late MOTW- the Crawling Eye

 

Yes, it's a little bit late this week, but eyes don't move very quickly on their own.  Yeah, that's a good reason, that's the ticket.  I have talked about this movie before on the blog, but got to see it recently on Svengoolie.  It's a really good movie.  It is a little undone by the monsters at the end, and only when they are destroyed.  This prop looks pretty good.  I do like to think what a stop-motion eye creature would have looked like, though.    The movie builds up suspense quite well, and most of the characters do what they are supposed to do.

KISS - New York Groove Happy Birthday, Ace

  

Well, he actually turned 70 yesterday, but this is a great video of the band during their reunion concert.

Secondhand Lions (2003)

 

What a pleasant surprise this was.  I had heard of the movie, I think, but I hadn't seen it until this past Sunday.  My loss, it's a really good little movie, and aside from being a coming of age film, it's also a great adventure flick.  The action scenes are really well done.  Tim McCanlies directed it, and he had written the excellent screenplay for the awesome The Iron Giant.  It stars Robert Duvall, Michael Caine and the not quite as cute as he was in The Sixth Sense Haley Joel Osment.  That happens to kid actors all the time.  He's quite good, though perhaps a little too enthusiastic on occasion here.

Gargoyles 1972 "Trailer"

  

This is a good trailer, but all that jazz about the devil being cast out is made up out of whole cloth.  This is still a great little movie.  It's well directed and the costumes and makeups are amazing.  It's a good, compact thriller.  Seen at the right age, it's super scary!  I'm not sure how "real" this preview is, but it works really well.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 6- One World, One People

 

Legacy heroes are hard to accept at times.  Steve Rogers has been Captain America my whole life.  I've seen at least five (count 'em FIVE) other Captain Americas, and Steve has always returned to the role he was given.  That's usually the big dramatic beat before he defeats whatever menace that is around at the time.  It generally works pretty well.  This of course doesn't count the Cap II and Cap III that took over whilst Steve was on ice.  The world thought he was dead then. Spoilers:

The Blep

 

Today I said goodbye to my beloved 13 1/2 year old ginger cat, Thuvia Jane.  She had metastatic cancer in her lungs and I had to make that quality of life decision for her.  It's been a hard two weeks, but I know it was the right thing to do for her.  I am holding on to all the wonderful memories of her at this point.  She was with me for over 12 years, even longer than Dacya.  I know at some point Emerald will get a new friend, but it's gonna be a minute.  I know when it's time.

Smog Monster of the Week

 

On this 51st anniversary of Earth, we have Hedorah, the Smog Monster, who appeared 50 years ago!  The  movie was released in Japan on July 24, 1971.  It was dubbed by AIP and released the following year.  I distinctly remember seeing that exploitative AIP poster in the theater- it scared me!  I have written quite a bit about this movie over the years, but it was the second Godzilla movie I ever saw.  I did not get to see it in the theater.  It went to TV pretty quickly, which is where I saw it one Saturday afternoon.

The Blu Ray Lost World (1925)

 

Here is a screen grab from the 2017 Blu Ray presentation of The Lost World.  The whole movie is re-tinted based on re-discovered reels of the movie.  It looks so good now. The story flows so much better now, and it's much easier to watch.  This version runs about 104 minutes, so it's about as complete as it will ever be.  But how much longer does any movie need to be?  Overall I would highly recommend this disc, though I am obviously late to this party.

Peanuts Gang Singing "Back In Black" by: AC/DC

 

I don't think I can add anything else to this.  It's really well done.  I had kind of hope Lucy would be singing, but it all works.  Pigpen is a natural drummer.

Professor Challenger

The mighty Professor Challenger was introduced to the world in 1912.  This was in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's groundbreaking The Lost World. He is the exact opposite of Doyle's most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes.  A team up between these two characters would have been fun.  Too bad Doyle didn't do that, though that sort of thing rarely happened back then.  The only crossover I can think of is when Tarzan went to Pellucider.  And that was still mostly a Tarzan story.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 5- Truth

 

Sam and Bucky have a fight with Johnny Walker (not Mr Wrestling II) and defeat him.  Sam takes the shield and Walker is taken into custody.  Bucky finds Zemo, and lets the Dora Milaje take him to Wakanda.  He also asks Ayo for one more favor.  This is a gift for Sam, which Bucky leaves in a box.  Walker is discharged "other than honorably" and begins his own quest to remain a superhero.  Sam goes home, Sharon calls in a favor from Batroc Ze Leaper (I wish he was as fun as his comic book counterpart, though) and we head toward the inevitable conclusion.  Oh, and the Contessa shows up!

Ultra Beams!

