Rob Wickings's Blog, page 26
December 25, 2020
The Cut🎄At Christmas
Hail Santa! Ho, furthermore ho, and in conclusion, ho. How fares the day, our delightful Readership? We hope it finds you in an eggnogilicious mood. Ongoing changes to the lockdown rules mean that most of the staff at The Cut have been forced to stay in the office for the season, roasting chestnuts and turkey in an improvised and potentially deadly adapted microwave setup. Oh well, those of us that survive will all be laughing about it this time next year.
Let’s get the festivities started, shall we? Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin’s in a rut. Now is the time, here is the place, welcome to The Cut!
We begin with a little Entry Music. For us, the first tune played on Christmas Day is always the 1975 live version of Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town by Bruce Springsteen and The E Street band. It isn’t X-Day without it. We especially like the point where Bruce nearly loses it when a roadie in Santa costume sneaks up on him from backstage. Have you guys all been good this year?
We’re going to try not to make this Cut exclusively Crimbly. Please, in that spirit, enjoy this great oral history on the making of Prince’s greatest album, Sign ‘O’ The Times. Created in a time of seismic changes in the Purple One’s life, it would mark the start and end of great things…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54203180
We’re fans of writer Laurie Penny, whose political and cultural smarts are matched with a pleasingly goofy strain of geekery. It seems beautifully apposite that her restless nomadic life led to a whirlwind romance at the most difficult time for cross-continental relationships. This is a beautifully written feel-good story with a properly happy ending.
https://www.wired.com/story/my-highly-unexpected-heterosexual-pandemic-zoom-wedding/
If you’re running short of things to watch during the festive lockdown, you could do worse than work through Open Culture’s list of free-to-watch film noirs from the golden age. Some stone cold classics in here. It has to be better than another re-run of The Snowman, right?
https://www.openculture.com/free_film_noir_movies
There is one truly great Christmas movie. Ok, we’ll allow It’s A Wonderful Life, but for the purposes of current conversation, consider the Frank Capra classic as separate. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett explores the reasons why The Muppet Christmas Carol is the only festive film you need…
One success story of the lockdown has been the creation of a new Supermarionation show. Very much in the spirit of Gerry Anderson classics like Fireball XL-5, Nebula-75 has been made with a tiny budget and extremely limited resources. The skill and wit of the lovely people at Century 21 Films has ensured the show transcends all that, bringing thrills and spills of a very particular sort to our screens. Out yesterday, enjoy the Xmas Special!
Of course for every bauble on the tree there has to be the occasional pine-cone. Daily Grindhouse have been doing great work this year, and we were especially pleased that they closed out their Christmas coverage with this review of the 1965 TV special The Dangerous Christmas Of Red Riding Hood. It looks like an absolute doozy and more than ripe for a reissue…
We were forwarded this post on a sparrow hawk that somehow got itself entangled in a family Xmas tree and well, it sums up the year, don’t it? Thanks for this one, TLC.
https://apple.news/ACQ_FR3J5QFyAqgBZiYEE4Q
We’re deep in listicle season, but enjoyed this one from Wired on the positive things to happen during 2020 enough to share. It’s not all been gloom and doom, you know…
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/positive-news-2020
And finally, Cut Crush Susie Dent shares an alternative Christmas dictionary which we’re going to find extremely useful over the next week or so. Dunno about you lot, but we plan to spend today deep in hurkle durkle and quafftide.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/alternative-christmas-dictionary-806675
And that’s it from us. We wish you all a calm, peaceful and gentle Christmas in which you can find a little joy, whatever the circumstances. Join us next week for the first Cut of 2021, which may or may not include some of our picks of the year in films, books, comics, music and more! We’ll leave you with the other song without which we just don’t feel Christmassy. It only gets more appropriate over time. Take it away, Greg…
See you next year, Santa babies.
The Cut
Hail Santa! Ho, furthermore ho, and in conclusion, ho. How fares the day, our delightful Readership? We hope it finds you in an eggnogilicious mood. Ongoing changes to the lockdown rules mean that most of the staff at The Cut have been forced to stay in the office for the season, roasting chestnuts and turkey in an improvised and potentially deadly adapted microwave setup. Oh well, those of us that survive will all be laughing about it this time next year.
Let’s get the festivities started, shall we? Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin’s in a rut. Now is the time, here is the place, welcome to The Cut!
We begin with a little Entry Music. For us, the first tune played on Christmas Day is always the 1975 live version of Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town by Bruce Springsteen and The E Street band. It isn’t X-Day without it. We especially like the point where Bruce nearly loses it when a roadie in Santa costume sneaks up on him from backstage. Have you guys all been good this year?
