iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

My late and much-missed dog Monty, with his ears artfully rearranged over the top of his head to make him look vaguely leonine. I am of course posting this particular picture during this particular week entirely at random.

A blond working cocker spaniel with his ears rearranged over the top of his head to form a quasi-wig arrangement.

1121

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

See also the way that the perfectly adequate, long-extant "tetralogy" has been supplanted by the grotesque "quadrilogy". I had nothing to do with this box set being correctly titled, but I was thrilled when my contributor copy arrived.

The cover of the Vinegar Syndrope release of 'Piotr Szulkin's Apocalypse Tetralogy', featuring a helmeted individual whose face has been replaced by a spiral, and the entire artwork has been covered with 21 yellow silhouettes of rats.

030

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Not translate, because if it wasn’t subtitled for its original audiences then I shouldn’t do that either, but I love expanding things like “(CURSES IN ITALIAN)” to the attached. Even if you can’t read Italian, Al Capone (Jason Robards) is obviously not best pleased.

Jason Robards as Al Capone in The St Valentine’s Day Massacre, expressing the hope that his enemies will rot in hell for a million years—although he’s saying it in his native Italian, hence a subtitle transcription reading “Marciscono all’inferno per un milione d’anni!”

000

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

"I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) smoking a cigarette in 'Schindler's List'.

140

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

Or, as the Financial Times—yes, really!—put it the other day...

A screencap from the online version of the Financial Times, highlighting the headline "Who's who at X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter: A look inside Elon Musk's big tent".

000

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

85 years after his death, we remember Neville Chamberlain for one thing, and one thing only. Indeed, can the average person mentally recall a photograph of him other than the attached? (And there's been a definite uptick in Chamberlain references in recent years...)

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938, waving the piece of paper that he alleged promised "peace in our time". The next year, Hitler invaded Poland, compelling Chamberlain to declare war on Germany.

110

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Robert Altman's 'The Long Goodbye' wasn't dreck, but it was a flop on the West Coast, where it had a more traditionally noirish poster—so when it moved to the East Coast a few months later (as US-wide saturation releases were still a couple of years away), they hired Davis to revamp the poster.

The Jack Davis-designed poster for the East Coast premiere run of Robert Altman's 'The Long Goodbye' (1973), featuring exaggerated Mad Magazine-style caricatures of Elliott Gould, Nina Van Pallandt, Jim Bouton, Sterling Hayden, et al, complete with facetious speech bubbles. Across the top, Robert Altman is introducing various aspects of his film, which triggers five conversations, a sample one being:

ALTMAN: Here's our star, Elliott Gould! Elliott plays Philip Marlowe, a hard-bitten cynical private eye trying to solve an incredible mystery!
GOULD: With so many other actors around, why did you pick me??
ALTMAN: THAT'S the mystery!

32610

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Hence this load of old cobblers from a few hours ago.

A Telegraph headline from 27 November 2025, in which Allister Heath opines that "Britain is now in the grip of full-blooded socialism".

281

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

I'm just staggered that Allister Heath didn't go away and hide in a cave after treating us to this gem three years ago. But for some reason he's still being allowed to edit a national newspaper

A tweet dated 23 September 2022 by Sunday Telegraph editor Allister Heath, welcoming the mini-budget by the then Prime Minister Liz Truss and her Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng with: "This was the best Budget I have ever heard a British chancellor deliver, by a massive margin. The tax cuts were so huge and bold, the language so extraordinary, that at times, listening to Kwasi Kwarteng, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming, that I hadn't been transported to a distant land that actually believed in the economics of Milton Friedman and FA Hayek."

1135

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Compare and contrast with the Utopian paradise of just over three years ago.

131

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

I never met him, sadly, but I treasure this photo of him holding the Blu-ray of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne that Daniel Bird and I co-produced for Arrow back in 2015: a total labour of love that still ranks high among my proudest career achievements.

A photo of the distinguished German actor Udo Kier, taken in 2015, in which he’s holding the then recent Arrow Blu-ray releases of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne and Mark of the Devil, in both of which he starred.

2172

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

One of the more trivial reasons why my marriage is an exceptionally happy one.

A Facebook Messenger conversation between me and my wife.

I posted:
-"I would like to buy a deodorant, please."
-"Ball or..."
and then uploaded a picture of a passenger jet with AIR SEOUL on the side.

