PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 166

Red Dwarf Series 2 debuted in England in September 1988. We saw it in the US a bit later. It ran on PBS here and did rather well. I enjoyed watching them then and just about everyone I knew watched the show. Of course I mostly hung out with science fiction fans. The four regulars are back. Chris Barrie as Rimmer, Craig Charles as Lister, Danny John-Jules as the cat and Norman Lovett as Holly the ships computer. They are still in Red Dwarf, the giant mining ship, that has been slogging through space for three million years. It's really well made I guess. My house isn't going to last that long. The series had six episodes and the first one introduces Kryton. David Ross played the service android who has been serving his dead masters for centuries. There's a picture of him with Lister below, next to a shot of the Red Dwarf. The guys bring him back to reality and take him on board the Red Dwarf. Rimmer wants him to be a servant but Lister puts a rebellious streak in him and he leaves at the end of the episode. When he returns in the 3rd series Kryton would be played by Robert Llewellyn. In episode 2 the guys play a total immersion video game called Better Than Life. Rimmer cocks that up really well and the guys wind up buried in sand, their faces smeared with jam, waiting for the horde of hungry ants to devour them. At least he keeps Lister sane, huh. The guys have memory loss in one episode and go back in time to a point just before the accident that kills everyone. They get theur memory back but they can't change time. When the guy's rag on Holly for being letting a meteor hit the ship he pulls a good jape on them. In the last episode they pass into a parallel universe when gende roles are reversed. On a Red Dwarf in that universe they meet their counterparts and Lister gets pregnant when he sleeps with the female version of himself. Rimmer's female versioon is even worse than him and he refuses to sleep with her. The cat is still unable to get his end away when his counterpart is a flea ridden dog. It's a sad old world on the Red Dwarf, ain't it. The boys get back to their time and space but even then they're still stuck three million years in the future and all alone in space. The episodes are still making me laugh even after seeing them several times over the years. The dvd set has a nice bunch of extras and commentaries for each episode.

3933 Olivia's Invention Workshop

That's Olivia in her invention workshop. It seems like a nice little playset for the inventing gal. It's got a workbench, a microscope, some tools, a vice, a blackboard, Olivia and her adorable robot pal. It's one of the smaller $9.99 sets. There seems to be a lot of them. It's got 81 parts, including one mini-doll, plus 7 extra small pieces. Lot of bigger medium azure parts in there and 5 of the 2x6 plates in light aqua. There's some white and a bit of pink but not too much. Over time I've managed to collect a nice pile of pink, in 2 or 3 shades. Someday I'll get that idea I've been waiting for and build something with it. Purple tools stand out on the work table. They might be good for some color greebling down the road. The blackboard is printed and that will come in handy. There's one of those flasks with the green inside. Olivia is pretty cute and she's been customized below by Mike The Builder. Extra cute, huh. I'm not that interested in that level of customization but I like to see it. I'm just happy to give the minifigs a different hat. I have a nice selection of hats. I built all the Friends sets I bought and brought them to the last TwinLUG meeting where we yakked about them for a while. Generally there were seen as fun and several people were buying them for the colors.

  

Friday Night Movies 357

We took a look at the 2011 Daniel Craig film Cowboys and Aliens. It's a genre bender of western and science fiction. Daniel wakes up in the middle of nowhere, he's lost his memory, and he's got a bad cut on his side. Some guys show up and figuring he might be wanted by the law decide to take him to town. Bad idea, soon Craig is wearing their clothes and taking their money. None of them will be needing anything they had. Harrison Ford is the rich dad of some young punk who's in town drinking for free, shooting stuff, and generally acting like a right asshole. Typical western characters dot the landscape. Sam Rockwell plays the store owner and he's a bit of a whimp. Daniel has a super hand weapon stuck on his arm and it surprises the hell out him the first time it gets used. Daniel goes to town and the ruckus starts. Turns out he's a wanted man who was part of a gang of robbers and murderers. Ford was robbed of some gold by them and Daniel stole it from the gang for his whore. Ironically she didn't want that blood money and as they discuss it in a flashback the ceiling bursts open and some aliens, on flying machines, kidnap the couple with shiny lite up lariats. The aliens have a nice big ship hidden in the mountains. Daniel manages to escape, we see it in his mind as he sees flashes of the tragic abduction where they bruned his wife to death after slicing her up. Some native Americans get involved with the fight. Turns out the aliens are on earth mining gold and if the rest of their race finds out about Earth they will be back in full force for an all out invasion. Don't worry, they won't get away with it if Daniel and Harrison can help it. There's a lot of nice western US scenery to feast your eyes on. I though the western part of the story is kind of weak but it is rather typical of that genre. The aliens are nothing special, they mostly yell and roar and slash. Not a great find but mostly entertaining. I debate getting a copy but it seems like a thing to watch from NetFlix.

