Harlan Ellison: Dreams With Sharp Teeth
My first review for Greencine Guru is of Erik Nelson’s Dreams With Sharp Teeth:
Harlan Ellison is both famous (if not infamous) and obscure; it depends on who you ask. Over the past week, whenever I’d mention the documentary, Harlan Ellison: Dreams With Sharp Teeth, I’d get one of three reactions: “that’s the science fiction writer, right?” Or if they knew a little more: “Oh, that asshole.” But most often, it was a blank “who?” All of which suggests that Ellison is the ideal subject for a documentary: important and influential in a realm most viewers know little about, and just enough of a, well, jerk to make for compelling cinema.
One of the last living members of that amazing generation of science-fiction authors whose heyday was the 1960s and 1970s, Harlan Ellison is probably best known as the author of the Star Trek (Original Series) episode, “The City on the Edge of Forever.” Like many of his contemporaries – Isaac Asimov, Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury — he has produced a mind-boggling number of stories, books, and scripts, and has won a proportional number of awards.
posted: 09 July 23
under: The Next Frame