PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

What I Read In January 2010

I really chugged down some stories this month. Probably trying to make up a bit for the weak 2009. I read 14 novels or short story collections and 3 volumes of comics. Luckily for me some of them wer short. I couldn't LEGO or sit at the keyboard much back then. Hurt some stomach and chest  muscles from snow shoveling and couldn't do that sort of repetitive work. Gettin' better.

Walt Disney Story Land is a collection of 55 short stories featuring Disney characters or other fairy tales. It's got several illustrations for each story, some are pretty nice and others suck. I saw it cheap at Half Price Books. Bein' a man with a likin' for Disney and a 20% off coupon burnin' a hole in my pocket, I picked it up. Four bucks seemed like an ok price. I just saw one on Amazon used for $6.99 and another used copy that the seller is asking $139. There are dozens of copies on AbeBooks starting at a buck. That's the better place to search for books, though they too have their bookjackers. The quality of the writing in the stories is like the quality of the illustrations that accompany them, some are good and some suck. I polished it off in a short sunday afternoon break from watching movies. Doubt I would re-read them but I'll stick it in my Disney book collection until I decide to get rid of it. Maybe I can get $139 for my copy. I know for that to happen some terrible accident would have to happen to all those other copies out there, like they accidentally caught on fire. Hope they have insurance. I'm just sayin'.

 

Melvin Monster Book 1 by John Stanley is a collection of the first three issues of the comic book. I enjoyed them as a teen and thought they were still pretty funny. There were ten issues published between 1965 and 1969. The last issue was a reprint of the first issue, so unless you are some goofy completest, there are only 9 to think about. The original issues have been fairly hard to find and expensive. I think I have an issue somewhere in the attic. The Nostalgia Zone has issue #9 in Fine for $40 and a couple of copies of #10, the reprint issue, in GVG for $17 and $19 each. I sure wouldn't pay that for them. The reprint collection of the first three issues is listing at 20 bucks. You can find it cheaper. It's a nice book but sadly lacking the covers to any of the issues. I thought that was criminal but their editorial offices were too far to drive to and stay mad. I'm also gettin' too old to kick these young kids asses, except in print. Nicely packed book designed by Seth. Wish it had those covers. Melvin is a kid monster living at home with Mummy and Baddy and their pet alligator Cleopatra. The alligator is always trying to eat Melvin. The family lives in Monsterville, a town populated by all monsters all the time. Melvin doesn't fit well with the monster life style. He wants to go to school, much to the dismay of the school teacher who is enjoying her empty school house. He wants to be a good kid but his parents just don't understand. Occasionally there is human and monster interaction. Human beans scare monsters but Melvin kind of likes them. Some of the jokes are fun and some less so. Mostly it's an entertaining bunch of stories. You can download issues at various places around the internet.

The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit is a 1904 novel that's the sequel to Five Children and It and the predecessor to The Story of the Amulet. I have read both and enjoyed them. Nesbit's books slowly turn up at Half Price Books and I have been picking them up when I see 'em. I also read them shortly after they turn up in here in the house. Some books have to wait, some get bumped to the top of the stack. This time the 5 children find a Phoenix egg in their new carpet. They hatch it, find out the carpet is magical, and start having some wonderful adventures. There's a lot of silly fun and a bit of excitement and a whiff of danger. Eventually the Phoenix is tired and he burns up so he can start life anew. I mostly enjoy Nesbit as a writer. She has an easy chatty style with an inquisitive narration that keeps you up to speed on what's going on and occasionally questions what you read. You wouldn't know you're reading a book that was written more than 100 years ago. I enjoyed the cover on this one. I saved the volume too. I might reread them in the future, in order, and  it would be better not to have to buy it again.

The Lindbergh Child by Rick Geary is the tragic story of the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's infant son. I've been a big fan of Geary's work and his series of gruesome, but nearly goreless, Victorian murders are highly entertaining to look at. He's got a unique style, his faces are visual treat, and his story telling ability is darn good. He's moved into the 20th century on this one, subtitled Treasury of XXth Century Murder. If he sticks in the last century for a while Geary's got a lot of new murders to retell, let me tell you. It was 1932 when Lindbergh's son was kidnapped. A ransom note was left in the baby's room and some clues were found. The police were called, the ransom collected, but no baby was delivered. Some 2 months later a dead infant was found a couple of miles from the Lindbergh house. There was speculation that the baby was dropped by the kidnapper, perhaps coming down the ladder. It's a story that captured the nations attention, thanks to daily radio and newspaper coverage.

