ENTRY! We were pleasantly shocked by Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood. Nostalgic without tripping into sentimentality, outrageous but sidestepping the obnoxious, the enfant terrible’s 9th film is nothing less than a joy. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a fading TV star in 1969 L.A., aided and backed-up by Brad Pitt, his stunt-double, wingman, and de facto best friend. Also on hand is Margot Robbie as DiCaprio’s new neighbor, Sharon Tate(!), a very tricky maneuver that Tarantino handles with the gentle grace of a fairy tale. And hence the title. It’s a bold move but it surprisingly satisfies. Once Upon a Time delivers all the pleasure of a good novel written by a trickster who has at last revealed a tender heart.
Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood is streaming now on Amazon Prime.
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ENTRY! Thank the Gods for John Coulthart, the artist, designer, and occasional writer who dazzles us each week with his Weekend Links. This time he wakes us from our stupor with the long out of print Blade Runner Sketchbook! It was more than just flying cars, kids.
Nobody does contemporary British neo-folk goth experimental better than Kemper. But don’t take my word for it, give him a listen. And while we’re talking music…
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ENTRY! Maiden’s mastermind Steve Harris speaks to Rolling Stone!
You’re also still doing “The Number of the Beast,” which got you in hot water with the far right in America in the Eighties for its satanic imagery. How did that one come together? It was things like watching The Omen but it was more inspired by a poem [by Robert Burns] called “Tam o’ Shanter.” I’ve just always liked reading books and watching horror films.
No, that’s not the cover, merely a teaser poster. Make no mistake, draxfans, HEXES: THE FINAL HEX is going to be the thing of things. It will not only feature completely original material from a stellar league of contributors including Maxim Peter Griffin, David Southwell, Zali Krishna, Allison Bloom, Paul Watson, Christina Sholtz, Andy Liefer, Chris W., Leigh Wright, Malcolm Johnson and others, but it will also be a formatted as a downloadable PDF magazine, something I’ve never attempted before. Yes, the headaches involved will be considerable, but it will be worth it. So watch this space, true believers!
“Like stuffing your face with Cheez Whiz while listening to Iron Maiden, this is the right kind of crazy.” —Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of Gods of Jade and Shadow
“A thought-provoking and witty satire.” —Booklist
“Armageddon has never been this funny. Run, don’t walk, to the bookseller of your choice… while you still have time.” —Simon Drax, author of A Very Fast Descent into Hell
HELLO, hello! May we please go vertigo? We will accept your silence as an implicit yes so here we go, shuffling through the wrinkled Snickers and Twix wrappers and uneaten candy corn of Halloween, another Samhain come and gone, sad but true but oh babies, don’t you panic! By the light of the night it’ll all be all right, we’ll get you a satanic mechanic…
Entry! HEXES The Final Issue, aka The Final Hex is shaping up to be the thing of things, an issue compiled entirely of original material solicited exclusively for this issue. You might want to re-read that sentence, because it’s quite the break from normal operations in HEXES land. Ya see, the modus operandi usually went like this: The Creep in the Art Department would find an image so compelling he just HAD to turn it into a magazine (or webzine, if we’re splitting atoms) cover, and then it was over to the editor (moi) to scour that week’s internet offerings for an engaging TOC and links, featuring clips of text and very pretty pics, and that was that. There were exceptions, of course, most notably in the “themed” issues, such as THE VAMPIRE SPECIAL and HELL AT LAST and DEATH BY SOUND. But even so, any given issue of HEXES was compiled entirely of preexisting material.
Not so for The Final Hex. The final issue will consist entirely of original pictures and words commissioned specifically for the bid bad swan song. Big artists, Big writers. Behold, The Creep’s call for cover models…
Of course it’s internationally recognized! We have readers in the UK, Europe, Asia, Russia. Just sayin’.
At any rate, The Final Hexwill be the Bees’ Knees, the Show of Shows. But we already know of at least one feature that won’t be included…
Entry! SABBATH by Nick Mamatas…
…will be published by Tor later this month. I had originally planned on reviewing said tome in The Final Hex. However, once I began approaching certain artists and writers for the above mentioned original material, I realized they needed a doable deadline (which is December 31st, curious scribblers). SABBATH pubs in a few weeks, so my review will coincide with the release. Perhaps Nick will agree to an excerpt for inclusion in the Swan Song. Who knows? In the meantime, stay glued to these pages…
Special thanks to Tor for the ARC
Entries! Current (and currently favorite) Book: MOON by Oliver Morton. It’s a masterpiece, and Morton is nothing less than a poet.
“Oliver Morton explores how the ways we have looked at the Moon have shaped our perceptions of the Earth: from the controversies of early astronomers such as van Eyck and Galileo, to the Cold War space race, to the potential use of the Moon as a stepping stone for further space exploration.” And so much more. This book belongs on every Lunaphile’s shelf.
Followed by the very best heroic action film we’ve seen in way too many Moons, ALITA, Battle Angel!
This movie kicks ass, man, putting all the Marvel shit to shame… Wait, what? What’s that you say? Ah. The answer is Nnnno. I am in no way prejudiced or predisposed to sing Alita’s praises. Yes, I loved the original manga and 90’s era anime, but if anything that love would make me even more critical. Example: I liked this “live-action” version of Alita far more than I liked the 2010 live-action version of Space Battleship Yamato. There are solid reasons for Alita’s potency, as it was directed by Robert Rodriguez with a screenplay by James Cameron, who also served as producer with Jon Landau… um, these guys know what the fuck they’re doing. They deliver the goods.
#111! Unbelievable. It seems like only last Friday that The Phantom and the VS crew hit historic #100! VS is so much more to me than a cool mag I used to write for; it is nothing less than a staple of my life, eternal as the tide. Sure, I miss the days of visiting The Phantom and Managing Editor Ms Nag in fog-cloaked Ocean Grove on the Jersey shore, where multiple cats ruled the sidewalks, a sleepy town right down the street from Asbury Park and its formidable ghosts: the music, the Stone Pony; the broken boardwalk often seen on The Sopranos; a place where I made multiple pitches to The Phantom which included my short-lived column 21st Century Goth! and reviews of shit not easily available in North America. The Phantom let it roll, man—most of it, anyway. He hooked me up with interviewing Dario Argento, for fucks sake; he facilitated my sit-downs with the entire PHANTASMbrigade (Don Coscarelli, Angus Scrimm, Reggie Bannister, Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury); and so much more, all of which I am forever grateful.
So here’s to VideoScope #111! We’re looking forward to #150.
Yearning, desire, heartache… and regret. These are the elements that drive every successful love song, and they are the forces that make THE BIG REWIND a wonderful novel. It’s a murder mystery, yes, as well as a carpet-bombing of pop-culture references—too many per paragraph, in this reviewer’s opinion—but the excellent Libby Cudmore gets a pass. This girl can write. Insightful, funny, and often poignant, THE BIG REWIND is a bulletproof concept album of a novel that will play smooth and seamless in every music lover’s literary jukebox.
Libby holds a music party every Saturday night on twitter! Tune in @LibbyCudmore!
Photo: Haunted Museum of Nature
Special thanks to Tor for the ARC
