PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Boo!

That's part of the new Harry Potter display at the LEGO store. I thought it was a pretty good dementor made better because he revolves. It captures the minifig quite well. The cape on the current figure is quite nice, though it looks like that dementor doesn't believe in ironing. Ha, like I ever iron anything. There's a floor display of the current HP offerings below the figure. In the front of the store they have a large poster and some large HP minifig cutouts. Sadly they put them behind those annoying tubes. That's really an unattractive, and rather useless, addition to the window display. Only small things go in the tubes and they sit empty most of the time. I blame the colleges and universities in giving degrees to people with a lack of common sense and vision. Of course it could be that there just aren't enough good designers around to do all the work and some people from the bottom of the class get hired.

 

   

A Few Movies Of Late

I'm still watching movies On Demand and pulling the odd thing off the Internet Archive. There have been a lot of crappy horror films, some comedies and the rare interesting oddity on their playlists. Here's a few short bursts on some of the films I have been watching of late.

Harry And The Hendersons is a 1987 film with John Lithgow. I hadn't seen it before. It's directed by William Dear who's directed several films I haven't seen and don't care too much to see. Harry is a bigfoot who John runs down in the family station wagon. Thinking he's dead they take the body back to the city where he wakes up. He trashes his way through their house and into their hearts. Teaching Harry to sit takes a toll on their furniture. Don Ameche plays an ex-scientist who helps them get Harry back to the woods before the big game hunter gets his hands on Harry's pelt. Kevin Peter Hall plays Harry, in the movie and the in first four episodes of the tv show. He was the Predator in both Predator movies and Charon in Highway to Hell. He died in 1991 while working on the Harry tv show. The movie is fun enough but some of the characters are a bit stupid and that's what some of the comedy is about. Still it's less harmless than Harry is to their house and it's got a happy ending for the most part when Harry is returned to the woods where other bigfoots hide. If there were bigfoots I wouldn't want them around my house, the movie gets me close enough. Oh, did I mention bigfoots smell bad, they do. Not sure I'd bother watching it again, once might be enough.

I'd watch Harry Ever Afters again. It's a fun romantic comedy from 2009 and on top of that it's an Irish film. I don't see that many films from the Emerald Isle. It's directed by Stephen Burke, who'd done some tv work on the old sod. I hadn't heard of him, nor any of the actors. Sally Hawkins plays Maura. She's a bit of a handfull. She's marrying this African guy named Wilson so he can stay in the country. It's not strictly legal but Sally's going to get 9000 pounds which is good for her since she's skint and about to loose her apartment. Maura's got a daughter named Molly, played by the delightful Sinead Maguire, who seems to know little about her new dad. She's not in on the secret deal and neither are the two detectives from the imigration department. The wedding is at a hotel that has another wedding with problems in a second room. Tom is marrying Tina for the second time. They have lots of issues and seem to belong together as much as Maura and Wilson. There are lots of comic situations which mostly work pretty well. There's nothing new here story or comedy wise but the characters are familiar and fairly entertaining and they have those great Irish accents. There's some slight bit of drama and the whole white black culture mixing thing. Glad I seen it and I will watch it again in the future.

Along The Great Divide is a 1951 film directed by Raoul Walsh. He was a pretty prolific director with a pretty long career. He started directing in 1913 and stopped in 1964. He made some good films and some average films, quite a few of which I have seen. This one was pretty entertaining, a nice mix of comedy and drama, on horses. It's the first western film for Kirk Douglas and he's joined by Virginia Mayo, John Agar and Walter Brennan. Kirk's a US Marshall who is trying to get cattle rustler and possible murder Walter Brennen to trial in another town across the desert. The rancher who's son is dead wants to hang Walter but Kirk and his 2 deputies have to keep him safe. Virginia is Walter's daughter and she comes along for the ride. There's the usual amount of horse riding and slug throwing to keep the diehard western fan happy and there's a pretty good story with interesting characters. Nothing too original about the story but it's looks great and moves briskly. The movie is only 88 minutes and they get it wrapped up pretty well at the end. Well worth a look. I snagged a copy off of TCM but it's out on made to order dvd from Warner Archives.