A man named Bruno Hauptmann was found with a pile of the ransom cash. He was tried and fried. That was in 1936 and people are still talking about it. Several books have come out speculating that Hauptmann was innnocent or part of a group. Hauptmann himself went to the chair claiming he was innnocent. Hard to know. The judicial system makes a lot of mistakes and people just flat out lie. I normally wouldn't bother reading a true crime book, I just don't care to be reminded that people suck, but Geary's work is impressively expressive and a delight to look at. The story is done in beautiful black and white pen, only the cover is color. The book got nominated for a 2009 Eisner in the Best Reality Based work and Geary got nominated for Best Writer/Artist. He sadly didn't win either.

 
Journey To The River Sea by Eva Ibbotson was a delightful book full of interesting characters and South American jungle locations. The story is set in 1910 and starts in England where Maia is a young orphan girl who lives at a school for young ladies. Her parents left her some money. Maia's lawyer has found some relatives, the Carters, who would like Maia to stay with them. Charmed by her cousin's letters Maia goes to stay with them. She doesn't know how scummy they are. The father, a whimpy fool, owns a plantation, which he's running right into the ground. The mother is a stuck up ignoramous who battles the jungle with disinfectant and canned British food. It's a losing battle. Her daughter's aren't much better, greedy stuck up mean little bitches at their best. They all hate the place they live, the native folk, and Maia, even before they meet her. The family only wants the young girl because there's a bit of cash in it. They will treat her like crap. Maia travels on a ship with Miss Minter, a governess going to work for the Carters. Shipboard Maia meets Clovis, a young actor. They're all headed for Manuas Brazil, where Maia's new family lives, and where the troop Clovis is in will be playing some shows. There's a young boy who doesn't want to go back to England to take over the family fortune. He loves the jungle and wants to stay there. There's an intriguing backstory for Miss Minter. There's a good bit of action, some humor, some injustice and punishment, and lots of jungle. It made me sweat just reading about it. Not a place I would like to go, other than in a novel or on tv. Have you seen the bugs there? Wow. There's a bug in the Amazon River that will swim up your wee-wee if you take a pee-pee in the river. No one likes that. Better read a good book. 

The Aeroplane of Adventure by David Marlor is a fan fiction novel based on Enid Blyton's Adventure series. I was a huge fan of that series when I was a kid. After I started reading Harry Potter and was actively looking for other young adult novels I figured why not pick up a set and re-read them. Turned out to be a hard thing to find in the USA at the time. I picked up a set from a book store in Winnipeg on a trip there. I really enjoyed them. Back in January I was looking at the Enid Blyton site's FanFic page and found Marlor's novel here. There's lashings of fiction on the FanFic page. Marlor's novel was pretty entertaining. The kids are on vacation when they get stranded on an island with some sort of secret criminal activity going on. They bust up those criminals pretty good.The story is pretty good, it's well written and the style fits. I thought it was a nice addition to the series. Writing this reminds me I need to take some time to see if I can find some more good Blyton fanfic. My usual experience with fan fiction is that it's pretty far below the level of the original, or the author takes flight with his own version of the series. I used to go searching for Harry Potter fanfic but it was hard to find something good. 

 

Tales of Betsy-May by Enid Blyton is a collection of short stories. Betsy-May is a little kid and these stories are little adventure or morality pieces that usually have Betsy-May getting some task done, like going to mail a letter all by herself, or meeting up with a new person and discovering that they're not so bad or scarey, or getting into some mischief and learning a lesson. The stories are fun enough and it's a quick read.

Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede is a fun book with lots of humor and dragons. It's the first of a series of 4 books. I picked them up 3 or 4 years ago when I was on a book buying jag. I was still working at DreamHaven and they were bought with some of the nudie magazine credit I had. I'll be reading out of that stock for years to come. Our main character is a princess who just doesn't fit in. She wants to learn things, like magic, or cooking, but her mother thinks it's not Princess work. The princess goes to live with a dragon in some caves in a mountainous area just packed with dragons. They all have caves and some have a princess. It's the perfect place to get rescued by a knight. Of course, our princess just isn't interested in getting rescued. The poor knights are bewildered by her. She makes some friends and some enemies. Some wizards are planning to rob the dragon's of some of their magic. I liked it well enough to continue the series later in the month.

