John Kenneth Muir
Encyclopedia
John Kenneth Muir is an American literary critic. He has written twenty-one reference books in the fields of film and television, with a particular accent on the horror and science fiction genres.
Muir has written a book about Kevin Smith
, entitled An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith, a study of Sam Raimi
entitled The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi and another on the works of comedian Christopher Guest
and his repertory company, titled Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company. As of 2010, Muir's most recent film director study was Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair
.
. Muir also has written monographs about SF-TV, including Exploring Space: 1999
(1997), An Analytical Guide to Battlestar Galactica
(1998), A Critical History of Dr. Who
on TV (1999), A History and Critical Analysis of Blake's 7
(1999) and An Analytical Guide to TV's One Step Beyond (2001).
Muir was educated at the University of Richmond
in Virginia from 1988 to 1992 http://magazine.richmond.edu/Fall_06/alumni_news/index.html, where he studied for two years under renowned Hudson Review film critic, Bert Cardullo (a student of The New Republic
's film critic Stanley Kauffmann
). Muir's first book, Exploring Space: 1999 was published five years after his graduation from University, in April 1997. Muir also counts Pauline Kael
and Roger Ebert
as important career influences.http://www.virtualfools.com/newestarticle.php?start_from=&ucat=17&subaction=showfull&id=1131761829&archive=1133416120&
In 2009, Muir became a member of the artist collective, Tecamachalco Underground. The following year he was a judge at the ACEFEST NYC2010 Film Festival, occurring August 20–28, 2010.
saga, entitled The Forsaken. This is the second in the Powys line of Space: 1999 books, following William Latham
's Resurrection. Muir's other fiction includes two short stories for The Official Farscape
Magazine. In issue #6, for May 2002, his story "That Old Voodoo" was featured. In issue #8, for August 2002, his story "Make a Wish" was published.
Two of his Space: 1999 licensed short stories, "Futility" and "The Touch of Venus", appear in the anthology Space: 1999 Shepherd Moon (2010).
", TV Ontario's Saturday Night at the Movies, http://www.tvo.org/TVOsites/WebObjects/TvoMicrosite.woa/wo/MBOWJzFaIdiSway8ZnWKsw/2.0.0.79.45.26.21.19.1.2.1 and on the premiere episode of the The Sci-Fi Channel
series Sciography
. On radio, Muir has been a guest on Destinies: The Voice of Science Fiction, NiteShift Good Morning Charlotte, The Allan Handelman Show, and The Mitch Albom Show.
In 2007, Muir appeared as a commentator in Decade of Darkness, a DVD extra on the "Collector's Edition" DVD of Return of the Living Dead
(1985).http://www.digital-retribution.com/reviews/dvd/0763.php He also appeared with others in documentary Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film (2009). On October 25, 2010, he was featured on the Biography Channel's The Inside Story: Halloween documentary about director John Carpenter
's 1978 film, Halloween
.
,http://www.johnkennethmuir.com/thehousebetween.html to be broadcast online. The House Between's first season episode, "Arrived", premiered at Fantasci V http://www.chesapeake.lib.va.us/CL_Fantasci2006/CL_FantasciPr.htm in Chesapeake, VA, on July 29, 2006. The second season of the series premiered January 25, 2008 and ran through March 2008. A third season began airing online in January 2009.
The House Between's second season premiere ("Returned") was nominated for a Sy Fy Genre Award in 2008 under the category "Best Web Production." Sy Fy Radio on August 13, 2008 announced that The House Between placed second out of five productions, behind the bigger-budgeted Star Trek: Of Gods and Men by a margin of less than 100 votes. The third season of the series was nominated for "Best Web Production" at Airlock Alpha, but did not win. Altogether twenty-one episodes of The House Between were produced over three seasons.
Muir has written a book about Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith
Kevin Patrick Smith is an American screenwriter, actor, film producer, and director, as well as a popular comic book writer, author, comedian/raconteur, and internet radio personality best recognized by viewers as Silent Bob...
