Force Five (1981)

Anyone else remember this US made martial arts flick?  It's been ages since I have seen it on a videotape rental,and I'm only about ten minutes into it, but it seems like it will be as fun as I remember it to be.  It was on whatever Siskel and Ebert's show was back then, and I think they both enjoyed it for what it was.  At least Roger did, as I remember him talking about the traditional sounds the kicks and punches made in the movie.

RIP Lemmy and Motörhead

Lemmy Kilmister, bassist and singer for the metal band Motörhead passed away today of an "aggressive cancer". I know he had been failing for a while now, as reports of his health were all around the internet. It's a sad day, as he played the music he liked, never caring much about mainstream commercial success.

more on Xenorama #19

Since I'm adding this here fine movie to Xenorama #19 I figured we needed a few frame grabs to go along with it, and so here we have them.  There are so many cool shots in the movie that using only a few is hard to do, but I narrowed it down to some really cool shots.  I left out most of the ones that had been seen before, and all of the cutesy nonsense with Gepetto and the Blue Fairy, because zzzzzzz, of course.  What we want to see is monsters and aliens, right?  That's what I thought!

Star Trek "Balance of Terror"

I really hate original versions of movies being fiddled about with with CG these days.  I mean, as long as the originals are around to watch I really don't care about "special editions" whether they are colorized or have extra scenes or "improved" effects.  But since these new versions of Star Trek are the only episodes shown now I haven't watched them in a long time.  I just cant support these alterations.  I have really missed this show, though.

Kamen Rider Stronger

This is one series I never thought I'd like much, but it turns out to be one of my favorite of the first five original series.  It was the "last" of those and it wraps up the series quite nicely, and there's a lot of emotion in it as well.  Once I had learned more of the background to the show I really wanted to see it in a subtitled form.  Thanks to the fine people at KIT Subs they have the entire run done now.  It's taken a while, but since they are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, one would really have to be a jerk to complain about it.

Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take it

I was reminded of this song (and video) today from an experience a few years ago at a bar. It's one of the better hair metal songs of the time, and the video is pretty funny, though that got the band in some hot water later on. Parents seemed to think a metal show would be family friendly for some reason after this video.

Mightor vs Devil Dinosaur

I just got the Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor DVD set from Amazon the other day, and like all their Hanna-Barbera shows it looks great.  I think the only other classic superhero cartoon I don't have is Samson and Goliath, but as I don't want the Space Kidettes I think I'm stuck with my DVDrs that I made, at least for the time being.  Oh, I'd also like the Three Musketeers and the Arabian Knights from the Banana Splits show, but I haven't seen those available yet.  And yes, all I want are the cartoons, not the nonsense of the live action parts, thank you very much.

Great Mazinger Opening

The opening theme songs to several Super Robot series are just astounding. Great Mazinga has one of them. I think I may like it more than Mazinga Z's theme, in fact. I love most everything about Great Mazinga, and think the design is actually better than Z's as well. I do think Z is the better series, mostly due to the cast and Koji Kabuto himself.

Marine Boy in three DVD sets

I finally got Marine Boy "season" 2 yesterday, which means I now have all 78 episodes in three DVD sets and all in amazing quality.  I'm amazed (and happy) that these three sets take up less room than two standard VHS tapes, since I hauled around about 16 of those tapes (in cases) for years and I can carry these three sets in one hand.  Even when I had the DVDrs of the show it was 16 of them and they still took up a lot more room than these do.  I am really pleased that Warner Home Video decided to release all three "seasons".

Yoda, by Weird Al

I'm not excited by the new Star Wars movie today. Being burned by four movies and a TV special, I have no desire to see it, nor do I have any reason to give JJ Abrams any money at all. But I do love Star Wars and really enjoy Empire, so don't get me wrong about that. And this song is one of my favorites, which proves more prescient than ever now...

Three Fantastic Supermen (1967)

I am thankful the days of murky nth generation VHS tapes are gone, and you can find fan dubs (and subs) of wonderful movies that were enjoyable yet barely watchable due to the quality of said tapes.  This happens to be one of them, the first in a series of several movies starring the same costumes if not all the same actors.   I'd never even heard of it until the mid-90s and then got to see this plus several of the sequels, most of which I don't remember much at all.

Heat Miser & Snow Miser

Since this snow is piling up outside I figured this was an appropriate song for the day. So many of those Rankin-Bass shows had incredibly catchy songs that stick with you long after the show is over. This is just one example. And it's no secret which Miser would be my friend.

Ultraman Great

I recently watched the compilation Ultraman Great movie and quite enjoyed it.  It's called Ultraman: The Alien Invasion and it's taken from the first six episodes of the Ultraman: Towards the Future series  It does a decent job of condensing the story into a coherent whole and still giving us plenty of monster and hero action throughout it's 95 minute or so run time.  They did wisely leave out the Tasmanian Devil episode altogether.  It's a decent episode, but there's really no way you can see it and not think that monster is related to Bugs Bunny's rather dimwitted foil.

