Lord of the Rings’ uncredited Gimli double did the work, and has the tattoo to prove it
Plenty of Lord of the Rings fans know the bit of trivia that all the actors in the fellowship got matching tattoos — except for John Rhys-Davies, who sent his stunt double. I wondered, “Who is that stunt double,” and for Polyon’s Year of the Ring package, I tracked down Brett Beattie and told his story for the first time. He was much, much more than just a stunt double.
How ‘Nosferatu’ turned up in SpongeBob SquarePants
The 100th anniversary of the landmark horror film Nosferatu was also the 20th anniversary of the vampire’s appearance in a beloved episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. I spoke with that episode’s director about the creation of the gag and it’s legacy, and he made a convincing case that the SpongeBob appearance is more iconic to modern audiences than the actual movie.
Godzilla might have dropped nuclear horror, but Chernobyl more than makes up for it
In this essay, I explored how the timing of Godzilla: King of the Monster‘s premiere — so soon after HBO’s Chernobyl aired — made the kaiju flick’s nonchalant handling of radiation quite jarring, especially given the franchise’s roots as post-Hiroshima horror.