Emperor

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19488736

We all agree, obviously, that assassins are cool, and TV and film sequences where someone plans a high-stakes, impossible-angled shot (then actually pulls it off!) are really cool, too. The problem with assassin stories is, necessarily, they kind of have to be about the downfall of the assassin. They are plunged into a mess, or a disaster, or a pulse point of family is pressed upon, and they have to think on their feet for as long as we can hold our breath until, ultimately, they are caught. And as soon as that starts happening, they are immediately less cool. Watching a guy make a shot from a mile away is amazing; watching him run into an obvious trap because they used a voice recording of his wife is lame. Many assassin stories speed through the good bit (cool kills!) to race to the more boring and rubbish bit (badly written scenes where a small child says: “Daddy, are you going away?”).

Thankfully, The Day of the Jackal has avoided all that, and it is amazing for it. I, like you, wondered whether Eddie Redmayne – an astonishing actor who nevertheless feels as if he still wears a prefect badge – had it in him to play a calculated, controlled, elegant weapon of astounding horror, but he really, really does. His Jackal is chameleonic and ice-cold, a different man from scene to scene, never really knowing who he is and how he ended up here but seeing that he is doing a thousand calculations at once while he’s doing it. Redmayne doesn’t actually have much dialogue, and he doesn’t move his face much either, but somehow he conveys all this by stalking around the screen in a turtleneck: it’s as if he’s secretly uncovered a new way of acting.

A cat-and-mouse chase wouldn’t work, though, if the cat weren’t as compelling as the mouse, and Lashana Lynch’s Bianca is a wonderful foil. A slightly annoying co-worker at MI6, a stretched-too-thin mum at home, a double agent when the need arises, she’s grabbed on to a few grainy CCTV screenshots of Eddie Redmayne running away from Germany with both hands and all her teeth. The pair haven’t even met in the episodes I’ve seen – I’m sure their “Heat diner scene” is in the post, and I personally can’t wait – but they somehow manage to play off each other anyway. Hey: wouldn’t it be ace to wake up and make a TV show that good?

We all agree, obviously, that assassins are cool, and TV and film sequences where someone plans a high-stakes, impossible-angled shot (then actually pulls it off!) are really cool, too. The problem with assassin stories is, necessarily, they kind of have to be about the downfall of the assassin. They are plunged into a mess, or a disaster, or a pulse point of family is pressed upon, and they have to think on their feet for as long as we can hold our breath until, ultimately, they are caught. And as soon as that starts happening, they are immediately less cool. Watching a guy make a shot from a mile away is amazing; watching him run into an obvious trap because they used a voice recording of his wife is lame. Many assassin stories speed through the good bit (cool kills!) to race to the more boring and rubbish bit (badly written scenes where a small child says: “Daddy, are you going away?”).

Thankfully, The Day of the Jackal has avoided all that, and it is amazing for it. I, like you, wondered whether Eddie Redmayne – an astonishing actor who nevertheless feels as if he still wears a prefect badge – had it in him to play a calculated, controlled, elegant weapon of astounding horror, but he really, really does. His Jackal is chameleonic and ice-cold, a different man from scene to scene, never really knowing who he is and how he ended up here but seeing that he is doing a thousand calculations at once while he’s doing it. Redmayne doesn’t actually have much dialogue, and he doesn’t move his face much either, but somehow he conveys all this by stalking around the screen in a turtleneck: it’s as if he’s secretly uncovered a new way of acting.

A cat-and-mouse chase wouldn’t work, though, if the cat weren’t as compelling as the mouse, and Lashana Lynch’s Bianca is a wonderful foil. A slightly annoying co-worker at MI6, a stretched-too-thin mum at home, a double agent when the need arises, she’s grabbed on to a few grainy CCTV screenshots of Eddie Redmayne running away from Germany with both hands and all her teeth. The pair haven’t even met in the episodes I’ve seen – I’m sure their “Heat diner scene” is in the post, and I personally can’t wait – but they somehow manage to play off each other anyway. Hey: wouldn’t it be ace to wake up and make a TV show that good?

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19488160

Fans of Peter Cushing are in for a Halloween treat, with the iconic Frankenstein star the latest to be resurrected by AI.

In Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters, a Sky doc airing in two days’ time, viewers will be treated to a “powerful and poignant reveal of Hammer royalty,” Sky said, with what is being described as a “special homage” to Cushing.

Cushing, who died in 1994, played Doctor Van Helsing in five Dracula films and Baron Frankenstein in six movies from that franchise. He will be the latest celebrity given the AI resurrection treatment.

...

Narrated by Charles Dance, the doc is celebrating Hammer Films‘ 90th birthday and will track its progression from a back office in London’s Regent Street to its iconic status within the horror film genre. We first revealed news of the doc in August.

...

This isn’t the first time Cushing has been resurrected. His likeness was revived as Grand Moff Tarkin for 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and a high court legal battle over the use of the image was recently ruled by a judge to go to trial.

Ben Field, who runs Deep Fusion, said the Hammer doc resurrection has secured all necessary permissions. The decision to resurrect Cushing is “tied to his significance to the Hammer legacy,” he added. “As a figure central to Hammer’s success, Cushing’s presence is crucial to telling the story authentically,” he added. “His work, particularly alongside Christopher Lee, was instrumental in shaping the brand and legacy of Hammer Films. Including him allows the project to honor the spirit and impact he had on the studio and its fans, creating a connection between the past and this new exploration.”

The use of deepfake technology has been approached with “great care,” Field added. “The team’s intent is not to manipulate or sensationalize but to use technology as a tool to bring audiences closer to the history of Hammer Films in an engaging and reverent manner.”

Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters will follow other influential figures from the horror genre such as Lee. Tim Burton, John Carpenter, Joe Dante and John Logan will also feature. Through a series of fateful turns, the film will reveal how Hammer’s distinct visual style and storytelling continue to shape modern horror and inspire filmmakers around the world.

Fans of Peter Cushing are in for a Halloween treat, with the iconic Frankenstein star the latest to be resurrected by AI.

In Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters, a Sky doc airing in two days’ time, viewers will be treated to a “powerful and poignant reveal of Hammer royalty,” Sky said, with what is being described as a “special homage” to Cushing.

Cushing, who died in 1994, played Doctor Van Helsing in five Dracula films and Baron Frankenstein in six movies from that franchise. He will be the latest celebrity given the AI resurrection treatment.

...

Narrated by Charles Dance, the doc is celebrating Hammer Films‘ 90th birthday and will track its progression from a back office in London’s Regent Street to its iconic status within the horror film genre. We first revealed news of the doc in August.

...

This isn’t the first time Cushing has been resurrected. His likeness was revived as Grand Moff Tarkin for 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and a high court legal battle over the use of the image was recently ruled by a judge to go to trial.

Ben Field, who runs Deep Fusion, said the Hammer doc resurrection has secured all necessary permissions. The decision to resurrect Cushing is “tied to his significance to the Hammer legacy,” he added. “As a figure central to Hammer’s success, Cushing’s presence is crucial to telling the story authentically,” he added. “His work, particularly alongside Christopher Lee, was instrumental in shaping the brand and legacy of Hammer Films. Including him allows the project to honor the spirit and impact he had on the studio and its fans, creating a connection between the past and this new exploration.”

The use of deepfake technology has been approached with “great care,” Field added. “The team’s intent is not to manipulate or sensationalize but to use technology as a tool to bring audiences closer to the history of Hammer Films in an engaging and reverent manner.”

Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters will follow other influential figures from the horror genre such as Lee. Tim Burton, John Carpenter, Joe Dante and John Logan will also feature. Through a series of fateful turns, the film will reveal how Hammer’s distinct visual style and storytelling continue to shape modern horror and inspire filmmakers around the world.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19463362

Police officers have seized an electric scooter with an exercise bike welded to it after it was spotted being ridden around Inverness.

In a social media post featuring an accompanying photograph, Police Scotland confirmed road policing officers spotted the adapted machine being ridden without relevant documents.

The post also stated: "Yes, that is an exercise bike welded to it. Rider reported, vehicle seized."

it is currently illegal to ride an e-scooter in a public place in Scotland.

