New Zealand Week: Day 5: Author Profiles: Ronald Hugh Morrieson

Ronald Hugh Morrieson

Ronald Hugh Morrieson (29 January, 1922-26 December, 1972) was one of those unfortunate artists whose fame does not cement itself until after death.  He even semi-predicted this outcome in a comment to a friend several years prior to his demise.  In Morrieson's case, his real fame arrived a decade after his death, with the successful film adaptations of three of the four novels he had written.

New Zealand Week: Day 3: Review: The Price of Milk (2000)

This is a film that, after even one viewing, you won't soon forget, whether you like it or not.  It's magical, mystical, weird...altogether trippy.  It's got romance, betrayal, danger...everything that makes a fairy tale great.  Don't let that put you off though.  This is a film with a heart and a message.

New Zealand Week: Day 2: Author Profiles: Alan Duff

Alan Duff.

Alan Duff, born 26 October, 1950, is one of New Zealand's leading authors.  He is best known for his novel, Once Were Warriors, the first book in a trilogy dealing with the troubles of a Māori (New Zealand aboriginal) family in modern New Zealand.

New Zealand Week: Day 1: Star Profiles: Lucy Lawless

Lucy Lawless

I've already kicked off New Zealand Week over on my horror blog, and now we're gonna start things off here with a profile of a star who'll be recognizable to a lot of people outside of  New Zealand. (I'm easing you into things, see?  Aren't I nice blogger?  Say it.  Say that Lela's a nice blogger!  Very good.  Here.  Have an apple.)

Just a note for my U.S. readers (pretty sure that's all three of you), I'll be using international dating conventions in these profiles; for example, rather than writing, say, January 1, 1954, it would be 1 January, 1954.

Lucy Lawless is best known for her roles as Xena on the series Xena: Warrior Princess and D'anna Biers on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.  She's also had roles on everything from The X-Files to Veronica Mars and made a small cameos in the first Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man film and Boogeyman.  To the average person (read: not an obsessed fan), it might seem that Lucy's fame just happened overnight.  But it's not as if Lucy just appeared one day, rising from the dust of Aotearoa and taking a small part on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and then bursting into stardom.  No, she's a bit more complicated than that.

Happy 70th Birthday, Raquel!

That's right, folks.  Pop culture icon Raquel Welch is the big 7-0 today.  Hard to believe, because she still looks damn good.

1970 publicity shot for Raquel's film
Myra Breckenridge

Raquel earlier this year.

And the Count Drops by One...

Eleanore Cammack 'Cammie' King Conlon died of lung cancer on Wednesday.  She was 76.  Perhaps you've not really heard of her, but chances are you've seen her or heard her voice; at least, the voice she spoke with in her youth.

She was better known as Cammie King and, in 1939, she was one of the actresses chosen to portray Bonnie Blue Butler, daughter of Scarlett and Rhett in the classic film Gone with the Wind.  She would also provide the young voice for Faline the doe in the Disney animated feature Bambi.

Though Cammie left acting while still a child, she remained proud of her role in Gone with the Wind, and she continued to appear at gatherings and retrospectives about the film as recently as last year.  She had also written and published a memoir of her childhood experiences at the time of Gone with the Wind.

An autographed photo of young Cammie on the set of Gone with the Wind with her onscreen father Clark Gable.

Cammie more recently, holding a copy of her memoir.

I'm Magic! or, How I Really Decided to do This Blog's First Theme Week

Earlier today I was kicking back, working on some possible blog posts.  I noticed that I was doing reviews of a lot of films from New Zealand.  The entire culture and entertainment industry of that place has interested me for a long time, and then I started to think that it might be fun to do a weeks worth of overviews and guides to films, music, and television from New Zealand.

A few hours later I learned that, while I was dreaming up Kiwi Theme Week, there was a magnitude 7.0 earthquake near Christchurch, New Zealand.   The international dateline means it happened on Saturday morning for them, but still!

My thought must've caused it.  That or it's the earth warning us, what with the earlier quake up near the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska.

But I'll stick with the "Lela has a magic brain" theory.

I'm monitoring Radio New Zealand, national stream, to keep up.

Next week is New Zealand week on EPP.

So...yeah.

Everyone is Gay?: The Strange Obsession with Keeping Stars in the Closet...or Not

I've gone through life with so many people telling me that anything but heterosexuality is a bad thing.

Yet in This Modern Age, bi and homosexuality are slowly becoming accepted, at least in some quarters.  Some say this is a bad thing (I'm looking at you, Westboro Baptist Church) and that allowing people to practice non-heterosexuality will be the death of this country.  Being homosexual myself (though not homosocial, should any guys wanna, ya know, hang out and shoot the shit), I don't want to believe that.  There are plenty of other problems with this country that will probably inevitably lead to its downfall.  Teh ghey is the least of our worries.

What bothers me about the whole thing is that, even with different forms of human sexuality finally becoming so accepted in the Western World, celebrities, be they actors, musicians, or what have you, have such a hard time coming out of the closet.  Of course, they couldn't come out of the closet years ago when being gay was something that most of the general public feared and hated.  But now, they still seem to think it will ruin their careers.  Who knows; it might.  After all, there's been controversy lately over whether an out gay actor can believably portray a straight romantic lead.  That hinges not only on the performer's ability, but on the ability and willingness of the public to look beyond the reality of the person's private life and to immerse themselves in the story being played out on the stage or screen.

I read Blind Gossip on occasion, and it seems that 3/4 of the items are concerned with this actor or that actress or some musician being in the closet but being dangerously close to being outed, or being told by their "people" to get further in.

Frankly, who cares?

It's time for the public to admit that, just as sexuality typically has no bearing on the ability of a person to perform most regular, every day jobs, it has no bearing on entertainment either.

It's time for Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general, from the producers and publicists to the stars themselves, to get their heads out of their asses and understand that, if a performer is good at what they do, if they have fans who love their work, then coming out as gay is no longer going to be a complete end to their career.

Or maybe I'm insane.

Links, Shout-Outs, and Assorted Gibberish

First off, I finally have a follower!  Bad Ronald suddenly popped up in my follow box for both this blog and All the World's a Horror Show.  Probably because of the little shout out I gave to his comments on James Cameron's comments on Piranha 3-D.  Awesome, because now, I'm not going around in a constant state of "BAWWW, no one's ever gonna follow my blogs!"

If you're a relative newcomer to the world of science fiction literature, head on over to io9.com for this excellent syllabus and book list and start immersing yourself in the good words.  Also be sure to check out their list of 21 sci-fi films they don't want to see remade, with suggestions of books that could be made into films instead.

I'm on a bit of a sci-fi kick today, so bear with me and check out Cull, a fascinating and somewhat frightening short story by Robert Reed, author of the Hugo winning novella A Billion Eyes.

The Silent Majority: Everyone was There

A random selection of photos featuring several stars of the silent era.