We’re going to try not to make this Cut exclusively Crimbly. Please, in that spirit, enjoy this great oral history on the making of Prince’s greatest album, Sign ‘O’ The Times. Created in a time of seismic changes in the Purple One’s life, it would mark the start and end of great things…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54203180
We’re fans of writer Laurie Penny, whose political and cultural smarts are matched with a pleasingly goofy strain of geekery. It seems beautifully apposite that her restless nomadic life led to a whirlwind romance at the most difficult time for cross-continental relationships. This is a beautifully written feel-good story with a properly happy ending.
https://www.wired.com/story/my-highly-unexpected-heterosexual-pandemic-zoom-wedding/
If you’re running short of things to watch during the festive lockdown, you could do worse than work through Open Culture’s list of free-to-watch film noirs from the golden age. Some stone cold classics in here. It has to be better than another re-run of The Snowman, right?
https://www.openculture.com/free_film_noir_movies
There is one truly great Christmas movie. Ok, we’ll allow It’s A Wonderful Life, but for the purposes of current conversation, consider the Frank Capra classic as separate. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett explores the reasons why The Muppet Christmas Carol is the only festive film you need…
One success story of the lockdown has been the creation of a new Supermarionation show. Very much in the spirit of Gerry Anderson classics like Fireball XL-5, Nebula-75 has been made with a tiny budget and extremely limited resources. The skill and wit of the lovely people at Century 21 Films has ensured the show transcends all that, bringing thrills and spills of a very particular sort to our screens. Out yesterday, enjoy the Xmas Special!
Of course for every bauble on the tree there has to be the occasional pine-cone. Daily Grindhouse have been doing great work this year, and we were especially pleased that they closed out their Christmas coverage with this review of the 1965 TV special The Dangerous Christmas Of Red Riding Hood. It looks like an absolute doozy and more than ripe for a reissue…
We were forwarded this post on a sparrow hawk that somehow got itself entangled in a family Xmas tree and well, it sums up the year, don’t it? Thanks for this one, TLC.
https://apple.news/ACQ_FR3J5QFyAqgBZiYEE4Q
We’re deep in listicle season, but enjoyed this one from Wired on the positive things to happen during 2020 enough to share. It’s not all been gloom and doom, you know…
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/positive-news-2020
And finally, Cut Crush Susie Dent shares an alternative Christmas dictionary which we’re going to find extremely useful over the next week or so. Dunno about you lot, but we plan to spend today deep in hurkle durkle and quafftide.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/alternative-christmas-dictionary-806675
And that’s it from us. We wish you all a calm, peaceful and gentle Christmas in which you can find a little joy, whatever the circumstances. Join us next week for the first Cut of 2021, which may or may not include some of our picks of the year in films, books, comics, music and more! We’ll leave you with the other song without which we just don’t feel Christmassy. It only gets more appropriate over time. Take it away, Greg…
See you next year, Santa babies.
The Cut
Hail Santa! Ho, furthermore ho, and in conclusion, ho. How fares the day, our delightful Readership? We hope it finds you in an eggnogilicious mood. Ongoing changes to the lockdown rules mean that most of the staff at The Cut have been forced to stay in the office for the season, roasting chestnuts and turkey in an improvised and potentially deadly adapted microwave setup. Oh well, those of us that survive will all be laughing about it this time next year.
Let’s get the festivities started, shall we? Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin’s in a rut. Now is the time, here is the place, welcome to The Cut!
We begin with a little Entry Music. For us, the first tune played on Christmas Day is always the 1975 live version of Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town by Bruce Springsteen and The E Street band. It isn’t X-Day without it. We especially like the point where Bruce nearly loses it when a roadie in Santa costume sneaks up on him from backstage. Have you guys all been good this year?
We’re going to try not to make this Cut exclusively Crimbly. Please, in that spirit, enjoy this great oral history on the making of Prince’s greatest album, Sign ‘O’ The Times. Created in a time of seismic changes in the Purple One’s life, it would mark the start and end of great things…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54203180
We’re fans of writer Laurie Penny, whose political and cultural smarts are matched with a pleasingly goofy strain of geekery. It seems beautifully apposite that her restless nomadic life led to a whirlwind romance at the most difficult time for cross-continental relationships. This is a beautifully written feel-good story with a properly happy ending.
https://www.wired.com/story/my-highly-unexpected-heterosexual-pandemic-zoom-wedding/
If you’re running short of things to watch during the festive lockdown, you could do worse than work through Open Culture’s list of free-to-watch film noirs from the golden age. Some stone cold classics in here. It has to be better than another re-run of The Snowman, right?
https://www.openculture.com/free_film_noir_movies
There is one truly great Christmas movie. Ok, we’ll allow It’s A Wonderful Life, but for the purposes of current conversation, consider the Frank Capra classic as separate. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett explores the reasons why The Muppet Christmas Carol is the only festive film you need…
One success story of the lockdown has been the creation of a new Supermarionation show. Very much in the spirit of Gerry Anderson classics like Fireball XL-5, Nebula-75 has been made with a tiny budget and extremely limited resources. The skill and wit of the lovely people at Century 21 Films has ensured the show transcends all that, bringing thrills and spills of a very particular sort to our screens. Out yesterday, enjoy the Xmas Special!