Crawlspace is a creepy movie with Klaus Kinski as the owner of an apartment building for women. He's all mummbley smiles on the outside but he's put large ducts in the place so he can sneak around and spy on the ladies. He makes a tapping noise to scare them. When they complain he tells the gals that it's rats. He then sneaks rats into their apartments, via rigged secret trapdoors, to scare the women, then kills them. The women, not the rats. The rats are his friends I guess. Between murders he plays a game of Russian Roulette. If he doesn't die he kills again. It's not much of a story, just some nut case killing women in his building, women too stupid to move out when they learn that there are rats there. I'm not partial to the slasher film, just little interest in human monsters I guess. Not a movie that I'd bother with again and shouldn't have bothered with it in the first place.

LEGO Fright Knights Poster

 

Brian had this poster at the last TCLUG meeting and I snapped a pic of it. Not perfect but I'm still getting used to this new camera. I liked the Fright Knights theme, I'd been wanting to do a post about that theme but haven't gotten around to it yet. Fight Knights were a sub set of the Castle theme. Fright Knights sets came out in 1997-1998. It has dragons. I don't have hardly any of the sets, and I don't feel a need to go get them, but I do have some of those dragons. That's Basil, the Bat Lord, and his dragon Draco in the lower left. Willa the witch up on the upper right. Willa's snaggletooth really knocks me out. I really like Willa's dress, simple and usefull, and her cape is just great. Bat Lord has a nice cape but his costume is a bit bland, but still useful for variety. They were in several sets, seperately and together, that I never picked up when they were being issued. Occasionally on BrickLink or ebay I'll pick up partial sets, whole sets and some random minifigs but I have no desire to fill in all the sets. It's getting too pricey for some of them. 

 
I lucked out ages ago and picked up some of 6007 Bat Lord on clearance at TRU for $2 each. They were in that little display tub for ages, everytime I went in I picked up 1 or 2 of them. They'd been there a while and it was well into 2000 before they all sold. Someday I'll have to make something with those dragons. In the mean time I'll get working on my post on the Time Cruisers and work on one about the goofy Fright Knights after that.

Science Fiction Sunday 136

I put Event Horizon on first thing this morning. It's Paul W S Anderson's third movie right after Mortal Kombat and Shopping. I'm pretty much an Anderson fan. I know he's got a lot of haters out on the internet but I've liked most of his movies pretty much. EH didn't score well with the critics but it's developed a following on video since it came out in 1997. It's not a movie for everyone, it's pretty dark and disturbing, my mom wouldn't like it. Sam Neill built a huge space ship with a black hole powered space folding drive. Seven years ago it went off on it's first voyage and contact was lost. Now it's back and Sam's on a rescue ship, captained by Lawrence Fishburn, heading out to the EH which is sitting near Neptune. There's a bunch of other good actors in the crew including Joely Richardson, Jack Noseworthy, Sean Pertwee and Jason Isaacs. When the crew gets to the Event Horizon they find it empty but intact. There are dead bodies and blood in the ship. Within a short  time of boarding the EH the crew starts to get weird hallucinations of horrible things from their past. Events unfold and things get awful and deadly. Hardly anyone survives. It turns out that the ship on it's journey, to who know where, turned evil and now wants to take everyone back to where it got it's infection. Is it hell? Maybe. It's a good haunted house movie transferred to space. Not everyone is going to enjoy this one. I've seen it several times and still return to put it on. I might have to buy this one on BluRay one day.

I hadn't seen Face/Off for several years. I watched it in the theater when it came out in 1997 and grabbed up the 1998 dvd right away. I watched it several times. It's mostly a John Woo action film with cops versus criminals but there's a certain element of science fiction in the face transplanting technology. Recent face transplants have made that SF dream a reality. Nicolas Cage and John Travolta play a criminal and an FBI agent tied together in a bond of death and vengeance. While out assassinating John in the opening scene Nick failed to kill his target and killed John's 5 year old son. After the credits we jump 5 years and John finally captures Nick only to find that he's hidden a bomb somewhere in the LA area. The capturing was pretty hard and Nick remains in a coma. They only have a week bfore the bomb goes off and Nick's brother isn't talking. That's where the face changing gear comes into play. John's boss wants John to switch faces with Nick's unconscious body and use Nick's identity to cosy up to Nick's brother in the super secret prison. Only those directly involved with the switch will know the secret. It works but unfortunately Nick walks up, assumes John's identity, and burns the lab with everyone who knew about the switch tied up in it.  John escapes from prison and the chase is on. It's packed with all the super big action scenes and cool effects that you've come to expect from John Woo. Plus there's one tragedy after another and lots of pain for everyone who isn't killed quickly. There's a huge body count but eventually justice is served and John gets his puss back. The two main leads are great as their characters and their characters playing each other. I was happy to see it again and shouldn't wait so long before I get around to it again. That reminds me there are some other Woo films that might need digging out of the box they are in.