Our second feature was the latest film in the Planet Of The Apes francise The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. James Franco plays an incredibly dumb scientist at a pharmaceutical company who creates a virus that will kill us all. What a fuckin' asshole, huh. He's just one of a gang of people that deserve to doom us for their actions. Brian Cox plays the jerky head of the animal shelter and Tom Felton plays one of the handlers in the rather depressing primate house. Tom is especially an asshole but he gets killed by Caesar for his cruel actions. All these people, and others, continually make the mistakes that give Caesar the intelligence, and need for vengence, to escape his cage and take his new tribe with him. There are some plot holes in the script and though I am normally somewhat forgiving these ones are face smackers. Like the scientists, who are studying Caesar's mothers blood but don't notice she's pregnant before they start pumping her full of the virus. When the project falls apart due to their stupidity and carelessness Franco takes newborn Caesar back to his place, even though it was supposed to be destroyed with the other animals, and it's just an all around bad idea. Jonathan Lithgow plays James's dad and he's got Alzheimer's. He's in sad shape but lucky for him the virus his son is working on is supposed to be a cure. Illegally, and foolishly, James puts the virus in his dad who gets better for a while. It helps revive the project and the virus is made stronger to work harder. That new virus can kill people but it only makes the animals smarter. Nothing worse than smart animals that are faster and stronger than humans. Even humans with guns. The apes escape from the top of the animal shelter which has a glass dome. The apes never think to escape through the glass until they have been made smarter. I'm not buying that at all. There are some other annoying things but really, who wants see some stupid people kill us off, it's depressing enough to have happen in real life. Not a movie I'd bother with again. I'd rather go watch the original movie. Some of the Apes movies that followed are pretty stinky but I haven't seen them in a while and haven't missed them.

What I Read In November 2011

The Mystery Of The Strange Letters by Enid Blyton is the 14th book in the 15 book series and it came out in 1957. I really like the cover to the Methuen 1st edition above. It's a scene from the book when the kids go to visit a guy who might know something about the cottage at the heart of the mystery. The cover on the left is to the German 1st edition. Nice drawing. I don't have either but that's ok, I have a copy that has a nice cover and digital copies of these two covers. All the usual kids are back at work as the Five Finder-Outers and as usual they are lead by Fatty. This time they are trying to figure out the mystery of the anonymous letters. Mr Goon is his usual dunderhead when he hands Fatty the whole bunch of them. Mr Goon's nephew Ern comes to work for him and nearly gets cheated out of his pay. Fatty helps him put Mr Goon to rights. That Mr Goon is a right old arse, one what needs a good boot in the nut sack. Goon also turns an old couple out of the place they are living. Don't worry, Fatty and the kids save them. The story moves along pretty quickly and the writing is about the same as the others in the series. I find them easy to read and humorous. They are definitely written for the young set and the mystery plots are simple and easy to guess.

The Mystery Of Banshee Tower by Enid Blyton is the last book and it came out in 1961. The Five  Find-Outers are on a biking trip to another nearby town. Mr Goon's nephew Ern is part of the group. They are visiting the Banshee Tower which has a screaming banshee every thursday afternoon. It's got a legend. Fatty believes it's fake but little Bets is worried. They find interesting paintings on display at the tower and the kids, especially Ern, really like the scenic paintings of the sea. So much so they return the next day. That's when they find a new mystery. A little boat is missing out the the painting when they see it again. You can see the kids looking at the paintings in the Methuen 1st edition cover above. That's the German 1st edition on the left. I really like that series of covers, very effective for a 2 color cover. There's doubt that the little boat was there but that eventually is worked out and the guilty parties are rounded up by Inspector Jenks. It's not as good a book as the other ones in the series. Poor Enid was near the end of her working career and she was developing dementia. It's got some of a good novel but it's lacking. The writing is not very inspiring and the plot skimpy. Many of her other books are much better. I'll still keep it and probably re-read it down the road. I'm sure these stories will seem more complicated once I get older and loose some mental might. Something to look forward to, huh? 