Of course for every bauble on the tree there has to be the occasional pine-cone. Daily Grindhouse have been doing great work this year, and we were especially pleased that they closed out their Christmas coverage with this review of the 1965 TV special The Dangerous Christmas Of Red Riding Hood. It looks like an absolute doozy and more than ripe for a reissue…
We were forwarded this post on a sparrow hawk that somehow got itself entangled in a family Xmas tree and well, it sums up the year, don’t it? Thanks for this one, TLC.
https://apple.news/ACQ_FR3J5QFyAqgBZiYEE4Q
We’re deep in listicle season, but enjoyed this one from Wired on the positive things to happen during 2020 enough to share. It’s not all been gloom and doom, you know…
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/positive-news-2020
And finally, Cut Crush Susie Dent shares an alternative Christmas dictionary which we’re going to find extremely useful over the next week or so. Dunno about you lot, but we plan to spend today deep in hurkle durkle and quafftide.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/alternative-christmas-dictionary-806675
And that’s it from us. We wish you all a calm, peaceful and gentle Christmas in which you can find a little joy, whatever the circumstances. Join us next week for the first Cut of 2021, which may or may not include some of our picks of the year in films, books, comics, music and more! We’ll leave you with the other song without which we just don’t feel Christmassy. It only gets more appropriate over time. Take it away, Greg…
See you next year, Santa babies.
The Cut
Hail Santa! Ho, furthermore ho, and in conclusion, ho. How fares the day, our delightful Readership? We hope it finds you in an eggnogilicious mood. Ongoing changes to the lockdown rules mean that most of the staff at The Cut have been forced to stay in the office for the season, roasting chestnuts and turkey in an improvised and potentially deadly adapted microwave setup. Oh well, those of us that survive will all be laughing about it this time next year.
Let’s get the festivities started, shall we? Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin’s in a rut. Now is the time, here is the place, welcome to The Cut!
We begin with a little Entry Music. For us, the first tune played on Christmas Day is always the 1975 live version of Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town by Bruce Springsteen and The E Street band. It isn’t X-Day without it. We especially like the point where Bruce nearly loses it when a roadie in Santa costume sneaks up on him from backstage. Have you guys all been good this year?
We’re going to try not to make this Cut exclusively Crimbly. Please, in that spirit, enjoy this great oral history on the making of Prince’s greatest album, Sign ‘O’ The Times. Created in a time of seismic changes in the Purple One’s life, it would mark the start and end of great things…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54203180
We’re fans of writer Laurie Penny, whose political and cultural smarts are matched with a pleasingly goofy strain of geekery. It seems beautifully apposite that her restless nomadic life led to a whirlwind romance at the most difficult time for cross-continental relationships. This is a beautifully written feel-good story with a properly happy ending.
https://www.wired.com/story/my-highly-unexpected-heterosexual-pandemic-zoom-wedding/
If you’re running short of things to watch during the festive lockdown, you could do worse than work through Open Culture’s list of free-to-watch film noirs from the golden age. Some stone cold classics in here. It has to be better than another re-run of The Snowman, right?
https://www.openculture.com/free_film_noir_movies
There is one truly great Christmas movie. Ok, we’ll allow It’s A Wonderful Life, but for the purposes of current conversation, consider the Frank Capra classic as separate. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett explores the reasons why The Muppet Christmas Carol is the only festive film you need…
One success story of the lockdown has been the creation of a new Supermarionation show. Very much in the spirit of Gerry Anderson classics like Fireball XL-5, Nebula-75 has been made with a tiny budget and extremely limited resources. The skill and wit of the lovely people at Century 21 Films has ensured the show transcends all that, bringing thrills and spills of a very particular sort to our screens. Out yesterday, enjoy the Xmas Special!
