Beyond ‘Memento’: The Definitive Guide to Reverse-Chronology Movies

Twenty years ago, Christopher Nolan turned an ending into a beginning and changed movie history (and dorm-room DVD collections) for good. Memento, the director’s audaciously structured breakout film, launched the filmmaker into a bankable talent and introduced the obsessions that still animate his work, all the way up to last year’s head-spinning Tenet — in particular, his fascination with the distortion and manipulation of linear time.  The film’s headfuck of a plot doesn’t just depict...

Roam Research

Roam Researchr/RoamResearch HotNewTop 10Posted byu/jiweiliew20 hours ago Want a tick but don't want the block to appear in "DONE"? Use a LaTeX checkmark. Use a $$\checkmark$$: $$\checkmark$$0 comments 128promoted•Posted byu/oculus18 days ago 2Grab your crew because Beat Saber is now multiplayer. Slash beats to your favorite tracks and show your friends what Expert+ looks like. Play For Real with Oculus Quest 2. Shop now. View ...

Fist Fight at the Old Writers’ Home

You can take your story arc and shove it, Madeline. You’re just a book agent who hasn’t had a sale in decades. You don’t even have an MFA. When I was at that prestigious, hard-to-get-into writers workshop out in the cornfields, no one mentioned story arcs. "Beginning, middle, end" came up, but we were encouraged to stop in the middle. Let the reader do a little work. And you, George, I prefer your early works, full of dithering, daydreaming, and semi-conscious masturbatory gestures. Now Ma...

I do love a newspaper - TLS

Impermanence and Eternity on a Weeklong Walk in the Sahara

Emergence Magazine is a quarterly online publication exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality. As we experience the desecration of our lands and waters, the extinguishing of species, and a loss of sacred connection to the Earth, we look to emerging stories. Each issue explores a theme through innovative digital media, as well as the written and spoken word. The Emergence Magazine podcast features exclusive interviews, narrated essays, stories, and more. [link ] ...

Hear me out: why Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker isn't a bad movie

"The dead speak!" That phrase – the first words of the opening scrawl in JJ Abrams’s Episode IX, also known as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – has become, in certain circles, handy code for trashing this film. But I think it’s the perfect way to begin this fun and fulfilling adventure. Yes, "the dead speak!" is hokey and corny. And so ought to be Star Wars. Few need reminders that young George Lucas was influenced by approved-by-elite sources like Akira Kurosawa and J...

MONSTER HUNTER: Paul W.S. Anderson’s Still Got It… Whatever “It” Is

I appreciate the writing and critical contribution of the people who came up with and proliferated the phrase "vulgar auteurism", I really do. That being said, it’s one of the stupidest concepts to be thrown into a discussion of movies this century, along with "elevated horror" or "nicecore". Some names of directors who have been associated with this term range from John Carpenter, Abel Ferrara, Walter Hill, to Clint Eastwood, Michael Mann, and Steven Spielberg. If this smattering tells us an...

Is it Better to Write in Latin or in Anglo-Saxon?

Brand Blanshard, On Philosophical Style (Indiana University Press, 1967; orig. pub. 1954), pp. 46-48. I have broken Blanshard’s one paragraph into three.The question has often been canvassed whether it is better to write, in the main, in Latin or Anglo-Saxon. There is no doubt that one’s writing will have a different mood or atmosphere as the one element or the other predominates. A critic has suggested that if you never want to fail in dignity, you should always use the generic word rather t...

Book Excerpt: Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Form of Tobe Hooper by Scout Tafoya

We are incredibly proud to present an excerpt from the new book by Scout Tafoya, the man behind the Unloved series here at RogerEbert.com. You can find the official synopsis and a trailer for the book below. Get your copy here. He directed "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," the most infamous and visceral horror film of all time. He directed "Poltergeist," one of the most successful ghost stories of the 20th century. He was called a Master of Horror and he worked with scree...

DEAR ME | LITRO LAB PODCAST

Picture credits: Esben Bøg Jensen Oh, how I’ve missed you! The sound of your voice intertwined with the octaves of friends, the chinking of glasses and tapping of tableware. / Where have you been? Behind glass? Behind screens? Behind masks? Masking your smile. Only hints of your crinkled eyes visible. Lucia Cascioli Check the news. Be there to support your loved ones. Help children go through schooling online. Do shopping for an elde...

YKK Zippers

Josh Centers, writing for The Prepared: A "pro tip" for evaluating the quality of a piece of gear is to look at the small details, such as zippers and stitching. Cheap-minded manufacturers will skimp on those details because most people just don’t notice, and even a cheap component will often last past a basic warranty period, so it’s an easy way to increase profits without losing sales or returns. If a designer does bother to invest in quality components, that’s a tried-and-true ...

Dressing Ratso

Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in John Schlesinger’s 1969 classic, Midnight Cowboy. When I set out to write about the making of Midnight Cowboy, the gritty, groundbreaking X-rated drama that won the best-picture Oscar in 1970, I expected to focus on director John Schlesinger and on Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, whose powerful performances are among the finest in film history. But I soon discovered a parade of talented men and women who played pivotal roles in making the movie ...