Friday Night Movies 328

 

I've been using NetFlix to catch up on all the movies that I missed seeing when they came out. Even watching hundreds of movies each year I can't keep up with the output of the whole world. I had forgotten that there was a 2009 sequel to the 2004 French film District 13 until I spotted it in the foreign film section. I really liked the first movie, set in the near French future, about the walled off area in Paris, filled with the dregs of society, that's controlled by a group of heavily armed gangs lead by warlords. It was colorful, fast, loud and filled with scene after scene of incredible action.

 

District 13: Ultimatum arrived on the right day for me to take it over to FNM night and we watched that first. David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli return as the lords of leap. Belle is the founder of Parkour, a jumping and leaping kind of movement thing. He does a lot of that in the movie. Raffaelli is a stuntman and occasional actor who's been working in films for a while. The two guys work together in the first movie to save the day. In the sequel time has pasted and the government isn't doing anything to tear down the walls of the ghetto and intigrate the people back into society. Some scummy government guys plot with the Harriburton company to stir up trouble and ultimately empty District 13, blow it up with missles, and build condos. The guys have to join forces again in kicking the asses of the scum bags. More powerful than the average cop, they leap off tall buildings, fly through the air, punch people in all sorts of places, and drive cars through buildings. Who doesn't like that. Belle does more of the building leaping and Raffaelli does more fighting. At times he's like a younger Jackie Chan with a bit of Tony Jaa on the side. The guys get the warlords to help them attack the government, kidnap the French President, beat down the bad guys and blow up everything anyway. I found it fun and enjoyed the action scenes and the fight styles. The first one had a bit more wow factor because we hadn't seen so much of that leaping about before but this is an ok sequel with some good amount of entertainment value. One I'd watch again some day.

 

I've seen the 1968 movie The Green Slime 2 or 3 times already. I got a copy off of Turner a while back and it looked ok. I think the copy Sperhauk got from the Warner Brothers Archives Collection looks much better. It's video on demand and the price is 20 bucks, though you can find them cheaper on Amazon occasionally. There aren't any extras, just the movie. It's a US-Japan production made in the Toei Studios in Japan and directed by Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku. It's mostly average low-budget space opera of the time but occasionally it gets pretty silly. A huge asteroid is 10 hours from earth and they send a ship to plant bombs to blow it up. Lucky it's the future and the whole spaceship thing is already in place. The group stops at the giant wheel space station to switch ships, one with treads, then it's off to Flora, the wayward asteroid. Robert Horton and Richard Jaeckel are the rivals for Luciana Palluzzi and they are leading the mission. It's a success and they head back to the space station with some green slime on one guy. While they are celebrating the saving of the planet the green slime grows huge in the decontamination chamber and starts attacking the crew. That was sure fast. Some the station is covered with critters as they replicate from spilled green monster blood. It sure looks bad for the humans. Lots of folks get roasted by the high voltage monsters. The critters don't look as good as the dvd cover portrays but there are a lot of them so that makes up for the goofy look. Our hero guys have to face some pretty tough odds and heft some emotional baggage to get to the end of the movie. Good thing it's rather short, 81 mintues, just the right length for this sort of movie. I don't think I'll bother upgrading my own copy, it's fun but not a movie I'll need to watch that often so I think it will do.

