WATCH THIS: Nothing Lasts Forever… Unless It’s on TCM!

Posted on January 3, 2015 by geelw

Finally, one of the bucket list 80’s film for many folks my age is coming to TV legally and I couldn’t be happier. Well, I actually COULD be happier if TCM was showing Nothing Lasts Forever at a more sane hour. For a big premiere of a film many have desired seeing on the big screen, that 2am (EST) start time just made me say, “really?” out loud when I found out. Which was funny because I was at the library and when I said that, two guys who were talking next to me thought I was referring to the conversation they were having that I didn’t hear. Oops.

Okay, not that I’m not a complete night owl at times (all my candles have wicks on either end), but come on now. Still, this bodes well if the damn film also nets a DVD/Blu-Ray release at some point in the near future. Or at the very least, more and earlier showings on TCM. Here’s a fan-made trailer from a few years back just to pique your interest in case you’re wondering what I’m gushing about:

(thanks, mpjstreeter!)

I’m not sure if they track their ratings as obsessively as network stations do, but I’m betting a lot of people will be staying up later than usual to catch this. The other upside to all this is if you still happen to be awake and giddy afterwards, you can sit through John Carpenter’s 1981 classic, Escape From New York, which amusingly enough fits the theme of the previous film, albeit in a more comically violent manner. Anyway, I’ll put on some coffee as soon as I walk in the door, maybe do a few push-ups and jump into the shower to keep awake. I was up late into the morning today (see my previous post) and had forgotten the film was on later today, er, tomorrow morning. Fear not, dear readers – I’ll be awake to see it in its entirety. My Sunday may either be spent half asleep for the better part of the morning or wishing I could see the movie again because I missed something.

MGM had better come through with a home video release at some point. I’m betting a lot of people will be replacing bootlegs with a better version that will hopefully have some decent special features.

The Invasion Has Begun (Finally!)…

Posted on January 3, 2015 by geelw

Yeah, yeah. Some of you have this budget-priced collection of mostly crappy sci-fi/fantasy flicks with a few old TV shows no one over a certain age knows about already. But I’m late to the party and loving it, warts and all. I’ll probably drop in a few Random Film of the Week posts on some of these flicks at some point. I spent too much of last night and early this morning scanning through some of the fifty films spread across a dozen discs mostly laughing my head off or having my eyes pop out of my head at some of the wilder films. I’d actually seen some of them long ago on TV but forgot all about them, so being reminded that they existed was probably the most amusing thing.

That said, it’s too bad the video formatting and picture quality is all over the map in this set. The best-looking films are some of the made for TV stuff or the older black and white films and TV shows that were made to fit screens of a certain size. Some of the theatrical features suffer with the sides if images chopped off and/or too grainy/too dark transfers that make them hard to sit through. Still, a few of the gems I’ve wanted to see again are here, so R.O.T.O.R. is going to crack me up all over again and probably be close to the top of the list as a review. or perhaps I’ll do Slipstream, a really offbeat sci-fi flick with Mark Hamill and Bill Paxton I’d only heard and read about but never saw until last night. We’ll see, however. I only made it through two full movies and seven discs worth of watching assorted clips before I keeled over. The entire set is 70 hours, 34 minutes and I’ll probably watch every second. Even those awful Rocky Jones, Space Ranger shows from the 50’s will get a look-see from me. Hey, I have to know what my folks were watching back in the day, right?

Well, at least I won’t be whining about having nothing to watch for a while, right?

Review: Elegy for a Dead World

Posted on January 3, 2015 by geelw

Platform: PC/Mac/Linux

Developer: Dejobaan Games

Publisher: Dejobaan Games

# of Players: 1

ESRB Rating: N/A

Official Site

Score: A- (90%)

Whether or not you like to write, there’s an excellent chance that you love storytelling in one way or another. Dejobaan Games’ excellent Elegy for a Dead World is a game about writing that’s not just for writers and to some “gamers” out there, isn’t really a videogame in the traditional sense. There are no scores tallied, no bad guys to dispatch, and only three relatively small and short themed planets to explore. But it’s neither the journey nor the destination that’s the selling point here.

The game encourages you to sit down, unhook your brain from its box and let your fingers do the talking as you write anything you wish. Yes, there are numerous writing prompts you can use and there’s great fun in pretending to speak in another voice as some of the prompts suggest. But for some players, the experience of free-styling their way through each world and sharing their stories with others will be the big draw… Continue reading →