Gozo
Gozo, which I co-wrote along with director Miranda Bowen, and which is produced by Leo Scott and Henry Scholfield, has been nominated for a BIFA award for 2016, in the Discovery category. The film joins The Ghoul, The Greasy Strangler (both of which we recently screened at the Mayhem Film Festival, Black Mountain Poets and The Darkest Universe on the nominations shortlist. The awards ceremony takes place on Sunday December 4th.
Panel from Superman and Batman Annual (Brown Watson, 1977). Artwork by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano. From a charity shop in Nottingham.
January 2016
This month I’ve been mostly working on The Dummy, finishing the first draft of the script, then getting notes back from director Leo Scott and moving on to a revised outline, ready for embarking on the second draft. The conversations we’ve had have been about hitting the right tone for the film, and making the technical elements work. There’s a certain amount of layering of plot which has been fairly complex to get right, but feels like we’re getting to a point now where everything is fitting together.
The best things I’ve seen this month have been on TV. The second season of Steven Soderbergh’s The Knick, though feeling a little more soap-operatic in tone, due to the storylines being more widely spread over its large cast of characters, is still an extraordinary work – complex, daring, dark and bloody. Making a Murderer was a rage-inducing piece of documentary filmmaking, with a vividly-drawn cast of characters. The feeling of the American justice system being an inexorable, implacable, annihilating juggernaut – once you’re in its wake, there’s no tearing yourself away – was palpable.
Best re-watch was Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin. I can’t wait for the upcoming release of Green Room, which was the best thing we saw at Cannes last year – a brilliant, brutal thriller, like a modern-day Assault On Precinct 13, played out with with punks and skinheads. The trailer is here.
High Rise Q & A
I’ll be hosting a Q & A with director Ben Wheatley at a special preview screening of High-Rise at Broadway Cinema on 2nd March. Tickets here.
Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film, by Jimmy McDonough (Jonathan Cape, 2005). From a second-hand bookshop in Charing Cross Rd, London.
The Very Breast of Russ Meyer, edited by Paul A. Woods (Plexus Publishing, 2005). From Oxfam in Nottingham.
The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, by Michael Weldon (Plexus Publishing, 1989). From a charity shop in Nottingham.
Fotonovel: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, based on the screenplay by Steven Spielberg (Sphere, 1978). From a charity shop in Nottingham.
In Search of Frankenstein, by Radu Florescu (New English Library, 1975). From a charity shop in Nottingham.
The Book of Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, translated by S.L.MacGregor Mathers (Dover Publications, 1975). From a charity shop in Nottingham.
Photo spread from Photoplay magazine, November 1963. From a charity shop in Arnold, Nottingham.
Paul Newman, born this day in 1925.
Weekend Book of Ghosts and Horror, edited by Richard Whittington-Egan (Harmsworth Publications, 1982). From a charity shop in Nottingham.
Mostly Murder, by Sir Sydney Smith (Guild Publishing, 1986). From a charity shop in Nottingham.
‘Men of The North’, from Second Feature: The Best Of The ‘B’ Films, by John Cocchi (Citadel Press, 1991).From Oxfam in Nottingham.
Before dubbing was perfected, entire foreign language versions were made of many early talkies. Indicating which in the case of Men of the North (MGM, 1930) are John Reinhardt (later a director), Gilbert Roland, Andre Luguet and Franco Cosaro. Hal Roach took a rare directorial credit.
Film company logos, from Second Feature: The Best Of The ‘B’ Films, by John Cocchi (Citadel Press, 1991).From Oxfam in Nottingham.
Second Feature: The Best Of The ‘B’ Films, by John Cocchi (Citadel Press, 1991).
From Oxfam in Nottingham.
Murder Off Miami, by Dennis Wheatley. A Murder Mystery Planned by J. G. Jinks.
From a charity shop in Nottingham.
The Video Watchdog Book, by Tim Lucas (Video Watchdog, 1992). From a charity shop in Nottingham.
Shadow Man: The Life of Dashiell Hammett, by Richard Layman (Junctions Books, 1981). From a charity shop in Nottingham.
…But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, by Anita Loos (Picador, 1982). From a charity shop in Nottingham.
Classic Tales Of Horror, edited by Stephanie Dowrick (Book Club Associates, 1977). From a charity shop in Nottingham.
Steven Sheil 