  

The Spirit Archive Vol 23 & 24 by Will Eisner are the last two volumes of the DC reprints of the orginal Spirit sections. Eisner himself barely worked on any of these stories. He was devoting his time to PS, The Preventitive Maintenance Monthly and other projects for his new company American Visuals Corporation. He'd started The Spirit in 1940. He went into the army in 1942 and left it to others for almost three years. After the war was over he was back to work on The Spirit and the first two to three years after his return are some of Eisner's best work. The sections were packed with peoples newspapers and at it's peak they were in 20 large newspapers with a total circulation of over 5 million. That's a lot of issues, you'd think they wouldn't be so expensive to buy now. By comparison the best selling comic ever, Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, was selling 3.5 million copies a month at it's peak. By 1950 The Spirit's market had shrunk and Eisner started looking for some new customers. Some of these stories are still pretty good but generally the books are lacking. The art isn't always the best except for a nice bit near the end. Eisner brought in Wally Wood to do a series of stories where The Spirit goes to the moon. There's some good Wally Wood art in there but it isn't that many stories. Soon the last sections would be printed and that would be it. DC is still doing Archives and I have one that reprints the daily newspaper strip that has the strips reprinted so small I can hardly read them. There's a couple of collections of the stories after that which collect the stories and comics that appeared after the sections stopped. I doubt I need those as I have most of the appearances in their natural form. Eisner would later do a lot of graphic novels and I have some of those but find them lacking in interest to me. The art is still nice and the stories are ok. Just not what I want to read. 

    

A Knot In The Grain by Robin McKinley is a collection of short stories. I didn't find them very much to my liking. I unfortunately have a stack of her books, bought on a recommendation of someone, that I got used with my nudie magazine money

The Fairy's Mistake by Gail Carson Levine is another of the series of small books that have adaptations of classic fairy tales. This one has two sisters who get spells put on them by a fairy. One has gems come out of her mouth and the other has bugs coming out of her mouth. That's the trouble with fairies, huh. Curse and a blessing all in one. The problems are solved pretty quickly. It's a short book. There were several and they were collected into one volume. I just picked that up at Half Price Books for cheap and will get around to it someday.

Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce is another young adult fantasy. It was one of the books that I picked up ages ago and am slowly working through. Not a keeper but ok. There are three more in the series that I have and will eventually read. Other better books keeping getting in the way.

All in all not very many books this month and only two of them are worth re-reading. December would be even worse for quantity but a couple of them were pretty darn good.

LEGO Minifig End Cap Display

   

A couple of the guys I found hanging out at the Target today.

LEGO Friends Store Displays

There are some nice displays for the LEGO Friends sets. This is one that I saw at Target. It's the end cap at the end of the aisle. The sets aren't in the LEGO aisle, they are being marketed in the girls section. That's nice for the girls, they don't have to put up with whiny boys in the LEGO aisle.

There's a nice display under the sign. There's a small car and a house. The house is on a turntable that lets the shopper see both the front and back of the house. The rooms come apart for separate playability. That's kind of neat but the set is pricey so I'm debating that one. Maybe on sale or clearance. I might get the car but not as likely. After seeing the Vet set at the TwinLUG meeting I want one of those.

   

That's the display at the Target up on the left. The stand on the right was at the TOYSRUS. Here's a closer look below. 

 

Science Fiction Sunday 165

I decided to revisit Red Dwarf for my early morning sunday viewings. There are a bunch of series but they are short ones, 6 or 8 episodes in each. The first series came out in 1988 and I know we saw it on PBS a year or so later. On and off for the next 21 years they did 7 more series and a 3 parter called Back To Earth. I had seen all of them, but the 3 parter, in the past. It's been quite a while and it seemed like the right time to spin those discs again. The dvd has all 6 episodes on one disc. There's a second disc of extras. The 4 main actors do a group commentary for each episode. In the first episode we find our anti-hero Dave Lister, played by Craig Charles, living in the mining ship Red Dwarf at the end of the 22nd century. He's a lowly food vending machine service man. He shares a bunk room with Arnold Rimmer, played by Chris Barrie, who does the same job but is a grade higher. Lister is the only one on the ship Rimmer out ranks and his petty nature won't let Dave forget it. Rimmer reports all the rules that Dave breaks and Dave breaks a lot of rules. His best violation was when he brought a cat into the ship while they were docked at Io. He gets caught but won't give up the cat. Dave's punishment is his salvation. While he's in stasis everyone is killed when the ships's drive fails and radiation escapes. It was Rimmer's fault but no one can punish him. Everyone's dead, 168 of the 169 crew. Dave, in stasis, survived just fine. The cat also survived but Dave doesn't know this when he's let out of stasis 3 million years later by Holly, the ship's computer, played by Norman Lovett. It's been a long lonely voyage for Holly, who's gone a bit around the bend. He creates a hologram of Rimmer as a companion for Dave. He claims it's the best choice to keep Dave sane but that's questionable. A better companion for Dave is the decendant of the cat he left in the hold 3 million years ago.

