What I've been watching /reading
Jan. 10th, 2006 03:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fingertroubleCut for freshness!
First up is Children of the Stones (No it's not a documentary about the many chillen fathered by the Rollign Stones) it a 1977 kids program which scared me so much at the time - I stumbled on the last program and always wondered 'what was that about' - along with Quatermass IV it's one of those sci-fi/70's new age hybrids that actually comes off very scary. Acting is OK but the picture sometime terrible, and can seem a bit slow, if very suspenseful. Shot in Avebury stone circle/village during the long hot summer of 1976.
Happy Day!
The Night of the Comet - Saw this in the 1990s or late 80's on Alex Cox's moviedrome and always liked it - it's a cheesy 80's movie, but a cheesy Day of the Triffids style zombie end of the world Valley Girl cheerleader flick too. Has strong female leads and spooky views of deserted LA, as well as some scary zombies. As horror goes it's fairly mild but like Triffids I like the comet-comes-along-and-kills-almost-everyone last person on earth theme, with two Valley army brats as the survivors...it'a actually quite a good movie, although horror freaks would hate it as it has few scares. Belongs with Dawn of the Dead for the shopping mall scene and dialogue like "Dad would have gotten us Uzis!". Sadly you'll not be able to rent it or buy it, it's been in copyright dispute hell so never made it to DVD and only video for a short while, so if you see it on TV record it! Or find it on bittorrent - in this case you aren't affecting anybody's cashflow since it's never been on sale...
Reading Michael Gerber still - the Barry Trotter parodies and The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain which is about Al Andalus and Cordoba and muslim/moorish Spain. It always amazes me the near total obliteration of Islamic/Moorish influence from that period everytime I goto the Iberian peninsula...it's like it never happened...I don't think in the UK there was such a total eradication of culture like this - maybe the Vikings but they still left their marks in the Danelaw and monuments. At some point soon I'll goto Alhambra and Cordoba and Seville, but after hearing a great podcast on Radio Open Source about it I wanted to know more. I don't know if it's retroactive mythmaking but certainly there seems to be a lot relating to this current time and the dream of Al Andalus still strikes a chord in the Islamic world - it's art and culture were great, but the do seem to miss why - that the cross-fertilisation of cultures and tolerance unusual for that time might be the reason?
First up is Children of the Stones (No it's not a documentary about the many chillen fathered by the Rollign Stones) it a 1977 kids program which scared me so much at the time - I stumbled on the last program and always wondered 'what was that about' - along with Quatermass IV it's one of those sci-fi/70's new age hybrids that actually comes off very scary. Acting is OK but the picture sometime terrible, and can seem a bit slow, if very suspenseful. Shot in Avebury stone circle/village during the long hot summer of 1976.Happy Day!
The Night of the Comet - Saw this in the 1990s or late 80's on Alex Cox's moviedrome and always liked it - it's a cheesy 80's movie, but a cheesy Day of the Triffids style zombie end of the world Valley Girl cheerleader flick too. Has strong female leads and spooky views of deserted LA, as well as some scary zombies. As horror goes it's fairly mild but like Triffids I like the comet-comes-along-and-kills-almost-everyone last person on earth theme, with two Valley army brats as the survivors...it'a actually quite a good movie, although horror freaks would hate it as it has few scares. Belongs with Dawn of the Dead for the shopping mall scene and dialogue like "Dad would have gotten us Uzis!". Sadly you'll not be able to rent it or buy it, it's been in copyright dispute hell so never made it to DVD and only video for a short while, so if you see it on TV record it! Or find it on bittorrent - in this case you aren't affecting anybody's cashflow since it's never been on sale...Reading Michael Gerber still - the Barry Trotter parodies and The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain which is about Al Andalus and Cordoba and muslim/moorish Spain. It always amazes me the near total obliteration of Islamic/Moorish influence from that period everytime I goto the Iberian peninsula...it's like it never happened...I don't think in the UK there was such a total eradication of culture like this - maybe the Vikings but they still left their marks in the Danelaw and monuments. At some point soon I'll goto Alhambra and Cordoba and Seville, but after hearing a great podcast on Radio Open Source about it I wanted to know more. I don't know if it's retroactive mythmaking but certainly there seems to be a lot relating to this current time and the dream of Al Andalus still strikes a chord in the Islamic world - it's art and culture were great, but the do seem to miss why - that the cross-fertilisation of cultures and tolerance unusual for that time might be the reason?
