Posts

Tilly Norwood Must Die!

Image
Remember the scene at the end of Frankenstein ? (The Boris Karloff version, I mean; not the novel...) A mob of murderous villagers, armed with torches and pitchforks, hunt the creature down, eventually trapping him inside a burning windmill, presumably to die horribly and painfully. (At least until it's time for the sequels. Also; spoilers... ) Something like that is currently happening to Tilly Norwood. For anyone who hasn't yet had the pleasure, Tilly Norwood describes herself as an aspiring actress. Like many youngsters in the industry, she hopes to launch a career in movies, television etc. (although her appearances thus far are limited to a single comedy sketch, a wacky, slightly generic, flamingo-infested music video, and a promotional show-reel of the sort that nearly every wannabe starlet tries to throw together). Unfortunately (for her) the reactions she has provoked have been almost universally negative and downright hostile. Whoopi Goldberg finds her repulsive, and h...

The Unauthorised Autobiography

Image
"That should be the title of my autobiography: Stop Me If I’ve Told You This Already .  And we’ll print the entire text twice."  — Lorenz Hart Robert Kaplow; Blue Moon Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me. Shakespeare; Hamlet Dialogue for Unaccompanied Shawm Shawm: Pardon me, but have we met before? I feel like I should know you, but I can't quite make the connection. Shawm: Ah, well now, that's a question that lands rather close to home for me, I'm afraid. Pardon the pun, but with my blasted face-blindness, half the time I can't even ...

The Ballad of Alice Without Wonderland

Image
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.” Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson); Through the Looking Glass "Of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren't?" "My dear Doctor, they're all true." "Even the lies?" " Especially the lies." Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (episode written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe) Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (which I presented last week) is often cited as one of the "greatest films ever made".  I'm not normally a fan of describing things in superlatives like that (I consider it the worst thing ever!) but it has to be said that when social anthropologists name an entire psychological phenomenon after your movie, it's a cinch you're in with some pretty exalted company. You don't hear them talking about the " Jaws Principle" or the " Dr. Strangelove Proposition" or the " Godfather  Assertion". ...