 This is a combination ray from five of the Ultra Brothers.  I'm not sure which series it is from, but since Taro is not there, it's probably from Ultraman Ace.  I have this Blu Ray series, but haven't been able to watch it yet.  I have tried to watch Ultraman Taro, but it's so silly I can't get into it.  I doubt I will buy many of the other sets, expect maybe for Ultraman Mebius, as I did quite enjoy that series.

MOTW- Flesh Eater

 

Swimming in any body of open water is always an interesting proposition.  You just never know what is under the water waiting for you.  In the oceans of the world, there are things that will eat you.  Most of these are much larger than a person.  However, in 1964's proto gore movie The Flesh Eaters the critters that will eat you in the water are microscopic.  At least that's how they start out.  Naturally, things go further awry and by the end of the movie, there is one gigantic Flesh Eater to deal with.  Good thing our remaining heroes have figured out how to kill the thing!

The Rezillos - Thunderbirds Are Go! live

                                       Here's a great song by the very underrated and hardly heard of in the US Rezillos.  This incarnation of the band didn't last long, but they made a lot of rockin' songs.  They had a bunch of sci-fi and genre themed songs, and most were written by Jo Callis, later of the Human League.  He is the guitarist for the Rezillos.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 4- The Whole World is Watching

If the world wasn't watching before this, it sure will be now.  The show now has two episodes left, so they have to start getting on with the main plot points.  Johnny Walker has taken a super soldier serum after his partner gets killed by one of the Flag Smashers.  Falc is by far the noblest character in the show, Bucky is still trying to be Batman with all his brooding, Sharon Carter has secrets and somehow didn't get pardoned after the blip (or did she? Secrets, I tell you!) and the whole mess has two hours or so to tie everything up.

Thuvia Jane

Love your cats.  TJ is slightly over 13 years old now.  Due to my lapse of writing here for the past three years, I haven't mentioned my cats much. Dacya crossed the Rainbow  Bridge two years ago, and Emerald Sage, Emi for short, joined our family.  TJ is an unusual cat among cats, as she doesn't really want to share me with anyone else.  This includes people as well as other cats.  Oddly enough, she does tolerate boy cats.

MOTW- Grumpy!

 

If you ask anyone who watched Saturday morning TV in the 70s who Grumpy is, you have better odds that they will say the Tyrannosaurus rex from Land of the Lost, not the dwarf from folklore.  Imagine waking up on a Saturday morning and seeing a huge monster that wanted to eat everything it saw chasing a small family off a raft.  Grumpy was terrifying, though perhaps not quite as much as the inhuman Sleestak that also menaced our heroes.  The show managed to scare kids and not get taken off the air once.

The Undead (1956)

Watched this entertaining mess of a movie last Saturday night on Svengoolie.  It's got something to do with witchcraft, reincarnation and time travel.  The script is a little muddled for the premise.  It might have needed a bit more polish to live up to the actual premise.  From what I understand, the time travel was added last minute, as the reincarnation fad had faded by the time the movie was in production.  It would later show up again every ten years or so.

Sherlock (2010)

 

While I am not a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, I find it hard to believe I have not written about him here for almost 15 years.  I've watched many versions of the character and enjoyed most of them.  I was a little late to seeing the first three seasons of this adaption, and I see there is a fourth available now.  I started watching it again with someone (my mom, OK?)  who has no history with Sherlock at all.  I had forgotten how good it is.  It's set in the present day, which makes it have to adjust to mass info being available easily now.  

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 3- Power Broker

 

Sam and Bucky break Zemo out of whatever prison he is in, and they go to Madripoor to find out who is making the new super soldier serum.  While there, they find Sharon Carter, who has been on the run for quite a while.  I forgot she helped Sam and Buck steal the shield in Civil War.  You would think they would have remembered her, but fighting Thanos and half the world's population getting wiped out could make one forget things.  She helps them out, and they leave the island to head somewhere else.  Sharon has some other irons in the fire, though.  Oh, and new Cap is starting to lose it, what a surprise.  Finally, Ayo shows up to kill Zemo (much like Sharon wants to).

Aarkus the Vision

 

This is the original Vision, a superhero I did not discover for years after I started reading comic books.  I had no idea there had been a previous Vision before the one I knew.  I love the idea of this one, though.  He was from Smokeworld.  This is a place in a different dimension.  He accessed our world via a smoke portal  He had plenty of adventures in the 40s, but then didn't appear in modern comic books until a cameo at the end of the Kree-Skrull War.  He didn't even appear in the Invaders comic book series.  This was probably to avoid confusion with the current Vision, but really, if we could keep track of two Human Torches we probably could with two Visions as well.