 
Famous Players by Rick Geary is another murder mystery. It's part of his Treasury of XXth Century  Murder series. This one is set in 1922 Hollywood and concerns the murder of actor and director William Desmond Taylor. Found dead in his bungalow the police botch the investigation, possibly destroying evidence, and no one ever got arrested for the crime. Geary starts with a bit of history of Hollywood and the type of place it had become in the early days of the film industry. He introduces the players and specualtes on who done it. The artwork is what keeps me picking up his stories and it's fine. Lots of interesting pictures to look at.

Tales of Beedle the Bard by J K Rowling seemed to jump off the shelf for some reason. I had read it when it came out a year or two ago. It's still entertaining. I enjoy the stories, translated by Hermione Granger, and the story notes by Professor Dumbledore. The cover is quite nice. 

 
Searching For Dragons by Patricia C Wrede continues the series with the princess meeting the king of the Enchanted Forest. They band together with some others and rescue a dragon. There's lots of stuff happening and I liked the sense of humor. This is the second. I'll get to the other soon. I want to see where this is going.

Muddle Earth by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell turned up at Half Price Books just at the time I had a nice coupon. These are the guys who have been doing The Edge Chronicles. I like that series and recndtly found two more. Muddle Earth is a parody of The Lord Of The Rings. Joe, a young boy from our earth, is brought to Muddle Earth by the wizard Randalf and forced to fight in the power struggle going on there. There's a lot of jokes, some good and some lame. It's a good read and I liked the illustrations.

 
Calling on Dragons & Talking To Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede continue the story of the princess and the dragons. There are some new characters tossed in with the old characters. In COD's the bad wizards have stolen the sword of the king of the enchanged forest. They can steal more magic with it. The king and the princess, now married, go after it. In TTD's the princess and king's son has to go on a quest to save his dad. I enjoyed this whole series pretty much. I put them in the keeper pile and plan to re-read them in a few years.

   
The Savage Tales Of Solomon Kane by Robert E Howard is part of the DelRey series that's reprinting Robert E. Howard in nice illustrated reasonably priced trade paperbacks. I think some people would know who Conan is, he's the most famous of Howard's characters.  Howard created many more characters in the short time that he was writing. He started in 1924 and died by his own hand in 1936. Soloman Kane is a Puritan that battles the dark supernatural characters that seem common in Howard's worlds. This book collects the stories that were published and lots of little bits and pieces that have only turned up in small press publications. I'm just getting back into reading Howard after having moved along about thirty years ago. Some of the stories were more interesting than others. I didn't find the fragments or poetry very interesting but I'm not much of a poetry guy. It's nice to have it all together like this.

The Book of Enchantments by Patricia C Wrede is a collection of short stories that had nothing to do with the princess and dragon series. Some were ok and some were less interesting. Not a book I would re-read. Nice cover.

A Book of Pixie Stories by Enid Blyton is just that, a collection of pixie stories. They were pretty much fun. with the usual Blyton messages. I need to re-read the adventure books, a much more entertaining series.

Kolchak: The Night Stalker

 
I picked up the dvd of the Complete Kolchak series. There were only 20 episodes of the short lived 1974 supernatural series. Two original made for tv movies preceded the series and 2 more tv movies were cobbled together from unconnected episodes. The two original tv movies came out on dvd from Anchor Bay in 1998 and again in 2004 from MGM. I have a copy of the MGM edition which is still available. I just looked and it's 11 bucks on Amazon. There was a 2005 tv series that revived the character. I have not seen it. I have looked at some of the Kolchak comics in the past but never bought any. I didn't care for the art very much.

The Night Stalker was first broadcast January of 1972. It was the highest rated tv movie at the time. We find Carl Kolchak, played by Darren McGavin, in Las Vegas working for Simon Oakland. Carl's a reporter and Simon is the managing editor. Carl's got a great story to tell but the cops won't let him. Even if they did, he speculates into his Sony tape recorder, who would believe him. Seems a vampire killed all those showgirls and drained all their blood. Who wouldn't believe that? At first Carl; but he's soon convinced as he comes in contact with Mister Bitey. Once he's convinced, Carl has a hard time getting the police, or Simon, to believe him. Once he's convinced them, it's even harder to get them to admit what they saw. Carol Lynley played Carl's girlfriend in the first movie, he was single in everything else. She was a showgirl and way too good for Carl. Things come to a nasty flame soaked end. The Las Vegas police keep the story in Vegas and kick Carl out. His girlfriend does a fade and he never sees her again. Eventually he moved on, to the sequel.

