of the up-and-coming playwright who still finds himself struggling to make his mark in the hurlyburly of Elizabethan England. Action…
Making Magic Respectable
Like many folks here, I am greatly enjoying Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It’s a terrific fantasy series: I can’t tell you how well it adapts Susanna Clarke’s novel as I haven’t read it yet (so many books, so many of them to write!) but the author seems pleased. The next episode appears to focus…
On Medievalism and ‘Realism’
I’m going to be brief because I don’t watch the television show that prompted this post, yet I’m irritated by the notions behind a certain author’s constant defensive claims about ‘realism’ as the excuse to fill a narrative with frequent rapes of women (although seemingly the show runners are more interested in how the rapes…
Review: Discovering Scarfolk by Richard Littler
Discovering Scarfolk: For tourists & other trespassers by Richard Littler Ebury Press I can’t say when I first stumbled across Littler’s Scarfolk site. Probably one of the usual suspects (Brazill or Billson). I’m pretty sure it was on Twitter, but it doesn’t really matter. What I discovered was that I knew that place very well….
K. A. Laity 