Lawrence C. Connolly's Blog, page 3

Sleuth 1972 on Blu-ray

The new Spanish Blu-ray of Sleuth ( La Huella ) flanked by previously released DVDs from Anchor Bay and Umbrella Entertainment. At last! The Blu-ray holy grail!

For years, I’ve been convinced we would never see a decent home video release of the ultimate two-hander, the parlor mystery that pits wealthy blue-blood Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier) against first-generation Brit Milo Tindle (Michael Caine). Written by Anthony Shaffer and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the film made a lasting im...

The Power of the Known

Thomas Cole – A View of the Two Lakes and Mountain House, Catskill Mountains, Morning (1844) The Power of the Familiar

Two days ago, during my presentation at Duquesne University (see my previous post for more details), I asked a student to recall a passage that had effectively drawn him into a piece of writing.

Without hesitation, he identified the opening of Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle.”

Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They ar...

Ideas

Back to the River

You can’t step into the same river twice. So said the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. It’s not just that the river changes. We do as well. And the change becomes more pronounced with time.

I made that point a few months back in a post about rewatching John Carpenter’s They Live. And I’m thinking about it again today as I return to Duquesne University, the institution where I taught creative writing and science fiction way back in the mid-80s. It was my first tea...

Movies: Best of the Longest

Evolution of Movie Length: Edison’s 15-minute Frankenstein (1910), Francesco Bertolini’s 73-minute L’Inferno (1911) Enrico Guazzoni’s 120-minute Quo Vadis (1913), Stanley Kubrick’s 198-minute Spartacus (1960), Brady Corbit’s 215-minute The Brutalist (2024).Est Picture Winner

Last week the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced its Best Picture nominees for 2025.

Only one came in at 120 minutes—the length that many have come to regard as the ideal length for a feature f...

The Longest Movies

Est Things

We’re fascinated by est things. You know, like the biggest, smallest, longest, shortest, tallest, what-everest things in the world.

Such est fascination is certainly why the Guinness Book of World Records has sold over 150 million copies (making it one of the best-selling copyrighted books of all time) and why Roadtrippers Magazine has compiled a list of The World’s Largest Roadside Attractions. Among them: the tallest pistachio nut (30 feet high), the heaviest yarn ball (27...

Minute-Men, Werewolves, and Poe

Concept art for the film Minute Men: Execute & Run.The Minute-Men

Locus Magazine’s People & Publishing Roundup for January includes an announcement of my upcoming novel Minute-Men: Execute & Run. The book will be released this fall by Caezik, the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Arc Manor Books.  

As mentioned in a previous blog post (find it here), Execute & Run is based on an IP conceived by brother Christopher Connolly, who also helped develop the story.

Christopher and I a...

Ignoring the Inner Critic

Cartoon by Grant Snider from the New York Times article “How Do You Silence Your Inner Critic?” Find it here. While the Critic Sleeps

I like to write in the morning. The earlier the better. It’s not just because the world is quiet then. My thoughts are as well, mainly because the critical part of my brain–the part skilled at finding fault–is still sleeping. As a result, if I start early enough, I might get in an hour or two before the critic wakes.

Until recently, I considered the notio...

It’s 2025 … and We’re Just Getting Started.

Early concept art by collaborator (and brother) Christopher Connolly for a graphic version of Minute-Men: Execute & Run. The full-length novel will be published later this year by Arc Manor Books.Execute & Run

It’s been a month since my previous post. That’s generally an indication that I’m neck-deep in a writing project. As I’ve pointed out before, I’m a bit of a monomaniac. One thing at a time, that’s me.

A similar gap occurred in January-February 2024 while I was working on a novel ...

Mighty Beasts of the 1950s

Time Traveling

Let’s go back in time. The distant past! To the days when terrible lizards roamed the imaginations of prepubescent minds.

I’m talking about the 1950s.

Dino Evolution

Back then, dinosaurs were juggernauts: massive, lumbering brutes that had more in common with locomotives and steam shovels than with the T-Rexes and Velociraptors envisioned today.

That said, it occurs to me that zeitgeist has a lot to do with how each successive generation envisions its dinosaurs....

Unboxing John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness

What’s in the Box?

Psionic transmissions from the future, multiverse portals, body horror transformations, a capsule of pure evil, , and a heady dose of weird science—it must be a John Carpenter movie.

And for my money, it’s one of his best.

For last night’s re-watch of Prince of Darkness, I picked up Shout Factory’s box edition containing a vinyl EP of John Carpenter music and a slipcase polybox containing both a Blu-ray and 4K HD disk of this classic horror/sci-fi mash...