  
The Night Strangler, with a new script by Richard Matheson, finds Carl in Seattle working for Simon Oakland again. That guy sure likes yelling and Carl is a guy who needs to get yelled at. Thy are a great team, both as actors and characters. This time there's been a series of exotic dancers who've been strangled and blood stolen from their bodies. Ewww! Carl beats the bushes and flushs a century old killer with an elixer of youth made from the bodily fluids of his victims. In the 36 years since that movie debuted I've seen way too many villians with the same elixer.

   

The movie used Seattle's Underground City as part of it's locations. It's kind of a creepy place, so it works quite well. There was a bigger roster of guest stars with Jo Ann Pflug, Wally Cox, Al Lewis, Margaret Hamilton and John Carradine all making an appearance. The movie proved popular and the planned third movie was changed into a tv series. There's a good bit of humor in both the movies and the tv series. McGavin is entertaining as the somewhat shady and annoying Kolchak. He's not above a bit of lying to get the story, and if he has to break the law, well, it was for a good reason. The character came from an unfinished Jeff Rice novel that was adapted by Richard Matheson. Matheson was a big contributor to movies and tv. The series gave Bob Gale, writer of Back To The Future and Used Cars fame, his first professional writing credit. David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, was the story editor on the tv series and he's credited with adding a lot of the quirky humor.

 
I saw the dvd on Amazon for 18 bucks and picked it up. It's back up to $27 as I write this. Sometimes a guy just lucks out. It's been out since 2005 but nowadays I try to wait for the price to fall. Mostly they do. There have been a lot of low priced tv dvd sets the last year or two. Yay, for the recession? Carl, now working for Simon Oakland in Chicago, comes up against a different monster each week. There was a vampire, a werewolf, a mummy, a zombie, a headless motorcyclist, some spirits, Native American and hindu legends, a killer android, an invisible alien, a caveman and a lizard critter. Oh, I almost forgot Helen of Troy and Jack the Ripper make an appearance. It had everything way before X-Files and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. X-Files producer Chris Carter is a fan of the series and he asked McGavin to appear on his series as Kolchak. McGavin said no but did appear several times as a retired FBI agent who had been interested in the weird stuff.

  
That's Jack Grinnage as Ron Updike, fellow reporter, Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchack, and an old favorite of mine, Simon Oakland as Tony Vincenzo. Ruth McDevitt and Carol Ann Susi round out the cast as occasionally appearing INS staff. That was the news agency that Tony and Carl wound up at after the second tv movie where they were seen leaving town in a station wagon. Carl drove a 1965 yellow Mustang in the tv series. There were lots of great character actors for guest stars. Way too many to list. That's part of the appeal to these old tv shows, seeing all the charactor actors that I grew up watching. I always like a good character actor.

The monster make-ups were not always the best but most of them weren't too bad. I can forgive flaws in one area when other areas make up for it. Being a monster fan the series appealed to me when it was originally broadcast and it still has a good bit of charm. I was sad to see it cancelled back in 1975. According to the Wikipedia McGavin grew tired of the monster of the week and asked to leave the series. ABC was ok with that as the series ratings were falling. Most of the shows are ok, but it had a clearly defined formula that got a bit stale while watching the shows so close together. Still I enjoyed watching the series and was glad I picked it up. The movies are worth picking up, I think the Matheson scripts put them a cut above the tv series. I've seen them 3 times since I bought them and still enjoyed them. I enjoyed the tv series enough to watch them again. Who knows when. Others might want to check them out on NetFlix or BlockBuster.

