Simon Brook's Minus One
MINUS ONE (1991) Written & directed by: Simon Brook. Based on the short story by: J.G. Ballard. Produced by: Susanna Virtanen. Music: Joshua Zaentz. Starring: Alfred Hyslop, Paul Ravich, Earl...
View ArticleClik here to view.
'The Crashman': An Experiment in Applied Internet Ballardianism
“The Crashman”: An Experiment in Applied Internet Ballardianism. by the Crashman. ABOVE: ‘White Bird’ by the Crashman. ‘XB-70, Tu-144: White Bird Must Fly, or she will crash’. From the moment Blake...
View ArticleClik here to view.
1971: Year of the Drake
From outer space to inner… LEFT: Gabrielle Drake in UFO. RIGHT: Ms Drake in Crash!. Pringle: [In Crash!] you were playing opposite a professional actress, so it wasn’t as though it was purely a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Car that Ate Bournville
Above: the offending vehicle. The Zodiac 3000 exhibition in Birmingham, dedicated to and inspired by Ballard, has already drawn first blood, severely disrupting the stasis of surrounding Brum...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Coming Never: Richard Gere as Blake
ABOVE: Richard Gere as Blake: more vapourware… None of my books are being made into films at the moment, all is quiet. A lot of Philip K. Dick’s books have been filmed; they fit the American mood. His...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rick McGrath's Letter from Barcelona: The Exquisite Corpse, An Autopsy of the...
Rick McGrath’s Letter from Barcelona: THE EXQUISITE CORPSE: AN AUTOPSY OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM by Rick McGrath ABOVE: Rick talking to CCCB Director-General Josep Ramoneda on opening night. Photo by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Unique visual complexities: A review of Grande Anarca
GRANDE ANARCA (Italy, 2003) review by Jamie Sherry ABOVE: Grande Anarca, part 1 (2003; dir. Alvise Renzini). Runtime: 18 mins Voice: Ermanna Montanari Sound: Davide Sandri Music: Egle Sommacal Editor:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In Defence of the Virtual: A Secret History of Ballardian Film Adaptations
by Simon Sellars Originally published in the Norwegian-language magazine Vagant, May-August 2011, pp. 10-11. It appears here in English for the first time. In 1986, Christian Bale, as a child actor,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
J.G. Ballard Live in London
Photo by Simon Sellars This transcript was first published in Sub Dee Magazine (no. 5 Summer 1997), a print project I was involved in long before Ballardian. At the time, J.G. Ballard’s career was in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
High-Rise: Wheatley vs Cronenberg
ABOVE: Trailer for High-Rise (2016), directed by Ben Wheatley. ABOVE: Opening sequence to Shivers (1975), directed by David Cronenberg. High-Rise, Ben Wheatley’s much-anticipated adaptation of the...
View ArticleApplied Ballardianism forthcoming from Urbanomic in 2017
I’m excited to announce that my book, Applied Ballardianism: A Theory of Nothing, will be forthcoming from Urbanomic in late 2017. The publisher’s page for the book is here, and Urbanomic’s blurb is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
From Shanghai to Norwich: An Interview with Jeannette Baxter
J.G. Ballard, in 1960, posing in front of his ‘experimental billboard fiction’. On 5 May 2007, ‘From Shanghai to Shepperton: An International Conference on J.G. Ballard’, apparently the first-ever...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Kafka with Unlimited Chicken Kiev’: J.G. Ballard on Cocaine Nights
I phoned J.G. Ballard at his home early in September 1996, shortly before the publication of his novel, Cocaine Nights, the murder mystery set in the Costa Del Sol, whose ‘detective story’ format...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Crash Talk’: A Q&A with David Cronenberg and J.G. Ballard, London, 1996
Transcribed by Mike Holliday The following ‘Guardian Lecture’ took place on 10 November 1996 at the British Film Institute, London. The first U.K. screening of Crash had taken place the previous...
View Article