Latitude Zero (1969)

never saw this growing up.  my cousins in West Virginia did, since he told me about the gloves that shot lasers and various other gizmos.  I knew of it from the pictures in FM #114, of course, but had no idea it was such a fun movie.

The Flash and Batman

one of the fun things about The Brave and the Bold cartoon was that you usually got two stories- the first one a little mop up of a case, and then the main story. so you could get anywhere from 2-6 heroes in one cartoon. gotta love that that! another cool thing is they used a lot of different heroes for the show. many were ones I didn't always love in the comics, but for a half hour they were good. and of course my beloved Metal Men finally got animated. man they would have been perfect for a 60s Filmation show.

El Baron Brakola (1967)

here's a fun Santo movie, which involves a flashback to his ancestor fighting this dreaded Baron Brakola.  I've only seen this once, but now I have a subtitled version to watch.  it was fun en Espanol, so I look forward to actually understanding it completely now.  not that it's very difficult to do in the first place, but you gotta love the internet and good fans who provide English subtitles for such movies.

VALLEY OF GWANGI Documentary

as has been noted many times before this is one of my favorite dinosaur movies, and possibly my second favorite Harryhausen movie.  this is a pretty cool little featurette on the movie itself. it's nice to see just how the effects are done. just a very entertaining movie, it's unfortunate someone at Warners seems to hate it. the score is really quite good as well. now I think I need to watch this movie again. it's still amazing that this was all done with one artist.

Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies

much in a similar vein of "Bruce Lee and Kung Fu Mania" this DVD set was originally a VHS tape that cost $10.  I never actually owned the tape, but I had "Grandpa's Sci-Fi Hits" which had several of the same trailers on it.  at least this one didn't have Grandpa saying ridiculous lines between the trailers.

Drunken Master Trailer

this trailer is rather funny with it's English translations. they've translated "Immortal" as "Fairy" which isn't quite right. still, the trailer gives you a rather good idea of just what you'll get in the movie, which is still one of Jackie Chan's best movies. lots of fight scenes and humor.

Bruce Lee and Kung Fu Mania

remember when this came out on VHS?  for a whole $10 you got a tiny "where did martial arts come from" doc, a behind the scenes of "Enter the Dragon and then about an hour of kung fu trailers.  it was really great.

Ship of Monsters (1959)

I'd seen pictures of this movie, and had the movie on VHS (in Spanish only) for several years, but never got around to watching it. due to some great fans, I got a subtitled copy and it was REALLY enjoyable! it's a weird little movie, but danged if it wasn't more fun than I would have thought. in fact, I think I need to watch it again.

Despicable Me take 2

(this is a first for me, a guest column!  this was written by Liberty Belle and is much better than my paltry attempt. it's so good it doesn't even need pictures, though of course I added one of the minions.  all kudos to her!)

Despicable Me
by Liberty Belle

Why do I love thee so?

Haven’t actually watched the movie in probably a year.  I have it so committed to heart that I didn’t think I missed it, until I loaned it to a friend.

Amazing one-liners like Agnes’ “its so fluffy!!!” Or the multitude of Gru’s snarky comebacks just make me smile.  I first saw Despicable Me on Christmas Eve during a particularly depressing holiday season, and for some reason it pulled me out the doldrums. 

Despicable Me (2010)

Gru is a super villain.  nothing too unusual about this, as super villains are pretty common.  he has unusual minions, but he mostly steals things.  I'm not sure what he does with them afterward, because stealing them without ransom makes you no money. unfortunately, his most amazing weapon is a "freeze ray" which would come in handy for me at times.

Despicable Me - Trailer

OK, I know this is a 2010 movie, and of course I'm behind the times. but I watched it today and it's really a lot of fun. here's the trailer to enjoy before the review shows up sometime in the near future. let's just say minions rule. without them in the movie it wouldn't be nearly as funny as it is.

Kamen Rider Live 2000

I can't believe it's been 13 years since this was released.  how does the time go so fast?  and now there's a lot more Kamen Rider songs out there.  I think I've seen that this sort of show has been put on again in 2004, and maybe there were some others done with the other great superhero songs that aren't Rider related.  that I don't know about, and haven't seen anything related to them, so your guess is as good as mine.  the most fun part of the whole thing is the stage show, with Riders 1,2 and V3 showing up to battle the minions of Shocker.  more on that in a moment.

The Batmobile ...The Movie

this is one of the coolest cars ever to have been put on television. it blows away any other version of the Batmobile ever filmed for in live action as well. since I just read that it sold for $4.2 million dollars, I thought I'd like to see it in action. and here someone thoughtfully gathered up all the great bits from the TV series and put it into one ten minute video.

