Posts Tagged ‘Movies’

Halloween Horrors: Mega Marvin

Saturday, October 16th, 2021

Remember The Apprehension Engine used for creating horror movie soundtracks featured last year?

Meet the Mega Marvin:

It does look less ergonomically friendly for playing for long periods of time…

Halloween Horror Movie Review: Lifeforce

Friday, October 1st, 2021

Lifeforce
Directed by Tobe Hooper
Written by Dan O’Bannon and Don Jakoby, based on Colin Wilson’s The Space Vampires
Starring Steve Railsback, Mathilda May, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Patrick Stewart

I avoided Lifeforce when it came out because the reviews were considerably less than positive, it was a Golan-Globus production (two names that did not spell quality), and the whole thing had a whiff of cheesiness about it. But with Halloween approaching, we thought it was time to give it a try.

I actually enjoyed it a bit more than I expected, despite the fact that it steals generously from just about every successful 1979-1984 science fiction/fantasy/horror film, from Alien (O’Bannon) to Poltergeist (Hooper) to Dawn of the Dead to The Hunger to The Keep, plus a big helping of Quartermass and the Pit.

A multinational expedition is sent to Hailey’s Comet, where they discover a huge, 100+ mile long derelict spaceship. Exploration reveals dead giant bat-like creatures…and three naked, perfect human beings in suspended animation inside crystalline coffins. Naturally they take them on board.

You can guess how well that works out for them.

Soon the female (Mathilda May) is wandering around London naked, sucking the lifeforce (via swirly blue beams) out of people, who in turn become lifeforce vampires themselves. And the race is on to track her down, lead by the captain and sole mission survivor (Steve Railsback) who has a deep psychic bond with her, along with an SAS colonel (Peter Firth). And they soon find out that their quarry can switch bodies…

Despite it’s reputation, Lifeforce has a lot going for it. Hooper keeps things moving along at a steady clip, the disparate elements mostly make sense together, the John Dykstra special effects are generally more than passable, and the movie (budgeted at a then-pretty-hefty $25 million) avoids the usual Golan-Globus cheapness. There’s an excellent cast of British character actors (including a post-Equus Firth and a pre-Star Trek Patrick Stewart) in supporting roles. Plus it hales from The 1980s Golden Age of Mainstream Female Movie Nudity, and a 20-year old Mathilda May is very easy on the eyes.

Also, it may be the first use of “body hoping psychic vampire” idea, which I didn’t encounter until Stephen Gallagher’s Valley of Lights (1987). I assume that (and many other elements) are taken directly from the Colin Wilson novel, which I own but haven’t read yet.

Not everything makes sense, but usually the movie moves quickly enough that you don’t have time to think about it. The “London goes crazy” scenes are good, but probably go on too long, and look more like an attack of zombies than vampires. The special effects for the “real form” of the vampires seen near the climax looks pretty cheesy. Oh, and you get possibly Patient Zero of the now ubiquitous “glowing blue space beam” trope.

Here’s the (R-rated) trailer:

It isn’t so great that you should pay $80 bucks for the Shout Factory Blu-ray of it. But if you’re looking for a gory-but-not-really-scary science fiction horror action film for the Halloween season, you could certainly do a lot worse.

Norm Macdonald, RIP

Tuesday, September 14th, 2021

The great comedian Norm Macdonald has died:

Norm Macdonald, who has died at 61, was a comedic genius whose irreverence and inimitable delivery made millions of people laugh harder than almost anyone else could make them do—whether he was taking shots at mainstream figures (O. J. Simpson, the Clintons), constructing elaborate setups for impossibly simple punchlines (depressed moths, massacres in Vietnam), or saving dull affairs by subverting expectations (celebrity roasts and awards events, big and small). A private man who kept his nine-year battle with cancer out of the public eye, Macdonald occasionally showed flashes of a deep seriousness, expressing frustration with an increasingly intolerant popular culture and offering genuine insights in interviews and in an uproarious pseudo-memoir. But in the final analysis, he was a pure aesthete of jokes and one of the funniest people around.

Born and raised in Canada, Macdonald began his comedy career in the late 1980s. He was a frequent guest of late-night shows throughout the 1990s, with his appearances on Conan O’Brien in particular being the stuff of legend. His apogee of fame probably came between 1994 and 1998, when he hosted Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” segment—typically a stepping stone to a late-night show of one’s own—only to be fired by NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer for joking too much about O. J. Simpson, Ohlmeyer’s personal friend. Immediately afterward, Macdonald went on David Letterman, who asked how he had reacted to getting canned. “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not good,’” said Macdonald. “And I said, ‘Why is that, now? And [Ohlmeyer] goes, ‘Well, you’re not funny.’ And I said, ‘Holy Lord, that’s even worse news!’”

When I go looking for random YouTube comedy videos, Macdonald and Bill Burr are the two comedians watch most often.

There’s no shortage of great Macdonald clips out there:

His standup routine on the last episode of Letterman:

The “I’m not sure if you’re a history buff…” intro gets me every time.

His sendoff to Conan O’Brien:

Bob Dole offers a classy tribute:

And Norm would have loved this tribute:

Library Addition: Michael Moorcock’s Into The Media Web

Thursday, September 2nd, 2021

Here’s a fairly recent Moorcock rarity that had an insanely small print run.

