Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Media


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Old and new dinos

It all started with a movie clip.
This movie clip.

It’s from the 1975 The Land That Time Forgot, based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel of the same title, and adapted for the screen by Michael Moorcock and Nigel Cawthorn.
I first saw this in the parish cinema the priests had put up to attract the kids that would not be hooked by the football field by the church.
In the end, I never became a good Catholic kid, but I did develop a passion for Edgar Rice Burroughs, dinosaurs and old movies. Continue reading →


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The Magic Island (1929)

You realize that you are on to something when the book you need to check out for your next non-fiction article was written by a cannibal that tried to kill Hitler with a voodoo ritual.

William Buehler Seabrook was a writer and reporter, an explorer, an occultist, occasionally a cannibal. He served in the Great War and was gassed in action.
While visiting Africa he developed an interest in cannibalism, that led him to acquire a number of medical samples and cook them to try and see what they tasted like. This was in the ’20s.
Then, in ’29, he visited Haiti – that at the time was being controlled by the US, that had invaded it in 1914 – and “discovered” voodoo. Continue reading →


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The Second Judy Garland Blogathon: Judgement at Nurenberg

This is the Judy Garland blogathon, and please direct your browsers here to visit In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood, that is hosting the blogathon and where you will find the entries for all the participants and their posts about Judy Garland’s movies and more.

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Then get back here, because we are about to go somewhere really dark. Continue reading →


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Wasting time at the bottom of the sea: Deepstar Six

movieposterBetween 1989 and 1990 a number of movies were released that had to do with people underwater facing monsters.
The most popular was of course Jim Cameron’s The Abyss, a big-budget production with state of the art special effects. George P. Cosmatos’ lower budget flick, Leviathan featured a good cast but made a smaller splash (ah!)
The others disappeared – but can still be found, and for a while were on rotation on local TV networks.
So two nights ago I went and checked out (again) Deepstar Six, a movie I had completely forgotten.
I am writing this now because I feel the plot might vanish from my memory again soon. Continue reading →


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In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

I often write about the joys of doing research.
The good part is you find out a lot of incredible stuff (most of which will be completely useless for what you are writing), and you have an excuse for reading books or watching movies.

Case in point, In the Heart of the Sea, a 2015 movie that did not make a big splash (aha!), and that I had missed at the time.

Let’s admit it: you are writing a story about a giant killer whale called Livyatan melvillei, and open with a quote from Herman Melville, you gotta watch the movie based on the true story that inspired Moby Dick.
So I watched it. Continue reading →