Anne Billson aka @annebillson.bsky.social
@AnneBillson
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MY HOT BIO: auteur en filmcriticus, screenwriter, vertaler, fotograaf, evil feminist, wicked spinster, international cat-sitter. Likes frites, beer, chocolade.
The Low Countries
Joined May 2009
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My ebook covers.
All ebooks available in kindle, epub and PDF formats from smashwords:
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I lived in Paris for 10 years, but it wasn't until after I'd moved to Belgium in 2011 that I returned to Paris to climb the south tower of Notre Dame as research for a short story I was writing. Here are some of the photos I took from there.
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I know I've shared this before, but it's one of my favourite ever vines.
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RIP the great Dean Stockwell. Everyone's already going, ah, Blue Velvet, Dune, Quantum Leap etc, so here he is on top creepy form in THE DUNWICH HORROR (1970) (you just have to try and imagine these scenes as gifs)
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Wrote "fuck" in a tweet" just now and Twitter tutted and tried to stop me posting it by saying "Most people on Twitter don't use language like this" and now I want to yell WHAT THE FUCK PART OF FUCKING TWITTER DO YOU HANG OUT ON? EVERYONE SAYS FUCK ALL THE TIME AROUND HERE sorry.
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@corneliusbeers
@roryisconfused
Up Arthur's Seat Without a Ticket sounds like the title of a ribald memoir.
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Can't think of anything more pointless, arrogant and misconceived than "building out past the film frame edges" of a Sergio Leone close-up. FFS.
Enabled more processing power within Photoshop (beta) to enhance 'Generative Fill'. Here's the extreme close-up opening shot in THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY with AI building out past the film frame edges with limited information available. No prompts used.🤠
#Firefly
#FrameGrow
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oh god oh GOD why can't imdb do a redesign that, for once, improves the user experience of looking up a credit as opposed to making the whole thing a dog's fucking dinner?
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And some more photos taken from the top of the south tower of Notre Dame in 2011, including views of the Panthéon and the Tour Montparnasse.
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I like to think that sound is the drone screaming.
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Billy Wilder's Screenwriting Tips.
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Absolutely no idea what's going on here, but it's awesome.
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Don't know if this is "underrated" (everyone I know adores it) but Jesus H Christ, how I wish it had had as many sequels as Pirates of the fucking Caribbean, so clearly *someone* failed to appreciate it.
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I wrote this!
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In the wild west, 25% of cowboys were black, though you'd never guess it to look at Hollywood westerns. This was a really interesting piece to write; hope I did it justice.
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More photos taken from the top of the south tower of Notre Dame in 2011. I was lucky with the weather. You can probably recognise some of the landmarks.
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I wrote this.
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I wish European film distributors & exhibitors would take advantage of this hiatus in supply of Hollywood product by thinking outside the box & screening more world cinema, underexposed recent films, or oldies. I mean, imagine if there were a CENTURY of old movies to choose from.
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@jameshannah
Confession: not familiar with the second film, but I like the look of it and will maybe now seek it out.
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This is extraordinary; older women literally aren't counted as murder victims. "Until three years ago, women of Ruth Williams’s age would not have been counted in the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). Then, it had a cap of 59 years, now it is 74..."
End femicide: 278 dead – the hidden scandal of older women killed by men.
We're very pleased to be working with The Observer on a campaign to raise awareness of and demand action to tackle femicide.
Today’s feature focuses on the killings of older women.
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A way of
Creating more
Room in a 140-character tweet
Or
Stretching out the
Tension
Is to drop punctuation and
Configure it like a wanky poem
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@Andr6wMale
Jesus Christ, that's inexcusable. I am so sorry, Andrew. For heaven's sake
@croydonhealth
stop congratulating yourself and tweeting about tea and cakes - you need to make an effort to find these ASAP.
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Why is everyone so cock-a-hoop that Shackleton’s ship has been found? This is how it always starts.
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I can answer this one. The study is not a peer reviewed or from a major university. It’s a textbook example of a dodgy source. Let me explain.
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If you were ever in any doubt that
@KermodeMovie
was on the side of the film angels, here is a picture of him with his cat, Harry (clearly the power behind the throne).
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Bruce Lee and kitten on the set of THE WAY OF THE DRAGON.
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Does a British Person Actually Like You?
This is right on the money.
Thank you Jim Morton and
@marbleicehook
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I wrote about evil dolls but ugh, this has been heavily edited. I did NOT write: "More worryingly, Chucky was accused of being a contributing factor in real-life murders, such as the James Bulger & Suzanne Capper cases." Accused by whom? Courts? Media? WTF
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oh no, what if cinemas run out of films to show because of the strike? Perhaps they'll have to start showing old Hitchcocks or Kurosawas or Melvilles or Fassbinders or Ozus or Carpenters or Romeros or Minnellis or Buñuels or Fellinis or something. How terrible that would be.