The new Godzilla

So this poster is out, along with a thirty second teaser trailer. I'm not impressed.  While it looks way better than either US version, it's not that much compared to the original Japanese ones.  Still, it's just a head shot so the rest of the suit could help improve my thoughts of it.  I don't care much for the tiny eyes at all, nor the crocodile mouth, but again, it's a vast improvement over GINO or Bearzilla.  I'm still hoping it's going to be a suit augmented by some slight CGI, it seems to be the case (as has been reported elsewhere (thanks August!).  As far as "greatest, worst nightmare", well mine is another boring movie like the last two, which is something the world never needs from Godzilla movies.

Microman montage

This is a montage of Microman/Micronauts commercials set to a catchy theme song. Man, I sure wish this had been a TV show done in this style from back then. I think I've seen a cartoon version that might have been made, but it's been so long I don't remember. It sure is an exciting and well done promo for these cool toys.

Tin Tin and the Golden Fleece

I've been watching this fun film for while now, off and on.  I wasn't very familiar with the character, other than knowing he is immensely popular in  Europe.  I have done a bit of research on the comic it's based on so I would know a few of the characters.  This is one of the first movies to feature the character.  I never saw the recent US movie, since I didn't hear much good about it, why bother?  Probably might be worth a rental, or a couple hours off Netflix at some point, but I've quite enjoyed this movie as I've meandered my way through it.

Amazing 3

Here's the English opening and closing of a cartoon that I'd never heard of until the mid-90s. I got a VHS tape of four episodes and it's pretty fun. I'd like to see some more episodes, since that tape has long since disappeared. The quality, as one might expect, was not very good, though back then you didn't mind so much.

Chinese Hercules (1973)

This is an interesting movie.  Yang Sze is not the hero, so the villain gets top billing here.  He is easily one of the most recognizable Chinese martial artists ever, possibly just under Bruce, Jet and Jackie.  He appeared in tons of films in this time period, and I believe he was always cast as a villain until late in his career.  I wonder if it was his idea to adopt the name "Bolo" from Enter the Dragon since he's almost always called that in his movies.  Heck, he even made into the fun Fight! Dragon series, which features him in the opening.  I need to finish watching that show.

Phenomenauts: Science and Honor

I discovered this band around the same time as I did with the Aquabats, and they share many of the same attributes, science fiction, superheroes who love the Earth and the like. This is one of my favorite songs of theirs, "Science and Honor". It's a good code to live by.

JLA: Crisis On Two Earths

I recently re-watched this movie (this time on blu-ray) and I liked it a lot more this time than I did before, five years ago.  It helps knowing it was supposed to be a bridge between the JLA/JLU series.  I still wish that they had been able to use the voices and character designs from that most excellent series, but this is not bad at all.  The story flows well and the acting is good.  It is nice to see Hal there, with the League, so I definitely approve of that.

Young Justice: Invasion

This is the second season of this fun series. It takes place five years after the first season, which is an interesting idea in theory, but I know I would rather have seen the characters grow and find out just why things happened, though by episode 5 they have explained how some things happened and why.  It does work, but I would rather have had five more seasons of the show to watch rather than this sort of thing.  

The end of Newhart

Ever notice how most series finales are kind of disappointing? I think it's because expectations of said endings are far too high and most shows just don't know how to send off beloved characters. I can think of two shows that did it in an amazing way- MASH and this show- Newhart.

Star Wars 4.5 "We Should Have Known"

Imagine being a kid in 1978 and waiting very impatiently for the sequel to Star Wars to be released.  Characters from the film have been everywhere, from Mark Hamill hosting the Muppet Show (excellent, I mean, Darth Gonzo rules) to Darth Vader showing up on two different Saturday morning preview shows the same night.  For younger viewers, those were specials the networks aired so you would know which cartoons to avoid the following Saturday morning.  There really was nothing like this phenomenon that had been seen since the Beatles.

This Is Radio Clash

The first time I heard this song I really didn't care much for it. It was only years later that I realized how brilliant it actually was. Of course, once I read up more about the Clash I was even more impressed with "The Only Band That Matters" and what they accomplished in their short time together.

Rage of the Master (197x)

So far this is the best movie I've seen from that pack of "Bruce Lee" movies.  It's a Wang Yu vehicle, and since I like almost all of his movies that I've seen, it should come as no surprise that I quite enjoyed this one as well.  I'm not exactly sure when this movie was made, as I've seen several years listed, mostly 1972 or 1975, so I'll leave it for people who know more than I to figure it out.  It looks like it was a mid-70s film to me, and the dub sounds a bit different than earlier movies.  It's a pretty good dub, with the actor voicing Wang Yu's character Tiger actually sounding pretty emotional at times.