Tarzan of the Apes

That cover above is the magazine that had the very first Tarzan novel in The All-Story Magazine from Oct 1912. For nearly 100 years the world has continued to follow the exploits of the Lord of the Jungle in books, movies, tv and strips in newspapers and comic book form. It's all popular. Turner Classic Movies has been running some of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan pictures in the last month or so and I have been watching them. All 12 of the pictures are available on dvd in various sets. I'm not at all certain that I've seen all of these pictures before but I know I would have watched just about anything with Tarzan as a kid and that hasn't changed hardly any since I grew up some. I was a fan of the tv shows and the comics and the novels, though I hadn't read the later until I was about 17. I never finished reading the whole Tarzan series but my mother did. Several years ago I went out and picked up copies of the old Ballantine series with the Richard Powers covers but I haven't read any of them yet. That's the cover to the first novel over on the left. I saw some of these originals at TorCon - the 1973 World Science Fiction Convention. It was my first convention and I meet Richard Powers there. I was already a big fan. He was a real friendly and nice to talk to. I kick myself for not buying one of the Tarzan paintings, it was only $75. That was alot for me in those days, more than a weeks take home pay, so I passed them up. I guess I have to be happy with the two cheaper Powers book covers I wound up with. Some day I'll sell them and buy a new used car.

Johnny Weissmuller, a former Olympic Gold medal winning swimmer, made a dozen Tarzan pictures, the first in 1932, the last in 1947. After that he did 13 Jungle Jim pictures before he retired from the movie business. I've only seen a couple of the Jungle Jim pics, they were ok, nothing outstanding. Six of the Tarzan movies were done at MGM and then Weissmuller moved to RKO Pictures for 6 more Tarzan pictures. The plots are pretty much the same. Some awful white people come to the jungle looking for treasure with larceny in their hearts. They'll take what they want at the point of a gun if the natives don't do what they say. Tarzan warns them to keep on the straight and narrow but they don't listen and the bad guys pretty much come to a grisly end. The jungle is harsh, death lurks around every tree, I know I would stay away. Adding the Tarzan brand of justice, which often involves a pointy stick, makes the place much more dangerous to the rule breaker. In one movie Tarzan is stuck up a tree with Boy. He breaks off a branch that is as thick as an arm, sharpens the point, and nails some guy who's chasing him right in the chest. That was a damn big tree branch, I bet that hurt, lucky it wasn't me. Another time he called to the elephants, who came down stream and helped Tarzan kick the ass of some cannibals. That made me laugh. I like elephants. I don't like cannibals. Unless they are being stomped on by elephants, then I'm going to laugh.

Like the creator of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, I have an issue with the barely literate Tarzan that you often see on the movie screen. "Me Tarzan, you Jane." In the books, which I started reading in around 1969 or 1970, Tarzan was raised by apes after his family perished. They had been the only survivors of a ship wreck. They build a cabin, soon after their son is born, and a bit after that they both are dead, leaving the infant boy all alone. His cries bring some apes  Tarzan is nearly killed by king of the apes, who had just killed his father, but luckily a female ape, who had lost her child recently, takes him under her protection. Years later Tarzan would kill that ape and take his place as king. Tarzan teaches himself to read from books found in his parents cabin. He rescues Jane without her knowing it and falls in love with her. He rescues a Fenchman from the local natives and that guy teaches him French and helps him find his family. Tarzan even travels to Wisconsin in his pursuit of Jane. Not liking the life in the civilized world he returns to the jungle to set up a large estate where he has plenty of adventures. Burroughs isn't the greatest writer but he tells a big story with lots of stuff going on. Mostly I found his writing easy to read, occasionally a sentence would make me stumble and fall, but you pick yourself up and continue on. There were a couple of dozen books in the series and they are in the public domain so you can read them for free from all sorts of places like project Guttenberg Australia or Amazon's Kindle. Not all of them are going to be jems but they should be mostly entertaining. I hope to get to read those sometime in the future. Unless I want to go digital I need to find out where I stuck those Tarzan books. They'll turn up eventually.

Collectible Minifigs Series 4

 
 

