Random Film of the Week: The Incredible Shrinking Man

Posted on June 28, 2013 by geelw

So, the great horror/sci-fi/fantasy/ author Richard Matheson passed away last Sunday and I’ll have to admit that I hadn’t thought much about him lately until a few months back when on of Jack Arnold’s best films popped up on TCM at an ungodly hour and I sat glued to the TV once more with a fine bit of top shelf “B” movie bliss . I hadn’t seen The Incredible Shrinking Man in a few years, so I was glad to stop the clock on the work I was doing and spend a little time catching up with a few old friends.

Matheson and an uncredited Richard Alan Simmons wrote the film (from Matheson’s own novel The Shrinking Man) and unlike a lot of 50’s sci-fi featuring gigantic radioactive mutated versions of normal creatures, it’s lead character Robert Scott Carey (a great performance by Grant Williams) who gets scaled down in size after his radiation exposure. I recall the novel was even darker in tone and had some scenes that certainly wouldn’t fly past the censors of the era, but I’ll let the readers in the crowd find all that out on their own time.

Continue reading →

Pacific Rim TV Spot # 6: Daytime Drama With a Twist (and No Strings Attached)…

Posted on June 27, 2013 by geelw

A-ha, so there ARE daylight battles in Pacific Rim! Excellent. I was almost under the impression that this film was going to take place over the course of a very long and busy night or perhaps the behemoths those human-powered Jaegers face off against were part vampire or something. Well, the effects team isn’t trying to hide any wires holding things up, that’s for sure. Although I’m secretly hoping for a “blooper” reel of Gerry Anderson-inspired shenanigans (wires and all). Hmmm… I wonder how Guillermo Del Toro would feel about making a film based on the old UFO TV show? Oh, wishful thought machine OFF, as I need my few remaining brain cells for tomorrow’s crunch of writing…

Pacific Rim “At the Edge” Trailer: Prophetic, Aren’t We?

Posted on June 25, 2013 by geelw

“At the Edge”…of your seats, that is. Get it? Get it? A ha ha. I’m on a roll with mustard tonight (and a wee bit too much cheese, I admit). Or I forgot to eat, am quite delirious and about to keel over in this absolutely BLAZING summer heat. Eh, I ate a bit earlier, kids, so stop baking those cookies and pies (for now)… I’m going to sleep now anyway, as I need to crawl out of bed and boogie on downtown to see some cool tech at CE Week. I don’t think there will be Jaegers there, but if there are, I’ll let you know at some point. I hope to hell those machines are very well air-conditioned!

Random Film of the Week(end) – (Summer Edition!): Sunshine

Posted on June 22, 2013 by geelw

Spoiler: Sunshine has a “happy” ending. End spoiler. I had to put that up front because Danny Boyle’s excellent 2007 sci-fi film is a layered downward emotional spiral with some solid performances throughout. The story pretty much sets up the fact that this is going to be terminally gloomy stuff (despite the positive sounding title): the crew of the Icarus II sets out from a suffering Earth to relight a dying Sun with a massive nuclear explosion seven years after the first mission fails. Yeah, that’s not your average blockbuster summer comedy hit storyline, that’s for damn sure…

As Icarus II gets closer to its target, it’s discovered that first Icarus didn’t actually disappear as much as become something of The Old Dark House in space (minus any comedic elements). When the new ship links up with the old in order to snag its bomb and it’s discover what happened to its crew, things get more than a little strange as a few shocking elements come into play…

Continue reading →

Random Film of the Week(end) – (Summer Edition!): Ball of Fire

Posted on June 22, 2013 by geelw

(thank you, Victor Creed!)

Imagine this as a movie idea today: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow being an extremely talented exotic dancer type and those dwarfs a bunch of stuffy but eager to learn elderly eggheads she ends up hanging out with to teach them all the things they didn’t know. Once you get your eyeballs above the obvious jiggle-tease material and plentiful opportunities for modern day humor sixteen writers working together come up with, the results would probably be pretty darn terrible.

I can see the trailer now: two minutes, thirty eight or so of slow-mo cleavage shots and some special guest cameo coot rattling off one-liners, plus someone getting hit in the nether regions with a golf, basket or other ball, maybe a nice pratfall, a fart joke, a fat girl joke and some annoying music on that soundtrack that doesn’t even fit. Yeah, that’s not a movie I’d want to see at all. Fortunately, Howard Hawks’ 1941 film Ball of Fire takes the Snow White and thanks to a wonderfully funny and sassy Barbara Stanwyck helping loosen up those old guys (and an even stuffier Gary Cooper), a great script and plenty of screwball humor, it still holds up today as a total riot.

Continue reading →

In Japan, There’s A Gatchaman Live Action Movie Being Made. Dance.

