Over on FictionMachine...

This is just a reminder that The Angriest is not my only blog. Over on FictionMachine I engage in longer-form critical writing about films, researching the origin and production of interesting movies and trying to work out what makes them tick. Since June this year I've added more than 27,000 words of critical writing on seven different films.

My most recent piece is on Michael Clayton (2007), Dan Gilroy's exceptional legal drama starring George Clooney and Tilda Swinton. You can head to that particular piece by following this link. Other recent pieces focus on Dominion: The Prequel to the Exorcist (2005, link here), Unbreakable (2000, link here) and Danny Boyle's Sunshine (2007, link here). If you're keen to read some free filmmaking stories and criticism, head on over and check it out.

FictionMachine is also the subject of an ongoing Patreon campaign. Patreon is a crowd-funding website that allows you to pledge regular micro-payments to artistic pursuits, so for as little as one dollar a month via Paypal you can support the writing of the FictionMachine essays into the future. Check it out and pledge a buck if you want to see me continue blogging. The Angriest will continue in its present form alongside FictionMachine regardless.

The anti-gay adventures of Superman

So DC Comics are going to launch a new digital comic book, The Adventures of Superman, to act very much like a companion to their successful Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. I love DC's digital books: cheaply priced, and less concerned with continuity than they are with telling a decent story.

The announcement of the new Superman book, however, is likely to bring with it more than a little controversy, because the first writer out of the gate is Orson Scott Card.

Now Card is has an excellent pedigree of quality science fiction behind him, notably his 1985 novel Ender's Game which won both the Nebula and Hugo Award. He's also a published writer of superhero comics, having written Ultimate Iron Man for Marvel.

But here's the thing: he's also a bigot.

My Olympus 2012 Items

I am furthest to the right, at Swancon 2011.

Over Easter I will be attending Olympus 2012 in glamorous Heathrow. If you're likely to be there, and wanted to see/meet/heckle me, I'm scheduled on the following items:

The Art of the Movie Poster: 100 Posters in 50 Minutes
Friday 6 April, 1:00pm (Commonwealth Room)
A presentation I first did at Swancon 2011, slightly rejigged to include some more recent posters and probably a little more orange and teal. Official blurb: "For many moviegoers and film fans, the first glimpse that we see of an upcoming motion picture is the theatrical poster. What goes into the design and layout of these posters? How has poster design changed over the years? How do they attract the eye, inform the viewer and excite a film’s future audience? In a special presentation, film fan Grant Watson demonstrates the design and layout of movie posters with 100 examples squeezed into 50 minutes. Warning: may contain the colours orange and teal."