Of course for every bauble on the tree there has to be the occasional pine-cone. Daily Grindhouse have been doing great work this year, and we were especially pleased that they closed out their Christmas coverage with this review of the 1965 TV special The Dangerous Christmas Of Red Riding Hood. It looks like an absolute doozy and more than ripe for a reissue…
We were forwarded this post on a sparrow hawk that somehow got itself entangled in a family Xmas tree and well, it sums up the year, don’t it? Thanks for this one, TLC.
https://apple.news/ACQ_FR3J5QFyAqgBZiYEE4Q
We’re deep in listicle season, but enjoyed this one from Wired on the positive things to happen during 2020 enough to share. It’s not all been gloom and doom, you know…
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/positive-news-2020
And finally, Cut Crush Susie Dent shares an alternative Christmas dictionary which we’re going to find extremely useful over the next week or so. Dunno about you lot, but we plan to spend today deep in hurkle durkle and quafftide.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/alternative-christmas-dictionary-806675
And that’s it from us. We wish you all a calm, peaceful and gentle Christmas in which you can find a little joy, whatever the circumstances. Join us next week for the first Cut of 2021, which may or may not include some of our picks of the year in films, books, comics, music and more! We’ll leave you with the other song without which we just don’t feel Christmassy. It only gets more appropriate over time. Take it away, Greg…
See you next year, Santa babies.
December 18, 2020
The Cut🩸Issue 32
Christmas in Tier 3, whoop de bleedin doo. Like we needed any more excuses to roll up the drawbridge and set the minefields and robot gun emplacements and fill the moat with shark-infested acid and dig into the booze and grub stockpile and drink and eat ourselves into a hibernative food coma all the while singing SKRU U 2020, ENUF IS ENUF.
Ahem. A shorter film-heavy Cut this week as we consider our options for the ‘festive’ season. Christmas Day is next Friday, and we do intend to have a thing for you. What shape and smell it will have is yet to be confirmed. But we’ll be double-dog-damned if we’re gonna leave you hanging just when you need us the most.
Don’t just stand there, let’s get to it. Strike a pose there’s nothing to now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Greatest movie capes. Seriously, if there’s any listicle that sums up the vibe of The Cut, it’s this. SCRU U, Edna Mole. Capes are cool.
https://filmschoolrejects.com/greatest-movie-capes/
We found ourselves both entertained and informed by this post on the Curzon blog about films smearing the boundaries between drama and documentary. Sure, this is not a new thing, but we are enjoying the nods to the Italian Neo-Realist, cinema verite and New Wave movements.
https://www.curzonblog.com/all-posts/redefining-truth
We’re very much looking forward to watching David Fincher’s latest, Mank, over the Xmas break. The story of the making of Citizen Kane, its cool monochrome aesthetic is propped up with a lot of very clever and subtle VFX. Check it out, and wonder how much of the visuals of your favourite show start in a computer…
http://beforesandafters.com/2020/12/14/mank-vfx-body-and-fender-work-and-so-much-more/
There’s always a tedious discussion at this time of year about what constitutes a Christmas movie, which will end up in an argument with the words ‘die’ and ‘hard’ featured prominently. We try to stay out of it. It’s too much like hard work. Instead, we offer an overview of the first true slasher film, one that we would happily watch in place of that nonsense with Bruce Willis.
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/black-christmas-review-first-slasher-film-genre
No Beatle has a worse reputation than Paul McCartney. He’s Mr Thumbs Aloft, the Frog Chorus guy, the bugger that ruined Christmas 1977 with that godawful Mull Of Kintyre nonsense. All of which ignores the work of a restless, inventive bloke who just happened to write fat chunks of the soundtracks of our lives. Don’t pretend otherwise. McCartney is in your head somewhere. As he releases McCartney III, the latest in a series of completely self-played albums, Ian Leslie provides us with sixty-four reasons to celebrate the man and his music…
https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/64-reasons-to-celebrate-paul-mccartney
It would not be Christmas without a shot of bleakness. This extraordinary piece from Brooke Magnanti on the clearance of her family home after her father’s death is moving, forensic and unflinching in the examination of what happens to the human body after death and the work which goes into the cleanup thereafter. We’ll post a warning on this one. It’s not for the fainthearted. But we haven’t read a more affecting piece of writing in weeks.
https://belledejour.substack.com/p/beacon-acres
Kind of a side-swerve, but we were drawn to this howl of outrage over one of the biggest scams of the modern age. Unreliable machines and a desperately over-priced consumable? The argument for completely binning your printer gets stronger by the day.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/06/horrible-products/#inkwars
And finally. We couldn’t resist this story of love triumphing over the inability to pilot a jet ski. The last line makes it for us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/world/europe/jet-ski-isle-of-man-dale-mclaughlan.html
We promised fewer sad female singer-songwriters in the lead up to X-Day. Allow us, then, to present Aimee Mann with her joyful festive classic I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas. We swear, it’s just like we can’t help ourselves at this point…
Ah, screw it, have this one as an early gift from us. Tis the season, right?
See you in seven, angels.