GAMERA: Guardian of The Universe

I recently watched the first two movies in the new Gamera series and it dawns on me I've never reviewed them. Mostly because they've been reviewed by plenty of people already, most gushing praise all over them. But since my writing career has inexplicably become entwined with the titanic terrapin, I'll review them in the near future.

Consume Star Wars, OBEY

I saw this online somewhere.  I have no idea who created it, but it sure is a clever and pointed crossing of two movie worlds.  I'm not a huge fan of the movie They Live, but I did enjoy it quite a bit.  It's one of those movies that actually deserves the cult label attached to it, since it still isn't that well known beyond fan circles.  I do recommend seeing it, it's very good and still has a sharp point to make especially in these times.  Plus you get to see the late Roddy Piper in action.  He gets the best lines and delivers them well.  Most people know the famous "bubble gum" line by heart, even if they don't know where it comes from.

"Kolchak: The Night Stalker"

I'm watching this show again, after having the DVD set for about 8 years and watching them once before. There are only 20 episodes, which is a shame, since it's quite a good show. I watched most of the episodes when it was first run and they were really scary then.

Ultra Seven vs a Face Hugger

 Tell me that alien doesn't look like one of the "facehuggers" from the Alien franchise of movies.  This is from the fifth episode of Ultra Seven called "The Lost Hours" (or "The Stolen Hours") and it was the first episode of this excellent show I ever saw.  I got it on a VHS tape that had a variety of several other Ultra shows on it.  It wasn't subbed and it's not one of the more exciting episodes that way, but seeing it with subs is pretty cool.  I thought even in 1989 that the Villa aliens looked like the early stage Alien creatures, but trying to get the tape cued up to the right spot could be a pain back then.

7 Faces of Dr. Lao

Now that I'm back online I have some things to catch up on. I got to watch a lot of TCM movies while I was in the hospital last year, and this is one of the movies that was on. Of course, I didn't see every minute of each movie, since I'd drift in and out of consciousness. Still, I'm going to be posting a few of the trailers that I remember from that time period.

what's this?

Whilst perusing a certain DVD for a rewrite for the next issue of Xenorama I saw this page from the book used in Equinox.  It's the page that tells our heroes how to protect themselves from the demons that can be conjured up from the book.  I remembered it even from the first time I saw the movie and thought it looked really cool with all various symbols (my love of the ankh started with Doctor Fate, and he could have easily handled this book and the demons had he been around) but I never really noticed the characters.

RIP Nick Bockwinkel

Nick passed away earlier today.  As I was in the AWA territory until it passed away, I saw a lot of Nick on TV, though I only ever saw him wrestle once or twice, and that was after his face turn against Larry Zbyszco, which led to one of the most memorable little old lady quotes I've ever heard "I hope that Zbyszco gets the shit stomped out of him!".  I never realized how great Nick was back then, which makes me sad, as I would have gone to loads more matches back then.

Mask of the Phantasm

Is this Batman cartoon movie considered canon?  I've never seen it referenced in the series at all, but that doesn't mean much.  Besides, if Diana of Themyscaria is after you, you really don't have a chance.  I hadn't watched this movie in years, but while I was without internets and going through my movies I thought I should.  It's quite good, but I sure have some questions and comments about the story and the negligible effect it actually had on the DC Cartoon Universe.

Spectre (1977)

This is one of several pilots from Gene Roddenberry that never made it to series stage. I've enjoyed most of them, but this one holds up really well.

61 years of Godzilla

This really does happen every year, and it's always something to remember for me.  Godzilla has been in my life since about 1970 or so, and even when there have been no new movies or even useless American remakes he's always been there, in some form.  Godzilla vs Megalon was the first Godzilla movie I ever bought on VHS, even though it was a really bad edit and not a great picture I was happy to have it, since it was a movie I loved so much.   

Snake-Crane Secret

That Tan Tao-liang sure can kick.  I'm always impressed at how great his legwork looks in every movie I've seen him in.  There's speed, precision and power all at once.  By all rights he should have been a major star world wide, not just in Asia.  He's also a pretty good actor as well, to help out with his roles.  He also has some great charisma, knowing exactly what to do and when to do it to get a good reaction from his audience.  This certainly isn't his best movie, but he does get to play a hero here which is always fun to see.

Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster

We'll end our #31daysofscares with these trailers for the second Godzilla movie I ever saw. I had no problem accepting this flying heroic Godzilla, even after seeing the delightfully villainous Godzilla of KING KONG VS GODZILLA maybe a year and a half before. I'd also seen the amazing US poster which is really scary at age seven.

Robot Monster

I love this movie. I don't know why, since it's one of the most ridiculous things ever committed to celluloid. It's not great science fiction, but it's accidentally hilarious and completely entertaining. It's short running time probably helps as well.

Curse of the Demon

I never saw this movie growing up, and sometimes I'm glad of that, since I know this would have scared the hell out of me as a kid. It would have made me laugh and hide all at the same time, it is that good and that terrifying.

