Alastair Dunlop
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arcturustourist.bsky.social
Alastair Dunlop
@arcturustourist.bsky.social
460 followers 1.1K following 91 posts
Films, music, video-games, pop culture ephemera
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
andrewhickey.500songs.com
I think it's actually down to the way in the 1960s Britain caught on to American culture at a bit of a time-lag, plus the breakup of the Beatles. I shall explain in a thread.
cataribartok.bsky.social Gustaue Flavbert @cataribartok.bsky.social · 3h
I wonder how much of this difference comes from American Christmas being rooted in German culture?
December 13, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
heraldscotland.bsky.social
Legendary Scottish actor and comedian Stanley Baxter has died at the age of 99.

www.heraldscotland.com/news...
December 12, 2025 at 9:43 AM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
fubsyshabaroon.bsky.social
Here we go…
jameydodger75 When the Seventh Doctor met Rupert Bear So after Doctor Who came to an end on TV in 1989, Sylvester McCoy appeared in Babes in the Wood for the 1990 Christmas season wearing a recreated clownish version of his Seventh Doctor costume. The pantomime was performed at the Cambridge Arts Theatre, with Sylvester appearing alongside Rupert Bear. #SylvesterMcCoy #seventhdoctor #doctorwho #Classicdoctorwho #timelord #babesinthewood
December 11, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
schweizercomics.bsky.social
Just a reminder that there's a Will Shakespeare miniseries from the heyday of BBC historicals starring Tim Curry as Shakespeare and Ian McShane as Marlowe, and it's on youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpxC...
production stills of Curry and McShane in costume
December 8, 2025 at 2:58 PM
arcturustourist.bsky.social
Really enjoyed this. I consider It's Christmas to be the superior compilation though, simply through having the 'bongos' version of Kate Bush's December Will Be Magic Again.
joescaramanga.co.uk Joe-ho-ho Scaramanga @joescaramanga.co.uk · 19d
Putting this out there. Took me far longer than I expected.
The chances of me getting the next four parts done by Christmas are slim to nil, but I'll see how well this one goes.

youtu.be/J_ZRnqdPq1Y
40 Years of Now - The Christmas Album Part 1: 1985-1999
YouTube video by Joe Scaramanga
youtu.be
December 4, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
waltydunlop.bsky.social
*Superb* trade advert for Python's Holy Grail soundtrack album. I love this, and I don't think I've ever seen it before.
November 27, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
matineemode.bsky.social
These matte paintings from EWOKS THE BATTLE FOR ENDOR (1985) are gorgeous relics of a truly lost art.
Matte painting of a mountainside as a blood red moon peeks over the ridge. Matte painting of several Ewoks and their human friend standing at the base of a massive dark castle structure.
November 24, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I'm a little late getting to this, but this is a must read for anyone who loves EYES WIDE SHUT