The Cut
Christmas in Tier 3, whoop de bleedin doo. Like we needed any more excuses to roll up the drawbridge and set the minefields and robot gun emplacements and fill the moat with shark-infested acid and dig into the booze and grub stockpile and drink and eat ourselves into a hibernative food coma all the while singing SKRU U 2020, ENUF IS ENUF.
Ahem. A shorter film-heavy Cut this week as we consider our options for the ‘festive’ season. Christmas Day is next Friday, and we do intend to have a thing for you. What shape and smell it will have is yet to be confirmed. But we’ll be double-dog-damned if we’re gonna leave you hanging just when you need us the most.
Don’t just stand there, let’s get to it. Strike a pose there’s nothing to now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Greatest movie capes. Seriously, if there’s any listicle that sums up the vibe of The Cut, it’s this. SCRU U, Edna Mole. Capes are cool.
https://filmschoolrejects.com/greatest-movie-capes/
We found ourselves both entertained and informed by this post on the Curzon blog about films smearing the boundaries between drama and documentary. Sure, this is not a new thing, but we are enjoying the nods to the Italian Neo-Realist, cinema verite and New Wave movements.
https://www.curzonblog.com/all-posts/redefining-truth
We’re very much looking forward to watching David Fincher’s latest, Mank, over the Xmas break. The story of the making of Citizen Kane, its cool monochrome aesthetic is propped up with a lot of very clever and subtle VFX. Check it out, and wonder how much of the visuals of your favourite show start in a computer…
http://beforesandafters.com/2020/12/14/mank-vfx-body-and-fender-work-and-so-much-more/
There’s always a tedious discussion at this time of year about what constitutes a Christmas movie, which will end up in an argument with the words ‘die’ and ‘hard’ featured prominently. We try to stay out of it. It’s too much like hard work. Instead, we offer an overview of the first true slasher film, one that we would happily watch in place of that nonsense with Bruce Willis.
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/black-christmas-review-first-slasher-film-genre
No Beatle has a worse reputation than Paul McCartney. He’s Mr Thumbs Aloft, the Frog Chorus guy, the bugger that ruined Christmas 1977 with that godawful Mull Of Kintyre nonsense. All of which ignores the work of a restless, inventive bloke who just happened to write fat chunks of the soundtracks of our lives. Don’t pretend otherwise. McCartney is in your head somewhere. As he releases McCartney III, the latest in a series of completely self-played albums, Ian Leslie provides us with sixty-four reasons to celebrate the man and his music…
https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/64-reasons-to-celebrate-paul-mccartney
It would not be Christmas without a shot of bleakness. This extraordinary piece from Brooke Magnanti on the clearance of her family home after her father’s death is moving, forensic and unflinching in the examination of what happens to the human body after death and the work which goes into the cleanup thereafter. We’ll post a warning on this one. It’s not for the fainthearted. But we haven’t read a more affecting piece of writing in weeks.
https://belledejour.substack.com/p/beacon-acres
Kind of a side-swerve, but we were drawn to this howl of outrage over one of the biggest scams of the modern age. Unreliable machines and a desperately over-priced consumable? The argument for completely binning your printer gets stronger by the day.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/06/horrible-products/#inkwars
And finally. We couldn’t resist this story of love triumphing over the inability to pilot a jet ski. The last line makes it for us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/world/europe/jet-ski-isle-of-man-dale-mclaughlan.html
We promised fewer sad female singer-songwriters in the lead up to X-Day. Allow us, then, to present Aimee Mann with her joyful festive classic I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas. We swear, it’s just like we can’t help ourselves at this point…
Ah, screw it, have this one as an early gift from us. Tis the season, right?
See you in seven, angels.
The Cut
Christmas in Tier 3, whoop de bleedin doo. Like we needed any more excuses to roll up the drawbridge and set the minefields and robot gun emplacements and fill the moat with shark-infested acid and dig into the booze and grub stockpile and drink and eat ourselves into a hibernative food coma all the while singing SKRU U 2020, ENUF IS ENUF.
Ahem. A shorter film-heavy Cut this week as we consider our options for the ‘festive’ season. Christmas Day is next Friday, and we do intend to have a thing for you. What shape and smell it will have is yet to be confirmed. But we’ll be double-dog-damned if we’re gonna leave you hanging just when you need us the most.