That's Craig Charles and Chris Barrie as Dave Lister and Arnold Judas Rimmer in the left picture. The second has Rimmer with Danny John-Jules as Cat. He's my favorite character. Danny's preformance is truely amazing and worth the price of the dvd alone. Once we get past introducing everyone in the first episode we get to the day to day living all alone in deep space. Holly sets the ship to go fast to earth and when they get to light speed they have some echo's of the future. There's lonelyness to deal with, Lister discovers he's the cat people's God, then he gets a mutated cold that causes his dreams to come out solid. The cat likes when it rains fish but no one likes when Lister's Paranoia and Confidence become human. Rimmer gets a duplicate hologram of himself to room with and that turns out pretty awful for him. Lister, Holly, and the cat have a laugh.

      

The episodes are filled with jokes and complicated bits of writing. The dialog is funny and often rude, there's a certain amount of slapstick. These aren't guys who care for each other and they don't hold back on the comments. The reality of the concept is the last man in space, all alone, far from home, no chance of getting laid. I wouldn't want to watch the serious version of that as much as the fun version. I've seen these episodes several times since they were new and they still make me laugh. Can't do better than that.    

LEGO Postage Contest Display

That was the window at the LEGO Store in the Mall Of America about 2 weeks ago. It was for the Design Your Own Postage Stamp Contest. Nothing too special. Here are some closer shots.

Friday Night Movies 356

The Whisperer In The Darkness is the second film from The H P Lovecraft Historical Society. The first was 4-5 years ago and it was much shorter. This is a nicely produced well made B&W feature that doesn't fit the fake made in the past hook they are using. It looks too nice and there is all the obvious CGI. They sort of follow the Lovecraft story but add a radio debate with real life Charles Fort. It's sort of entertaining. Near the end they add an action scene that wouldn't be in a Lovecraft story. An ariel dogfight between a biplane and the flying alien creatures. They introduce a little girl jut so they can kill off in the chase scene. It's kind of dull at times but the core of the story isn't too bad. Not worth a buy for me, others might like it more. The Naked Monster on the other hand is something I might pick up even though it's sort of terrible. It's a low-low-budget film that took 20 years to make. Ted Newsome produced, wrote and co-directed the monster movie parody with Wayne Berwick. They started back in 1984 and created a vhs release called The Attack Of The B-Movie Monster. Years later Newsom added a lot of stock footage to to the movie for the dvd. It's gone out of print but you can still find it on Amazon. 

 

There's a monster sighted and the sheriff goes to see the only guy he knows of who fought a monster before. Kenneth Tobey plays the retired military guy, Brink Stevens plays the sheriff's scientist girlfriend, and John Goodwin plays the government agent who comes to check out the monster. There are a wealth of character actors as guest stars, most of who were in the monster movies this thing parodies, and it was fun to see them. There are a lot of jokes and bits of material that reference the genre. As fans I think we were more interested in seeing the movie than someone who might stumble across it but if you like those old 50's low budget monster movies this might be for you. Some of the jokes are lame and some are fun. The mosnter is a hoot, large and green with three eyes. Goofy stuff happens but the human's get through it. There some gratuitous nudity with a shower scene from Brink, a topless scene with fan favorite Linnea Quigley, and some other random bits with a woman who's got a terrible boob job. You might like it, you never know.

3931 Emma's Splash Pool

Here's the second of the smaller sets. 3931 has Emma chillin' in her little pool. It's priced at $5.99 for 43 pieces. Bricklink tells me you get three extra parts and one of them is another of those bright light orange round 1x1 plates with knobs on. You get three of them in the set. For some reason I like those parts but I don't always have a use for them. For all the comments on the internet about all the pink in these sets I don't see that much in this one. Only 9 of the parts are pink, which is the same number as there are of the lime parts. I read somewhere that little boys test well with lime, they like the bright colors. White parts number 8 and the rest are mostly a bunch of one of's. I do like the medium azure macaroni brick. You get 4 but that's not many to do anything of a larger scale with. Gives you a reason to go buy some on Bricklink.

I starting to build a large space diorama and the odd colors are planning to find their way into it. Beside the knobby round plate there are 3 bright pink tiles, 5 lime tiles and that lime disc. Good for adding a bit of color to some scene etc. I was at the LEGO store there and they say the sets are selling briskly and people are excited about them. I'm still sold on their cute gals. They are going to be in the space diorama I'm working on. Not sure where yet.

Mostly a nice little set. I don't think I'd need more than one or them.