Destroy All Monsters

Normally I do this one ON Hallowe'en, but since I'm watching the movie right now on an amazing looking blu ray DVD (it's the rare one commentary, yes, it's just a little bit superior) so of course I'm watching the AIP dub. I sure wish I had seen this as a kid in the theater, but this much awesome would have probably destroyed my mind at that time.

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

Almost forgot to put a Harryhausen movie in here, and since I've never shown this trailer before, here it is! It's a good trailer, but the movie doesn't quite live up to the premise. To be fair, that is a daunting task and the movie is good enough to forgive the trailer's hyperbole.

It Came From Outer Space

I thought that was Rod Serling at the beginning of this trailer. It's such a great movie, and I've written about it in here before. It aired a lot in my area, and it took more than one viewing to figure the movie out. Count me as one of the fans of the xenomorphs. I would have been very disappointed if I had not see it.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Every so often I think I want to see this movie in the theater again, because it can be a lot of fun with the whole audience participation thing that goes along with it. Then I remember the miserable crowd of attendees that I saw it with the last time and I'm happy I can see it on home video.

Frankenstein Conquers the World

This is easily in my top three favorite Frankenstein movies (his bloody terror notwithstanding). How could it not be with two giant creatures battling it out in Japan? It's as close to Frankenstein vs King Kong or Godzilla as we will ever get. This might be the first movie Frankie got to be the hero in!

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER

I've written about this almost fun movie before. I really want to like it, but it lacks the one thing that would have made it great- more of Frank vs the Space Monster. It builds up to it, but that final battle is too short and not fulfilling at all.

Frankenstein's Bloody Terror

I had no idea what kind of movie I was going to be watching when I woke up at 3 AM to watch this for the first time. I naturally figured it would be a movie about Frankenstein and one of his many creations. One of the most misleading titles ever!

Happy Boithday, Curly!

Time for another break from #31daysofscares and what better reason than to celebrate the birthday of man's favorite stooge, Jerome "Curly" Howard, he of the famous shuffle and laugh.  Truly one of a kind and a comedic genius, he along with his cohorts changed comedy forever.  They always made fun of the upper class, never having to "punch down" to be funny at all.

Jack the Giant Killer

See a movie at the right age and you will love it forever. I don't remember exactly how old I was when I saw this movie for the first time on the big screen, but it sure made an impression on me. Sure, it's got it's flaws, but it's so weird and bizarre that it's many charms overcome them. It's so much fun!

Forbidden Planet

Here's a movie who lives up to and surpasses it's trailer easily. This is the shorter trailer, which doesn't show everything it thinks you need to know, but it would have worked on me. I couldn't wait to see this movie the first time it aired on my local station at some ungodly hour and ever knowing the story from Movie Monsters #3 I still loved it.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters!

After watching this trailer a couple times I noticed it never once mentions Japan. Not that it's set in Tokyo, not that it has a mostly Japanese cast or that it was made in Japan. It sure sells the destruction Godzilla causes though!

Darby O'Gill and the Little People

Disney movies can be scary. Really scary. I have a friend who says Bambi was her first horror movie and I can believe that. See a film at the right age and no matter the story it can be terrifying. This movie scared me a lot when I saw it on a re-release in the 70s. This was in Keyser, WV (when they had a movie theater) and it was a full house.

The Last Dragon

I know, it's not great, but I have a soft spot for this movie, it's a lot of fun. I don't even remember seeing this trailer, though I certainly would have scoffed at Vanity being a "rock and roll" star. But anyone will surely admit that Sho 'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem is a great villain.  I did see it in the theater which did help.

The Wolf Man

I have always been a fan of the Wolfman, far more than most of the other classic monsters. I think a lot of this has to do with Marvel Comic's fun series "Werewolf by Night" which ran for 41 issues. He was far more sympathetic than Dracula, since he didn't choose his lot, and ostensibly was a good guy in several of the Universal movies featuring Lawrence Talbot.

Spider-man the movie

I have finally finished watching the Japanese Spider-man series after having the set of subtitled episodes for over two years.  It is Spider-man as the hyphen is there in the credits, no matter how fans want to transliterate it.  I've had to come to the conclusion that it's just not that great a show, which the lifelong Spider-man fan in me really hates to say.  Had I seen it in 1978 at age 13, I think it's safe to say I would have loved it more than any show in the world.  Alas, that didn't happen.

King Kong vs Godzilla

King Kong! Godzilla! A giant octopus! This was my first exposure to all three of those monsters and I was hooked for life. Granted, I don't care for most ape movies that much, but I love Kong, so I love this movie and this version of the movie. Without it, there probably wouldn't be much of a US fanbase here now.

The Last Unicorn

Here's one of the best book to movie adaptions out there, which isn't surprising since Peter S. Beagle wrote both the book and the screenplay. I wish I had seen it when it was theatrically released in 1982, but I don't remember it coming to our area. It was one of the many Japanese/American co-productions that came out around that time period.

