LOTTD Favorite Villainess – My Choice: Clash’s Medusa
That group of horror bloggers, the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTTD), of which I am a part, has come up with the theme for their latest roundtable group of posts. By early April those participants will have posted on their favorite villainess. It’s been a while since I’ve done something on the lighter side, [...]
Fantastic Super Bowl Commercials
The Super Bowl for 2011 included a few good commercials. Two of them were fantastic, and by that I refer to the fact that they drew upon the genres of the fantastic, in these instances from fantasy. Here are the two standouts for TheoFantastique. First was a commercial for the Volkswagen Passat that featured a [...]
Matthew R. Bradley: Richard Matheson on Screen
Richard Matheson is one of the most influential writers of horror, science fiction, and fantasy in our time. Many of his works have been translated to the silver and small screens, and Matthew R. Bradley describes this process in his great book Richard Matheson on Screen: A History of the Filmed Works (McFarland, 2010). Bradley [...]
Robert J. Sawyer, “A long time ago,” and science fiction’s social commentary
I recently came across a portion of a lecture given by science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer divided into three installments on YouTube. The lecture is titled “‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….’ my ass!”. Each of the installments can be viewed at the bottom of this post. In the lecture [...]
My Best Friend is a Wookie: One Boy’s Journey to Find His Place in the Galaxy
Being a person on a lifelong journey with the fantastic I am always interested in the similar journeys of others. One day while following the book promotion of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks by Ethan Gilsdorf I was pleased to hear of another writer who chronicled a similar journey. Tony Pacitti describes his story in [...]
WIRED: Is Being a Geek a Personality Trait or a Way of Life?
There is an interesting post that came to my attention today while checking my daily Google searches for topics related to the fantastic. The source for the post is in the WIRED blog “GeekDad.” The article is by Curtis Silver is titled “Is Being a Geek a Personality Trait or a Way of Life?”. In [...]
Raffle for Autographed Copy of “Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks” – Revised
Readers may recall my previous post on Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms by Ethan Gilsdorf (The Lyons Press, 2009). This volume unfolds the personal quest of Gilsdorf as a teenage Dungeons and Dragons player and his later adult quest [...]
Article at Cinefantastique: “The Changing Face of Biblical Horror and Fantasy Films”
My latest contribution to Cinefantastique Online was recently posted. Below is an excerpt: In the post-Christendom context, this situation changes dramatically. I was reminded of this recently while watching 30 DAYS OF NIGHT. As the race of vampires continues its onslaught on the Alaskan town, they use an injured woman as bait to lure any humans [...]
Joshua Bellin: Battle for Terra and Environmental Apocalypse
With all the national debate over healthcare in the United States these days it’s easy to forget the other national debate that will begin once the furor over healthcare legislation dies down, and that is the environment with cap-and-trade. Hollywood is fond of environmental apocalypse films these days, and while the reader is no doubt [...]
Review and Commentary: Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks
Not long ago while I was reflecting on the layers of significance underlying Avatar and its connection to fantasy, I first became aware, through Cinefantastique Online, of an article by Ethan Gilsdorf touching on these topics which he had written for Psychology Today. I was intrigued by the insights that Gilsdorf brought to the subject [...]
