In 2017, I published an article on the 2011 Steven Soderbergh film Contagion in a collection of essays titled Melodrama Unbound. The director and actors of Contagion describe this project as “ultra-realistic,” and proudly tout the consultations with scientists working on SARS, the West Nile virus, and smallpox as evidence of their commitment to facts. […]
I was invited to The Kojo Nnamdi Show, WAMU 88.5 in Washington DC, and was interviewed by guest host Todd Kliman. We talked about my book, Anatomy of a Robot, which he had read so carefully, and about the perennial appeal of robots and other artificial people! It was a great conversation, and wonderful experience […]
I was online answering questions about robots on io9, and if you don’t know this website you really should check it out, it has such an irreverent and also knowledgeable approach to science fiction media and culture. Here is the link to the discussion, which took place on August 15, 2014, from 11 -12 Pacific […]
Perhaps it is the impending film release of The Fault in Our Stars that has occasioned new interest in how the category known as “young adult literature” operates today in the publishing world, the book-to-film world, and the general reading world. The debate has taken many forms this summer, and has intensified after the publication […]
Although he had directed films before The Lodger, Alfred Hitchcock described this as his true directorial debut. Indeed, watching the film today is complicated by just how much one knows about the director and his personal styles. Many of his signature moves seem to be present here, preternaturally present, elements of an authorial signature that […]