Conan the Barbarian is nowhere near as good as Conan the Barbarian, though Conan the Barbarian is better than Conan the Barbarian at being Conan the Barbarian.
Got that?
Let me further break it down for you. Continue reading
Category Archives: Movies & TV
Books and Wonderful (You MUST See This)
As a devoted fan of Buster Keaton, books, and the amazing William Joyce, I have to say The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore may just be the most wonderful short film I have ever seen. It’s currently up for an Academy Award.
You need to see this, probably over and over…
Well, Blow Me Down!!!
Here in the Byrdcave, we’re old fans of Popeye. Not only did I watch the old cartoons countless times growing up, my son and I have each given Popeye gifts to each other. He gave me Warner Brothers’ awesome remastered collections of the classic Fleischer cartoons of the 1930s (which are wonderful, and far better than the later productions which kinda sucked); I have been giving him Fantagraphics’ gorgeous hardbacks collecting the original E.C. Segar comic strips as they come out.
Wilco, in cooperation with King Features Syndicate, has brought us the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon in over three decades:
I hope Popeye rebounds by hooking up with Betty Boop.
If you never saw them, or need a reminder, or it’s just been too long, here’s one of the Fleischer classics, from 1936, in amazing quality:
And for bonus giggles, here’s a commercial featuring Popeye and Bluto that drove right wingers crazy when it aired:
UPDATE: Of course, now that I think about it, if we watch the Fleischer first, then the Wilco, then the Minute Maid cartoon, maybe we’re actually getting the full story of Popeye’s romantic life…
The Comedy of Terrors
For your Halloween consideration…
This classic horror comedy stars Vincent Price as a conniving undertaker who resorts to murder to drum up business. Peter Lorre is his bumbling, soft-hearted assistant, Boris Karloff his senile father-in-law, and Basil Rathbone his hardnosed landlord-turned-victim. Directed by Jacques Tourneur, with a brilliant script by horror great Richard Matheson, this is the sort of film Abbott and Costello might have made had they been into Shakespeare and worked for Hammer Films. Very smart, wonderfully entertaining, and family-friendly; we watch it every year.
You can watch it streaming on Netflix, or rent it on Amazon for $2.99.
Happy Hallowe’en (and the Song of the Week, 10/31/2011)
Halloween/Samhain has always been my favorite holiday. To celebrate, here’s Springsteen channeling the raging ghost of Howlin’ Wolf with a perfect Halloween song…
For the interested, here are some posts from back in my blog somewheres related to Halloweeny goodness…
5 Classic Horror Flicks to Goose Your Bumps
…for those who might like to watch something scary and good, I figured I’d throw you a few bones. Collect ‘em all and you can build a skeleton.
These are just five classics, not my all time favorites or anything with that much thought behind it, not in any particular order. All of them are first rate.
5 New Classic Horror Flicks You Might Have Missed
Some more contemporary works that many people haven’t seen, and everybody who loves a good scare needs to.
Saturday Night With Cthulhu
Sebastian’s Voodoo (A Great Short Film)
A wonderful short animated film by UCLA student Joaquin Baldwin. It’s visually amazing, and the story is very moving.
“The Show Is Over” by Nora Keyes
Last Halloween’s Song of the Week, Nora Keyes gettin’ her serious creep on.
Two-Fisted Flickage (My Latest IMJ Pulp Column)
My latest column at Inveterate Media Junkies is up. It’s part 2 of my look at pulp adventure films.
Two-Fisted Flickage (Pulp On The Big Screen, Part 2)
And if you missed part 1 or earlier columns:
If Adventure Has A Name… (My Latest IMJ Pulp Column)
He knows.
My latest column on pulp adventure is up at Inveterate Media Junkies. This month I’m discussing pulp movies.
If Adventure Has A Name (Pulp On The Big Screen)
And if you missed the earlier columns:
My Pulp Pit Column at IMJ Returns! Pulp Pit #2: “I Am Not Doc Savage”
After many travails, my second column at Inveterate Media Junkies is now finally online:
MONSTERS!
These old monster movies are so much a part of me that they’re integral threads of my creative DNA. So I love this…
Incredible Beauty
This footage of the natural world by Terje Sorgjerd is one of the most beautiful and genuinely awe-inspiring things I’ve ever seen. (Thanks to Angel Leigh McCoy)
Camelot…Where They Sing From The Diaphragm A Lot… [Updated]
I watched the first episode of Starz’s Camelot series today (it debuts tomorrow evening, but I’m magic).
I had no interest in it until yesterday, when it came to my attention that Eva Green was playing Morgan le Fey in it.
Eva Green.
As Morgana.
That said to me that someone, at least, had a clue.
