Monthly Archives: August 2013

Happy Birthday to Mary Shelley

“William Shatner’s Get a Life!” documentary

For a while now I’ve been waiting to see the William Shatner’s Get a Life! documentary. This film is part of the EPIX Originals series, and Shatner serves as one of the executive producers. He also wrote and directed this piece. After doing his documentary The Captains as part of a process of self-discovery, this […]

Kahless and The Postmodern Faith of Star Trek: The Next Generation

BBC America has become one of my favorite channels since it features heavy does of science fiction programming. On Saturday afternoons it has given me an opportunity to watch episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and to look at them more closely than I have in the past. Recently I watched the episode “Rightful […]

Call for Papers – Contemporary Horrors: Destabilizing a Cinematic Genre

Contemporary Horrors: Destabilizing a Cinematic Genre The University of Chicago, April 25-26, 2014 Keynote: Adam Lowenstein (Univ. of Pittsburgh) The turn of the millennium has witnessed a uniquely dazzling upsurge in cinematic production within the horror genre. How do we account for the prolific production and prodigious diffusion of horror film since the turn of […]

Monstrous Commercials

Titles of Interest: Avatar and Nature Spirituality

Previously TheoFantastique has engaged various facets of Avatar, including its incorporation of psychedelics and shamanism, its similarities to a new religious movement, utopianism, and its involvement with Dark Green Religion. In regards to the latter element I interacted with the work of Bron Taylor, and with this post I am pleased to mention a new […]

Happy Birthday, Hitch

Elysium: Social Commentary and the Interpretive Factor in the System Reboot

This was the opening weekend for the science fiction film Elysium. It took the number one spot at the box office, bringing in $30 million. Since it was first announced, it has been a much-anticipated vehicle for director Neill Blomkamp, who has a successful track record in his previous genre venture District 9 as an […]

Titles of Interest: To See the Saw Movies

Title of interest – To See the Saw Movies: Essays on Torture Porn and Post-9/11 Horror, edited by James Aston and John Walliss (McFarland, 2013). The Saw films, often derided by critics as “torture porn” and an excuse to show blood and gore, are the highest-grossing horror series in cinema history. In view of their […]

Titles of Interest: Extraterrestrials and the American Zeitgeist

Title of interest – Extraterrestrials and the American Zeitgeist: Alien Contact Tales Since the 1950s by Aaron John Gulyas (McFarland, 2013). Since the 1950s, men and women around the world have claimed to have had contact with human-like visitors from space. This book explores how the “contactee” subculture has critiqued political, social and cultural trends […]

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