From the earliest pagan offerings to the metaphysical peaks of the Romantic poets, the natural world has always been a repository for our dreams and nightmares. Alienated from our fellow creatures, we see nature as something “other”, full of hidden powers, magic, threats, portents and meanings that we can’t quite fathom. And in an era of species extinction and climate emergency, the yearning to understand our place in the natural world seems more pressing now than ever given the abundance of nature writing published in the last couple of decades.

...

Here, we cross the border and head into the territory of folk horror, which often finds its shocks and scares in the disruption of this kind of contract between people and place. In some cases, the horror stems from the violent and arcane rituals required to maintain the delicate balance of give-and-take that needs to exist between a community and the land on which it relies. Take the classic example of The Wicker Man and more recently Midsommar. In both these stories, the forces of nature are apparently appeased through sacrifice.

But in other instances, they come to punish specific offences. In David Rudkin’s 1987 television play, White Lady, the story of a single father renovating a farmhouse and teaching his two daughters the ways of the countryside is interspersed with images of animal cells mutated by the use of pesticides. In what is ostensibly a fairy tale, the man symbolises foolish humankind, while the scythe-carrying white lady of the title appears as the saviour of its next generation. “Poor sheep of a man,” she says of the girls’ father. “Once, long ago, he lost the land he lived from, next he lost his country, now he is losing the earth.” His punishment for allowing the world to be poisoned is for his daughters to be taken from him and replaced by changelings. His is the last generation. Through their destructive actions, humans have forfeited their right to exist.

A far more hostile entity appears in Lee Haven Jones’ 2021 Welsh-language film Gwledd (The Feast), in which a long-dead spiritual guardian of the land returns in the guise of a young girl, Cadi, to exact a gruesome revenge upon a family and their business associates who are plundering ancient ground for its mineral wealth. In these instances, the land is anthropomorphised. But in other cases, it plays its strange self. In Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth, a scientist is consumed by madness as he attempts to commune with nature via a standing stone. While in the 2013 film, The Borderlands, a research group investigating an alleged miracle in a remote church discover that it has been built upon a labyrinth of tunnels which become increasingly – and in the end quite literally – digestive, as two of the party are dissolved by what appears to be hydrochloric acid.

The dangers of what lurks under the soil are sounded again and again throughout horror fiction and film, from Grant Allen’s Pallinghurst Barrow to MR James’s A Warning to the Curious to Piers Haggard’s The Blood on Satan’s Claw to my own novel, Starve Acre. Here, there is a penalty to be paid for disturbing the earth. Whereas in other cases, the natural world acts with malevolence for no discernible reason at all. In Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds, Nat, the main protagonist wonders, “how many million years of memory were stored in those little brains, behind the stabbing beaks, the piercing eyes, now giving them this instinct to destroy mankind with all the deft precision of machines.” While Peter Weir’s dream-like Picnic at Hanging Rock sees three schoolgirls from Appleyard College spirited into (or by) the Australian wilderness for reasons unknown.

How do you follow up an anime series like Cowboy Bebop, a hard-hitting blend of sci-fi and jazz? If you're Shinichiro Watanabe the answer is with a hip-hop adventure set in alternate Edo-era Japan. Samurai Champloo can regularly be found near the top of best anime roundups, and if you're looking for an excuse to revisit the beloved series, Crunchyroll has one for you: a limited-edition Blu-ray collection with a premium presentation. Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series Limited Edition arrives November 5 exclusively on the Crunchyroll Store. Fans can preorder the soon-to-be released Samurai Champloo box set for $67.49 (was $90).

...

Samurai Champloo's Limited-Edition release comes with a display-worthy slipcase and the six art cards shown above. As for the extras on the disc, you'll find clean credit sequences, concept art, a "bumper" gallery, promo videos, and trailers. All 26 episodes are included on three Blu-ray discs, and thanks to the high production values, this show really shines in high-definition. The soundtrack is also legendary stuff, and combined with the slick action, the series has become a cult-classic over the years.

...