Don’t just stand there, let’s get to it. Strike a pose there’s nothing to now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Greatest movie capes. Seriously, if there’s any listicle that sums up the vibe of The Cut, it’s this. SCRU U, Edna Mole. Capes are cool.
https://filmschoolrejects.com/greatest-movie-capes/
We found ourselves both entertained and informed by this post on the Curzon blog about films smearing the boundaries between drama and documentary. Sure, this is not a new thing, but we are enjoying the nods to the Italian Neo-Realist, cinema verite and New Wave movements.
https://www.curzonblog.com/all-posts/redefining-truth
We’re very much looking forward to watching David Fincher’s latest, Mank, over the Xmas break. The story of the making of Citizen Kane, its cool monochrome aesthetic is propped up with a lot of very clever and subtle VFX. Check it out, and wonder how much of the visuals of your favourite show start in a computer…
http://beforesandafters.com/2020/12/14/mank-vfx-body-and-fender-work-and-so-much-more/
There’s always a tedious discussion at this time of year about what constitutes a Christmas movie, which will end up in an argument with the words ‘die’ and ‘hard’ featured prominently. We try to stay out of it. It’s too much like hard work. Instead, we offer an overview of the first true slasher film, one that we would happily watch in place of that nonsense with Bruce Willis.
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/black-christmas-review-first-slasher-film-genre
No Beatle has a worse reputation than Paul McCartney. He’s Mr Thumbs Aloft, the Frog Chorus guy, the bugger that ruined Christmas 1977 with that godawful Mull Of Kintyre nonsense. All of which ignores the work of a restless, inventive bloke who just happened to write fat chunks of the soundtracks of our lives. Don’t pretend otherwise. McCartney is in your head somewhere. As he releases McCartney III, the latest in a series of completely self-played albums, Ian Leslie provides us with sixty-four reasons to celebrate the man and his music…
https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/64-reasons-to-celebrate-paul-mccartney
It would not be Christmas without a shot of bleakness. This extraordinary piece from Brooke Magnanti on the clearance of her family home after her father’s death is moving, forensic and unflinching in the examination of what happens to the human body after death and the work which goes into the cleanup thereafter. We’ll post a warning on this one. It’s not for the fainthearted. But we haven’t read a more affecting piece of writing in weeks.
https://belledejour.substack.com/p/beacon-acres
Kind of a side-swerve, but we were drawn to this howl of outrage over one of the biggest scams of the modern age. Unreliable machines and a desperately over-priced consumable? The argument for completely binning your printer gets stronger by the day.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/06/horrible-products/#inkwars
And finally. We couldn’t resist this story of love triumphing over the inability to pilot a jet ski. The last line makes it for us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/world/europe/jet-ski-isle-of-man-dale-mclaughlan.html
We promised fewer sad female singer-songwriters in the lead up to X-Day. Allow us, then, to present Aimee Mann with her joyful festive classic I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas. We swear, it’s just like we can’t help ourselves at this point…
Ah, screw it, have this one as an early gift from us. Tis the season, right?
See you in seven, angels.
The Cut
Christmas in Tier 3, whoop de bleedin doo. Like we needed any more excuses to roll up the drawbridge and set the minefields and robot gun emplacements and fill the moat with shark-infested acid and dig into the booze and grub stockpile and drink and eat ourselves into a hibernative food coma all the while singing SKRU U 2020, ENUF IS ENUF.
Ahem. A shorter film-heavy Cut this week as we consider our options for the ‘festive’ season. Christmas Day is next Friday, and we do intend to have a thing for you. What shape and smell it will have is yet to be confirmed. But we’ll be double-dog-damned if we’re gonna leave you hanging just when you need us the most.
Don’t just stand there, let’s get to it. Strike a pose there’s nothing to now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Greatest movie capes. Seriously, if there’s any listicle that sums up the vibe of The Cut, it’s this. SCRU U, Edna Mole. Capes are cool.
https://filmschoolrejects.com/greatest-movie-capes/
We found ourselves both entertained and informed by this post on the Curzon blog about films smearing the boundaries between drama and documentary. Sure, this is not a new thing, but we are enjoying the nods to the Italian Neo-Realist, cinema verite and New Wave movements.
https://www.curzonblog.com/all-posts/redefining-truth
We’re very much looking forward to watching David Fincher’s latest, Mank, over the Xmas break. The story of the making of Citizen Kane, its cool monochrome aesthetic is propped up with a lot of very clever and subtle VFX. Check it out, and wonder how much of the visuals of your favourite show start in a computer…
http://beforesandafters.com/2020/12/14/mank-vfx-body-and-fender-work-and-so-much-more/
There’s always a tedious discussion at this time of year about what constitutes a Christmas movie, which will end up in an argument with the words ‘die’ and ‘hard’ featured prominently. We try to stay out of it. It’s too much like hard work. Instead, we offer an overview of the first true slasher film, one that we would happily watch in place of that nonsense with Bruce Willis.
