"We are all in the gutter, but some of us..."

"...are looking at the stars."
-- Oscar Wilde

Screen Archive

Our So-Called "Expert"

This site is updated Thursday at noon with a new article about an artistic pursuit generally considered to be beneath consideration. James Schellenberg probes science-fiction, Carol Borden draws out the best in comics, Chris Szego dallies with romance, and Ian Driscoll stares deeply into the screen.

While the writers have considerable enthusiasm for their subjects, they don't let it numb their critical faculties. Tossing away the shield of journalistic objectivity and refusing the shovel of fannish boosterism, they write in the hopes of starting honest and intelligent discussions about these oft-enjoyed but rarely examined artforms. Click here for the writer's bios and their individual takes on the gutter.

Recent Features

Black Cat Bone

fish 80.jpg Around the 5^th time I read my nephew The Cat in the Hat, I started thinking. Sure, I might have been overthinking my thinker and overpuzzling my puzzler reading the book 15 times in half an hour and cutting it with The Cat in the Hat Comes Back!, but I think the Cat in the Hat is the Devil.

"A Book's Natural Fate"

So you've written a book that fits the current vogue perfectly - let's say it's a grimy cyberpunk novel in the mid-1980s - does that mean you've guaranteed long-lasting fame for yourself? Probably not. But don't worry, a lot of your compatriots are suffering the same fate.

Oh, and I just happen to have an example at hand: George Alec Effinger's When Gravity Fails, a perfectly fine book in its own right, and one that happens to have come back into print in a gorgeous trade paperback. But for some reason, I started having melancholy and/or realistic thoughts about the writing life after reading it.

Continue reading...

The Lady's Got Class

I once heard a reader dismiss a particular romance novel - and, in fact, the author’s entire writing career - because she felt the writer had no grasp of history. Her complaint? In the book, a character used a zipper several weeks before it was invented in real life. Now, I’m aware that historical errors can be very distracting, but it’s also possible to pay too much attention to the nicities of historical detail at the expense of the actual story. More important, and thus more damaging when done wrong, is historical anachronism pertaining to character.
Continue reading...

Forgetful?

Screen Category

100 + 100 + 100 = 850

When I first took the screen beat at The Cultural Gutter, I vowed never to do a list article. But promises, like Corningware, are made to be broken.

By Ian Driscoll on May 11, 2008 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A SHOUT GLUED TO A WALL

At one point in the essay that introduces ¡Mas! Cine Mexicano, Sensational Mexican Movie Posters 1957-1990, author Rogelio Agrasánchez, Jr. quotes philosopher and art critic Eugenio d’Ors, who called movie posters "a shout glued to a wall."

As someone who works in advertising, it’s an appealing metaphor. As a film fan, even more so. And after reading ¡Mas! Cine Mexicano, a handsome new coffee table book released here in Canada by Raincoast Books, I’m convinced it’s also pretty accurate - at least when it comes to Mexican cinema.

By Ian Driscoll on April 10, 2008 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

SHOPPING FOR PANTS WITH MARTIN KOVE

There’s a pair of pants in the bottom drawer of my dresser. They don’t fit me. In fact, they’re kind of ugly. They’re chocolate brown with thick vertical half-hound’s-tooth white stripes, a trio of faux-bone oblong buttons (non-functional) running up the side of each pocket and belt loops wide enough to accommodate a belt half a cow wide. Continue reading...

By Ian Driscoll on March 15, 2008 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

REPLICANT LIKE ME

The idea for this article occurred to me a few seconds into “Life is a Gamble,” track 10 on Marvin Gaye’s score for Ivan Dixon’s Trouble Man. The churning sax and bubbles of Moog rolled over me, and suddenly I was in Los Angeles, circa 2019. I pulled my Blade Runner soundtrack off the shelf and skipped to track five, “Love Theme”. I wasn’t imagining it. Dick Morrisey’s sax was replicating (Replicant-ing?) the opening of “Life is a Gamble” nearly note for note. Continue reading...

By Ian Driscoll on February 14, 2008 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Paw through our archives

Science-Fiction ~ Comics ~ Romance ~ Screen ~ Videogames ~ Movies ~ Main

Ian Driscoll is the author of Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter, and the upcoming, The Dead Sleep Easy. He lives and works in Ottawa, which leaves his evenings free for writing.

Of Note Elsewhere

"Science Fiction Serving the National Interest." I don't even know what to say about the crazy reported here in National Defense Magazine. (via Fusion Dispatches)
~Pet the horror at the Chenille Beasts Gallery. (Thanks, spookymonkey!)
~The Graffiti Research Lab reports on Dutch taggers and their RV-mounted tagging laser. And if you're interested, there's open source code. ~Behold, Susannah Breslin's The Unporny Valley! And Grand Theft Auto IV in "Return to the Unporny Valley." ~I admit it. I'm a sucker for This American Life. The second season of their television is starting, so in celebration here's a link to a 2006 radio show with a theme worthy of the Gutter: "Superpowers." (And here's a preview of season 2).
~Fresh and toasty from the New York Comic Con, it's the Venture Bros. season 3 promo with clips a-plenty! (thanks, tera!)
~View all Notes.
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On a Quest?

Pete Fairhurst made us this Mozilla search plug-in. Neat huh?

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