It's almost time for series 5 of the Collectible Minifigs to hit the stores and I haven't even done some comments on series 4 yet. Oh well, that's how I roll. Slowly. Stopping a lot for snacks and movie watchin'. Series 4 had several figures that were fun. I liked the Frankenstein inspired monster, the Geisha, the hazmat guy, and the artist the best. There are several new accessories and hair pieces that are nice additions to the collection. Recently I did my set inventory on Brickset. They treat the collectible minifigs as a set per figure, even though the packaging all has the same part number. When I looked at the inventory of figures for the four series I found that I bought less of each successive series. I think it was partly because the novelty had worn off and partly because I found I needed less of most of the figures in each new series. Some of them are pretty cool but you can only use so many before you reach your personal saturation level. Most figures were in the 3-4 range, a few just one and at least 1 figure per series was purchased in a larger than the average quantity. I bought 109 of the first series and fourteen of that first batch were the robot. I love that robot. I bought 87 of series 2, thirteen of them were the Karate Master. That was because he had the tiny minifig statue. I thought I needed a lot of those for some reason. Lucky for me I have learned to roll with these unexplainable urges. And really, who's got money for therapy? Not me, that's for sure. For series 3 the total purchased was 65 and 8 of them were the sumo wrestler. It's got a small minifig statue too, in a second color. I only picked up 45 of series 4, so far. Not sure that I need many more of most of the figures. I really need to start using more of them to justify buying them. I did find a place for several of them in the recent Western MOC's for the comic con. I wonder if other people are experiencing a reduction in the quantities they are buying. The company increased the quantities they produced of series three and four, both of which are still available at LEGO and other places. I bet the store will have series 3 available when series 5 arrives. I guess we can hope they put series 3 on clearance but I suspect they won't. The sales aren't as brisk as they were in the earlier sets, you hardly seen anyone hovering over the bin trying to squeeze their way to a set, but they continue to sell steady.

 

I liked the Garden Gnome. He's rather cute looking and he has a nice fishing rod. One of the newer ones that's shorter than the old one. That old fishing rod was about 12 bricks high and the new one is about half that. I have grown accustomed to the odd scale that occurs in many LEGO parts. Just makes no sense but when you're kid you don't know any better. Good reason not to leave thinking to children. I really liked the Geisha. That's one hell of a costume and that fan is nice. It was easy to find the Geisha, even though the packaging no longer has the bar codes, since that bottom slope is so big. Same with the Hazmat guy, easy to feel through the package and spot that helmet. The Geisha has the same hair piece that the sumo wrestler has and it works well here. The musketeer is kind of nice but like the fisherman I only got 2 or three. He's got a nice hat and that foil is nice except for the ball on the end. I suppose a guy could cut that off. I kind of like the punk rocker. He does have a nice shirt, what with that skull on there, but I couldn't see having more than a couple. The guitar is cool, you could flip itover and use it for something besides a musical instrument.

 
The surfer girl is cute, cuter than that gnome, that's for sure, and she has a nice hair piece and a sweet smile. The hair is in the medium dark flesh color on this gal and you can find the same hair piece in a couple of the other collectible minifigs. Dark brown on the nurse and dark orange on the tennis player. Good to have other colors of the same hairpiece. I like the shield on the Viking and picked up a couple or three of those. I might have to make a viking theme build some day. I have one in mind but getting to it has been slo-o-o-w. I really like the Frankenstein style monster. It's the second time they've made one. There was a previous version in the Studio sets of a few years ago. The new one had bandages on his head and the old one had a zipper across his forehead. The top of the head is a different sculpt, the old one has studs ont he side. This minifig has the least pieces of any of the figures. He has no accessories, none at all, just that brown suit and big ass head. Here's a pick of the old monster head. I'm not much interested in the hockey player. Without looking for them I wound up with 4. Maybe I can figure out something to do with those skates. I hope I don't get anymore. I haven't bought any of the fourth series for a while so I bet that might come true..

 

I didn't think I needed many skate punks. He's got a fairly nice board and a good torso print. The knit cap is nice too. That's one I wanted two or three of and I wound up with a couple. I haven't gone looking for more. I liked the sailor and his pearl silver telescope. That might come in hand to have a few of those. I only wanted the silver statue that the soccer player has and that black fez was a real bonus. He's got an ok hair piece too but the torso printing isn't anything I'm that interested in. Still you never know when some part might find a use. The werewolf is pretty silly but I like his costume. You could turn that into a old school Haitian zombie style costume without much trouble. He's got a bone (?) and his hair piece is the same hair piece that was on the Elf warrior from the 3rd series, it's just been color changed.