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/black-christmas-review-first-slasher-film-genre
No Beatle has a worse reputation than Paul McCartney. He’s Mr Thumbs Aloft, the Frog Chorus guy, the bugger that ruined Christmas 1977 with that godawful Mull Of Kintyre nonsense. All of which ignores the work of a restless, inventive bloke who just happened to write fat chunks of the soundtracks of our lives. Don’t pretend otherwise. McCartney is in your head somewhere. As he releases McCartney III, the latest in a series of completely self-played albums, Ian Leslie provides us with sixty-four reasons to celebrate the man and his music…
https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/64-reasons-to-celebrate-paul-mccartney
It would not be Christmas without a shot of bleakness. This extraordinary piece from Brooke Magnanti on the clearance of her family home after her father’s death is moving, forensic and unflinching in the examination of what happens to the human body after death and the work which goes into the cleanup thereafter. We’ll post a warning on this one. It’s not for the fainthearted. But we haven’t read a more affecting piece of writing in weeks.
https://belledejour.substack.com/p/beacon-acres
Kind of a side-swerve, but we were drawn to this howl of outrage over one of the biggest scams of the modern age. Unreliable machines and a desperately over-priced consumable? The argument for completely binning your printer gets stronger by the day.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/06/horrible-products/#inkwars
And finally. We couldn’t resist this story of love triumphing over the inability to pilot a jet ski. The last line makes it for us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/world/europe/jet-ski-isle-of-man-dale-mclaughlan.html
We promised fewer sad female singer-songwriters in the lead up to X-Day. Allow us, then, to present Aimee Mann with her joyful festive classic I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas. We swear, it’s just like we can’t help ourselves at this point…
Ah, screw it, have this one as an early gift from us. Tis the season, right?
See you in seven, angels.
The Cut
Christmas in Tier 3, whoop de bleedin doo. Like we needed any more excuses to roll up the drawbridge and set the minefields and robot gun emplacements and fill the moat with shark-infested acid and dig into the booze and grub stockpile and drink and eat ourselves into a hibernative food coma all the while singing SKRU U 2020, ENUF IS ENUF.
Ahem. A shorter film-heavy Cut this week as we consider our options for the ‘festive’ season. Christmas Day is next Friday, and we do intend to have a thing for you. What shape and smell it will have is yet to be confirmed. But we’ll be double-dog-damned if we’re gonna leave you hanging just when you need us the most.
Don’t just stand there, let’s get to it. Strike a pose there’s nothing to now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Greatest movie capes. Seriously, if there’s any listicle that sums up the vibe of The Cut, it’s this. SCRU U, Edna Mole. Capes are cool.
https://filmschoolrejects.com/greatest-movie-capes/
We found ourselves both entertained and informed by this post on the Curzon blog about films smearing the boundaries between drama and documentary. Sure, this is not a new thing, but we are enjoying the nods to the Italian Neo-Realist, cinema verite and New Wave movements.
https://www.curzonblog.com/all-posts/redefining-truth
We’re very much looking forward to watching David Fincher’s latest, Mank, over the Xmas break. The story of the making of Citizen Kane, its cool monochrome aesthetic is propped up with a lot of very clever and subtle VFX. Check it out, and wonder how much of the visuals of your favourite show start in a computer…
http://beforesandafters.com/2020/12/14/mank-vfx-body-and-fender-work-and-so-much-more/
There’s always a tedious discussion at this time of year about what constitutes a Christmas movie, which will end up in an argument with the words ‘die’ and ‘hard’ featured prominently. We try to stay out of it. It’s too much like hard work. Instead, we offer an overview of the first true slasher film, one that we would happily watch in place of that nonsense with Bruce Willis.
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/black-christmas-review-first-slasher-film-genre
No Beatle has a worse reputation than Paul McCartney. He’s Mr Thumbs Aloft, the Frog Chorus guy, the bugger that ruined Christmas 1977 with that godawful Mull Of Kintyre nonsense. All of which ignores the work of a restless, inventive bloke who just happened to write fat chunks of the soundtracks of our lives. Don’t pretend otherwise. McCartney is in your head somewhere. As he releases McCartney III, the latest in a series of completely self-played albums, Ian Leslie provides us with sixty-four reasons to celebrate the man and his music…
https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/64-reasons-to-celebrate-paul-mccartney
It would not be Christmas without a shot of bleakness. This extraordinary piece from Brooke Magnanti on the clearance of her family home after her father’s death is moving, forensic and unflinching in the examination of what happens to the human body after death and the work which goes into the cleanup thereafter. We’ll post a warning on this one. It’s not for the fainthearted. But we haven’t read a more affecting piece of writing in weeks.
https://belledejour.substack.com/p/beacon-acres
Kind of a side-swerve, but we were drawn to this howl of outrage over one of the biggest scams of the modern age. Unreliable machines and a desperately over-priced consumable? The argument for completely binning your printer gets stronger by the day.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/06/horrible-products/#inkwars
And finally. We couldn’t resist this story of love triumphing over the inability to pilot a jet ski. The last line makes it for us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/world/europe/jet-ski-isle-of-man-dale-mclaughlan.html
We promised fewer sad female singer-songwriters in the lead up to X-Day. Allow us, then, to present Aimee Mann with her joyful festive classic I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas. We swear, it’s just like we can’t help ourselves at this point…
Ah, screw it, have this one as an early gift from us. Tis the season, right?