, entitled An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith, a study of Sam Raimi
Sam Raimi
Samuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror films like the Evil Dead series, Darkman and Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The...
entitled The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi and another on the works of comedian Christopher Guest
Christopher Guest
Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest , better known as Christopher Guest, is an American screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor and comedian. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in several improvisational "mockumentary" films that...
and his repertory company, titled Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company. As of 2010, Muir's most recent film director study was Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair
Mira Nair
Mira Nair is an Indian film director and producer based in New York. Her production company is Mirabai Films.She was educated at Delhi University and Harvard University. Her debut feature film, Salaam Bombay! , won the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival and also earned the nomination...
.
Biography
Born December 3, 1969, Muir began his full-time writing career in 1996, penning several books for the North Carolina-based publisher of scholarly reference books, McFarland & CompanyMcFarland & Company
McFarland & Company, Inc. is a book publisher of primarily academic and adult nonfiction based in Jefferson, North Carolina. Its president and editor-in-chief is Robert Franklin, who began the enterprise in 1979...
. Muir also has written monographs about SF-TV, including Exploring Space: 1999
Space: 1999
Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series that ran for two seasons and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the Moon out of orbit and...
(1997), An Analytical Guide to Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction franchise created by Glen A. Larson. The franchise began with the Battlestar Galactica TV series in 1978, and was followed by a brief sequel TV series in 1980, a line of book adaptations, original novels, comic books, a board game, and video games...
(1998), A Critical History of Dr. Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
on TV (1999), A History and Critical Analysis of Blake's 7
Blake's 7
Blake's 7 is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC for its BBC1 channel. The series was created by Terry Nation, a prolific television writer and creator of the Daleks for the television series Doctor Who. Four series of Blake's 7 were produced and broadcast between 1978...
(1999) and An Analytical Guide to TV's One Step Beyond (2001).
Muir was educated at the University of Richmond
University of Richmond
The University of Richmond is a selective, private, nonsectarian, liberal arts university located on the border of the city of Richmond and Henrico County, Virginia. The University of Richmond is a primarily undergraduate, residential university with approximately 4,000 undergraduate and graduate...
in Virginia from 1988 to 1992 http://magazine.richmond.edu/Fall_06/alumni_news/index.html, where he studied for two years under renowned Hudson Review film critic, Bert Cardullo (a student of The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
's film critic Stanley Kauffmann
Stanley Kauffmann
Stanley Kauffmann is an American author, editor, and critic of film and theatre. He has written for The New Republic since 1958 and currently contributes film criticism to that magazine....
). Muir's first book, Exploring Space: 1999 was published five years after his graduation from University, in April 1997. Muir also counts Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
and Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
as important career influences.http://www.virtualfools.com/newestarticle.php?start_from=&ucat=17&subaction=showfull&id=1131761829&archive=1133416120&
In 2009, Muir became a member of the artist collective, Tecamachalco Underground. The following year he was a judge at the ACEFEST NYC2010 Film Festival, occurring August 20–28, 2010.
Fiction
Muir's first novel was published by Powys Media in 2003, an officially licensed continuation of the Space: 1999Space: 1999
Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series that ran for two seasons and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the Moon out of orbit and...
saga, entitled The Forsaken. This is the second in the Powys line of Space: 1999 books, following William Latham
William Latham
William Latham is a British computer artist, most known as the creator of the Organic Art product as well as for creating album covers and artwork for the dance group The Shamen. Latham is the founder of the company Computer Artworks which released the Organic Art product through Time Warner...
's Resurrection. Muir's other fiction includes two short stories for The Official Farscape
Farscape
Farscape is an Australian-American science fiction television series filmed in Australia and produced originally for the Nine Network. The series was conceived by Rockne S. O'Bannon and produced by Jim Henson Productions and Hallmark Entertainment...
Magazine. In issue #6, for May 2002, his story "That Old Voodoo" was featured. In issue #8, for August 2002, his story "Make a Wish" was published.
