PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

MOCcomparison: Spaceship

   

That's two different LEGO builders doing their brick versions of a spaceship drawing by a guy named Ben Mauro. I hadn't heard of him but I'm pretty much out of touch with newer designers and illustrators. Mike Mignola is the last new artist I have taken to. Mostly I know guys from the last century. I look back to that stuff I liked 20-30 years ago and revisit that. Ben has a neat spaceship or something like that. Chas Irish came up with the idea to built a ship based on that middle picture and post their work on MOCpages. JD Luse was the other builder. JD's ship is the one on the left. They both came up with different looking ships but you can see they relate to the original. Fun idea.

Micropolis Autoshow 2009

That's the Micropolis Autoshow for 2009. You can see more on MOCpages.

Science Fiction Sunday 39

I was up early on this nice Sunday and watched The Atomic Submarine. It's been awhile since I watched it and thought it would be a nice way to pass the time while I sorted out all the dark blay pieces that had been piling up. That's not the cover to the edition I watched. It's the poster. I have a copy of the Criterion Edition and it's the one to have. It looks great. There are a few flaws but they are pretty minor. I'm sure no one took the time or spent the money to take care of the movie before Criterion got there. There are a few extras on the DVD but the best is the commentary with producer Alex Gordon and film historian Tom Weaver. After watching the movie I watched it again at 1.5 speed with the commentary running. It's entertaining, even for the second time. Gordon speaks about making the movie and working in the low-budget film industry with Roger Corman and American International Pictures. He remembers a lot of detail and he has a love of the business and some of the people in it. He hired a lot of older actors that he liked, simply because he wanted to meet them and hear their tales of the past. Actors like Tom Conway, Dick Foran and Bob Steele. I liked Tom Conway in The Falcon series, which he took over from his brother, George Sanders. RKO Pictures had been making The Saint movies with Sanders. They didn't want to pay for the rights to the character anymore, so, they made up their own sophisticated international man of mystery, The Falcon. He's not the same guy, he's gotta different name. Sanders did a few of those, passed the torch to his brother, who did another half dozen before the series ended. The Atomic Submarine was made in 1959. It's an alien invasion movie set under the sea. It's got a great monster, which I give highpoints for character, but low points for execution. It works well enough to keep me entertained, the monster and the movie. Gordon talks about the puppet and how he didn't believe it would work. He was happier after seeing the film the special effects guys shot. TAS won't be listed as the best movie of the time but it's pretty entertaining to me. You can judge for yourself and watch the whole movie for free at Internet Archive.

After watching The Atomic Submarine twice I went off to Big Lots!. It's a store that I saw mentioned on The Manchester Morgue blog. A couple of time recently he's mentioned getting movies from this clearance store chain for $3 each. Now he was talking about $6 tv season dvd's. I looked and they are all out in the suburbs. Nothing in close to where I live or work. I picked the one out west a bit. It was the closest. Turns out they have a lot of dvd's. Many of the same ones and not much that I needed. I got a copy of Little Shop of Horrors. The 50's one with Jack Nicholson in a minor role. It's in B&W and Color(ized). There's a bonus commentary by Mike Nelson of MST3K fame. I got a nice looking letterboxed copy of The Magic Sword which was a MST3K selection. The Legend of Rin Tin Tin has 4 serials from the 1930's. That was 6 bucks, as was the complete first season of The Adventures of Robin Hood. 39 episodes from 1959 with Richard Greene as Robin Hood. After I got home and made lunch I slapped on the first disc of Robin Hood's adventures and they were pretty entertaining. I think I must have seen this on tv when I was a kid. We got a lot of Brit made stuff on the CBC. The story line follows the traditional story. Robin returns home from the Crusades. He discovers he's been cheated out his house and land. He takes it on the lam and joins up with the outlaws of Sherwood Forest. He soons becomes the leader. Some of the stories are more humourous than others. There's an extra u there because the series is British. Greene is a personable Robin and there's lots of running about in the woods and shooting arrows. Lots of Prince John's men get stuck on them. There were 4 seasons of the series, the first three of which are out on DVD. You can get the first season for $7.49 on Amazon and it's only $12.99 for the other two out now. The third came out last March so the 4th might actually come out. They are entertaining enough to want to see the rest, especially if I can find them so cheap.