The Raven

This was probably my introduction to a lot of things- horror comedy, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Vincent Price all at once. As a kid seeing this I had no idea what it would be about. It's one of my favorite movies, and I'm still sure Doctor Stephen Strange's look was patterned after Vincent Price, though perhaps not from this movie, since the timing would have been amazing.

Invisible Invaders

Here's a movie I'd never seen until TNT showed it in the mid-90s. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I was also struck at how the invaders possessed the bodies of the recently dead, and how much they looked the the ghouls in Night of the Living Dead. Granted, that was probably because the budget of this feature didn't allow for any elaborate makeup, but it sure looks like it was an influence.

The Brain From Planet Arous

John Agar pretty much set the tone for the sci-fi heroes in the 50s and 60s. Either he was stopping the monster, being the monster or being possessed by the monster and then helping stop the monster. This is the third category, and he gets help from a good alien presence as well, who possesses his dog for good measure.

Godzilla vs. The Thing

Still not my favorite Godzilla movie, but dang this trailer is amazing for it's complete dishonesty in the title, and yet complete honesty about what you will be getting in the movie. AIP sure knew how to market a movie, no question there. It's too bad the US DVD presentation was not quite as good as the movie.

Seven Grandmasters (1978)

I thought I had reviewed this great martial arts epic (so great it "borrowed" music from Roots).  It's mostly one kung fu battle after another, with a slight retirement angle along with the young man wants to find his father's killer story line.  Maybe slightly complicated, but I've seen worse plotlines that don't make sense upon first viewing (I'm looking at you, TEN TIGERS OF KWANGTUNG).  All of the actors here are really good martial artists- great form and everything well executed.

Psycho (1960)

This trailer is six minutes long. Six minutes and the master gives us absolutely nothing to go on about the movie, and yet so much is inferred. He talks about murders and sinister houses. I tried watching this about a year ago and only saw the beginning and the end (it was during my hospital stay) and that is just as amazing as always.

When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth

This is one of those movies I really wanted to see as a kid, but it never aired in my region. I think I would like it a lot more than I do now, since I find it pretty hard to get through at this point in my life. I did have the 10 minute 8mm compilation of it, which had a lot of the cool dinosaurs, though the ending was confusing even then.

Gammera the Invincible

In honor of August's post about a new Gamera movie being made, here's the US trailer for the first movie. I don't know that I would ever have called Gamera the most terrifying monster to grace the screen, but then what do I know? My professional writing career has revolved around Gamera in many ways, so I do like the titanic terrapin.

Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires

Wow, even the US trailer for this movie sucks. It's such an enjoyable flick it's amazing that some idiot editor over in the States re-cut it nonsensically and then gave it a terrible title. I am happy I saw the original cut of it on VHS instead of the US travesty.

Fiend Without a Face

I've written about this movie before, but I did check and this trailer has been pulled from the original post way back in time. I did make the Fiends a "monster of the week" as well, see this post for some cool pictures. But dang this movie is cool and so disturbing at some points.

Ghidrah! The Three Headed Monster!

I know I've written about this movie and trailer before, but like I said we are pretending those don't exist at the moment. This was the first Godzilla movie I ever owned, in 8mm form. It was also the first Rodan and Mothra movie I ever saw, so it has that going for it as well. It's one of my favorite Godzilla movies.

The Blob (1958)

I've never made a secret about it- movies about blobs and stuff scare me. Heck, even The Unknown Terror got me as a kid I know it's weird, but things like that could exist at the bottom of some lake or swamp. I read a story about years ago about a similar thing that came from the bottom of the ocean and it was just as scary.

Reptilicus - Trailer

One of my favorite monster movies, despite the overall silliness of the premise. Repticilus looks cool enough, even as a puppet, and does get to do a lot of damage to the country of Denmark. All the actors take it seriously (except the handyman, Dirch Passer as Mikkwlawn Peterson, and that was done on purpose) that it works for me. I don't expect other people to love it like me, you all can be wrong all you want.

It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown - Intro

I think it's only appropriate to start the month with the greatest Hallowe'en special of all, and the second best Peanuts special as well. Seeing this intro for the first couple times as a kid was actually a little scary, with witches, ghosts and bats all terrifying the gang- even Lucy is running away!

Super Scary October!

In years past I used to post a trailer to a monster movie a day during the Hallowe'en month of October.  The last couple years I've gotten out of the habit of doing that fun tradition, so now it's time for it to have a comeback.  My plan is to do one a day this month, and that may mean some that have been posted here years ago, but a lot of those have been taken down for a wide variety of reasons so we'll just pretend these are all new and all different this time!  Hopefully, some of those trailers will be.  I'll try to check for them to make sure, but mostly I'll be posting my favorite genre movies.

Hercules vs a sea... monster?