Science Fiction Sunday 76

Because I liked the first Superman serial so much I whet out and bought the second serial on dvd. I had downloaded the 1948 Superman serial from the Internet Archive but they did not have the 1950 sequel Atom Man Vs Superman. It might not be in the public domain. Both of them are packaged together in one set. I watched most of the first serial again when I got the dvd a couple of weeks ago. It looks much better than the Internet Archive version. I finally slotted in the sequel this AM. The same cast is back, Kirk Allen as Superman, Noel Neill as Lois Lane, Tommy Bond as Jimmy Olson and Pierre Watkin as Perry White. Lyle Talbot in a bald wig, plays villian Lex Luthor, the genius with the whacky plan to blackmail Metropolis by freakin' everybody out. He's got some high tech gear to help with his domestic terrorism. Besides a ray gun that can cause earthquakes and shake buildings, Luthor has perfected human teleportation and synthetic Kryptonite. He hides behind the mask of Atom Man when doin' his nefarious activities. That's partially because in the first few episodes he's actually running his criminal gang by teleporting from prison to his secret mountain cave hideout. A few chapters into the 15 Luther is paroled and he buys a tv station. We know he's posing as a past villian now on the straight and narrow path but he's got some people hoodwinked, like the Daily Planet's Managing Editor Perry White. There's all the usual stuff that happens in a serial and most of it looks pretty good. Superman is still animated when he flies and it doesn't look too bad.

 

The two serials are spread out over 4 discs. There's a couple of short featurettes but they aren't much. Worth a gander, Allen makes a good Superman. Almost makes me want to watch the tv series.
 

Shiny Stormtrooper

 

Lonn was nice enough to give the guys at the TCLUG meeting a Chrome Silver Stormtrooper minifig yesterday. Yay, Lonn! They were a promo item at TOYRUS last month. I am guessing on where you live it was set 4591726-1 or 2853590. The latter number is on the bag that I got. I missed the promo completely but I don't always pay attention to their advertising and I don't shop much at that chain. They jack the prices of a lot of sets up a fair bit and the LEGO store is just 5 minutes down the freeway. That would be I-494. I'd rather get the VIP loyalty points. The Stormtrooper is kind of nice, huh. The cheapest you can find him on Bricklink is 10 bucks. At least when this was written. It's tempting to leave him in the package but he might come in handy for some scene or another. I'll leave him in the bag until I find a use for him. I'd have to put him in a baggie anyway. That shiny chrome surface wouldn't stand a chance without some protection.

Friday Night Movies 269

Joe NetFlix'd a copy of ZMD: Zombies Of Mass Destruction. It's a 2009 movie by first time director Kevin Hamedani. It cost a million bucks. Looks like more. It's set in the Washington State town of Port Gamble. It's pretending to be an island for some reason. People are turning into zombies because of what might be a terrorist plot. We meet several people on the island. Some are ok and some are pretty much people to avoid. It takes a while to get to the real zombie action but they get you good with the first really gorey scene. Not often you see a man's face pealed off his skull and eaten by a zombie. There are a few nice gruesome little bits like that we hadn't seen before. A zombie beating a man with the man's torn off arm. Now that's comedy. One of the main characters is an American born gal who's dad is Iranian. People keep calling her an Iraqi. Americans are often stupid about people from other lands. No secret there. There are some of those ignorant ass people in the town. Luckily they come to a messy end. The other main two characters are a gay couple. They've come to visit Tom's mom and let her know Tom's gay. Too late, she's been bitten and while getting dessert she turns into a zombie. Lance, Tom's boyfriend, sticks her to the wall with a fireplace poker but she gets away. The town is over run and slowly but surely most of the people get picked off one by one. Eventually the military comes and rescues the left over citizens. Mostly entertaining, the movie has a few slow bits, and a scene or two that could use some trimming or re-writting. The zombies are ok but some of the cgi blood looks a bit fakey. Might not be worth picking up unless it's real cheap but not a total waste of time. Better zombie movie than most of the zombie movies that run on the SyFy channel.

Mike found a copy of OneeChanbara: The Movie - Vortex and brought that. It's the sequel to OneChanbara Bikini Samuari Squad which we watched September 2009. I couldn't remember much about it at all but according to these guys the sequel has little to do with the first movie. Other than a chick in a bikini chopping zombies apart with a pair of Katanas. Sadly this movie turned out to be rather boring. There is some action but it's poorly shot and hard to tell what might have been happening. There are a lot of zombies and they stumble and lurch about until they burst in a splash of CGI blood. The CGI is fair to poor. Sometimes the subtitles told us stuff we did not understand. At least the girls are pretty and they have great costumes. Not worth picking up. There many better chicks with swords movies.

