Sadly, the great sculptor and film maker Stan Winston, who's work is showcased in 2 blockbuster movies in your local theaters right now, Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull died June 15, 2008 at age 62 of natural causes following a prolonged illness.
Winston won 4 Academy Awards in a 20 years plus career as a special effects master.
posted by Tom Novak, who's donned a black endoskeleton in mourning.
Posted by Bob Wallace, who sez, oh yeah.
I ran across this novel when I was 11 and was lost to the normal world forever and was permanently changed and I don't mind at all BWAHAHAHA!!!
Posted by Bob Wallace, who doesn't mind that Martian women lay eggs cuz they sure are no chickens!
I used to watch "Ultraman" all the time as a kid, and I loved it!!!
Posted by Bob Wallace, who had nightmares about the monsters.
Posted by Bob Wallace, who has a MegaForehead.
This kid made this video, forgot about it, others found it and added special effects, and it has become the most-watched video on the internet.
Posted by Bob Wallace, who if he had done it, would have exploited it for all it was worth.
Red Dwarf, of course.
Posted by Bob Wallace, who wishes it was still being made.
The original Rocketeer was Commando Cody, who I used to watch on TV as a kid. I didn't know the episodes were originally at the theater, then moved to TV. I just knew I was fascinated with a guy who had jetpacks and could fly through the air.
Posted by Bob Wallace, whose jetpacks never worked when I jumped off the roof.
I heard this on the radio when I was about eight and almost flew out of the car.
Posted by Bob Wallace, who still plays this for eigh-year-olds to watch them get hysterical.
Because this is what the inside of my head looks like, and where I live -- Barsoom!!
Posted by Bob Wallace, who got this from Wally Conger's blog.
"The Omega Man" was my favorite Heston film!
Posted by Bob Wallace, who was always creeped out by Anthony Zerbe.
Most people don't know it, but Charlton Heston's birth name was...John Carter!!
Posted by Bob Wallace, who knows these things because he's highly evolved.
Why, it's "Kiss Me Quick," of course.
Here's a review from Amazon.
This is yet another double feature from Something Weird. The theme here is "monsters" but you won't be overwhelmingly terrified. I had heard of "Kiss Me Quick", and knew it was the first film from Harry Novak, who became a legend at the same level as Doris Wishman. "Kiss Me Quick" has to be seen to be believed. The plot concerns Sterilox, an androgynous guy wearing a colander on his head with huge feathered plumage sticking out of the top, from the Buttless Galaxy being sent to Earth by the Grand Glom to bring back a perfect woman. He is dispatched to the lab of Dr. Breedlove (who has a very annoying penchant to attempt mimicry of Peter Sellers from "Dr. Strangelove", hence the name) to study his experimental specimens, most of whom spend their day dancing with test tubes and Florence flasks. Dr. Breedlove (whom Sterilox constantly refers to as "Dr. Birdseed" for some reason) sports what may go down in history as the worst makeup on record. He and Sterilox share what may be the most painfully written dialogue in history, mostly because it is filled with unbelievably bad puns. For instance Breedlove has a mummy chauffeur he calls "Selfish". Why is she called selfish? Because she's all wrapped up in herself. This gives you only some idea of the depths of the puns involved here. Some of the girls are attractive, but one of them has on a black wig so tall that she can dust the acoustic tiles on the ceiling with it. Also featured are the worst Frankenstein monster and Dracula in screen history. I thought this film would be bad, but I had no clue how truly awful it would be. As a bonus there is an audio commentary track with Harry Novak for this feature, which is actually more interesting to listen to than the onscreen action, which admittedly isn't saying a lot. There was also this chestnut of wisdom offered up by Dr. Breedlove to Sterilox, which is the line by which I will always remember the movie: "I show you Lady Godiva, and you ask me if her horse can play the piano! Who cares?" This is truly a work of staggering proportions.
"House On Bare Mountain" is actually an order of magnitude stupider than "Kiss Me Quick". It features the mangiest Werewolf I have ever seen working for 13 cents a day in the basement of an all girl school which is also a cover for a moonshine distillery. It is all run by drag queen Granny Good and the feds attempt a raid during a Halloween party with unexpected results. The film actually has fairly clever framing shots at the beginning and end, but that's about all that is clever here. You must see the Werewolf, named Krakow, to believe how bad stage makeup can be. The film has an extremely diverting subplot about a coed studying the dictionary. If that sounds really boring, you are correct: it is. There are a couple of amusing credits in the opening sequence including "Hair Styles by Hoover Vacuum" to divert your attention from the dreadful onscreen performances to come. Ultimately Granny Good isn't undone by law enforcement, but by the unions, specifically UWA (United Werewolves of America) Local 47 who protests Krakow's sub par wage scale.
The amazing degree of ineptitude seen in the two features is only eclipsed by the special features. Particularly noteworthy is one about the watusi, which will lead you to think that in order to perform this dance correctly, the dancer must execute complex semaphore signals with feather dusters. The worst by far is one titled "The Vampire and the Vixen", which to me seemed utterly pointless. I actually watched it a second time to make sure I hadn't missed a key plot device. I hadn't. You watch it and tell me exactly what the rising action, climax, and denouement are supposed to be. I sure couldn't figure it out.
This is entertaining stuff for people who like extremely bad monster movies. Of course there are some risque bits, which would probably garner an R-rating today, but it is in no way titillating. This is just bad cinema at its very worst. This isn't really a genre that I am normally nuts about, but I will say that for what these films are, they are kind of fun to laugh at.
Posted by Bob Wallace, who has both of them in his Netflix queue.
"Bug" is a movie I can't recommend, unless you want to see a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks the government has put insect egg sacs under his fillings rip out two of his teeth with some vice grips.
Some people think this is the best film of 2006. I ain't one of them. If I want to see a bunch of loons I'll walk down the street. Blech.
Posted by Bob Wallace, who sez, exactly how many times does he have the stab the guy before he's dead?
Then there's "Wait Until Dark," with the scariest villain ever, Harry Roat, Jr.
Posted by Bob Wallace, who saw it as a kid...and everyone in the audience screamed when Roat came flying out of the shadows.
Posted by Bob Wallace, who sez, Essential Cool Film!
This movie has everything you could possibly want: a Martian invasion, an S&M queen dressed in skin-tight black leather, a cardboard robot with a police light on top of his head, and a disintegrator ray.
The S&M queen comes to Earth to kidnap human men, since their weezers are still working, unlike Martian men, whose has apparently fallen off. Yet the men don't want to go, the dopes! Sex with millions of Martian women! This is a problem? Where?
This is an underrated classic, which should be seen by every sci-fi fan!
Posted by Bob Wallace, who can't wait to go.
She was terrific in 300, but she absolutely ROCKS on the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series.
Posted by Wally Conger, who can almost forget Linda Hamilton when he watches Headey's Sarah -- but not quite.
"I regard science fiction as the entry drug into the
psychedelic world. If by nine, ten, eleven or twelve, you're reading science
fiction, then you're probably lost to normality."
Terence McKenna
Posted by Bob Wallce, who sez, yep.
Another movie I remember seeing as a little kid, when I was about four, was Valley of the Gwangi.
What I remember more than anything else is arguing with my older cousin (by about two years) when the next day started.
She claimed it was midnight, and I said that was stupid. Who ever heard of a new day starting in the middle of the night? It had to start when the sun came up.
Missed most of the movie, except for the dinosaur being towed by a horse.
Posted by Bob Wallace, who had someone steal all his dinosaur models.
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