thefilmstage.com/that-cut-is-...
“That Cut Is Stanley’s Cut”: Nigel Galt on Editing Eyes Wide Shut with Kubrick
What is it to spend 15 months in a room with—let's just speculate—the most influential filmmaker of all-time on his final project, a work for which they did not survive to elaborate upon and left in a...
thefilmstage.com
November 23, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
matineemode.bsky.social
There’s nothing like the dopamine hit from the first time you recognize that Fatboy Slim sampled Angela Bassett’s line in STRANGE DAYS (1995) for “Right Here, Right Now”.
November 21, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
alreadytaken74.bsky.social
Good God, someone's just uploaded to YouTube a nearly 2-hour long video of one of the original Vic Reeves Big Night Out live shows at the Albany Empire from 1989. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKPU...
Vic Reeves Big Night Out - 30 April 1989
YouTube video by Peter Brooke Turner
www.youtube.com
November 10, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social
Preparing to teach Soylent Green (Robert Fleisher, 1973), I came across this ad for a bizarre promotional event where the actresses who play the "furniture" in the film—enslaved sex workers who are purchased along with a luxury apartments—appeared as "furniture girls" at an actual furniture store.
Ad for Soylent Green promotional event at Wickes Furniture
November 5, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
tenacrebooks.bsky.social
We're counting down to the release of our new book Box of Delights: The Story of BBC Children's Television, Richard Marson's immersive 500-page history. Here's a first look at the full cover, illustrated by @gkw.bsky.social. Available in paperback and limited edition hardback from tenacrebooks.co.uk
Cover design of Box of Delights: The Story of BBC Children's Television – 1967-1997.
November 2, 2025 at 9:25 AM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
davidhendy.bsky.social
Peter Watkins obituary
Peter Watkins obituary: radical British filmmaker behind The War Game and Punishment Park
The maverick filmmaker and pioneer of the docudrama, whose anti-establishment works redefined political cinema and challenged the very language of mass media, has died aged 90.
www.bfi.org.uk
October 31, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
richardlittler.bsky.social
🧵I've posted them before, but here's my thread of horror/kids' TV double-bill cinema posters. Happy Halloween...
#halloween #cinema #graphicdesign #poster
The Womble and The Clanger in the style of The Omen and The Exorcist
October 31, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
weinbergs.bsky.social
Rest in peace, Drew Struzan. His movie posters are much more than marketing. They're some of the finest pop art you'll ever see. Look at this masterpiece:
The Name of the Rose movie poster
October 14, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
designroom.bsky.social
For the Shadow of the Colossus story, we interviewed 14 people including project leads Fumito Ueda and Kenji Kaido, hired Gravity Rush concept artist Takeshi Oga to illustrate the cover, and put together a 10,000-word story with help from @milkman.bsky.social @shmuplations.bsky.social and others.
Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history
Celebrate the 20th anniversary of Team Ico’s masterpiece by looking back with 11 people who worked on it (and three who didn’t).
www.designroom.site
October 14, 2025 at 2:03 PM
arcturustourist.bsky.social
So glad Vertigo is back and with new 100 Bullets too!
October 9, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
birmingham81.bsky.social
Delta 5 performing Mind Your Own Business at Hurrah, NYC in 1980. This and other Hurrah concert recordings are available on a pay-to-view basis at artclips.free.fr/PRIVATE-STRE...
October 8, 2025 at 7:57 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
emilyhughes.bsky.social
all the press around the Ed Gein show seems to insist that Robert Bloch used Gein as the inspiration for Norman Bates - it’s become the accepted narrative - but here’s the thing: he didn’t!
screenshot from robertbloch.net (Audience question regarding the aspects of the Ed Gein murder case as they have supposedly, "historically" applied to Psycho. This otherwise cliched question rates inclusion here because of the breadth of Bob's definitive answer.) BOB: First of all, I didn't know anything about those aspects when I wrote Psycho. I did not use Ed Gein as a basis for Norman Bates at all; I used the circumstances, which were: somebody could live in a small town, where everybody knows everybody else's business, and conduct a series of murders without anyone suspecting. But people don't like this. They like to believe the legend. When you get right down to it, Ed Gein did not run a motel. He killed nobody in the shower. He did not preserve the body of his mother. None of those things were part of Mr. Gein's background. I invented a character at the time which, not having read the details, which were not being printed initially or immediately, because they were very prudish in most cases. Life magazine and a few other publications later came out with a great deal of stuff, but I would not have used it even if it had been available, because it didn't meet with my particular plot requirements. But the legend persists, and will continue to persist. A little over two weeks ago, I think, a network show called Hard Copy asked if they could interview me regarding Psycho. I said I did not want to be interviewed; I didn't want to go down to a studio. They said, "We'll send a crew out." I said to myself, well, if it's good enough for Ackerman, it's good enough for me... screenshot continued They came, and throughout this interview they kept asking, "Didn't you think of Norman Bates because of Ed Gein?" Didn't Ed Gein inspire the characterization, and blah-blah-blah. I kept telling them what I just told you, and the interviewer and crew kept looking sadder. And sadder. I said to myself this isn't going to happen. Sure enough, the show came on, and they'd gone to Plainfield, which had been Gein's home town, and they did a very nice broadcast regarding the case, and they used some dramatization footage which I swear was probably part of a documentary that had been made at the time, because it was in black and white instead of color, and was not aired because it was undoubtedly too strong for audiences then. They salvaged that and put together this program. And I was a non-person. I didn't exist. My name wasn't mentioned, and I certainly did not appear onscreen. Obviously, if I had, they would not have had a program, because their title was The Inside Story: The Truth About the Ed Gein Murders! And my denials were the exact antithesis. This is a horrible lesson in how easy it is for media, today, to distort by omission, or by any kind of editing, what actually happened, what occurred. What I'm citing is trivial; it doesn't mean anything one way or the other. But think of the implications-how this sort of censorship and willful distortion affects so called "news" reporting, and so-called documentaries, on various topics that are of social or historical importance to an audience. And that's something that scares me far more than the activities of Mr. Gein.
October 4, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
kojamf.bsky.social
Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.
October 5, 2025 at 9:08 AM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
gamesthatwerent.com
A huge surprise today, with a preview recovery of the unreleased The Blues Brothers: Jukebox Adventure on #Amiga. Dlfrsilver got in touch with Games That Weren't to share his recovery of this long lost game, and its hoped more can be found! Check it out at:

www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/10/the-...
October 4, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
cameronyardejnr.bsky.social
Here's Patricia Routledge being given a Tony Award for Beat Actress In A Musical, which she won in a tie with Leslie Uggams, by Groucho Marx.
October 3, 2025 at 5:21 PM
arcturustourist.bsky.social
I never pass an opportunity to read this story whenever it resurfaces.
beijingpalmer.bsky.social BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · Sep 30
oh it's time to post the Tetris story again. (short version: reporter goes to cover early e-sports, discovers that his wife is, unknowingly, the greatest Tetris player in the world)

archive.boston.com/news/globe/m...
September 30, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Alastair Dunlop
transdiffusion.org
30 September 1961. The Northern Scot reports that Elgin Town Council have decided – late in the day and reluctantly – that council tenants can put up aerials for the new Grampian TV which launches today... as long as they take them down immediately when the CATV system is upgraded.
GO-AHEAD GIVEN FOR ITV AERIALS COUNCIL GRANT PERMISSION TO TENANTS PERMISSION for the erection of aerials to receive Grampian" television transmissions is to be given to Elgin municipal tenants. This is on the understanding that in the event of other channels being developed in the future, no further aerials or additions to aerials will be permitted.
September 30, 2025 at 12:41 PM
arcturustourist.bsky.social
www.vice.com/en/article/a...
September 27, 2025 at 4:56 PM