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Last surviving Trump fan picks his way through burnt ruins of America, still babbling "Fuck you libtard snowflakes! You lost, deal with it!"
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From my correspondence files: Nigel Kneale.
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One of the things I always liked best about Twitter and will miss most when it finally implodes: all you have to do is send out a distress call - "Please send cats and dogs!" - and the cats and dogs come rolling in and I feel better already. Thank you! xxx
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Netherlands has:
a) compulsory sex education from the age of 4 onwards
b) teen pregnancy rate approx five times less than that of the US
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Perching puss in Den Haag (The Hague) 15/10 for insouciant balancing skills.
@thecatreviewer
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I get so fed up with people who think THE BIRDS would be better with seamless CGI birds. NO IT WOULDN'T. I love the unseamlessness of it. I'm guessing these folk don't like special effects by Willis O'Brien or Ray Harryhausen either.
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Attn all horror fans. Wow. Just wow. MT
@whatmeworry
Watch Guillermo del Toro's AMAZING Simpsons credit sequence.
http://t.co/gYLb0dWdij
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Not really understanding the warnings now being circulated that some of the scenes in IT CHAPTER 2 might be upsetting. Is it or is it not supposed to be a horror movie? If you're liable to be upset, surely you should just avoid horror movies? Horror should not be a safe space.
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I ranked Dracula! This was fun.
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66 today! All I need to make that truly evil is to live for another 600 years. (If you're stuck for a birthday gift, buying one of my books would please me enormously, and also help pay the bills.)
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Is it me forgetting to opt out by ticking the boxes (could SWEAR I tick them every time) or are today's online companies simply ignoring your wishes when you say you don't want to be pelted with stupid publicity emails, leaving it up to you to opt out of them YET AGAIN?
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Here I am, looking cute with my camera, circa 1980.
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Bruges window cat revelled in the attention, flounced up and down, and tried to paw its way through the glass to get scritches. 11/10 for adorable splotches and Bruges-ness.
@thecatreviewer
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I ranked some mobster movies! Obviously an impossible task - could easily have listed 100 or more - but tried to spread the love around, plus include a few lesser-known titles. (Also, no hitman, heist or bank robber movies. Them's the self-imposed rules)
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A lovely tribute to Ray Liotta by Martin Scorsese.
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I opened the picture and said "oh OH" out loud.
Haven't done this for a while. Open the picture for awesomeness.
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If I had a dog like this she would write all my articles for me, and probably finish my novel as well.
I’ve seen many good dogs in my time, but I’ve just seen the *best* dog.
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Le Cirio bar in Brussels appears to have acquired a cat since the last time I was there. His name is Chocolat and he is very fine. 12/10
@thecatreviewer
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My sister two years ago: Oh yes, we feed her and everything, but she's not allowed in the house.
My sister a few minutes ago: Here's a photo of Missy next to our Christmas tree.
(Christmas tree not pictured; I took these last July)
@thecatreviewer
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Yes, but when is someone going to film THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW? (Also THE SILVER CHAIR?) Why must we always start again with TLTWATW? It's like seeing Mr and Mrs Wayne or Uncle Ben being killed over and over again.
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Took this in the mid-1970s, probably to use up a roll of film. I think it's Clapham.
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Look how adorable I was in the 1980s!
(Thank you David Smith for the photo)
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Interior decor à la THE DUNWICH HORROR (1970)
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Is there an official word for the anxiety you feel about not having the time to see all the films, read all the books or hear all the music?
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Oh god, this thread made me cry. Google Streetview as a kind of afterlife, where your loved ones live forever.
I look at my mum’s old house on Google maps street view, the house where I grew up. It says ‘Image captured May 2009’. There is a light on in her bedroom. It is still her house, she is still alive, I am still visiting every few months on the train to Bodmin Parkway,
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I compiled this list (and it was fun)
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I googled the term "anal-retentive" to see if it really needs that hyphen, and found that number 3 in "Top 5 signs you are anal-retentive" is "You look up anal-retentive to see whether it needs a hyphen."
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I had a lot of fun writing this. I hope you enjoy reading it (even if you disagree with the choices!)
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Blocked someone for saying GREMLINS 2 was “disappointing crap” on a Joe Dante thread I RTd. To Joe Dante FFS. I love GREMLINS 2, but that’s not the reason I blocked him. Say what you like about a film, but maybe not on a thread by the man who made it? Please be kinder than that.
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Christopher Lee,
@AnnoDracula
, Nik Fiend of Alien Sex Fiend and me, talking about vampires on a daytime TV show called Behind the Headlines, 1993.
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Say hello to my housemate for the next week! This is Mabel (said Ma Belle). 10/10 for warm welcome & softest fur EVER!
@thecatreviewer
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I wrote this.
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Another fun fact: in 1901, when Preston Sturges was three years old, his mother Mary left America for Paris, where she had an affair with Aleister Crowley, became one of his so-called Scarlet Women & collaborated with him on his magnum opus, Magick.