There is supposed to be a sea monster in the fun peplum Hercules, Samson and Ulysses.  Since most of us fans only ever saw it in a pan and scan form (wow, I do not miss those days at all) it was awfully hard to tell just what the heck Herc was battling back then.  It's the main reason our heroes all get together, but it was quite a mystery for a long time.

Europa & The Pirate Twins (1981)

I remember seeing this for the first time on Channel 12's FM-TV, before it became "Teletunes" due to some copyright and/or trademark issues. FM-TV was so low budget back then, many times the tapes would jam while playing and the picture would freeze. It was amazing to see these "new wave" videos and they played such a wide variety of music back.

Pet sidekicks to superheroes

One of the fun things about comics from the 50s and 60s is that our heroes had pets that occasionally helped them out of various jams whilst fighting crime and villains.  I read more Krypto stories back then, so he's high on my list of favorites.  I saw a few stories about the Legion of Super Pets and I did know who Proty was, but I never read origin stories of Comet, Beppo or Streaky back in the day.  I do think my cat Thuvia is a relative of Streaky, though.

Kung Fu: The Punch of Death (1972)

Here's an "origin" story of Fan Sai-yuk, Fang Shih Yu or as the dub pronounces it in this movie, Fang Su-yi, which is just weird to hear.  Anyway, it stars Fei Meng as the hotheaded youth who causes a dispute between clans and ends up getting his father killed.  His mother then makes him train and take special herb baths so he is invulnerable to weapons.  After he nearly gets beaten to death by the two evil brothers he then gets his revenge during a tournament (a common plot for Fong movies).

Get the Led Out concert review

I'm happy to say Red Rocks as a concert venue is still great, and it's still not sparkly clean like some places I've been.  Rock and roll should always have a little grime to it, give it some kind of edge, rather than be so sanitized and safe that kids of all ages are  present.  Not that they can't enjoy the music, but really "rock and roll has teeth.  It can scratch your face off." as said by the late, great Wendy O. Williams of Plasmatics fame (that quote really scared my parents at the time when she said it in '82).

Get the Led Out - Stairway to Heaven

I used to go to Red Rocks at least once or twice every summer in the 80s. It's a great venue and my first experience there was when U2 recorded the live performance for MTV back in '83. However, it's probably been 35 years since I've been there, due to a wide variety of circumstances. Tonight I'll return to see this Led Zeppelin tribute band, which should be a lot of fun.

Kung Fu on Sale (1979)

This is a frustrating movie.  It's not bad, but it's not good.  It's mostly hampered by the insane way the editor speeds up the action scenes by taking frames out of them.  It's very jarring. The performers are all talented enough to get by with these fights making this decision even stranger.  There's a great fight scene in the rain with our hero fending off four attackers and none of this frame cutting nonsense is used, making it look that much better.  I will never understand why filmmakers think such things are a good idea.

War of the Gargantuas international trailer

Since I missed the double feature Saturday I've decided I wanted to watch the movie again. Question is, do I watch the US dub or my hybrid version that my pal Ted made with the dub from the "international" version. That came from a Greek tape of the movie called Katango's War and it calls the monsters Frankensteins as well as Sanda and Gaira.

Fire Monsters vs the Son Of Hercules (1962)

Maciste is a pretty great character to have around.  He's not bound by the constraints of time and place, that's for sure, since he appears all over the earth at in various eras, from the time of Hercules to 17th century Scotland to prehistoric times, such as in this fun peplum.  He sounds a bit like a muscle bound Time Lord, doesn't he?  It wouldn't surprise me one bit at all, given his intelligence and know how of interesting things (like how to make fire and also get rid of witch's curses and other interesting things like that, don'tcha know).

Laser Mission (1989)

This movie is apparently in the public domain, since there's about 6 million versions available on 12 million cheap DVD sets. It was Brandon Lee's third movie and one I've never seen before. It doesn't have a good reputation and having watched about 30 minutes of it I can say it's not a good movie. It's a very silly movie with a truly silly premise.

Zero Monsters and Gargantuas

This awesome double feature is happening today, about an hour south of where I live.  It's two great movies, neither of which I have seen on the big screen before.  I'm assuming it will be the dubbed version, causing some consternation to the "sub-elitist" crowd, but then, two of the actors didn't speak Japanese, so I guess it's OK for them to be dubbed, right?  I'll give that a moment to sink in, just cause I'm feeling like a jerk at the moment.

THE TATTOO CONNECTION (1978) trailer

As a general rule I don't much care for "modern day" martial arts movies. They usually have to find some contrived way of not using guns, instead of not even bothering to explain it. Enter the Dragon probably did it best, with Han banning them from his island fortress. So I have not watched many of these types of movies.

