GEORGE OF THE DEAD: THE RADICAL CINEMA OF GEORGE A. ROMERO

Posted on July 19, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged 28 Days Later, arts, Bill Hinzman, capitalism, cinema, Dawn of the Dead, director, Duane Jones, film, folklore, frankenstein, genre, George A Romero, George Romero, Haiti, horde, horror, In the Flesh, Land of the Dead, legend, Martin, mary schelley, message, monsters, movie, Night of the Living Dead, Reagan, Richard Matheson, shuffle, story, supernatural, The Crazies, the walking dead, Train to Busan., Trump, undead, vampire, z-movie, zombie, zombies.

by Jack Brindelli

George A. Romero passed away in his sleep on 16th of June 2017, after a short battle with cancer, at the age of 77. Over a long, incredible career spanning five decades, Romero rightly earned his reputation as a, perhaps the, Master of Horror.

Through films like bio-weapon conspiracy The Crazies (1973) and Martin (1978) – a film where a young man whom today’s media would undoubtedly call a ‘disturbed loner’ indulged his patriarchal privilege, through vampiric acts of sexual violence – Romero drew out the political unconscious that underpins so much of our societal mythology. While he did branch out however, he devoted the majority of his best years to the sub-genre which made his career, and which will undoubtedly see him immortalised.Continue Reading

I AM A SOCIAL MEDIA ZOMBIE

Posted on November 23, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged blog, clickbait, facebook, post, social media, social media zombie, swipe, tweet, twitter, zombie.

By Sam Naylor

A feeling of instant gratification is on the menu and I know where I rush to get my fix. For most of us social media has become a daily part of our lives. How many of us wake up in the morning and check our social media presence? It is one of those little habits that has become a fixture of my daily routine and one that we’re finding increasingly difficult to disconnect from. We’ll just scroll one more time, just click that last video, read the article from that last link. Facebook is a great way to get your opinions out to all 1,125 of your ‘closest friends’ and for you to experience theirs. It can often feel like an extension of our own thought process, that we could just post that instantaneous nugget of knowledge as a status update. In fact Facebook cares that much about what we have to say that it politely asks “What’s on your mind?”, urging us to divulge in an opinion that it oh so wants to hear. The false companionship and the sense of familiarity that social media apps give us are aspects that keep us coming back, which have us glued to virtual text on a screen rather than worrying about dialogues set in the ‘real world’. Facebook is not a substitute for our own opinions.

LITERATURE VS GENRE – SECONDS OUT (PART 2)

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged academia, Angela Carter, art, Arthur Krystal, books, China Miéville, commercial, Connie Willis, criticism, Docx, Don Winslow, fantasy, form, genre, Girl with all the gifts, guest, high brow, horror, Jonathan Jones, Kurt Vonnegut, literary fiction, literature, Lord Dunsany, low brow, Melanie, Mervyn Peake, metaphor, mike carey, money, mr carey, myth, novel, Oliver Burkeman, pandora, politics, Pulp, Ray Bradbury, Raymond Chandler, reading, school, sci-fi, smart, study, Ted Chiang, Ursula LeGuin, writer, writing, zombie.

by Mike Carey

Continued from part one, published on The Norwich Radical two weeks ago.

I hate to rake up ancient history, but here’s another example from a little further back – dredged up because in this case it is a writer of literary novels (Edward Docx, in the Observer in 2010) who’s saying this, so the agenda is maybe a little more naked.

Even good genre… is by definition a constrained form of writing. There are conventions and these limit the material. That’s the way writing works and lots of people who don’t write novels don’t seem to get this: if you need a detective, if you need your hero to shoot the badass CIA chief, if you need faux-feminist shopping jokes, then great; but the correlative of these decisions is a curtailment in other areas. If you are following conventions, then a significant percentage of the thinking and imagining has been taken out of the exercise. Lots of decisions are already made.

Considering that Docx rails against “a fundamental dishonesty” in the way this subject is usually discussed, I’m going to pick my words with care.

DREAM MACHINES

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged animation, artifical intelligence, arts, avengers, Britain, capitalism, crisis captialism, dream machines, ex machina, film, film makers, humans, In the Flesh, popular culture, review, robot genre, robots, terminator, terminator genisys, ultorn, vampire, zombie.

by Jack Brindelli

Popular culture moves in mysterious ways. For years it can seem like a particular trope or sub-genre has died off before bursting from its suspended animation and illuminating our screens once more. For years it appeared vampires and zombies had been permanently banished to the cinematic shadows before rising triumphant from their cultural tomb, terrifying new generations of cinema-goers at the turn of the century. Similarly, in 2015, the robot seems to be undergoing something of a resurrection. For the past decade considered clunky and kitsch, Artificial Intelligence has suddenly monopolised the top-billed releases of the year – droids are back in the big-time. The question is why?

zombie

GEORGE OF THE DEAD: THE RADICAL CINEMA OF GEORGE A. ROMERO

LITERATURE VS GENRE – SECONDS OUT (PART 2)

DREAM MACHINES

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