  

Hot Rod Girl and The Fat Spy

  
A couple of things from the Internet Archive tonight. One good one and one bad one. Hot Rod Girl is a 1956 American International film about kids that race hot rods in the San Fernando Valley. Chuck Conners plays a cop who supports the local race track as a place to keep the kids off the street. His boss is putting pressure on him, the citizens of the Valley aren't likin' all these hot rods runnin' around their streets. Someone might get killed. The track keeps the kids from illegal street racing. Most of them anyway. Some are just too stupid and immature. Steve, an immature young man, gets all riled up when another young punk in a hot rod won't leave him alone on the ride home. Steve is killed in the street race. I guess those citizens were right. Steve's brother Jeff, a mechanic, blames himself for making the car and getting his brother into racing. If only he could have made his brother less hot headed. Jeff gets all bummed out and that takes a while to get worked through. He nearly looses his gal.

 

Not a great movie but entertaining enough. It's a good capture of the time with lots of shots of the streets and lots of nice hot rods. It's worth a gander and unlike the next film I watched re-watchable.

   
The Fat Spy is a 1966 spy/beach movie that really sucks. Don't watch it. There's not much story, the script is nearly non-existent, and the whole movie is packed with insipid teen pop songs. It tries to be funny but the jokes are weak. Did I mention the music? Terrible. There's a few names in the cast, Brian Donlevy, Jayne Mansfield, Phillis Diller, Jack E. Leonard, but none of them are doing anything worth watching. Poor Brian, he's got so little to do. Hope there was a good paycheck. Phyllis just shrieks and Jayne Mansfield, whom I never found that attractive, looks well padded from being 5 months pregnant. What ever acting ability she ever had, it's gone. That poster lies, she's not ever in a bikini.

 
That's Jack E in the Fink University Sweatshirt. He plays two roles in the movie. That doesn't help. I know I have seen him on the Ed Sullivan show but I don't really remember him. Normally I'm saddened by the loss of memories, but this time, it's a good thing. Phoebe Cates dad, Joseph Cates, directed the movie. He mostly produced the Oscars on tv and a cute daughter. The kids in the movie, and some of the girls are cute and in bikini's, are on a deserted island. They're on a scavenger hunt. There's legend of a fountain of youth. Low and behold they find it, in a flower (?), and people grow young in a crappy scene lacking any special effects. It's nearly 80 minutes of crappy scenes strung between crappy songs. Don't download it or watch it. Remember: terrible boring music.

The Adventures of Clutch Powers

  
I picked up a copy ofThe Adventures of Clutch Powers. It's Lego's first full length feature, a computer animated movie about LEGO adventurer Clutch Powers, that's set in a completely LEGO universe. That's Clutch in the brown jacket. He's got nice hair, huh. That hair is teamed up with a dim tough strong guy, a goofy smart guy, a hot chick. That's them to left of Clutch and that's his boss and the science guy on the right of him. A. FOL is the name on the science guy's name tag. AFOL is Adult Fan Of LEGO for those that might not know. There are a lot of in-jokes in the movie. Clutch himself gets his name from the force that holds the bricks together, their clutch power. He's a cross between James Bond, Indiana Jones and Han Solo. The chicks dig him, he's everyone's pal, and he works alone. The movie opens with Clutch having a run in with a rock monster while harvesting crystals from an underground mine. He returns to home base in LEGO City. It's a really cool tower.

 

His boss introduces Clutch to his new team. There's been a riot at the space prison. That doesn't sound good. The team blast off in their space ship, which is a ship from an actual set. At the prison they get attacked by evil wizard Mallock the Malign. He's not very nice. He's the evil wizard from Castle - Fantasy Era set 7093 Skeleton Tower. The team chase him to a castle themed planet where there's a battle for the kingdom. I like those large trolls from the Fantasy Era sets. They came in two colors and two paint jobs. That's the second version from the Troll Mine set. They have black clothes and tattoos on their arms. The troll becomes Clutch's pal and they eventually join forces with a local prince.

  
If you have an eye for it you can spot many sets and vehicles, either straight up or modified. I'm pretty sure I didn't find everything. Some stuff was refered to only slightly. The animation is good and the characters move fairly well. There are lots of jokes, some ok and some groaners. There's a fair amount of character development, most of which is heaped on Clutch. There's more action than pathos. The movie moves quickly and there are things crashing and blowing up all the time. Luckily in the LEGO universe you can just put it back together again or build something new. I enjoyed it, glad I picked it up, and I'll rewatch it again. At times there's so much going on you can't see it all in one pass. The dvd has a short with the science guy and some skeletons. There's some Space Police shorts, one for Power Miners, and a few tv sports. It's twenty smackers at the LEGO store but you can find it for 15 bucks at Amazon and the like.

