The Tactile World of Cinema

I have a new piece up at MUBI on the many thoughts that came to mind upon seeing Steven Soderbergh's Haywire. But really, all talk of translucent boundaries between disreputable and super-reputable cinema seems a bit fussy when Bazin himself, more than half a century ago, gladly compared an acknowledged masterwork of children's cinema with a film I'd first encounter on a Something Weird Barry Mahon double-feature dvd in the early '00s...

The new year is going exactly as planned.

1. I recently had the pleasure of contributing to MUBI's annual writers poll, focused on Fantasy Double Features. Mostly I discuss Panic Movement co-founder Fernando Arrabal's Viva la muerte, as almost everybody has likely had their fill of my proffered counterpart, Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. Except me, I suppose.

2. Meanwhile, over in print, the holiday season saw the release of the newest edition of the Norwegian literary magazine Vinduet, and with it an article by Mr. Aksel Kielland on the state of non-superhero/non-assembly line comics in America. Included are a few quotes from me, which were solicited a while back; Tucker Stone, Matt Seneca and Robin McConnell are in there too. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an online edition of the issue at the moment -- and it's all in Norwegian, which gives me childish glee in pretending I've attained a spontaneous mastery of the language from merely posting on the same website as Kim Thompson -- so you'll have to take my word that I totally enhanced U.S. prestige abroad.