It's worth noting that there's already a standard edition Samurai Champloo release you can buy. Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series on Blu-ray is available for $32.49 (was $50) at Amazon.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19420843

There is no word yet on whether this will be a direct sequel to the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One, or a brand new standalone film that’s only technically a “sequel” like superhero franchises that reboot or retcon. Recent releases from Toho have been unique re-imaginings of the monster and series, but Yamazaki-san’s film ends in a way that certain sets up a sequel. And of course, audiences and fans of the franchise have been vocal about wanting a follow-up.

This weekend’s re-release is significant not merely for Godzilla Day and the anniversary itself, but also because it could help the film change box office history once again.

As I explained ahead of the re-release, Godzilla Minus One is a mere $828,600 to pass Life Is Beautiful as the second-highest grossing foreign language movie in U.S. history. The film is already TOHO’s biggest Godzilla film worldwide and the most successful Japanese live-action North American release of all time.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19420084

Michael, 46, was back in Leeds from 2001 to 2011 and is now based in Oxford for his work. But Leeds holds a special place in his heart – not least, he says, because it is the home of comics in the North of England.

“The only thing that could tear me away from my favourite city was the ultimate job,” he says. “Particularly in Leeds, the comic scene has never been more vibrant and more diverse than it is now. And that's really fantastic. It's really been great to watch that over the last 20 years.”

Not only is it a student city, which fosters interest in comics, but it sustains three comic book stores – OK Comics, Travelling Man and Forbidden Planet International – which “all have their own identity and their own clientele,” says Michael. And lots of comic creators are from, or are based in Yorkshire, too, including Peter Doherty, Greg Staples, the late John Cooper.

“All the stars align over the head of Leeds and I know from my decade back that it always felt exciting to be in comics and to be around people who love comics,” says Michael, who is husband to Katherine.

It was in Leeds that he started to write freelance pieces about comics, going from consumer to somebody who worked in the industry. He has interviewed numerous names including Alan Moore, known for works such as Watchmen and V for Vendetta.

Now, Michael does have to “pinch myself” sometimes, he says, working for 2000 AD. He says: “I get to hang around with some of the most creative people on the face of the planet.”

But earlier this year, his own work was celebrated. In July, his book on the politics of Judge Dredd was named as Best Comics-Related Book at the Eisner Awards, in San Diego, California.

Blending comic book history with contemporary radical theories on policing, I Am The Law analyses how John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s character has reflected, parodied and predicted the rise of military-style policing.

For those who have never delved, what do comic books offer that other forms, such as novels, cannot? Michael sounds almost pained trying to answer what is such a big question for him. “People have quite literally written entire books about that,” he says.

So on this subject, Michael follows up by email. “There’s a great writer called Scott McCloud who has a lot to say about the way comics can mess with the illusion of time passing through the arrangement of different elements. That's comics’ central magic – the translation of space into time.

"Ultimately, comics gives your unconscious mind a workout by playing with symbols, images, and information to build a narrative. The effect of all that invisible mental effort is that the reader is so deeply invested that the emotional beats hit harder.

"The American cartoonist Will Eisner, after whom the awards are named, did so much to explore and expand on this idea. There really is no other artform like comics.

“The adult historical horror series Somna, by Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay (an Ilkley-based artist), is a great example of how two creators can write and draw together in a mutually supportive way that puts across two aspects of a single narrative.

"I can't see prose doing quite the same thing and it demonstrates how art styles can affect meaning – art style is to comics as prose style is to fiction.” He also highlights, for instance, how Yorkshire artist Zoe Thorogood's It's Lonely At The Centre of the Earth is a “complex and layered narrative response to her mental health, often switching from speaking directly to the reader to third-person narration,” he says.

“One particularly brilliant visual trick is where she covers her face with narration boxes, making the narration even more intimate.” And Thought Bubble is the place where these artists and themes coalesce. "Loads of people from across the world converge on Thought Bubble,” says Michael. “It’s the show that comic creators tell other comic creators to attend.

"I was in Portland in Oregon at a convention and there was this American artist saying to another American to go to Thought Bubble. I was just like, that’s so strange – these two people on the other side of the world going: ‘You must visit Harrogate’.”

For line up details and ticket, visit: www.thoughtbubblefestival.com

Archive

Michael, 46, was back in Leeds from 2001 to 2011 and is now based in Oxford for his work. But Leeds holds a special place in his heart – not least, he says, because it is the home of comics in the North of England.