TwinLUG 4-18-2010

    

  
Another meeting come and gone. Besides me there were Nathan, Roger, Gary, Max, Dylan, Erik, Steve, a new person named Mark, and visitors from Detroit, Chris and Jennifer. Chris has a blog. Gary brought cookies and a ton of minifigs for a buck each. I bought a bunch of minifigs and ate some of his mom's homemade molassas cookies. I'm sure he'll bring them back in the future. Minifigs that is, no promises on the cookies. Make sure to bring some cash or your checkbbook, there are still plenty of good ones left. TwinLUGer's are always encouraged to bring stuff to the meetings for trade or sale. Got some stuff you don't need? Roger brought his award winning train. You can see more pics of the train and the 2001 contest at Max's Flickr page. There are a few pictures of the work other people brought, like Dylan's Micropolis modules, Nathan's Micropolis Bridge WIP, Max's gang of Power Miner variants. You can see close ups of the bunch of them at Max's Flicker page. I've been trying to finish the undersea diorama for the comic con next month. Not getting too far. Here's the latest.

   

 
I hope to have nine 32 by 48 stud modules when this part is done. I might rework that tower but time is short and I need to fill up real estate or give up trying to finish. I found that Duplo tanker truck on sale at the LEGO Imagination Center and thought it worked into the scene quite well. Adds a bit of color. The monolith is the scale of the monolith in the movie - 1x4x9. I used the red plastic LEGO measuring tool to make sure it was accurate. That's the ruler below and that's an interesting package that I hadn't seen before. The ruler and the brick separator at $6.99 is more than the ruler and the separator when sold separately. I use the brick separator all the time, I wore one out already. Great for taking plates apart.

   

Science Fiction Sunday 75

I got through Ark II this morning. The whole 1976 series is only 15 half hour long episodes which are spread over 4 sides of two discs. I got a 3 pack of Filmation saturday morning live-action science fiction shows from the 1970's and this is the last of them that I watched. It's the 25th century and pollution has killed off most everyone. Scummy gangs and small groups of people live, barely, scattered about the country side. The last of the science guys put together a team to visit the isolated humanity and help their asses out. They send a guy with a beard, two kids and a monkey. I know it sounds like a sitcom but the monkey talks. They have a big mobile home, a small jeep like vehicle which the monkey can drive, and a jet pack to get about in. It's the same jetpack that you've seen in the James Bond movies. They talk about it in the commentaries and interview documentaries. It was rented and all the shots for all episodes were done at one time. They made this series for about 70 grand an episode, not a lot of money even then, so they had to work hard to keep the show in budget. To that extent they reused set pieces from the old Planet of the Apes series. I thought I recognized one of the props from that Apes series. The Ark was just a shell on a old truck chassis and the front end was re-used for a space ship in the next Filmation live action series Space Academy.

The stories are pretty much the same  from week to week. Someone needs some help. There's a bit of drama and danger with a bit of comedy. Monkey on the show after all. There were some good guest stars, many the backbone of 60's tv, Jonathan Harris, Malachi Throne, Marshall Thompson, Geoffery Lewis, Jim Backus, John Fiedler, and one of my favorite character actors, Vito Scotti. You'd recognize some of them even if you didn't know their names. Helen Hunt appears as a kid and Robbie the Robot appears as an empathetic robot. The scripts were  bit a moral message, and some eco message tossed in. I'm not sure I ever saw this when it was new. That vehicle seemed familiar. I'n not sure I need to watch it again. There were a couple of commentaries and some pictures from the show and backstage. The shows look nice if nothing else.