Friday Night Movies 227

The Ruins was based on  a novel by Scott B. Smith, who wrote the novel A Simple Plan, and the screenplays for both movies. Neither are happy stories, but at least ASP is more watchable than The Ruins. There are 4 students who are in Mexico soaking up the sun. They meet a German tourist who is heading out to a remote ruin in the jungle. His brother is there. He talks the students into going. Bad idea to go into the jungle, especially when the local cab driver tells them it's a bad place. Who listens to a local cab driver in a movie, especially one who takes 20 bucks and drives them there anyway. They arrive at the ruin, an old pyramid covered with vines, and find the archeologists camp at the top but there isn't anyone around. The cab, which was an old pickup truck with TAXI painted on the door, took off right away. That's not a good sign. Neither is what the students find as they come down from the top of the pyramid. Mayan Indians shouting, pointing arrows, and waving guns at them. There's a language barrier, but when one of their party takes an arrow to the chest, and a bullet to the head, they understand. Stay on the pyramid. Confused at first they soon figure out the problem. The plants are hostile and they kill you by invading your body. That sucks, huh. The Mayans keep them there while the plant picks them off one at a time. There's a lot of complaining and yelling, both in the movie and in the living room. I didn't like many of the characters. They were lacking the common sense and survival traits that even the stupidest people have. The movie drags on and on, we were all complaining about the story. Why would they do that? How come that's happening? Eventually the movie is over. Some people seem to liked the movie, which scores a 6.0 on the IMDb. People really rate movies high there if there's plenty of gore. Not something that makes a horror movie for me. It's not one that I would watch again. Same might be true of our next feature.

Billion Dollar Brain, a 1967 Ken Russell film, is the third of the Harry Palmer movies with Michael Caine, and the most different. Len Deighton had written the books. I'm pretty sure that I read The Ipcress File and maybe Funeral In Berlin. This would have been back in the late 60's or the early70's when I was interested in the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming which led to me trying other current spy novels. Plenty of cold war to write about, everyone was doing it. I know I have seen the first Harry Palmer movie. It's been twenty years since I first saw The Ipcress File. May 23, 1989. It's on my movie list as the first time I watched it. I have no listing for FIB and I'm pretty sure I haven't seen BDB. It sure wasn't familiar and I think I might remember some of the goofy stuff. Harry has quit MI6 and has become a gumshoe. His old boss shows up and tries to get him to come back. He needs him and maybe Harry would get a raise. Harry resists, but later his boss knocks him out and brings him back into the game. Karl Malden plays a spy who Harry had worked with in the past. He draws Harry into something he's got going. He works for a super computer, which talks. Cool, huh. I couldn't recognize the voice but it seemed familiar. Behind the super computer is Ed Begley. He's a rich Texan business oil man with a passion for hatin' the Russians. He's got Karl spying in Latvia and believes that Karl has set up a network of resistance fighters. They would suppliment the invasion force he has prowling the sea in ships. An invasion force Ed wants to use to free the repressed people of Latvia. Karl has been pocketing the money he gets to pay resistance. He's a creep who cheats everyone to get his. He gets his later in the movie. His being a slug to the eye. Our Harry keeps getting knocked out and waking up with different groups of people. My favorite was the pragmatic Solviet Secret Police Colonel Stok played by Oscar Homolka. He's the best friend Harry has, and Harry needs a friend, all his co-workers are trying to kill him. What a bunch of creeps. Harry wins though, and with the help of Colonel Stok, all the invading Texans are sunk under the sea. I'd have to agree with some of the other reviews I read, this is almost a parody of spy movies, which is not to surprising coming from director Ken Russell. I only have two of Russell's films, one intentionally and one accidentally. The Lair of the White Worm is to horror like BDB is to spy movies, but more entertaining. At least for me, so I got a copy. Gothic is in one of the multiple movie packs that I keep buying. I enjoyed it well enough when I first saw it but I didn't feel I needed to own a copy. I quit watching Ken Russell films after 1991. Most of them didn't interest me. I don't think I need a copy of this. Sperhauk recorded it off TCM to watch. Maybe the first two will turn up and I can see them again.

