Paul Levinson
Bio
Novels The Silk Code, The Plot To Save Socrates, It's Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Prof, Fordham Univ.
Stories (742)
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Review of 'Playhouse Presents: Snodgrass'
My just-published Beatles alternate history story, It's Real Life, is getting some good response. Over in the Steve Hoffman Music Forums, someone (Wildest cat from Montana) recommended that I see a short 2013 movie Snodgrass -- actually a 24-minute episode of a British series of standalone dramas, Playhouse Presents, that ran from 2010-2015.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Station Eleven' Finale
What a glorious, hopeful finale to the masterful television series known as Station Eleven. An ending so uplifting, in a story of humanity beset by a virus that kills 99% of the population, that it can serve as beacon of hope, a map to a better world, in our own world, also beset by a deadly virus, but far less lethal than the deadly flu in Station Eleven.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Needle in a Timestack'
For some reason, I just saw something about Needle In A Timestack late last evening. It's been streaming on something called Amazon Instant Video -- apparently since the end of this past October -- and it costs 99 cents to see. It will be on Amazon Prime Video, presumably for free, on January 28. Now, ordinarily I'd wait the two weeks and see it on Prime Video. Readers of my reviews will know I'm a cheapskate. But, by my reckoning, not only does time wait for no one, neither does time travel, or at least time travel narratives should not be obliged to wait. That, and the fact that the movie is based on a story by Robert Silverberg (which I haven't read), a great writer whom I not only admire but know fairly well, tipped the balance.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Station Eleven' 1.8-9
Station Eleven is such a deep and deeply nuanced story, it's going to be talked about and studied for years, even decades, to come. Just as episodes 1.8 and 1.9 coax us through these times and time spans. If this characterization seems a little more poetic than usual, it's because Station Eleven is itself pure poetry.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Les Bicyclettes de Belsize'
As I mentioned on Twitter, Facebook, and all the usual places, I just added Engelbert Humperdinck's "Les Bicyclettes de Belsize," his 1968 hit record which I always loved -- and thought I loved more than I should have -- to my Science Fiction and Fantasy Songs playlist on Spotify, as you can see below. It's the 16th song on the list, but they're not in any kind of ranking. "Les Bicyclettes de Belsize" just seemed to go well with "Over the Rainbow," at #15. Both after all are fantasy songs, both come from motion pictures with fantasy narratives, and both motion pictures are musicals.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Beat
