Good Homekeeping Tip #12: Yeah, you should kind of vacuum those rugs more often, people. If not, they tend to spring to life and wreak havoc amongst the citizenry. No important posts today, thanks to me getting some stuff ready for tomorrow’s return of the kitchen killers (aka: the “plasterers”) and my deciding to pretty much veg out and watch too damn many bad movies today thanks to the crappy weather. I sometimes do the rugs here twice a week, by the way. That’s due to a lot of traffic in and out of here more than an OCD or anything. Alrighty – I’ll be back tomorrow in a more productive mood. Or at least I better be, ha and ha-ha…
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:
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.
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?
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 →
Yeah, yeah. I was trying to be less of a curmudgeon this year, but the fact that people are waxing a wee bit too nostalgic over Back to the Future Part II and its “predictions” about the world of 2015 has roused me into a stupor over all this fanciful fawning. Let’s face it, folks: most of us are just too eager to over-appreciate some forms of technology despite realizing it’ll be abused and very royally mucked up once it gets into the paws of the public. The combination of old and new bad habits will make that otherwise cool tech too damn deadly to be of any use unless it’s under VERY highly controlled conditions… Continue reading →
Something has always bugged me about the 1964 William Castle horror/thriller flick Strait-Jacket ever since I first saw it as a kid. Nope, it’s not the too close to Psycho plot points courtesy of writer Robert Bloch (who also wrote that classic). And it’s certainly not Joan Crawford’s wide and wild-eyed performance as Lucy Harbin, the freed after twenty years in an asylum ax murderess now going through a potential relapse victim as the bodies start piling up again. It’s also definitely not Castle’s direction that downplays some of the camp potential of the material and goes for a handful of genuinely nifty 60’s era shocks.
Nope. What bugged me about the film that still bugs me today is how the hell George Kennedy’s creepy farmhand Leo painted three quarters of a car with the smallest damn can of paint and what looks like a two or three-inch wide brush. HOW DID HE DO THAT?!! Continue reading →
Well, this 2015 greeting is not so hot, but that’s what happens when you stay up too long with the TV on. You need a resolution because you hate making them and your Procrastinator’s Club card has yet to arrive (don’t worry, they’ll get to you eventually)? Feel free to divine one from that wretched text below or get the hint on what you need to take care of if it’s a negative habit. And stick to it this year so I don’t need to do this again!
Happy New Year!
Hippie No Hair!
Boozy No Beer!
Scaredy No Fear!
Lazy Kick Rear!
Cloudy Get Clear!
Fishy Off Pier!
Whiny No Tear!
Yakky No Smear!
Dummy Get Seer!
Opaque Not Sheer!
Gloomy Get Cheer!
Cranky Get Jeer!
Snarky No Sneer!
Worldly Get Sphere!
Okay, that’s all I’ve got. Actually, there were more, but I wanted to stick to one syllable words and also wanted some of you out there to chime in with your own suggestions. As mother says, “knock yourselves out!”
Well, I was going to try and wrap things up for 2014 with a a few more posts, but it’s been a weird enough last month or three that I’m just about wiped out. Here’s something odd I whipped up last night or early this morning while up way too late thinking. Anyway, Happy New Year for those of you out there. If you’re out and about celebrating, get wherever you’re going and back home safe. If you’re like me and spending the evening home in front of the tube, yeah, stay safe as well. Don’t fall off the couch and crack your head on the carpet or whatever. Yeah, I lead the thrilling life, folks!
See you all in a day or two. I may post tomorrow, but that depends on me getting out for my resolution stroll in the cold air. I think two or three miles a day is a good start…
Poor Sony has been through the wringer this year. Between “hackers” hitting a few of the company’s entertainment divisions and among other things, knocking PSN offline for a bit over the last holiday weekend and a truly crazy class action lawsuit allowed to proceed, all of 2014’s successes seem so very far in the past. Nevertheless, PlayStation Plus subscribers will still be getting a bunch of free games as usual. January’s list of freebies is a nice one indeed, but at this point, it’s all up to whether or not PSN will be running properly so gamers can actually get all of that content. The privileges of membership, indeed…
Atlus’ long running Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series of games has always been a reliably sturdy franchise for fans, surviving a few major artistic and gameplay changes some dislike while providing deep and generally well written plots as well as some interesting characters. The company has been teasing Persona 5 for a little while now as the game is still in development in Japan, and as this latest teaser shows, some of the familiar elements are back. Expect high-school age kids finding out they’ve got hidden powers called Personas, Japan at the brink of some sort of apocalyptic destruction, and dozens of hours of gameplay not counting plenty of side-quests. Demon fusion, teen angst, maybe a bit of romance options and a number of returning good, evil and neutral NPC’s to chat with will no doubt also be par for the course.
This second teaser trailer reveals not much at all other than some of the new cast of characters and their names. Additionally, as this will be the first Persona game for next-gen (or current gen if you’ve already made the switch), it will be interesting to see the differences between the PS3 and PS4 versions of the game. I’d imagine the more powerful PS4 will run the game at a steady frame rate and probably feature ore detailed environments. But outside that fighting game, the series has never been about super flashy visuals or lightning paced action. We’ll keep an ear to ground for more on this one, but let’s just say a chunk of time is being carved out in order to dive deep into this one and play it at length.
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 