    

The hazmat guy is pretty cool, though he looks nervous. He should be the spray gun he's carrying is attached to his suit. Not sure what that's about. That a figure you could think up a use for 1, 2 or several of them. The artist is great with his dirty clothes and paint brush and pallet. I wound up with 1 of the figure skate and didn't feel like I needed more. It's a nice costume but rather limited. Some people at the LUG were complaining that you couldn't attach the figure to anything with skates on. The crazy scientist has a nice bootle with some possibly dangerous green stuff in there. Mind you, knowing crazy scientists as I do, it could be some sports drink. Inventing death rays and trying to take over the known world can really sap your electrolytes. Being crazy doesn't always mean being unhealthy.

I thought this was the least interesting set of figures of the four series though it does have it's highlights. That reflected in the purchasing of the least amount. Not that any one figure is awful or anything. I just couldn't find a use for multiple hockey players or ice skaters so I just bought less. Series 5 will be out soon and that some fairly interesting figures. More on that later.

Science Fiction Sunday 135

I didn't know Mars Needs Women but appearently in 1967 they did. I wonder if it was selective breeding like the Chinese. They're about 20% more men than women in China right now because the parents of this generation have been selecting boys over girls. Now their young men have to go to other places to get a wife. There you go, social engineering in the hands of the masses often backfires. That's not an anti-abortion stand that's a anti-stupidity stand. Science Fiction can tell us so much, but the people that need that info, sleep at the wheel. Mars Needs Women was one of the movies that Larry Buchanan made for AIP when they were making low budget color remakes of the black and white AIP catalog so they could have something to syndicate to television. Along with the remakes there were some original films. This was one of them. Tommy Kirk, who had already played a Martian in the 1964 AIP film Pajama Party, plays Dop, the Martian team leader charged with gathering a few gals for baby makin'. Yvonne Craig plays a scientist and then there isn't anyone else I recognize in the cast list. Like most of Larry Buchanan directed movies this one isn't very well made. It was running on TCM the other night. It's not something I might actually spend money on. The script by Larry, who also produced and narrated the movie, isn't very good, mostly dull, and the budget of $20,000 didn't go very far. There's a lot of stock footage cut into the 88 minute movie. It's almost fun but doesn't quite get there. Yvonne is cute as ever. Here's some pics to brighten up your day.

   

Jekyl + Hyde is an awful piece of crap. It was free On Demand so it didn't cost me anything other than time. It's first time director Nick Stillwell's first picture. Luckily he hasn't made anything since he made that in 2006. Some college student, all picked on, moppy and girl-less, decides to use some ecstasy and other chemicals to make a drug that turns him into a suave fuck that murders people. Oh, yes, I can see we need more of that drug out on the streets. It's a mostly unpleasant and unoriginal movie. Various women and men are murdered, some in nasty ways, by the guy as he gets more into the drug. Pretty soon he's lost it all and blows out his brains just before his friends find him. Too bad he didn't do that before he got all murdery and too bad I didn't read some review of the movie warning me to stay the fuck away. Compared to Mars Needs Women this movie is better technically and the production values are much higher but sadly it's crap you just don't need to see. Go and find a better Jekyll and Hyde. They're out there.

Friday Night Movies 327

 

Joe ordered up the BluRay of Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame from some place overseas. As a big fan of the Robert Van Gulik Judge Dee stories and novels I was very interested. We watched Tsui Harls 2010 movie first. Andy Lau stars as the historical Magistrate Di Renjie. The movie version is some different than the real guy but the time and place and people are similar to reality. The stories by Robert Van Gulik that have their own take on the character. I've read those novels and short stories, 3 or 4 times, and the character in them is totally different from the character in the movie which is actually based on a Chinese novel, with the same title as the film, by Lin Quanyu.

 

Empress Wu is ascending to the throne. She's the first and only woman to do so. Tony Leung is building her a giant buddha 66 yards high. It towers over the city. During a visit to the buddha an official bursts into flames from some unknown source. You don't often see spontaneous human combustion in a movie. The CGI was great and that would be a sucky way to die. A few minutes later another official dies the same way. Everyone is upset and the Officials of the Imperial Court are called in. They aren't getting anywhere and the Empress pulls Detective Dee out of prison to solve the baffling crime. There's lots of action and lots of beautiful scenery. The ancient Chinese world is one of intrigue and deceit and murder. Oh, and stabbin'! They just love their stabbin', and poisoning, that's real popular too. There's a fairly complicated story that has a fairly good resolve. Many people die. The movie is packed with CGI and most of it looks as good as it gets. The scenes of the boats on the river are really stunning. Here's a couple of production paintings I enjoyed looking at.