Five Problems With Focusing on Internal Conflicts

Inside Out is an external conflict inside an internal conflict, which is just weird. In most speculative fiction stories, the heroes face down some kind of external conflict. These conflicts take many forms. In some stories, an advanced battle station is blowing up planets. In others, a bigoted politician plans to pass new laws targeting people who are already vulnerable. But external conflicts aren’t the only option. You can also focus primarily on what’s going on inside a char...

The Annotated “Stacka Lee”

Joachim Aspenlaub Blattboldt (Flickr/blattboldt) Below is an annotation of the oldest known lyrics to "Stacka Lee." Printed in the Kansas City Star on March 14, 1897 and rediscovered in 2020, they predate the first published sheet music by 13 years. The article in which they appeared, "The Songs of the Jails," collected murder ballads popular among prisoners in Kansas City: "The negro prisoners at the jail put their sorrows into song as their forefathers in slavery on Southern pl...

Quote of the Day! My Darling Clementine (1946)

"Mac, you ever been in love?"– Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) "No, I’ve been a bartender all my life."– Mac the Barman (J. Farrell MacDonald)   I’ve come late to the party, but I finally got my formal introduction to legendary director John Ford by good friend and notable blogger Aurora at Once Upon a Screen. While I’ve always felt that The Grapes of Wrath (1940) to be a cinematic triumph with memorable performances–  one such is the ubiquitous John Carradine as Jim Casy ...

Second World War in film: 20 of the best war movies ever made

The most striking aspect of the commemorative events marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in 2019 was the testimony of the veterans who participated in the conflict and who spoke eloquently and movingly about the events of 6 June 1944.These interviews should be compulsory viewing so people understand the courage and sacrifice of a generation of men and women who displayed the "unconquerable resolve" the Queen spoke about during her speech in Portsmouth.The film world has, of cou...

The Curious Symbolism of the Rainbow in Literature and Art

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the rainbow has often been used in literature, religion, and art to symbolise the bridge between the land and the sky, the earth and heavens. But rainbow symbolism is also wide-ranging in different cultures, so it’s worth exploring the different meanings of the rainbow throughout the centuries, and in different religions and works of literature. So, let’s take a closer look at some prominent rainbow symbolism. Perhaps the most famous religious symbolism associate...

ISO - Developing standards

Skip to main content Developing standards Who develops standards Deliverables Get involved Resources Like a symphony, it takes a lot of people working together to develop a standard. ISO’s role is similar to that of a conductor, while the orches...

On Williams and Ehrman - After Economics

Skip to content .  Menu . . . On Williams and Ehrman October 27, 2019 by admin Peter J Williams and Bart Ehrman recently conducted an exceptional discussion of the historicity of the gospels on the Unbelievable show. This article includes criticisms of either side. Against the Christian side: I think Peter was overly reluctant against granting the possibility of contradictions or errors in ...

The literary tricks Kepler used to become one of the first popularizers of science in history - Cleveland American

There is no doubt that scientific information should be transmitted between scientists through texts reviewed by peers and published in academic journals (if they are in the Q1 range, better than better) so that the whole process transmits confidence, reliability and accuracy. But How to make some of these conclusions reached in a paper reach the general public? Regardless of the nuance that we introduce in the answer to this question (and that has to do with our meaning of "popu...

Tim Parks: Have you seen my hand?

‘Look both ways when you cross the street,’ Giovanni’s mother tells him when he goes out. He’s a careless boy, easily distracted, and the reader is primed. In the street, the boy is ‘so pleased with how careful he’s being that he starts hopping along like a sparrow’. A polite gentleman warns him that this is carelessness indeed: ‘You see? You’ve already lost a hand.’ Looking for his hand, Giovanni’s attention is absorbed by a tin can, then a limping dog. He doesn’t even notice he’s lost ‘a wh...

The Fires of Digression: Gregory Brown on the Slow Burn of Writing Fiction

I’m always amazed at how much writing happens when not actually writing. For me that means while walking, or building a bunkhouse on our property, or trimming all the dogs’ nails, or vacuuming the house—often-mundane activities that demand focus but don’t carry the high stakes of actually sitting down in front of a computer or a piece of paper and creating something beautiful and moving. I find these tasks have a way of simultaneously focusing and freeing the mind. They demand a certain am...

Anthony Russo Explains How Six Tones are Better than One in ‘Cherry’

Check the Gate is a column where we go one-on-one with directors in an effort to uncover the reasoning behind their creative decisions. Why that subject? Why that shot? In this edition, we chat with director Anthony Russo (one-half of the Russo brothers) and discuss how they balanced tone in Cherry. Books are not movies. Movies are not books. They’re two totally separate narrative delivery systems with their own special set of skills. Stealing a story from one medium and jamming it int...

The Dark Knight: 5 Easter eggs you probably missed

The first instalment of Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Batman Begins, is also available on the streaming platform – although its final chapter, The Dark Knight Rises, has yet to be added on either side of the Atlantic. Some might delight in revisiting Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker, which earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In addition, some might want to keep their eyes peeled for some of the Easter eggs and references ...

Hyperborea

Hyperborea was, in Greek mythology, the land located to the far north of the known world and was so remote it was considered even beyond the North Wind. There a legendary race known as the Hyperboreans lived and worshipped the sun god Apollo. Hyperborea was thought of as an earthly paradise of eternal youth and abundance, but so inaccessible was this far-off land to ordinary mortals, the Greeks believed that only semi-divine heroes like Hercules were capable of ever visiting there. Hyperborea...