Moorcock, Michael (edited by John Davey). Into The Media Web: Selected short non-fiction, 1956-2006. Savoy Books, 2010. First edition hardback, a Fine- copy with slight bumping at head and heel in a Near Fine dust jacket with slight grubbiness, slight creasing at top front cover and a 1/8″ closed tear at top front fold, and slight bumping at heel. Inscribed by Moorcock to fellow writer (and New World contributor) John Baxter: “To John,/Some embarrassments/some bullshit and maybe/a little bit/of truth./All very/best, as/ever yours/Mike,” plus a signature dated “18th July ’10.” 300,000+ word, 717 page collection of non-fiction, including essays, reviews, etc. covering books, film, music, etc. (Here’s a post on the book’s design.) Reportedly had a hardback print run of less than 100 copies, though I haven’t nailed down exactly how many. Bought for £140 plus shipping.

You may remember that I also ended up with John Baxter’s copy of George Locke’s Voyages Into Space.

Movie Trailer: Phil Tippett’s Mad God

Thursday, August 5th, 2021

Phil Tippett is the stop-motion animator who worked on the first two Star Wars movies, as well as being the visual effects supervisor for some of the Twilight movies (man’s got to eat). Now he’s directed an entire stop-motion movie it took him some thirty years to produce, and it looks way trippy:

It sort of looks like Jan Svankmajer, Ladislas Starevich, a survival horror game and the war machine sequence from The Thief and the Cobbler got together and birthed a mutant cinematic baby.

Is it any good? Eh, maybe. Interesting visually, but it sounds plotless.

Library Additions: Two Centipede Press Books

Friday, July 30th, 2021

Two more books came in from Centipede Press:

  • Boyett, Stephen R. The Architect of Sleep. Centipede Press, 2021. First hardback edition, #355 of 400 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket, still in shrinkwrap. Really interesting novel about a man transported to an alternate earth where raccoons evolved as the planet’s sentient life form. Originally published as an Ace paperback original back in 1986 and became something of a cult classic, and I’ve sold a lot of PBO copies of this and Ariel over the years (and indeed, if you just want to read it, I have copies available). Recommended. This signed edition is already sold out from the publisher. I’m hoping this new edition prods Boyett into revising and finishing the still-unpublished sequel, The Geography of Dreams.

  • Foster, Alan Dean. The Director Should’ve Shot You: Memoirs of the Film Trade. Centipede Press, 2021. First hardback edition, #430 of 500 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket, still in shrinkwrap. I haven’t read any Foster novels since one of the early Pip and Flinx books way back in my misspent youth, but this one interests me. As the king of media tie-in novels, from Star Wars to Alien to Krull, Foster has worked on a lot of big hits (and misses), and in this book he dishes on all the behind-the-scenes drama he witnessed in in his career. This signed edition is already sold out from the publisher.

    The white square visible on the front is a numbered card inside the shrink wrap that will get laid in when it’s opened.

  • I will have copies of both of these in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog (currently in progress).

    The Eternals Trailer: Super-Meh

    Wednesday, May 26th, 2021

    The trailer for Marvel’s The Eternals dropped:

    It’s so lackluster I have to use a meme from the competing DC universe:

    There’s nothing there that grabbed me. And I’m a guy who’s seen almost all of the MCU films.

    The Critical Drinker has thoughts that largely mirror my own, albeit with more drinking and profanity:

    MST3K Kickstarter Update: Fully Funded, New Joel Episodes, Dueling Hosts, More!

    Friday, May 7th, 2021

    For those who still haven’t backed the new Mystery Science Theater 3000, they just roared past their $5.5 million goal to make 12 episodes and they still have (as of this writing) 13 hours left to go.

    I previously covered The Gizmoplex, but here are few of the more interesting tidbits about Season 13 that have been revealed since the campaign launch:

  • Grand Poobah Joel Hodgson will reprise his role as test subject Joel Robinson for two episodes.
  • In addition to Jonah Ray returning as test subject Jonah Heston (and Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt returning as the Mads), Emily Marsh (who appeared on the most recent MST3K live tour) will be appearing as test subject Emily Crenshaw. Evidently there will be separate Jonah and Emily (and Joel) episodes.
  • They’re going to do at least one 3D movie.
  • Two of the films to be riffed will be Robot Wars and Demon Squad. Since the latter came out in 2019, that has to rank as the shortest release-to-MST3K gap ever.
  • If you haven’t backed the Kickstarter yet, now would be a good time…

    Honest Trailer: Godzilla vs. Kong

    Tuesday, April 27th, 2021

    And here’s the conclusion of our (sorta) Godzilla Week on Futuramen, The Honest Trailer for Godzilla vs. Kong:

    Hopefully more book geeking starting tomorrow.

    Godzilla vs. Kong Pitch Meeting

    Saturday, April 24th, 2021

    As you can tell, I liked Godzilla vs. Kong, but I can’t deny that there are a few, ahem, scientific implausibilities in the film, and Screen Rants Pitch Meeting guy digs into those with gusto:

    Of course, remember what franchise we’re talking about. Compared to “He must have programmed himself to get big!” (Jet Jaguar in Godzilla vs. Megalon), Godzilla vs. Kong‘s leaps in plausibility are mere hopscotch…