From Modern Mythcraft to Magical Surrealism

Archive for March 2010

Curiouser and Curiouser: Alice on Film

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, first published as a children’s book in 1865, has had a particular appeal to moviemakers since they were first able to crank out the film. The story’s vivid images were perfect material for this new medium, and the early movie adaptations especially did an excellent job of preserving the vignette-y, illogical narrative. (It helped that the films were silent, and so the focus was on the special effects and not so much on killer dialogue.) Below, nine adaptations of Alice that are good, bad, or downright curious.

The Crazies: You’d be Crazy Not to See It

It’s a “chili mac” kind of thing, really. Half zombie movie, half psycho thriller, with a dash of family interest and a pinch of buddy flick, the dish turns out both new and familiar.

Book Review: Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology, edited by Nick Gevers

It’s tough to compile a definitive anthology, especially when the volume contains only original fiction and lacks most of the genre’s iconic writers, but editor Nick Gevers tackles the challenge in Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology. Overall, it is neither as definitive nor as strong as might be hoped, nor does it achieve “definitive” status. The anthology should, however, please many steampunk devotees, and win it some new fans.

Bearing Fruit

Once upon a time—we might as well put it that way, why not?—you are bathing, innocently enough, in the bend of the river closest to your home, when bobbing along with the current, out of apparent nowhere, comes the smoothest, ripest, most glowingly golden mango anyone has ever seen.