"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 afternoon 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. Click here for their bios and individual takes on the gutter.

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.

Recent Features

ROUND THE DECAY OF THAT COLOSSAL WRECK

In the run-up to, and wake of, the release of Watchmen, it has become common currency to say that adapting Zach Snyder, et al undertook a massive challenge in adapting Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ complex, sprawling medium- and genre-defining work for the screen.

But I’m going to suggest that they actually undertook an even more massive challenge: adapting Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ complex, sprawling medium- and genre-defining work for the screen - and completely missing its point.

Continue reading...

The Love Song of the Black Lagoon

Lagoon 2 80.jpg We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By gillmen wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
--sorta T.S. Eliot

Do you hear that? Off in the distance? A song too beautiful to be real but somehow... familiar? The song twines over the water, through the cattails and the woods, into the window, eighth notes swirling all around. The creature in the lagoon is singing. He's not dead after all and who are we to resist him and the “centuries of passion pent up in his savage heart?"

Zahn's Star Wars; Or, Will This Death be Permanent?

A scrappy rebellion, a victory against an evil overlord, leftover spaceships in the dark outer reaches of the galaxy, warriors with extraordinary powers (nearly wiped out), now on the verge of a comeback. Laughs, thrills, moments of sadness, moments of sheer action. Exciting stuff! And oh yeah, it's a Star Wars tie-in novel.

Continue reading...

Forgetful?

Screen Category

ROUND THE DECAY OF THAT COLOSSAL WRECK

By Ian Driscoll on March 12, 2009 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

IS THIS WHAT YOU CALL A DACHSHUND?

Normally, I think of Ron Howard as the Midas of mediocrity - everything he touches turns to boring. So, what went right with Frost/Nixon?

Continue reading...

By Ian Driscoll on February 12, 2009 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

GO!

I recently had a chance to watch the Wachowski siblings’ live-action adaptation of Tatsuo Yoshida’s Speed Racer (aka the much-more-evocative Mach Go Go Go) for a second time. After 135 hallucinatory, candy-coated minutes of Mobius strip racetracks and Mobius strip plot, I was left with one question: is this the future of cinema?

Continue reading...

By Ian Driscoll on January 15, 2009 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ONE TRILLION AND ONE LEANING TOWERS

1. Overture Island
On December 4, 2008, the future ended. The event that marked its end was the death of a 92-year old man from the not uncommon cause of heart failure. It would not have been an epoch-ending event save for one detail: the man’s name was Forest J Ackerman.

Continue reading...

By Ian Driscoll on December 17, 2008 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

DANGEROUS BECAUSE IT HAS A PHILOSOPHY

In Videodrome, shortly before the arrival of the least sexy waiter in the history of cinema (no link for this, you’ll just have to go rent the movie), Max Renn (James Woods, no hyperlink needed) and Masha (Lynne Gorman, IMDb listing not interesting enough to link to) share the following exchange on the nature of the phantom Videodrome signal Renn is tracking:

By Ian Driscoll on November 20, 2008 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A DROWNING MAN

swimmer 80 2.jpg

Tomorrow (November 7, if I post this on time), Toronto’s Trash Palace is showing a print of Frank Perry’s The Swimmer. If you’re in the city, do yourself a favour: go see it. If you’re elsewhere (I understand the internets now extend beyond the GTA), do yourself a favour: go rent it.

By Ian Driscoll on November 5, 2008 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

HOW WOULD LUBITSCH DO IT?

INT. DRISCOLL’S OFFICE - EVENING

It's a big office, and dark, which makes it feel even larger, cavernous. The theme from Dr. Who (Delia Derbyshire’s 1963 version) reverberates in the space, buzzing up your spine like a telegraph signal.

By Ian Driscoll on September 24, 2008 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

SHAMELESS AND GREEDY PEOPLE OF DISMAL TASTE

Interviewed about the legacy of Canadian tax shelter films in Cinema Canada in 1985, Mordecai Richler said,

"I think they squandered a grand opportunity and it's largely the fault of producers who were shameless and greedy, people of dismal taste, who were more interested in making deals than films and who made a lot of money for themselves. And so Canadian films do not enjoy a larger reputation anywhere and it's a pity... a lot of damage has been done."

Well, Mordecai, I couldn’t disagree more.

By Ian Driscoll on August 28, 2008 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

HAVING YOUR DUALITY AND EATING IT, TOO

bruce 80.jpg Spoiler warning.

When the question arises of who could be the villain in a third Batman movie, I’m stymied. I can’t picture The Penguin or The Riddler or Catwoman working in the world Christopher Nolan has created. Poison Ivy? I don’t think so. The Mad Hatter? Clayface? Kite Man? Bane? Nope, nope, nope and please god no.

By Ian Driscoll on July 31, 2008 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

MAN-BAT NINJAS, NINJA BATMEN AND ART WITH NO CONTENT

At the risk of tearing up Carol's yard (a risk I’ll take, since she’s parked on my lawn currently, leaving me nowhere to pull up). I’m going to talk about comics for bit here. Don’t worry, I’ll get to the screen part soon enough.

By Ian Driscoll on July 4, 2008 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

THE SHOCK OF THE STIFF

Johnny_80 2.jpg After breaking my own vow never to do a list article last month, I felt like I should come back with something a little more rigorous to make up. So here it is: a postmodern examination of the zombie, and a chance for me to use up all my five-dollar words. And yes, I will be quoting Baudrillard.

You’ve been warned.

By Ian Driscoll on June 5, 2008 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

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 (3)

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 (3)

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 screenwriter of numerous gutter-level films including the Harry Knuckles series, Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter, The Dead Sleep Easy and Smash Cut. His day job is in advertising, which helps explain the drinking. And, because he apparently needed another thing to keep him busy, he recently became a partner in running Ottawa’s oldest surviving cinema, the Mayfair Theatre. If he had a band, he would name it Two-Panel Marmaduke. For his particular take on the Gutter, check out Dangerous Because it Has a Philosophy.

Of Note Elsewhere

A wrestler-fairy? A nerd-werewolf? A caveman-pirate? All these and more in Creebobby's second Archetype Times Table. ~Wong Fei-Hung's been on my mind lately. Luckily, Kung Fu Cinema has a nice video (scroll down) of Wong Fei-Hung in the movies from Kwan Tak-Hing to Gordon Liu, Jet Li as well as Jackie Chan and actress Angie Tsang Tze-Man's portrayals of young Wong Fei-Hung. There's also a detailed companion article tracing the historical and fictional Wong Fei-Hung through newspaper pulps, radio, tv and film. ~"It's common practice for one of those guys, in a single day, to chainsaw his way out of the belly of a giant worm, take a detour through a zombie shantytown, euthanise his long-lost wife, and spend hours in a sewer trawling through blood and waste, with monsters leaping up at his face and depositing their brain matter on his boots."

Hit Self-Destruct again, on what life's like for videogame heroes. ~The Deleted Scenes webcomic takes a look at W. E. Coyote v. ACME Corporation. ~Frank Miller's Charlie Brown, Thumbsuckers. ~

The couples on category romance covers in motion. Laura's Vivanco has more including a comparison to the morphing women in "Women In Art" so make sure to scroll down. (via Teach Me tonight)

~View all Notes.
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