Friday Night Movies 268

I was curious to see JCVD. I like the guy. I like several of his movies. Some are not so good but usually that's not his fault and I don't have to re-watch them. Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a down and out version of himself from a slightly different universe. The details of the story are partially based on our reality. In JCVD J-C's in the middle of a nasty custody battle for his daughter. It mirrors the problems he had in the custody battle for his son in his real reality. His fictional daughter is ashamed of her father's career. The lawyer for the wife reads a list of the fictional murders he's committed while slapping dvd after dvd on the table. After losing Jean-Claude heads back to his home town Brussells. He stops at the Post Office to collect a wire transfer. They can't give it to him because he's walked in on a robbery. The robbers take advantage of the situation and confuse the police by making Jean-Claude pretend to be the leader of the gang. The police come, it works, and the standoff continues with them thinking it's J-C behind the crime. They even bring his parents to talk to him. The reality is Jean-Claude is thinking on his feet and trying to keep himself and the hostages safe. He comes up with ideas to keep the stupid criminals from screwing up the robbery. The leader is one of those guys who gets too excited and lacks the thinking apperatus to stop from making things worse. I hate those guys but they sure are popular in the movies. The movie opens with a great battle scene from a movie that Jean-Claude is making. It's one long 4 minute take that ends with a flubb that takes us out of the film and into the film makers universe. Jean-Claude complains to the uncaring director about being 47, which he was when the movie was made, and not having the energy he used to have. Action stars can have a short career and unless they can act they won't get comedy or drama parts. J-C shows that he can act here. You can see bits and pieces of good acting buried in many of his movies. The better the director the better the bits and pieces. Mabrouk El Mechri, who's French-Algerian, is the director and co-writer of JCVD and he's pretty good. His story excited Jean-Claude and his script melded the crime story to the movie stars introspectve journey quite well. Mechri's made a few films before but I hadn't heard of him. I don't spend much time looking for new movies to watch or directors to keep track of anymore. I can't keep up with the stack of stuff that randomly crosses my path. Mechri spends a bit more time than I might like on fancy techniques but he's got a pretty good script with good characters. The NetFlix wrapper said it was an action comedy but they lie. The film looks dark and bleak, bleached of much of it's color. I found it fitting for the somewhat sad and introspective subject matter. Don't worry the hostages are mostly ok at the end. I enjoyed this more than some of the other guys and I enjoyed our second film less than some of the other guys.

Repo! The Genetic Opera is a science fiction horror opera in the grand guginal style with way too much singing for me. It's got that Sweeney Todd style of talking singing with little or no rhyming. I can't stand that, I prefer musicals with real singing that advances the story. I tell you I have been spoilt by those damn South Park guys, Trey and Matt, and their musicals: South Park Bigger Longer and Uncut and Cannibal! The Musical. Now that last one is a fine merging of singing and gore. I don't remember anyone getting eaten in R!TGO, but the rest is filled with a lot of nasty stuff and skankerous characters. Some people like that. Paul Sorvino plays the dying head of a powerful genetic corporation. He's a right piece of shit and his three children are twisted psychopaths. They all expect to head the business and can't wait for pop to shuffle the fuck out of here. Nice, huh. Paris Hilton plays the daughter and though she's not that good an actress she does better than her average in this. There's isn't that much film acting, it's more posing with dialog. It's all stylized and often intentionally over the top. Even the actors have some level of CGI brushed over them. One of those single man visions that appeals or doesn't. The reviews were negative from more mainstream media and positive from more genre orientated sites and fans; there were lots of 10 stars on the IMDb. I'm in the middle. Kind of interesting fucked up future with lots of dislikeable people desperately destroying their lives, and the lives of those around them, with their ill conceived plottings. Not my favorite story line but one that can pay good dividends for sitting through the ride. Anthony Stewart Head, whom most will remember as Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, plays the Repoman. He's got a licence to kill, some big ass sharp knives, and he viciously chops up the no-payers to get at their repossessed organs. His jobs a secret from his daughter, played by Alexa Vega, who's got some illness and is supposed to stay in her room. That's pretty dull and she learns to slip out when daddy's at work. One night at the cemetary she meets a grave robber who's played by Terrance Zdunich, the creater, writer, composer and producer of the film. He's also a story board artist for tv and movies. The grave robber steals some sort of drug from the heads of the dead and sells that. It looks nice and blue in it's little bottles. The police don't care for that and they give chase. Alexa and the grave robber barely escape and he makes sure she gets home. As the movie progresses Paul and Anthony become bitter enemies and nearly everyone dies. This movie has the most songs, 64, of any musical movie. Oh joy! At least we didn't see the 150 minute version. I'd prefer the movie were more a story with background music but hey, it's one less I think I need to have.