 

The bottom painting is the inside of the Buddha and the finished set looks pretty close. Most of the sets are huge, colorful and complex making me wonder how they did it with only $13 million. The CGI parts are blended in quiet nicely. There are hundreds of people in some scenes and they all look great in their costumes. The action scenes are directed by Sammo Hung and they are pretty darn good. It might not be historically accurate, but all in all, a pretty entertaining movie. Well worth the look.

I can't say as much about Bert I Gordon's The Cyclops. I hadn't seen it before and I'm always interested in seeing 1950's SF movies. This is from 1957 and it's fun enough and short.  That's the best thing about it, at 65 minutes there isn't much time to waste on padding out the story. Gloria Talbott is trying to find her missing husband. He crashed his plane in the mountains in an uninhabited part of Mexico. She's joined by her friend and hopeful suitor James Craig, hired pilot Tom Drake, and a uranium hunter, Lon Chaney Jr, who supplied some extra travel expense money. The plane has some trouble and lands in a flatish spot surrounded by mountains. Lon's scintillator tells him there's 8.5 on the meter and that gets him all excited. He's thinking to get rich selling the stock option on the claim. If he gets back to put the claim in that is, turns out Gloria owns the plane, and she's sticking to that valley until she finds her husband. They find part of his broken plane. Could he be alive? How would they get him back with 4 people already packing the four seater plane? Bert is like a lot of film makers when it comes to story. You know, film makers who don't care much about the details in their stories. The important thing is to get the giant monsters into the movie. Turns out the highly radioactive area has more than uranium.

   

That's James, Gloria, Tom and Lon in the plane. Soon after the group lands they encounter some of the local fauna and it's crazy big. A field mouse the size of a dog and a 12 foot hawk. We also have a giant , nearly transparent spider, a couple of huge, slightly opaque lizards and a giant one eyed husband. Yep, the husband is still alive and he's huge. They should have brought a cargo plane but who knew. The guy playing the giant guy is Duncan Parkin who would play a similar character in another Bert I Gordon classic War Of The Colossal Beast a year later. The script is pretty poor but at 65 minutes it goes by quickly. It was fun enough, even though the effects are pretty cheezy. It's barely worth watching for those that are less of a fan of the low budget science fiction film but I enjoyed it enought to be glad that I picked up a copy off of Turner Classic Movies the other night. Now I can watch it again later.

Snack Warning: I picked up a bag of Herr's Sweet Corn flavored potato chips at the WalMart in Bloomington but I am sure they are all over the country. Wow, they are awful! The chip was nice and light and crunchy but the fake corn and butter flavors were so terrible that none of us could eat more than a couple or three. I still have an after taste in my mouth from last night. What ever flavor designer they used to create that coating deserves eternal damnation. I don't know about the rest of their flavors but this one sure tastes like shit. Don't waste your money unless you want to get some revenge on someone.

I also had some weird coffee nougat that came from Pereira Colombia. It had walnuts mixed in too. Mildly coffee flavored it too left an odd taste in my mouth but it certainly was less offensive. Someone brought them into work and I brought a lump to share. Only Mike took a chance and we only has one small sliver or two each. Not a good night for my pciking snacks. Probably a good thing for the old tummy anyway,

New Camera

I've worked where I work so long they gave me a camera for a present. It's a Pentax and it seems ok. I just got it a few days ago and I'm still learning how it works It's much more complicated than my old camera. That one's a Sony Mavica from 1999. It was like 1.2 MP, the Pentax is 12.1 MP. I had it set for 5.3 MP for the pictures I took the other day when I was at the Mall Of America for lunch. That's still a pretty big picture, especially for use on the internet. The one above is 1944 by 2592 and it's 1.89 MB in size. You can see more of them at Flickr. If you look to the left of the serpents head you can see a L shape. That's where the shiny surface of the store has come off, exposing the sheetrock below. It might have popped off from poor workmanship, faulty adhesive, perhaps poorly applied, or someone, no me, has scarpered off with them as souvenirs. Iwish I had one. Maybe they are on eBay. Here's another picture. There are about 30 more at Flickr. I didn't do anything with them. I kind of want to see what they look at online. That way I can adjust according to what I see.