A couple of more interesting elements were introduced in ‘Waking the Dead’ episode, in one episode (S6) a character is assulted in a phone box with a psychedelic compound made with woad and another (S5) where a man is murdered while making a call…
And in ‘Upload’, the design for the digitial after life still includes a phone booth…
‘Bill and Ted: Face the Music’ opened recently and the phone booth still plays a vital role as a time machine, in the quest to save the universe. (An updated time machine, now in the shape of a cocoon, is utilised by daughters, Thea and Billie.)
More screen time is ahead of me in the coming months. I’m normally don’t sit in front of the TV for too long but as I’m trying to do my civic duty and not leave the house, this will be difficult. Here’s a few to start the next phase with:
I like that in Supergirl we see a photo of a couple on someones phone with the indication that the photo was taken in the UK, thanks to the iconic, red phone box in the background.
With a new Wes Anderson movie coming out*, The French Dispatch, I thought I’d re-watch a favourite, The Royal Tenenbaums. There are quite of few scenes with telephones:
* Written Feb 2020, before Covid 19 ravaged the globe. And I thought I was about to see ‘The French Dispatch’. It still hasn’t come out (Oct 2020) although I did see a short for it at the cinema a week or so ago. It looks fabulous and I want to see it now!
From the recent movie Captain Marvel and the tv series Watchmen (a phone booth used to talk to a blue god) to an iconic favourite – Buffy.
We recently returned from two weeks holiday in the USA. We visited Washington D.C., Harrisonburg, Philadelphia and surrounds. Even though pay phones still feature heavily in tv and cinema, they do not feature on the streets to any great extent. I managed to get a few shots of remaining phone booths, with my favourite being in Philadelphia…
It isn’t just WeWork’s now-pulled IPO that’s toxic at the company: according to a Business Insider report, the company emailed its tenants on Monday telling them that there was “potentially elevated levels of formaldehyde” in phone booths throughout WeWork offices in the U.S. and Canada. Why they used the word potential is unclear – according to the report, the company admitted that “tests for high levels of formaldehyde came back positive late last week”.
The email stated that the company was removing 1,600 phone booth from locations that “may be impacted” in addition to 700 other booths that have yet to be tested for formaldehyde. At some WeWork spaces on Monday, there were taped signs reading: “CAUTION: DO NOT USE” over the phone booths.
The company stated in its email that it had received complaints of “odor and eye irritation”. The EPA says that formaldehyde can cause respiratory symptoms and eye, nose and throat irritation.
Colleen Wong, a tenant at WeWork’s Rosslyn location in Arlington, Virginia said: “I always noticed, from the first time I entered a phone booth, a strong chemical odor. I assumed it was a new building / equipment type smell. Kind of like glue or a new car.”
“They had a chemical smell, like when you get something new in the mail,” a WeWork member from Minneapolis told Bloomberg.
WeWork says the high formaldehyde levels are the fault of the manufacturer of the phone booths.