Dragon Lee vs. Five Brothers (1978)

Picked up a 19 pack of apparently PD kung fu movies the other day and this is the first one I watched.  My love of Shaw Brothers movies generally has spoiled me to watching the cheaper looking movies from other studios, but there are some real gems out there that didn't come from the Shaws, i.e. Ninja in the Dragon's Den being a prime example.  So while I have seen some of these before here and there, I'll be reviewing them as I watch them.  The DVD set features Bruce Lee's picture on it and there's not a one of his movies in it.  Just as well, though there's a ton of the lookalikes and even one of Brandon's movies.  I'm hoping to enjoy all of them to some extant, but after watching this one I'm inclined to believe more of them may be a chore to get through.

Batman vs Dinosaurs

Since there is a large dinosaur in the Bat-cave (robotic, I think, and come to think of it, just how the heck did they get a robot Tyrannosaurus Rex in there to begin with) this drawing could be based on that story.  Oddly enough, I don't know that I've ever read that particular episode in the annals of bat-history.  Go figure.  That robot has just always been something that's been present in the lair of the Bat since I've been reading comic books.  I'm also sure that Batman and Robin have faced real dinosaurs at some point in their long and storied careers.  Not currently, that wouldn't be realistic at all though, would it?

Watari Ninja Boy - Trailer

This is one fun movie, and just like the trailer it's full of ninja, fights and explosions, not to mention a fair amount of magic and blood. Sometimes these all occur at once! The movie is a bit episodic, since it's based on a comic book and assumes some familiarity with the characters.

The Flesh Eaters (1964)

I'd never seen or heard of this film growing up.  My pal Jim had mentioned it when we started trading VHS tapes back in the late 80s.  As a side not, I'm really quite glad that those days are gone (not meeting good friends to trade with, but hauling about heavy tapes in boxes and the cost of shipping them all over the country).  He'd mentioned it had a monster in it, but back then, you couldn't just look up movies easily.  A lot of information in books was wrong about many points if they were even mentioned at all.  Hard to trust them back then- for instance, the flying monster Gyaos was called a flying fox, and Varan was described as a flying squirrel.

Ultra Monsters, again

This time I've got various captures from a few different shows, including the second Ultra Galaxy series - that's Antlar vs Gomora right there, a matchup we all have wanted to see for a long time.  I'm glad it happened, but too bad it wasn't in a city where they could rampage around and destroy lots of buildings.  It's been a while since I've watched any of the Ultra Galaxy series, I'd like to see it again.  I know it was fansubbed at some point, but maybe Crunchyroll will license it for viewing in the future at some point.

Giant Octopus vs the Golden Gate Bridge

Here's a fun clip from It Came from Beneath the Sea, in glorious black and white. I never realized there was a Captain Stacey in this movie. He must have had enough of this and went back to NYC, where interestingly enough, he was killed by Dr. Octopus. I'm sure Stan must have seen this movie back when it came out.

Shagg into Mystery!

I first saw this comic book cover back in the late '90s, when Comic Con was still lots of fun, though it was trending toward obnoxious media-con-ism by then big time.  Had to have been after the Austin Powers movie came out, which was '97.  I remembered it because at the time I thought it was hilarious, due to the word "shag" having been introduced to a mass US audience then.  I wondered why Marvel never reproduced the story at the time, though I think it's probably not very expensive to find a readable copy of it.

The Ultraman ウルトラマン

Here's something that looks way more fun than any cartoon I've seen recently. I sure do miss 2-D cartoons these days. I know they are still being made, but it seems like all features are now CG. I'd like to see standard animation back on the big screen again. It would look really fresh now.

Ultraman trivia questions

These are the questions I asked at Comic Con this year for the Trivia Contest.  Astoundinly, especially to the Japanese creators, every question was answered correctly (except for the last one, but that was kind of my ringer).  It was a lot of fun to be part of!

My World...

I saw this recently and thought it was really cool looking.  It also reads really well, though I'm not sure if it is supposed to be scary, since it sounds like a lot of fun to me.  Sure, I can say that over the gulf of 65 million years, since I'll never actually get to find out how terrifying it actually would be.  I'm kind of OK with that as well, since it would be ever so disappointing to find out the therapods had feathers and walked around just like chickens.

Argoman The Fantastic Superman Trailer

I have a copy of this movie but it's nowhere near as nice looking as this trailer print is! I'd heard several years ago that there was a company that was going to put out a nice DVD of this movie, but I never did find out if they actually did it. I'd like to find it if they did, as it's a fun movie.

Tin Tin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece (1961)

Here's a charming movie based on the long running comic "Tin Tin" which I'll admit I've never read.  I also didn't see the more recent adaption of the character either, mostly due to my complete infamiliarity of the character.  I'm about a third of the way through this movie, which is in French but subbed in English.  I wonder why it never got a release over here, since it seems a fine adventure movie for kids.   I mean, if Pippi Longstocking can get several movies released over here, why not Tin Tin?

