Recent content by cortempond

Moorcock, Peace, Ellroy, etc. I just finished the Peace books - he is brilliant, though very bleak and depressing in his vision. Sometimes he tries to hard to be Ellroy with his writing style. I look forward to reading whatever he has in the pipeline. Speaking of Ellroy - his LA series -...

London Fields - Sprawling Mess He will have to do a lot of tightening up - the book is wayyyy too long. I'm sure he'll turn the female character, Nicola Six, into something like Bujold's in Dead Ringers. It all has to do with the casting. Don't know who would be able to fill the role of...

60's British New Wave Sci-Fi? Being a Sci-Fi nut, I started off with the American Legends - Heinlein, Bradbury, Bova (Exiles Trilogy) E.E. Cummings (the Lensmen series) Harrison (Stainless Steel Rat and Deathworld books, as well as Make Room, Make Room). Then I discovered what was considered...

Kitano as Genius Kitano is a genius, Hana-Bi, Boiling Point and Sonatine are masterpieces - I can never get tired of watching them. Brother is a great film as well, the fish out of water meets Yakuza film is a great concept. His character in that film seems an extension of the one in...

Chicago (Not Chi-Town, please..) Hello from Chicago. It's cold as hell here. And it's May 2. It's the global warming kicking in. In addition to my daily gig at the Newberry Library (second-largest research library in the US and the only one open to the public) I also work at the Virgin...

Boy Howdy from Chicago First off - Much respect to Matt and K-Punk for creating this forum. They were the ones that brought me in from the cold and onto this site. They are an inspiration. Second off- Just like to say hello to some of the other people I have much admiration for - Blissblog...

Very Interesting Re: Strauss Dominic: Thank you for your thoughts and perspectives on Strauss. Six degrees of separation, as it seems. I plan on checking some of those writers you mentioned. What is your background, as your depth of knowledge is quite fascinating. It is quite refeshing to...

Find any King Hu stuff, if you can King Hu was the master of Kung-Fu films during the '60's and early '70's. Try and find his Touch of Zen and the original version of Dragon Inn (though the Tsui Hauk remake was mighty nice). Dreadnaught (1983)with Jet Li is pretty top, as well as the Once...

Legend of Rita Was directed by Volker Schlondoff (sp?). It came out in 2000. The main character is named Rita Vogt, a West German terrorist who settles in East Germany with a new identity provided by the East German secret service and shows her life from the '70's until the Unification of...

Re: World On A Wire As stated earlier, World On A Wire was a three-hour film/series that Fassbinder made for TV in the late 70's. It's Sci-Fi, with a thriller aspect, regarding media and its domination. It's only available in German, and I have seen copies of it available on E-Bay (I know...

La Monte Young? Palestine has done some incredible stuff, especially his pieces for organ. Didn't he do a Motorlab set with Pan Sonic? However, I think La Monte Young's Well-Tuned Piano (5 hours of shimmering sound) work is better. Throw in Morton Feldman (Rothko Chapel, For Philip Guston)...

BTW Martin Amis massively influ. by Bellow Several years ago was at a book reading here in Chicago by Martin Amis -- just when London Fields came out. Happened by chance to be sitting next to Bellow's wife (#? who knows). Talked to her for a bit, she said Amis was staying with her and Bellow...

Flow My Tears/Now Wait For Last Year I'm a massive PKD fan, have collected most of his books. Can't wait to see what Linklater does with Scanner Darkly - it's a tough book to bring to film, but hell, they were able to make Blade Runner out of Androids. The masterpieces of course are Ubik...

Just picked up TVB - Inc. Letter to Jane! Funny this came up. Just picked up the Criterion Tout Va Bien and watched it last night. The restoration is incredible - really makes the colors vivid. Have to place it in begin Two or Three Things and Weekend in regards to its visual style and...

See Seconds if you want depressing I'd say John Frankenheimer's Seconds with Rock Hudson is probably the most depressing. Not disturbing, just depressing as all hell. Whoever brought up The Shout - Brilliant. Sad it's not available on DVD. Got it on VHS. Need to see it again. Re...