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I. Am. So. Fucked. I need to get a job but am not qualified for anything except being a shop assistant or tearing tickets in a cinema (honorable jobs but at least I have experience in those areas).
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Farewell Max Von Sydow (1929-2020) You were great in everything.
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Great selection, but the writing is lovely too.
Confessions of a Vinyl Junkie
By David Bowie
(Thank you Ian Birch)
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Hurrah! Fab new edition of my BFI Classics book on John Carpenter's THE THING coming next October from
@BloomsburyMedia
with brilliant & creepy new cover design by
@MrKeenan
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This compilation never rises above OW MY BALLS! level, but about one minute in, I started laughing so hard I got tears my eyes.
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DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN was released on this day in 1985. I took some snaps on the set, New York City 1983. (Photographs
@AnneBillson
)
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Soon Soho will be a wasteland of overpriced hotels & luxury flats, all the music venues, cinemas and decent bars and restaurants demolished & with them any conceivable reason to go there. Here's a reminder of what it used to be like in 1983.
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RIP Seijun Suzuki.
Trailer for his bonkers 1966 yakuza masterpiece TOKYO DRIFTER (no subtitles, doesn't matter)
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@WhitlockAndPope
Vampyr
Let the Right One in
Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
The Eye (2002)
The Cremator
Vargtimmen
I tre volti della paura
La maschera del demonio
Operazione paura
Viy
Jallikattu
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Rosanna Arquette (New York, 1984) Photograph
@AnneBillson
(I was interviewing her for BABY IT'S YOU; she's wearing an AFTER HOURS crew jacket; Amy Robinson & Griffin Dunne were producers on both films)
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"What the fuck are you actually talking about, and why are you in this thread about haunted vegetables?"
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How the Iceland National Football Team Was Selected
(from Reddit)
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IMO SPECTRE was written by people with no understanding for the genre. Bond films at their best (for me, GOLDFINGER) are a series of action set-pieces & glam locations strung together, not some sort of telenovela-style soap opera full of "Luke I am your father" corblimey moments.
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Happy Psycho Day to all who celebrate.
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I ranked Kristen Stewart's performances! (I realise a lot of people don't like her and/or think she's a lousy actress, but I think she's great)
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Born on this day in 1922: Christopher Lee. Seen here in 1993 with me, Nik Fiend of Alien Sex Fiend (who kindly provided the photo) and
@AnnoDracula
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I want to post this tweet every day.
to those who toil long, lonely hours without thanks, let alone remuneration, to colorize vintage photos & film: please stop
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I wrote this.
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Not sure I'd agree that JOHN CARTER (which I loved) was "met with indifference by general audiences" - I got the impression it was written off by its distributors (with the possibly unwitting connivance of mainstream critics) before general audiences even got a sniff at it.
Ready to go back to Barsoom?
I love Disney's
#JohnCarter
so much and getting to tell the full story (from Andrew Stanton, Michael Chabon,
@lynncollins7
, Willem Dafoe and others), on its 10th anniversary, was a HUGE honor.
Ak Ohum Oktay Weez... Barsoom.
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I blogged about working in a Charing Cross Road bookshop in the mid-1970s.
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Meet my flatmates for the next couple of weeks: Thomas and Harvey. They're a bit suspicious right now, but I'm sure they'll learn to love me. Probably at dinner time.
@thecatreviewer
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I'd like to know why Quentin Tarantino, in Cinema Speculation, erased Lynda Myles' co-authorship of The Movie Brats (1979) and instead attributed it, more than once, to her male co-author alone.
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He wrote one of my Twilight Zone favourites: The Howling Man. Died at the tragically early age of 38 after several years of suffering what Forrest J Ackerman and UCLA medical staff asserted was a combination of Alzheimer's and Pick's diseases.
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I wrote this. The 20 best Frankenstein films – ranked!
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'why haven’t we seen another ”Pauline Kael” or ”Anne Billson” or a ”Molly Haskell”'? Well yes, of course it's flattering to be included in this sentence, but HELLO! I'M STILL HERE! (as is Haskell)
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Someone was asking for general writing advice this morning, but I can't find the tweet or remember who it was. But here's the best advice I know anyway, from John Swartzwelder (who wrote many of The Simpsons' best episodes, as well as a series of very funny detective novels).
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Just in case there's someone out there who didn't know - this is Nigel Kneale's 1989 TV adaptation of Susan Hill's novel & about 100 times creepier & scarier than the 2012 film with Daniel Radcliffe. Those of us who saw it back in 1989 still shudder as we refer to "THAT scene".
THE WOMAN IN BLACK Directed by Herbert Wise gets released in the 🇬🇧 on 10th August by
@networktweets
A lawyer travels to a small seaside town to settle the estate of a recently deceased woman, but soon becomes ensnared in something much more sinister.
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