Superman 75th Anniversary Animated Short

This is one great homage to the greatest superhero ever. It's got most everything you'd imagine, though (probably understandably) Superboy is nowhere to be found, but the Super Pets are there. I'd have liked to see some World's Finest covers, but perhaps that was in that "nut from Gotham"s 75th anniversary cartoon.

Blue Beetle #22

One of the greatest things about FaceBook is being able to meet and interact with various professionals you may never have met otherwise.  I'm friends with Will Muegniot who did the artwork for Mavel Chillers #3, Tigra's first four color story, the splash page I have tattooed on my right arm now.  I was kind of afraid to show it to him at first, but he liked it.  Never in a million years would I have ever thought he'd see it, unless it was at Comic Con some year.  To top it off, he's a great guy as well as a great artist, and has worked on so many cartoons it's not funny.  The stories he's told about the projects that could have been are fascinating.  It's been a real pleasure to get to know him.

MOTW- The Invisible Man

Yes, here's our monster of the week in a long time:

GekiRanger Opening

Since I saw a clip of DaiRanger where one of them used some drunken style kung fu I began thinking of GekiRanger and how much I loved that show. Guess what I'm watching now? And danged if it doesn't hold up quite well. It's hard to believe it has been almost ten years since it aired. So this is the opening of the show, though it comes from later in the series, since it started out with only three Gekis, and there's five in this opening.

Hercules, Samson and Ulysses (1963)

Ever since I saw this peplum movie in the early 90s I've wanted to see a print with the proper aspect ratio.  The opening titles were in scope back then when TNT showed a slew of peplums so I figured there must be one floating around out there.  Once again Warner Home Archives comes to our rescue with a great looking print of the US release.

Lensman (1984)

I just got a subbed/dubbed copy of this movie based on E.E. "Doc" Smith's long running series of the same name.  I've only ever read one of the stories, "Dragon Lensman" or something to that effect.  If I recall correctly I enjoyed it, but never have found more of the books.  And of course, I would have wanted to read them in order, thinking there would be a lot of continuity between the stories.  So glad I am over that sort of thinking these days.

Avengers #58

"Even An Android Can Cry"

I wish I had been able to read the Marvel Essentials back when I was so into these comics.  This really did need to be read after the first Vision story, even though it didn't quite answer all the questions of the Vision's origins, it did clear up some of them.  I don't remember when I got to read this story, but I loved it then.  Of course, it also sets up the seeds for Hank's troubled sanity later on (the less said about that, the better) and even then Roy was laying groundwork for who the Vision turned out to be.

The Master Killer (1978)

This movie is as nearly mistitled as GODZILLA'S REVENGE or GODZILLA ON MONSTER ISLAND and that's saying something, I'll tell you what.  Anyone who knows anything about basic Buddhism or Shaolin knows turning someone into a "master killer" is pretty antithetical to the core tenets.  Still, it is the US title, so one can blame World Northal for that, more than likely.  They really liked squeezing "killer" or "death" into any possible movie they could.  I'm happy to have this movie on a great looking DVD with all kinds of extras.

gimme gimme Shock Treatment (1981)

I heard music from this pseudo-sequel to Rocky Horror in about 1981, on the Dr. Demento show (where all great music could be heard).  This is a repost from Facebook, since I couldn't find it here on this blog, but perhaps it has been here, I don't rightly recall)

the good Dr didn't talk too much about the plot of the movie, and as it was presented as a sequel (it does star Brad (a**h*l*) Majors and Janet (sl*t) Weiss) but as such it would sure disappoint fans of Rocky.  however, it's got great music, some would say even better than Rocky.  singing about Denton, Texas, how unusual! (I'm not sure it's actually set in the town of Denton, TX (home of the von Erichs) but that it's just a generic town, USA for the sake of the movie.  I'd have to watch it again, eh?)

A Batgirl Music Video

Since I've already posted both videos to Clashing Plaid's excellent "Be My Batgirl" song, here's another swinging video set to some really groovy tune. If anyone knows the name of the song let me know, it's pretty great.

RIP Yvonne Craig

Yvonne Craig passed away yesterday.  She was 78 years old, which surprises me, I guess I never figured Barbara Gordon would really age.  I never knew just how many shows she had acted in growing up; heck, she was in Star Trek as one of those green skinned girls that populated the show from time to time.  The only show I wanted to see her on was Batman.  The more superheroes on a show the better I would think back in those halcyon days of youth, and when that bike roared across the screen I was happy to see it.  I'm pretty sure this is where my love of purple started.

Devil Dinosaur

I hear Devil Dinosaur is getting a new book in the near future.  I hope it's as fun as the original, and doesn't worry much about the "realism" that tends to ruin most comics these days. The art looks pretty good, though since the new "moon-girl" can't wear armor or have an utility belt her backpack has to look ridiculous.  It's as big as she is!  That aside, I may give the book a chance.  I mean, it's got a dinosaur as the lead, there aren't many comics that can say that.  And really, what more could anyone possibly need?