The Blockheads Season 4 by Shannon Young

I figured to go for a hat trick of MOCs today. Shannon just posted his fourth installment of his series The Blockheads. You can see the rest of it over at MOCpages. The nice thing about using brickbuilt people is the scale. Larger than a minifig you can create better detail in what your building. I really like that recliner, and it needs to be nice as Pa never seems to leave it. I also really like the framed pictures on the wall for some reason. The walls are nice too. They need to be stolen soon. Not that you heard that from me. I do like me some sand green.

Mr. Whiskers and Teddy by Teddy

I know that title is confusing. I'll try to make worse. That's Mr. Whisker's and Teddy. Mr. Whisker's is the cat. He has his own evil syndicate. My cat only had fleas. Not as hard to get rid of as an evil syndicate, I would think. The MOC is by a guy named Teddy. Mr. Whisker's wants to take over the LEGO World and Teddy is helping. No, the other Teddy. Yeah, that one. I know! What a dick! I really like the slice of a room that Teddy has created. The furniture is really good. Simple, very clean. Nice book case. All around just a fun scene to look at. Here's hopin' Mr. Whisker's get run over by a car. And he looks like such a nice cat, doesn't he. Just goes to show you that you can't judge a book by it's cover. You can see more pictures at Teddy's MOCpages site. Be sure to check out some of his other stuff.

Alice In Legoland by Legohaulic

This guy sure can build the heck out of his parts. There's a wild assortment of interesting parts here. I'm so much more literal in my parts useage and this twisting of the pieces into something amazing is thrilling. There's power miner helmets, a chrome lightsaber, space helmuts, hair pieces, tentacles, skeleton heads, a batarang, tan legs, hydraulic hoses and a gold colored bowl. Alice is partly brickbuilt with odd parts including white rubber bands and lots of minifig hands. The caterpillar sure is fun to look at. Every now and then someone comes along and pushes the envelope a bit. Makes my head hurt. Be sure to check out Legohaulics Brickshelf gallery and his Flickr page.

The Great Hall by Lars Behr

 

This was the nicest throne room I've seen a while. It's by Lars Behr and more pictures can be found on MOCpages. I really liked the tile work on the floor and the blue and white windows.

Science Fiction Sunday 38

Today's movies are brought to you by the letter F. Though neither are for the kiddies.  The Flesh Eaters and Flesh Gordon. Two totally different movies to be sure. They both sound dirty but only one is. You probably can tell which one from the dvd covers, though they both look pretty lascivious. They are. The Flesh Eaters is science fiction, if only barely. The bad guy is a scientist, played by Martin Kosleck, alone on an island. His solitude is interupted by the arrival of a plane filled with trouble. Forced down by a storm we have a pilot, a movie star with a drinking problem and her assistant, a pretty young woman. When Martin is spurned by the actress he takes his revenge and releases the plane to the storm. Now they have no way off the island. It gets worse and worse for the innocent trio and the newest arrival to the isle of evil. A beatnick on a raft, all happy and free, man. Soon, he'll be eaten by the flesh eaters. Man. There's a long complicated story behind the flesh eaters, involving Nazi's and experiments, which you can read about in the above links, or in my review when I watched the movie back in 2005. It sometimes takes years to get back to watching a movie again. That's not true for Flesh Gordon, I did see it recently. Both movies had a jpeg in the DVD Covers Folder on my C drive. It's where I save the pictures that I scavage off the internet to decorate my blog. Thanks mostly to Amazon for the DVD and book covers. I have added over 1200 dvd covers and posters to that folder since March of 2005. The dates on the files tells me when I used them in my blog. At least the first time. I really should have an index but that looks like a lot of work keeping it up. Perhaps there is a new search app from Typepad. I'd look into that if I wasn't so lazy. I mean busy. Now I gotta go sort some LEGO. That Troll's Mountain Fortress is crying out for me to dismantle it and sort the bits. See, busy.

