I have a copy of Frank Herbert's late short story collection "Eye", which includes an essay about the making of Dune, wherein he states in the same unambiguous terms he loves the film a lot. Just saying.
What I love about this movie is the way that the bar scene, as horrible as it is, happens over 4o minutes in, and up to this point the camera has not once shown directly a killing happening, veering away every single time. Suddenly, it all happens in front of you, and the impact of this scene cannot be underrated.
@bluehinter: There is a slight satirical gibe here about the difficulty of seeing a doctor in contemporary Britain. You have to live here to catch it.
@Barnabus: June Whitfield, how I have missed you.
@Heriloke: They're all like, "breastfeed for a year" around here. I met someone who breastfed until her kids were like three and I have to admit, I did think that a bit weird. We supplemented with formula. We both work, so we kind of had to.
"PS : you and Mrs. May number your children? How cool ^^
("#2! Clean up your room!" "#1! Do your homework!")"
Hey, beats naming them. Fewer arguments. :)
I have to be honest, I read the first couple lines and went "duh, yeah". I mean, this is pretty much the orthodox line among midwives and that in the UK and was drummed into me and Mrs May repeatedly during all three pregnancies. We largely ended up ignoring it by the time #3 was 6 months old, but that's by the by.
Is it not the case in the US?
@SimonMay: I just checked it, actually. He's listed as one of the costumes the guests wear at Harlequin's Christmas party, all "characters from British folklore and legend". #doctorwho
The Doctor pops up in one of the Jerry Cornelius novels, actually. #doctorwho
Anyone who saw the last two episodes of Doctor Who Series Three will know what "he will knock four times" means. Sound of drums, knocking on the table?
Bombombombom... bombombombom... bombombombom... #doctorwho
I must take issue. Werewolf By Night was *brilliant*. I have the old Marvel Essential Edition of it.
The best bit, though, is when the legendary Marv Wolfman started writing it, allowing them to write on the splashpage, "AT LAST! THE WOLF-MAN, WRITTEN BY A WOLFMAN!" #dracula
@dry-roasted-peanuts: May is somewhere in my top ten horror movies. It's truly great. I wish more people had heard of it.
I haven't obviously seen it, because it's not out here in the UK yet (or is it?) but I am instantly reminded of the marketing of Fight Club, which is of course a clever and deeply uncomfortable black comedy about all sorts of things, and how they killed the original trailers and replaced them with scenes of Brad Pitt and Ed Norton punching people, making it look like a stupid gung-ho boys' movie.
So all the people who would have liked it and might have been turned on to Chuck Palahniuk and stuff (like I was, after the fact) didn't, because it looked like Another Lame Action Movie, and all the people who went to see it precisely because it looked like Another Lame Action Movie came out going, "That was rubbish!"
Or words to that effect.
Fight Club had a happy ending, in that it gained a new life on DVD, where I saw it, but will the same hold for Jennifer's Body? I dunno. I haven't seen it.
@tetracycloide: The translation wasn't that good at all, actually. I suspect that the translator of the subtitles wasn't an English speaker.
@ciscokidinsf: Seconded (although "No Heroics" particularly might not count because it's satire. Also, seconding the awfulness of My Hero.
@Stormy151: THANK YOU. It's being doing my head in who that guy was.
@engtech: You know, I walked out of the cinema after seeing Basterds, and one of my mates said, "That was Rifle Brigade: the Movie."
@Sinisterbill ate your dog: Completely agree. Shame it wasn't enough to save the movie.
I really, really recommend The Hollow Grounds, particularly the last in the series, Nogegon, which is set on a planet where everything -- even lives and relationships -- has to be symmetrical and achieves that with the design of the book. It's mind-bogglingly detailed and quite beautiful with it. It got published a couple of times in English a few years ago, when Humanoids were still doing English language translations. Worth looking up.
Hey, io9 -- any chance of seeing some of Bilal's city stuff?
Cymothoa Exigua, right?
I recently "developed" (that's US games industry for "commissioning editor") a role-playing game book for White Wolf -- it comes out in the next few days, actually -- that contains details of a notional human-feeding version. This version eats a human tongue, replaces it and gives its victim a) an insatiable thirst for blood; b) the urge to make out with fellow victims, at which point the two tongue bugs mate in the victims' mouths while they're snogging.
The writer, well. He's an original.
@AusJeb: Isn't that the point?
