"How to make sense of Conspiracy Theories" [Part 1 of 9 from YouTube] Rob Ager is best known for his very thoughtful analyses of films such as The Shining [see also this analysis of the Overlook's geometry, previously], A Clockwork Orange [and supplement], Psycho, Pulp Fiction, Aliens, Taxi Driver and others. He has recently completed an analysis of the subject of conspiracy theories. "All of us, from time to time, will believe that two or more people in a particular context have conspired to achieve a mutual aim – be it cheating in a card game or engineering an international war. It isn’t by definition a lapse in logic to believe that a conspiracy has or is going to occur in a given situation. Conspiracies do happen and it is a natural facet of healthy thinking and self-preservation to seek out awareness of conspiracies that may affect our lives." [Text version, Ager's Collative Learning site]
posted by McLir on Jan 18, 2012 - 53 comments

Sleazoid Express (this post rated NSFW) was a New York film fanzine that championed the grindhouse cinema that played in sketchy Times Square movie theaters during the pre-Giuliani era. Featuring in-depth reviews of film fare such as Pets, Nanami: Inferno of First Love, and Let Me Die A Woman, the Sleazoid Express zine later inspired a book, which can probably take some credit for stoking Quentin Tarantino's interest in grindhouse filmmaking. (An excerpt from the book, Sleazoid Express, can be found here, and here's some original grindhouse trailers thrown in for good measure.)
posted by jonp72 on Apr 5, 2007 - 12 comments

Using fine-art images to promote movies: "But it was Mr. Kessell's "Florilegium" (or "collection of floral images") daguerrotypes that caught Mr. Palen's eye: each image is close-up of a surgical instrument, so poetically rendered that it seems almost organic. Some of the macabre implements resemble exotic flowers. One, from a distance, could be mistaken for the horns of a gazelle. "We were sort of blocked, and all the pieces fell into place once I saw that image," Mr. Palen explained. A deal was made to use that daguerreotype [to promote the upcoming Tarantino-produced film "Hostel"], which actually shows a surgical clamp. [The poster] now appears in theaters and on widespread promotions. [Side: direct WMV link of Tarantino spazing out while introducing "Hostel's" director Eli Roth at a festival.]
posted by JPowers on Jan 4, 2006 - 12 comments

"It has always been as if I carry chaos with me the way others carry typhoid. My purpose in writing is to transcend my existence by illuminating it."
Crime novelist Edward Bunker, who died last Tuesday at age 71 (LATimes obit), became at 17 the youngest inmate at San Quentin after he stabbed a prison guard at a youth detention facility. It was during his 18 years of incarceration for robbery, check forgery and other crimes that Bunker learned to write. In 1973, while still in prison, he made his literary debut with "No Beast So Fierce", a novel about a paroled thief James Ellroy called "quite simply one of the great crime novels of the past 30 years" and that was made into the movie "Straight Time" starring Dustin Hoffman. Also a screenwriter ("Runaway Train"), Bunker appeared as an actor in nearly two dozen roles, most notably as Mr. Blue in "Reservoir Dogs." (more inside)
posted by matteo on Jul 25, 2005 - 9 comments