528 words / 2:11:42
The Writers’ Bloc had their good friend Hwitegeard over for a friendly, low-intensity chinwag with host Nick Jeelvy, where they also answered listener questions, and it is now available for download and online listening.
Topics discussed include:
00:07:00 How does one speak Anglo-Saxon and what does it sound like? (more…)
1,668 words
Introduction to The Batman
The new Gotham city, presented by director Matt Reeves and inhabited/stalked by Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne, is gothic and atmospheric. On the first of two viewings, I found myself so enamored by the backgrounds and music that I was less focused on the dialogue. Gotham is not merely a backdrop to the events taking place but is brought to life and is almost a character in its own right. Bruce Wayne’s “Batcave” is an abandoned subway station beneath Wayne Tower, which also houses his gothic-styled manor. (more…)
Jake Davison
Jake Davison
2,226 words
Making Quality Education Accessible to the Dumb and Oppressed
At an unspecified moment about six months ago when everyone was asleep, this topsy-turvy world’s string-pullers and shot-callers quietly replaced the word “equality” with the much more insidious term “equity.” In the twinkling of an eye, they ditched the idea of a level playing field and instead insisted that all games must end in a tie. (more…)
4,306 words
4,306 words
Porco Rosso is one of the more famous Studio Ghibli films, released in 1992. It is the midpoint of an unofficial Miyazaki trilogy examining flight as a method of personal and national liberation, beginning with 1989’s Kiki’s Delivery Service, and concluding with 2013’s The Wind Rises. Porco Rosso is the strongest of the three, being bright, bold, and easy to follow whilst touching on more serious themes than its premise might suggest. (more…)
2,872 words
2,872 words
One of my earliest memories of the theatre is a Christmas play about Santa Claus teaming up with Batman and Robin to protect Christmas from the Joker. I am near certain that none of the ticket proceeds went to DC, as it was staged in the early 90s in the former Yugoslavia. Even today, we have a cavalier attitude to intellectual property laws, (more…)
1,785 words
Note: Contains Spoilers
Audio Version: To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”
One of the great things about Heath Ledger’s Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is that he does not have an origin story. (more…)
1,569 words
Other than with the campy television program from the 1960s, you’re probably not going to equate Batman very often with comedy.
Of course, there is ample room for dark humor in Batman stories. The Killing Joke by Alan Moore is great example. But this is not the same thing as comedy, in which the universe itself is funny. (more…)
1,023 words
Watchmen is the greatest superhero movie of all time, and when it was released, its director Zack Snyder was poised to follow Christopher Nolan into the first rank of directors working today. But instead, he has directed an ever worsening series of turkeys: Sucker Punch, Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and now Justice League, which is one of the worst movies I have ever seen: derivative, dumb, and dull. An assault on the senses and an insult to the intellect. It is also one of the most expensive movies ever made, costing an astonishing $300 million. It is really rather amazing that a director of Snyder’s proven talent, with a solid cast and a $300 million budget, could not have turned in a better movie. Clearly, there’s a lot of rot and a lot of ruin still left in Hollywood, and the sex scandals are just the beginning. (more…)
3,185 words
Sometime in the near future, in an America crippled by degeneracy and stifling bureaucracy, two men of stature fight in the streets. One, an aging billionaire fed up with his society’s imminent collapse, has become a polarizing threat to the governing establishment. The other, a compromised but well-meaning foreigner wrapped in an American flag, bringing a false and used-up patriotism to a disenfranchised population. (more…)
3,073 words
Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy deserves its large audience among White Nationalists. Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises all comprise a canon in the superhero genre that stands above the rest, perhaps only succeeded by Watchmen in its representation of Right-wing themes and philosophy. Much has been said about the emphatically Right-wing character of Batman’s villains, especially the League of Shadows, but less has been said about the Rightist aspects of Batman himself. (more…)
2,774 words
Origins & Evolution of the Gothic in Film
The gothic is a quintessentially European aesthetic. Moreover, it pertains and appeals more specifically to those of North-West European descent and is to be found in various modes and tropes throughout North-West European culture and contrasts with the Classicism of Southern Europe. Gothic as a term was first applied to medieval art and particularly architecture by Renaissance critics in similar propagandist fashion to how the term Dark Ages was also used to describe the period following the collapse of the Roman Empire. (more…)