“The only thing that could tear me away from my favourite city was the ultimate job,” he says. “Particularly in Leeds, the comic scene has never been more vibrant and more diverse than it is now. And that's really fantastic. It's really been great to watch that over the last 20 years.”

Not only is it a student city, which fosters interest in comics, but it sustains three comic book stores – OK Comics, Travelling Man and Forbidden Planet International – which “all have their own identity and their own clientele,” says Michael. And lots of comic creators are from, or are based in Yorkshire, too, including Peter Doherty, Greg Staples, the late John Cooper.

“All the stars align over the head of Leeds and I know from my decade back that it always felt exciting to be in comics and to be around people who love comics,” says Michael, who is husband to Katherine.

It was in Leeds that he started to write freelance pieces about comics, going from consumer to somebody who worked in the industry. He has interviewed numerous names including Alan Moore, known for works such as Watchmen and V for Vendetta.

Now, Michael does have to “pinch myself” sometimes, he says, working for 2000 AD. He says: “I get to hang around with some of the most creative people on the face of the planet.”

But earlier this year, his own work was celebrated. In July, his book on the politics of Judge Dredd was named as Best Comics-Related Book at the Eisner Awards, in San Diego, California.

Blending comic book history with contemporary radical theories on policing, I Am The Law analyses how John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s character has reflected, parodied and predicted the rise of military-style policing.

For those who have never delved, what do comic books offer that other forms, such as novels, cannot? Michael sounds almost pained trying to answer what is such a big question for him. “People have quite literally written entire books about that,” he says.

So on this subject, Michael follows up by email. “There’s a great writer called Scott McCloud who has a lot to say about the way comics can mess with the illusion of time passing through the arrangement of different elements. That's comics’ central magic – the translation of space into time.

"Ultimately, comics gives your unconscious mind a workout by playing with symbols, images, and information to build a narrative. The effect of all that invisible mental effort is that the reader is so deeply invested that the emotional beats hit harder.

"The American cartoonist Will Eisner, after whom the awards are named, did so much to explore and expand on this idea. There really is no other artform like comics.

“The adult historical horror series Somna, by Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay (an Ilkley-based artist), is a great example of how two creators can write and draw together in a mutually supportive way that puts across two aspects of a single narrative.

"I can't see prose doing quite the same thing and it demonstrates how art styles can affect meaning – art style is to comics as prose style is to fiction.” He also highlights, for instance, how Yorkshire artist Zoe Thorogood's It's Lonely At The Centre of the Earth is a “complex and layered narrative response to her mental health, often switching from speaking directly to the reader to third-person narration,” he says.

“One particularly brilliant visual trick is where she covers her face with narration boxes, making the narration even more intimate.” And Thought Bubble is the place where these artists and themes coalesce. "Loads of people from across the world converge on Thought Bubble,” says Michael. “It’s the show that comic creators tell other comic creators to attend.

"I was in Portland in Oregon at a convention and there was this American artist saying to another American to go to Thought Bubble. I was just like, that’s so strange – these two people on the other side of the world going: ‘You must visit Harrogate’.”

For line up details and ticket, visit: www.thoughtbubblefestival.com

Archive

Ofcom has fined the rightwing broadcaster GB News £100,000 for “breaking due impartiality rules” after an interview with the former prime minister Rishi Sunak earlier this year.

The media regulator said it chose to impose a fine over the programme titled People’s Forum: The Prime Minister because it considered the breach serious, and because of GB News’s track record of breaking impartiality rules.

“We concluded that the then prime minister Rishi Sunak had a mostly uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his government in a period preceding a UK general election, in breach of rules 5.11 and 5.12 of the broadcasting code,” Ofcom said.

...

GB News has already been found to have repeatedly breached impartiality rules by allowing sitting Conservative MPs to serve as news presenters. The broadcast regulator said these related to five occasions involving Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey and Philip Davies. All three were Tory MPs at the time, though only McVey remains in the Commons.

The broadcaster was not fined but was put “on notice” that more breaches “may result in the imposition of a statutory sanction”. And Ofcom said GB News’s actions risked undermining the high public trust in regulated broadcast media.