Friday Night Movies 226

Up first My Bloody Valentine 3D. The dvd comes in two versions, 3D on one side and regular on the other. They even include 4 sets of glasses. I did read on Amazon that some dvd's did not have the glasses in a wrapper when they were shipped and the glasses scratched one face of the double sided disc. Isn't that typical. The limit of 4 pairs of glasses is partly why we picked it tonight, Greg was out of town again, so there are only four chairs filled. Not that he was missing much, it's just a mad murderer on the loose movie. Some guy in the movie gets trapped with several other men in a mine. He's in a coma when they find him. All the other men are dead, all their heads punctured with a pick axe. The guy wakes up in the hospital a year later, murders all the staff nearby, and heads back to the mine, where he kills some kids partying. The cops show up, guns blazing, and the murdering miner runs deeper into the mine where he's trapped by a cave in. Ten years later, the son of the mine owner and the only survivor of that fatal evening, arrives back in town to sell the mine. The murders start up again. We bailed on the 3D due to complaints of the effect. It's that red & green glasses 3D, not the polarized 3D. I didn't find it too bad, there was a good depth of field, but there are times when it looked a good bit fuzzy. It was used to good effect, some of the gore effects are sticking right out of the screen at me. Yeow! One kid gets a pick axe to the back of the head and his eye, stuck on the tip of the axe, gets pushed right out of his head. Yuck, huh! Hardly anyone of the people we meet are really great people you'd like to hang out with. Maybe the retired sheriff played by Claude Akin or Kevin Tighe's character. The new sheriff is a hot head, who's cheating on his wife with a young girl who's also pregnant. Most of the rest of the cast are cannon fodder. This is a remake of an 1981 Canadian film with the same name. I haven't seen it. I don't think I need to get a copy of the 3D version myself but I didn't mind seeing it. There's a bit of a twist at the end and it does leave the door open to a sequel.

I had picked up a copy of the 2008 Brendan Fraser movie Journey To The Center Of The Earth when the dvd got cheapish at Target. Last tuesday it was on sale for a ten spot. Like our first movie it too was released in 3D. There is a 3D version of the dvd with red & green glasses. I didn't see that at Target or I might have bought a copy. Like the first movie there's a lot of time spent in a mine and both movies score a 6.0 on the IMDb. Brendan is the brother of Max who disappeared 10 years earlier. Max had gone to Iceland, gone up a mountain, and never returned. Brendan gets a visit from Max's wife. She's leaving her son, Sean, with Brendan for 10 days while she goes to Ottawa, which is going to be her and Sean's new home. She gives Brendan a box of Max's stuff which he explores with Sean. In it they find a copy of Jules Verne's Journey To The Center Of The Earth. It's been written in by Max. Brendan finds some information that leads them back to the lab and eventually to Iceland to inspect a monitor. Brendan is a volcanologist who is singlehandled keeping Max's volcanology work alive at a Boston University. That University is shutting him down. The two guys hire a pretty mountain guide and they all fall into the center of the earth after a wild Indiana Jones style ore car ride through an abandoned mine. There's evidence on their path that shows not only did Max come this way, and sadly expire, but someone a hundred years earlier had also come this way and escaped. It's all in the book. They build a raft and almost get eaten by some giant bitey fish. Then some carnivorous plants nearly get them. That's followed by dinosaurs. Man, that's no tourist destination for me, especially in regard to the exit transportation. I don't want to ride the volcano when the volcano is a volcano. I'm happy to watch the virtual ride from the comfort of my not-on-fire chair. It's a good fun bit of entertainment that has a sequel coming sometime. I'd wait for that to get cheapish at Target too.