JLA: Twilight (27, 28)

 

Darkseid has been thoroughly defeated and humiliated by High Father and the New Gods.  just like the loser that he is, of course.  he now has another problem, Brainiac has shown up to assimilate Apokolips into his system.  this causes Darkseid to go to the JLA and ask for help.  this doesn't sit well with Superman, but he goes along with the majority.

The Aquabats Super Show Episode 2 preview

man, this would have been a great show to watch as a kid, since it's great to watch as an adult! it's funny and full of cool things to watch, including monsters. the monsters are sometimes in men in suits and sometimes have been stop-motion. there is also usually some really cool music in there as well.

Kamen Rider ZO

I'm watching this again thanks to Mr Owari asking about it, and it's kind of an interesting movie.  it's got such a wide variety of effects in it, which is really cool.  there's the suits, the full size puppets, rudimentary CGI and then some really cool stop-motion for the spider-woman seen here.

Kamen Rider ZO Theatrical Trailer

back when this was released, it was so cool to see these trailers. well, sort of cool. this showed two current tv shows as well, DaiRanger and Janperson in their theatrical movies. probably all three were a total of two hours. not a bad way to spend the afternoon.

Avengers #41

"Let Sleeping Dragons Lie!"

writer:   Roy Thomas
penciller: John Buscema
inker: George Bell
letterer: Artie Simek

our take opens with the Avengers and Hercules working out.  Hercules is melancholy and this leads to some slight personality interaction with Hawkeye.  both of them stalk off to leave Wanda on monitor duty.

meanwhile, the Black Widow returns to  China, only to find out they don't think she's actually returned to "their" side.  she gets locked into the dreaded Psychotron because they are rightfully suspicious of her return.

Space Kidettes intro

I have never seen an entire episode of the Space Kidettes. in fact, this may be the first time I've ever seen the intro. I saw images of them growing up, and was always intrigued by them, but for whatever reason the show never aired in my area. it's got many of the classic voices and sound effects for Hanna-Barbera. I probably would have enjoyed it as a kid.

Ghidrah, the Three Headed Monster

this is really one of my favorite Godzilla movies.  part of that is due to the fact that I had one of the 8mm comp versions back in the 70s (it was the first one I ever owned) and I got to see Godzilla battle Rodan many times.  I've written about it before in the blog, so go search if you are interested!  but now, with great DVDs (and even better fan done versions) you can see so much more of the good stuff.

Shazzan intro

I'm kind of in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon hero mood these days, so here's another intro that hasn't been posted here yet, though I have talked about Shazzan quite a bit. I think I've said I knew of this word/hero long before I ever heard the magic word "Shazam" (and lora mercy, the stupid idea of calling Captain Marvel that... I'm sure there's a rant about that in here some time).

Herculoids!

I can't believe there's only one other post about the Herculoids in the six year run of the blog.  how is that possible, since I love this show so much?  the characters are great, the designs of the heroes are great, many of the designs of the villains are great (some are clunkers though, like Mekkano) and the intro is pretty darn cool.

Bad Street - The Freebirds

man, I hated the Fabulous Freebirds back in the day. they were SO good as heels that even being "smart" I hated them. heck, when they turned face in the UWF during it's final days I still hated them and wanted to cheer Devastation, Inc. when I went to Atlanta, GA, I did tell the young lady I was with we should watch out for "Badstreet" but she didn't understand.

Godzilla vs the Producers

my pal August reported this, and it's very interesting.  I'm one of those few people who don't think "Legendary" lives up to it's name at all, so it's not any kind of big news to me at all.

Spy Smasher on JLU

here's how many people know Spy Smasher from- his cameo on the most excellent JLU cartoon. it's a great little set up, and sort of makes sense in that timeline (though they aren't so worried about continuity, and rightfully so) since the Blackhawks exist in WWII, which not some of the Fawcett heroes as well?

Spy Smasher (1942)

I owned this serial for quite a few years now and have never watched it.  I used to do an episode by episode report about serials back on my old board (wow, does that bring back memories) but I found myself not being able to watch the serial as much as I liked, so it, along with the message board itself, fell by the wayside.  seems like most message boards have fallen away, but that's a topic for another day, I reckon.

so I started watching the serial today, and wow, it's just as great as people have said.  it's also really true to the comic book, for the most part.  they added a twin brother and took away the Gyrosub, but other than that, the rest, even the villain the Mask, are right from the comic book. 

Ramones - Spider-Man

here's the version of the song I usually end my sets with now. I keep trying to sing it the original way while playing Ramones music. I think I need to play along with this version more. and sing it as well. it's always a big hit with the crowd, and the regulars start yelling for it almost as soon as I get up to the stage.