To which she replied:
"No, I want it for my armpits."

010

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Oh, and this is what happened when Starbucks invited people to "spread the cheer" by letting them post festive messages on a large public display. Again, I feel that this could perhaps have been foreseen.

A photo of a large digital display temporarily installed at the National History Museum in London in which Starbucks invited people to "Tweet your festive message" with the hashtag "#spreadthe cheer". The two legible messages read "Tax Dodging Mofo's" and "Hey, #Starbucks, PAY YOUR FUCKING TAX".

020

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

And you'd have thought the organisers would have seen this coming, because a few years earlier Mountain Dew held a similar public vote for a new apple flavour, and compounded this basic mistake by publishing a live leaderboard.

A snapshot of the leaderboard for the Dub the Dew campaign. The text reads:

Dub the Dew - Top 10 Leaderboard
Vote for your favorite name to keep it on The top 10 Leaderboard

1. Hitler did nothing wrong
2. Gushing Granny
3. Fapple
4. Diabeetus
5. Gushin' Granny
6. Grannies Squirt
7. Gushing Grannies
8. Gooshing Granny
9. Fapulous Apple
10. Gushing Green Granny

100

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

And here is Boaty McBoatface being readied for action.

The distinctive yellow remote submersible named Boaty McBoatface as a result of a controversial public vote, its name prominently displayed on the side.

140

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Appropriate, since it's the fiftieth anniversary of the cinema's definitive terrifyingly large monster dong.

A still from Walerian Borowczyk's notorious 'The Beast' ('La Bête', 1975), featuring the title character peering over the branch of a tree while holding an organ recently extracted from a slaughtered lamb. In the interests of social media decorum, this image doesn't show the beast's lower half, but the film shows it in considerable detail.

131

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

That tangentially reminded me of a superb bit of Tippex and black marker alteration to the attached London Tube ad, whose last two words were altered to "pus river".

A recruitment ad for London bus drivers, dating from circa 1980, whose headline is "When you look in the mirror, do you see a Bus Driver?", the accompanying picture being of the reflection of a London double-decker bus in a car's wing mirror.

010

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

The embarrassing part is that Professor Henry Brubaker of the Institute for Studies, one of Britain's most versatile scholars, is a cult figure round our house, even to the extent of us owning an Institute for Studies mug (evidence attached). But it never occurred to me to make the connection.

A mug commemorating the Institute for Studies, regularly cited by the Daily Mash as an authority on a bewilderingly wide range of topics. Its spokesman, Professor Henry Brubaker, coincidentally has the same name as the prison officer in the 1980 Robert Redford film Brubaker, which has no doubt triggered the occasional titter in the Institute’s hallowed halls.

110

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Except when the prescription runs out and the bonus sausage rolls stop. He gets a bit miffed about that. I attach a picture of one of his drug delivery mechanisms, prior to tossing it straight down his gullet.

A Tesco mini sausage roll, into which two pills, one large, one small, have been embedded, in order to create a failsafe delivery mechanism for getting a dog to keep on top of his prescribed drug treatment.

010

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Not a current British ten pound note, sadly, but we had it for nearly two decades - and in any case Charles Darwin was very far from the only scientist featured on our money.

A British ten pound note in circulation from 2000-2017, featuring Charles Darwin.

010

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

This will never stop being funny. (The guy deleted his account that same day, as there was no coming back from this. The patronising “look it up” was the best bit.)

A screenshot of a Twitter exchange between @J2bk_Chelsea (J) and @everysongsung (Matt) that took place on 23 May 2017.

J: Birmingham in the UK literally has no go zones now.

Matt: Just got to take issue with this point, because it’s bullshit. I’ve lived in Brum, London and Manchester and not one has a “no go” area.

J: You’ve lived in Brum. I was kinda talking about Birmingham. Look it up.

2432

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Which indirectly led to this heartfelt Facebook post of mine from a few years ago.

A Facebook post made by Michael Brooke on 21 December 2019, illustrated by the front cover of Indicator’s Blu-ray edition of ‘The Pillow Book’, followed by the plaintive comment “After having painstakingly recreated nearly 300 subtitles in the original calligraphic font that accompanied the theatrical release (the official subtitle script specifies to the frame how long the dissolves in and out should be), and having created nearly 750 hard-of-hearing subtitles on top of all that, many of which needed unusually careful positioning to avoid clashing with important onscreen information and which included song lyrics in four languages other than English, I can honestly say, with my hand clamped firmly over my heart, that I've seen enough of Ewan McGregor's knob to last me a lifetime. PUT IT AWAY.”