Two of his Space: 1999 licensed short stories, "Futility" and "The Touch of Venus", appear in the anthology Space: 1999 Shepherd Moon (2010).
Media appearances
Muir has appeared on TV on The E! True Hollywood Story: "Curse of The ExorcistThe Exorcist (film)
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...
", TV Ontario's Saturday Night at the Movies, http://www.tvo.org/TVOsites/WebObjects/TvoMicrosite.woa/wo/MBOWJzFaIdiSway8ZnWKsw/2.0.0.79.45.26.21.19.1.2.1 and on the premiere episode of the The Sci-Fi Channel
Sci Fi Channel (United States)
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
series Sciography
Sciography
Sciography is a branch of science of the perspective dealing with the projection of shadows, or delineation of an object in perspective with its gradations of light and shade. One of the major professional fields that use this technique is the architectural field...
. On radio, Muir has been a guest on Destinies: The Voice of Science Fiction, NiteShift Good Morning Charlotte, The Allan Handelman Show, and The Mitch Albom Show.
In 2007, Muir appeared as a commentator in Decade of Darkness, a DVD extra on the "Collector's Edition" DVD of Return of the Living Dead
Return of the Living Dead
The Return of the Living Dead is a 1985 American zombie film that was followed by several sequels. The film was written and directed by Dan O'Bannon and starred Clu Gulager, James Karen and Don Calfa....
(1985).http://www.digital-retribution.com/reviews/dvd/0763.php He also appeared with others in documentary Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film (2009). On October 25, 2010, he was featured on the Biography Channel's The Inside Story: Halloween documentary about director John Carpenter
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...
's 1978 film, Halloween
Halloween (1978 film)
Halloween is a 1978 American independent horror film directed, produced, and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut and the first installment in the Halloween franchise. The film is set in the fictional midwestern...
.
The House Between
In 2006, Muir wrote and directed an original science fiction series http://www.farsector.com/media/index.htm entitled The House BetweenThe House Between
The House Between is an online science fiction series created by American author, John Kenneth Muir "for internet and DVD distribution". According to Muir, the show is an independent, low-budget production: "...we steered our own ship, without committee, without interference," he noted in a column...
,http://www.johnkennethmuir.com/thehousebetween.html to be broadcast online. The House Between's first season episode, "Arrived", premiered at Fantasci V http://www.chesapeake.lib.va.us/CL_Fantasci2006/CL_FantasciPr.htm in Chesapeake, VA, on July 29, 2006. The second season of the series premiered January 25, 2008 and ran through March 2008. A third season began airing online in January 2009.
The House Between's second season premiere ("Returned") was nominated for a Sy Fy Genre Award in 2008 under the category "Best Web Production." Sy Fy Radio on August 13, 2008 announced that The House Between placed second out of five productions, behind the bigger-budgeted Star Trek: Of Gods and Men by a margin of less than 100 votes. The third season of the series was nominated for "Best Web Production" at Airlock Alpha, but did not win. Altogether twenty-one episodes of The House Between were produced over three seasons.
Liner notes & forewords
- Lexicon of the Planet of the Apes by Rich Handley (Hasslein Books; September 2010)
- The House Between: Original Internet Television Score--compact disc booklet. (Powys Media. April 2010)
Awards and nominations
- The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television: A New York Public Library's "Best of Reference" Selection, 2005. http://legacy.www.nypl.org/branch/books/index2.cfm?ListID=234
- Horror Films of the 1970s: A Booklist Editor's Choice for 2002; An Outstanding Reference Source for 2003 by RUSA (Reference Users Service Association), and a "Best of the Best" Reference Book for 2002 by the ALA (American Library Association). http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/awards/outstandingreferencesources/previouslists/2003/2003orslist.cfm
- Terror Television: A Booklist Editor's Choice for 2001.2001.*Nomination: Airlock Alpha Best Web Production, The House Between (2009) http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/6439
- Nomination: Sy Fy Portal Best Web Production, The House Between: "Returned" (2008)http://crushable.com/entertainment/syfy-portal-genre-awards/