See you in seven, angels.
December 11, 2020
The Cut 💉 Issue 31
It’s beginning to look a lot like… oh, you get the idea. As we tumble headlong into the strangest festive season in decades, allow your pals at the Cut to issue perspective in the form of our usual brand of geek-forward linkery. The perfect antidote for those Zoom-party hangovers.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
The vaccine is here! People are getting that sweet sweet anti-Covid juice jacked into their veins even as we write this! Sure, you may be a way down the list but, to the tune of the Christmas Coke ad, corona-free is coming. Did you know, though, that the closest thing Earth has to an actual angel is partly responsible for the vaccine. As if you needed another reason to love Dolly…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/01/dolly-parton-fund-covid-vaccine
Just the one link from those lazy cusses on the film desk this week, but it’s a good ‘un. Our chums at Film School Rejects look at the remarkable Brokeback Mountain as it reaches it’s fifteenth birthday, and examines how the lenses it was shot with help to accentuate the unreachable distance between Jack and Ennis…
https://filmschoolrejects.com/brokeback-mountain-landscape-as-metaphor/
Over at the music desk, a fine retrospective on unsung punk hero Peter Laughner. A haunted genius with a reputation for hard living, Laughner had much more to offer before his untimely death in 1977. Author and musician Adele Bertei offers a very different view on his life and wild times…
http://www.furious.com/perfect/peterlaughnerbook.html
The music desk also wanted to share the latest from Janelle Shae, whose work with AI is equal parts hilarious and nerve-shredding. She’s trained her pet neural networks on the texts of many well-known Christmas carols. The results are, shall we say, not the sort of thing you want the local choir to be singing this year…
http://aiweirdness.com/post/189845472982/the-ais-carol
Oh, look, we couldn’t resist sharing this. Presented with no further context, please to enjoy a drum ‘n’ bass remix of the Are You Being Served theme. Going up…
It’s rare for us to share an obituary, but this one tells the story of a man we really feel should be better known. Mountaineer, photographer, stunt co-ordinator and inventor of techniques still used for mountain rescue today, let us all be grateful that there was room on the planet for the remarkable Hamish McInnes…
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/world/europe/hamish-macinnes-dead.html
If you’re any sort of bookworm, there is a very good chance that you have owned a Billy bookcase at some point. Ikea’s best-seller is a simple but functional piece of furniture which is easy to dress up or down as you please. Of course, simplicity is difficult to do well, and the story of the Billy is one of continuing technical innovation on a global scale…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38747485
Oh heck, the Ninth Art Desk is at it again…
It’s been forty years since the first strip arrived of one of our favourite daily comics—Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County. After a long hiatus, we were delighted to see new episodes arriving in 2015, and the Berkster (as no-one calls him) continues to crank out the funnies. The New York Times chats to the guy behind Bill the Cat and Opus the Penguin as he reminisces and reveals why he decided to pick up the ol’ ink pen again.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/arts/bloom-county-40-berkeley-breathed.html
After reading this interview with the great Eddie Campbell, we are saving our pennies to invest in his new book, The Goat-Getters. An irreverent history of early sports comics might not sound like a fun read, but we’re always fascinated by the hidden history of comics, especially in an era which valued graphic story-telling techniques in a very different way to us. As ever, the Ninth Art has much to teach.
http://www.tcj.com/getting-the-goat-getters-a-conversation-with-eddie-campbell/
The year-end best of lists have started to arrive, and we wanted to share this one from The Nerdist on the best comics of 2020. Some of our favourites are not included, sadly (whither Giant Days or Die?) but there is plenty of good stuff to spend your Xmas book tokens on here.
https://nerdist.com/article/best-comics-of-2020/
And finally. We had a chuckle at 6 Feet Cover’s socially distanced album covers. It’s a one-note joke, but done exceedingly well. Expect to see some of these pop up as memes on your WhatsApp circles soon.
https://6feetcovers.wixsite.com/6feetcovers
Yes, ok, our Exit Music this week is yet another downbeat tune from a female singer-songwriter. Yes, we know that’s three in a row. We promise, we’ll change things up next week. But we simply couldn’t resist Phoebe Bridgers lovely version of If We Make It Through December… and we believe you’ll thank us for it. Sure, it’s a bit on the nose, but we refuse to apologise for sharing music we like. This will send a chill down you in the nicest of ways.
See you in seven, snowflakes.