0100

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

This month’s nearly 1,200-page extravagance. I’d been umming and aahing about it for ages, my now 30-year-old copy of Bendazzi’s single-volume ‘Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation’ was getting a bit long in the tooth, and I’ve had than one animation-related commission this year, so...

Three shrinkwrapped hardback volumes comprising Giannalberto Bendazzi's 2015 magnum opus 'Animation: A World History'. Volume 1 is subtitled 'Foundations - The Golden Age', volume 2 'The Birth of a Style - The Three Markets', and volume 3 'Contemporary Times'.

020

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Today's post, courtesy of the estimable @johnnymains.co.uk (as its creator, not its donor; I was happy to pay for it!). I'm very glad I went for the almost 550-page hardback, as it feels seriously meaty in a way that I imagine the paperback doesn't quite match.

A hardback copy of 'His Beautiful Hands: The Short Fiction of Oscar Cook, Edited & Introduced by Johnny Mains'.

050

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

The last couple of minutes of @horrornonna.com and ‪@joshnelsonfilm.bsky.social's commentary for Indicator's upcoming The Taming of the Shrew is now right up there with my favourite commentary endings. (It's not all like this, by the way - the rest is admirably scholarly and informative.) ‬

A transcript of the end of Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson's Blu-ray audio commentary for Franco Zeffirelli's 'The Taming of the Shrew':

AHN: Josh, it has been a delight. I feel like we should have squabbled more.

JN: Wench!

AHN: Dick!

JN: Shrew!

AHN: Maybe we can do this again and we’ll just fight all the way through it. We’ll just disagree on everything.

JN: Fatty!

AHN: Okay, settle down.

JN: Sorry, I went too far there.

AHN: Wow. I wish you had acne scars like Richard Burton and I could give you shit about them.

JN: Let’s be honest, if there’s a fatty here, it’s definitely me. That’s my soft spot.

AHN: Thank you for joining us in this increasingly shouting, but very agreeable, except for the end bit, commentary. This has been really fun to revisit.

JN: It’s been a delight. Thank you for listening.

2133

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

And if it bears a more than passing resemblance to the work of Angela Carter, that's not a coincidence: Carter attended the film's British premiere, and it made a huge impression on her – indeed, The Company of Wolves is arguably its most direct descendant, albeit substituting wolves for vampires.

Valerie (Jaroslava Schallerová) in a dark dress, surrounded by girls of a similar age in white dresses, in a room full of tall candles.

050

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Ester Krumbachová brought a much-needed feminine sensibility as co-scriptwriter and costume designer, her close creative rapport with cinematographer Jan Čuřík placing much emphasis on ornate ornamental detail, which ensured constant visual appeal even when the narrative was at its most opaque.

Stretching her hand over a skull and a glass of red wine, Valerie (Jaroslava Schallerová) proffers one of her pearl-like earrings – one of the film's recurring symbols – to someone in the foreground who's covering his face with his hand.

120

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

In essence, it's about the fears and desires of 13-year-old Valerie (Jaroslava Schallerová), the narrative flowing from a dream that she had on the night of her first period, in which various bizarre creatures encroach on her daily existence, notably a cadaverous white-skinned vampire (Jiří Prýmek).

Valerie (Jaroslava Schallerová) points out something to the vampiric Tchoř (Jiří Prýmek) – whose name translates as "Polecat". He is holding a fan and a small white dog.

120

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

More pertinently as far as it getting greenlit after the 1968 Soviet invasion was concerned, it was based on a 1935 novel by Vitězslav Nezval, whose status as a loyal Communist trumped the rather outré things that he was writing about, at least in the eyes of the Czechoslovak cultural authorities.

Valerie's grandmother (Helena Anýžová), both dressed and made up in white.

120

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders/Valerie a týden divů (Jaromil Jireš, Czechoslovakia, 1970) This celebrated Gothic-Surrealist fantasy about a young girl on the cusp of womanhood explored, to quote its director, "the juncture of reality and dream and the playful struggle between horror and humour".

The Czech poster for Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, featuring the vampiric Tchoř (Jiří Prýmek) embracing Valerie (Jaroslava Schallerová) from behind, with both surrounded by various symbolic illustrations.