So I checked it out. Watched about half of it, and had an “eh” reaction. The direction was sorta crap, especially at the very beginning. It was TV fantasy, not fantasy fantasy, with some really bad editing choices and “dramatic” camera angles that annoyed the hell out of me.
The guy playing Arthur was sorta callow and Teen-Beat. Eva Green was hot and intense (which are two things she can’t help but be, because she is, after all, Eva Green), but Morgan wasn’t that interesting. Joseph Fiennes was an intriguing Merlin, though…
Then it started coming together. The first half, I figured I’d never watch it again. The second half bought them the next episode at least.
Morgan’s conniving got more interesting. The callow young Arthur pulled out a spine, and the writers established him as an underdog in very interesting ways. Camelot itself was a revelation, an ancient Roman fortress abandoned and lost to wildness before being reclaimed by the new king. And Merlin got more and more charismatic and intriguing.
So, yeah. Check it out. It has promise.
I’m looking forward to seeing more direct conflict between Merlin and Morgan, myself…
[UPDATE: Upon further reflection, I just lack interest in this show. I think I may have been trying to convince myself just to look at Eva Green every week. But I haven't watched it since.]
Pulp Hero Spotlight: The Shadow
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men…?
Introducing My New Monthly Column on Pulp Adventure: The Pulp Pit
A Typical Pulp Hero...
As I mentioned in the Song of the Week post yesterday, I have a new monthly column over at Inveterate Media Junkies. The first installment is now live and you can read it here:
The column is called “The Pulp Pit,” and as you might deduce, its subject is pulp. I’ll be covering whatever pulpy topics tickle my muse (or maybe cuddle my muse, since she’s not that fond of tickling), pointing out cool pulp stuff for people to enjoy, and reviewing books, comics, movies, games, TV shows, and whatever else as appropriate.
For those with possible review materials they think might be on-topic for a pulp column, please drop me a line at thepulppit at gmail.com (just connect the two parts up with an @). I’m interested in any sort of pulpish media, old or new. I don’t want people just sending me things that stack up and I never get to, as that costs you money and both of us time. So tell me what it is, and if I think it’s something I might actually make time to read/watch/play/etc., I’ll tell you how to send it to me.
Regular readers of this blog might have noticed a recent password-protected entry titled I Am Doc Savage (Pulp Pit # 1). Two weeks after a column appears on IMJ, I’ll remove the password and make the post public, so it’s available to readers here.
Cliffhanger Music (Song of the Week, 3/21/2011)
To commemorate my new monthly column on pulp, which debuts today at Inveterate Media Junkies, here’s John Williams’s perfect cliffhanger background music from Raiders of the Lost Ark…
And as a bonus, here’s Taylor Dayne’s “Original Sin,” the Jim “I Wrote All Meat Loaf’s Best Songs” Steinman creation used for the Alec Baldwin version of The Shadow…
The Real Chuck Norris Is So Chuck Norris… (UPDATED)
…I’d never let him in my house.
Chuck Norris is a tool. He’s a bad actor and an over-the-hill karate instructor and a particularly idiotic political commentator.
The jokes about him are often funny, but they aggrandize a man who should be allowed to wither in obscurity without the eyes of the world upon him. Granted the aggrandizement is largely ironic, but Norris is such a nitwit I’m sure he takes it all in as evidence of his place of respect in the world.
Back in May 2009, I took it upon myself to spend the day tossing out Facebook statuses which were Chuck Norris jokes that more properly belittled him. Offered below, for posterity, are my creations. I invite you to add more in the comments.
It’s a worthy cause. Continue reading
Hot Kunoichi* Action (*ninja chick)
…and Jennifer Garner was cast as Elektra why, exactly?
Not to dis Garner, who’s very talented and hot and actually quite good in action roles…but c’mon…
Black Widow Gone Wild (stop motion short)
In honor of hot red heads…
Mark Twain’s Prayer
An artful short film of one of Mark Twain’s short stories.
This, too, thanks to Kate for sharing…
Look! Up In The Sky!
An incredible short, hand-animated by Robb Pratt, full of supery goodness. I love it, particularly his take on Lois Lane.
And if you like that, and aren’t familiar with the classic Fleischer Bros. Superman cartoons from the ’40s, check this out:
Of Forests and Men
There is some spectacular and gorgeous footage of forests in this video. Which is apropos, as it’s about forests.
Thanks to the lovely Kate for sharing this…
Yann Arthus-Bertrand was appointed by the United Nations to produce the official film for the International Year of Forests.
Following the success of Home which was seen by 400 million people, the photographer began producing a short 7-minute film on forests made up of aerial images from Home and the Vu du Ciel television programmes.
This film will be shown during a plenary session of the Ninth Session of United Nations Forum on Forests (24 January – 4 February 2011) in New York. It will be available to all from February 2 – for free – so that it can be shown worldwide.