Posted on June 21, 2013 by geelw

If you’re of a certain age and did not know this yet (meaning ME), you’re probably a bit too grinny after that minute thirty plus and perhaps either one of these two teaser trailers. Well, we’ll see what it does in Japan and more of what will happen in the near future with a home video release down the road, as it sure won’t be dubbed and show up here anytime soon I bet. How do I know? Well, if I run up to some kid or adult on the street all thrilled at this news and yell GATCHAMAAAAAN! at him or her, there’s a 99.4% chance I spend the weekend in the local lockup until this is all straightened out. Yeah, I went there… even though I have no idea where I went or why I went in the first place. That stuff happens when you lose your thinking cap… Am I out of coffee again? I forget…

Shout Factory Wants You All Howling – I Say Oblige Them.

Posted on June 21, 2013 by geelw

Thank yooooooou, Shout Factory (awoooooooo)! Getting Joe Dante’s classic werewolf flick The Howling back into circulation on DVD and Blu-Ray? Nice. Now I can stop telling folks I run into campfire tales of how awesome (and freakishly LONG) that wonderful Rob Bottin-created transformation sequence was while also rambling on about Pino Donaggio’s excellent score and how the film managed to be at turns scary and silly as well as packed with in-jokes and plenty of references to other films. Huzzah! That and I can stop getting picked up by the fuzz here for setting campfires to lend a scary atmosphere to things whenever someone asks me about the film. Well, and carrying an axe in public, using said axe to chop up the nearest wooden sign for firewood (I don’t go after trees, as we need them around here), scaring little kids by acting out the transformation and a few other minor offenses. Er, um… saaaay, isn’t that some nice *new* cover art on the right up there?

(“Exit, stage left!” Oops, that’s YOUR right. Damn, you Snagglepuss!)

Pacific Rim TV Spot #5: Wind Them Up & Watch Them GO!

Posted on June 21, 2013 by geelw

And by “Them”, I mean YOU out there watching all these Pacific Rim trailers and such and chomping at the bit for July 12 to wash up sooner than it should. Yeah, Warner Bros. Pictures hears you and sees you and is right behind you all the way (which is a bit awkward when you’re trying to use the restroom, um… a little privacy, here?). Anyway, let’s hope those monsters don’t pop up while you’re all in that movie theater on day one, as they’ll most likely be stomping your way and all you’ll have to battle them are a few tubs of greasy movie popcorn and a bucket-sized soda. Then again, all you need to do is mix them together, toss a couple of those dynamite shaped hot dogs in the mix with a plate of nachos, light a match and there goes trouble… and that multiplex, too. Oops…

New Riddick: RTD Trailer: Cheer Up, Vin – Looks Like Lots Will Sit In the Pitch Black to See This Sequel.

Posted on June 19, 2013 by geelw

Nice to see Riddick: Rule the Dark isn’t being rolled out into theaters this September with any funky 3D added, as I think it will hold up as is without the gimmick. Personally, I hate wearing glasses over my glasses, although, it’s cool to take the freebie specs home and see if any games look interesting with them. Hey, I’m a firm believer in tech that multi-tasks! OK, I watched too many Good Eats episodes back when the Food Network was kind of still about cooking and not competitive food disposal contests mixed with crap “reality” TV… Oh, I’m not ranting here, folks… just speaking the truth is all…

Random Film of the Week: Logan’s Run

Posted on June 19, 2013 by geelw

When 2001: A Space Odyssey set the bar for visual effects back in 1968, movie studios around the globe kept trying to reach that level of polish and for the most part failed miserably. Outside of a few major and minor sci-fi hits and misses in theaters (Marooned, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun and Silent Running pop off the top of my head) and on TV (those bits of Gerry Andersen’s UFO and Space: 1999 that work), it wasn’t until the release of Star Wars that a major studio film had a visual aesthetic genre fans could glom onto almost universally for sheer “wow” factor. Granted, when Logan’s Run was in its production phase, I’m betting it sure looked “futuristic” to the very hard working teams building that huge model of the city and domes, the set and costume designers and yes, the visual effects crew, actors and director. Hell, it certainly impressed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, as a special Oscar was awarded the film at the 1977 Academy Awards. Of course, George Lucas and ILM made that award all theirs the next year in a film not predicted to do all that well by a few people (Lucas included)…

Still, that didn’t help matters much in my case, as even as a wee bairn of eight years of age, I knew Logan’s Run was going to be enjoyably junky thanks to the TV commercials and rainbow on those posters I saw in subway stations. Interestingly enough, it actually popped up on TV about a year later (an amazingly fast time for a major Hollywood film), and while I was fascinated by some elements, to my mind it still looked cheap and the story (which I didn’t know was even more edited for TV) was hard to follow. Naturally, even though I didn’t like the film much, I ended up watching every episode of the 1977-78 CBS TV series and just like what happened with Planet of the Apes on the network, it managed to be dumber than the film, but easier to follow once I figured out that nothing would happen to the leads because they needed to be around for next week’s show. But I digress…
Continue reading →