1223

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Sensibly, the film's Hollywoodisation of history only goes so far – its makers knew that local audiences would never have tolerated a treacly, ahistorical happy ending. And the high-concept gloss and reliance on archetypal characters ultimately doesn't undermine the film's genuine passion and anger.

Karcsi (Iván Fenyő) and Viki (Kata Dobó) walk along a Budapest street in what might be a classic magic-hour romantic silhouette shot were it not for the fact that they're both visibly toting weapons.

000

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Krisztina Goda's background was in romantic comedy, a surprising advantage here as she clearly had a real rapport with her young cast. But when the Soviet tanks roll in, veteran Bond second-unit director Vic Armstrong takes over for a physically thrilling large-scale reconstruction of the invasion.

An unarmed Hungarian man confronts a Soviet tank in a Budapest streets.

100

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Why waterpolo? Because the real-life post-uprising "blood in the water" grudge match between Hungary and the USSR (Hungary won 4-0) was one of 1956's key symbolic events, and it also allows Eszterhas to inject plenty of Top Gun-style macho bonding as Karcsi's teammates try to keep him focused.

During the waterpolo match between Hungary and the USSR, Karcsi (Iván Fenyő) is visibly dripping blood from a cut above his eye, caused by a Soviet player punching him.

100

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

The Hollywood elements came courtesy of producer Andrew G. Vajna and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, applying a high-concept treatment virtually unprecedented in Hungarian cinema, concerning a romance between maverick waterpolo player Karcsi (Iván Fenyő) and firebrand student activist Viki (Kata Dobó).

Student activist Viki (Kata Dobó) holding a Hungarian flag.

100

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Children of Glory/Szabadság, szerelem (Krisztina Goda, Hungary, 2006) By some distance the biggest and splashiest of the handful of films made in Hungary to mark the abortive 1956 uprising's 50th anniversary, this is an unwieldy but often fascinating fusion of local and Hollywood approaches.

The Hungarian poster for 'Children of Glory', featuring protagonists Viki (Kata Dobó) and Karcsi (Iván Fenyő) shown from behind, arm in arm, while in the foreground there are images of a Soviet tank, a waterpolo game in progress, and Hungarians waving their national flag.

141

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

But this is counterbalanced with witty touches like a wooden chicken reacting angrily to an arrow, or the hero Ivan shattering the darkness with a sword. As Vassilisa, Valentina Sorogozhaya has little to do, but Georgy Millyar's lip-smacking dual role as a father and the witch Baba Yaga compensates.

The hideous witch Baba Yaga (Georgy Millyar, who would repeat the part many times thereafter) and an understandably apprehensive-looking Vassilisa (Valentina Sorogozhaya).

050

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Here, they include three-headed serpent Gorynych and a giant spider, although production values are closer to Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen fifteen years earlier than the far more technically sophisticated likes of King Kong and The Wizard of Oz; strings are clearly visible even when watching a DVD.

191

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Male lead Sergei Stolyarov had previously specialised in ideologised blond "heroes of the people", but after being blacklisted during the Terror, he turned to fairytales, recasting his previous characters as heroic fantasy figures, sword perpetually in hand to do battle with exotic adversaries.

Ivan (Sergei Stolyarov), clad in armour and helmet, embraces Vassilisa (Valentina Sorogozhaya).

140

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

It was shot in Sergiev Posad near Moscow, a landscape chosen for its essential "Russianness", being festooned with birch trees, mountainous landscapes and villages that still had an authentically pagan air about them – a timeless quality at odds with it being filmed at the height of Stalin's Terror.

Hero Ivan (Sergei Stolyarov) prepares to shoot an arrow against a backdrop of an authentic Russian silver birch forest.

140

Michael Brooke @marbleicehook.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Vassilisa the Beautiful/Василиса Прекрасная (Aleksandr Rou, USSR, 1939) Long-term fairytale specialist Rou's second feature was based on a Russian folk tale about a beautiful young maiden cursed by an evil serpent after she spurns its advances, and who is finally freed by the love of an honest man.

The Russian poster for 'Vassilisa the Beautiful', featuring (clockwise from top left) Valentina Sorogozhaya in the title role, Sergei Stolyarov as the heroic Ivan, and Georgy Millyar as the legendary witch Baba Yaga, complete with owl with terrifyingly illuminated eyes.

1162