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Scribal Rites
The Wall Street Journal features this piece on how TV series writers have their own ways to achieve fulfilment and exact retribution. Most of the examples are more subtle than confrontational… David Kohan (tells of how) comedian Elayne Boosler treated him so badly early in his career that he tried for years to get revenge.…
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Radio Daze
I’ve had a heads-up to say that BBC Radio 7 will be airing my 90-minute adaptation of Chimera in two slots this coming Sunday (August 22nd) and again the following day… click here for the scheduled times, if that appeals to you. And, tying in with my Quiller post below, I notice that all this…
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Of Girls, Swedes, and Dragon Tattoos
If you’re interested and you get the chance, try to see Niels Arden Oplev’s Swedish-language version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo before you hear much more about the planned David Fincher remake. That first adaptation isn’t a perfect movie by any means, but as screen mysteries go it’s a very good one. A…
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Quiller and Quiller Again
Last night, in a collision of whim and a weekend sale by the good folk at Network DVD, I watched The Quiller Memorandum for the first time in a number of years. (Pause for a quick shout-out to my daughter Ellen, singing at the Bloodstock festival today with the band Neonfly. Check out the site…
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Of Prams and Hallways
In today’s Guardian Frank Cottrell Boyce takes on Cyril Connolly’s much-quoted assertion that “there is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hallway”. The piece is accompanied by a picture of J G Ballard and his three small children, raised single-handedly after the death of his wife at a young…
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You CAN Go Home Again
Okay, I’ve been tagged, and this time I can’t dodge it. On his blog Between the Pavement and the Stars, Piers Beckley has listed those films that he’ll watch any number of times, and challenged me, Danny Stack and Jason Arnopp to do the same. It’s not supposed to be an objective greatness list, or…
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Johnny Hollywood, the Commentary
You may be curious as to why I appear to have a habit of interviewing myself, so the previous post could benefit from some explanation. The first Johnny Hollywood entry came about as a result of a freelance journalist contacting me through my publisher to request an interview for a well-known magazine. I said okay,…
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Johnny Hollywood Explains it All (2)
How do you stay motivated to finish a novel? How do you stay focused? I don’t start a novel unless I’ve got a story that gives me a little sense of awe whenever I think about it. Not out of vanity, I mean that sense of having lucked into something classical and timeless like a…
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Panning and Scanning
I was channel-hopping last night and came upon a comparative rarity; one of the digital channels, could have been ITV2, was showing a modern movie in 4X3 format, the almost-square ‘Academy’ ratio that was phased out in the cinema about 40 years ago and in TV at the beginning of this century. Like a Chav…
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Crusoe in Kent
I’m grateful to Scott Andrews for the news that the many of the sets, props and weapons created by Production Designer Jonathan Lee for Crusoe have been shipped from South Africa to the UK. The sets have been reconstructed as an adventure play attraction at Groombridge Place near Tunbridge Wells (these images are Jonathan’s concept…
Hauling Like A Brooligan
Stephen Gallagher
