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May News Roundup

4 May

May 3, 2011

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STUPID NEWS PLAGUES COUNTRY

Mr. Blog to Mock Headlines Nationwide

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Ah, those wacky Turks.

Makes you wonder how Turkey manages to stay an independent country. One day Iran may knock on the door.

“Who is it?”
“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Please sign this.”
“Okay.” (Signs long legal document without reading it.)
“Hah! Now all your base are belong to us!”

Good luck, Turkey!___________________________________________________________________________________________

Ah, a true silent but deadly fart.

But all joking aside, this is a serious danger. Poison gas has a long history going back to antiquity but it was perhaps the battlefields of World War One where it reached its gruesome apex. But some good came of it. Take the case of Rondo Hatton. Once he was your average good-looking guy. Dime a dozen. But the war came, and Hatton, fighting on the front, was gassed by the enemy. Later he developed acromegaly, the same disease that brought fame and fortune to The Elephant Man. His features grew big and distorted. Hatton, who was once voted the Most Handsome Boy in school, became an ugly hulk. And of course a movie star. He went on to fame as The Creeper, a character he played in a Sherlock Holmes film. Money and celebrity followed. He could often be seen tooling around Hollywood and New York in his solid gold Rolls Royce, bikini-clad women dangling from him like bling to a rapper. Women wanted him, men wanted to be him, bi-sexuals went either way. When he died in 1946 he got a Presidential state funeral and his body embalmed and put on display in the White House Rotunda.

Or he had a short and sad life, his disfigurement exploited in a series of small and cheap films. Take your pick.

Either way, I choose to end not with a picture of the tragic Mr. Hatton, but with a picture of Captain Kirk fighting a killer fart.

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How come Ghost Hunters never deal with this?

This then is the final proof that ghosts do not exist. Sorry, no ghosts, spirits, or poltergeists.

However, it is certain and unequivocal proof that houses are sentient creatures. They live and breathe, they have hopes and dreams, they hate it when you paint them ugly colors, chaff when you install aluminum siding, and see everything you do in the privacy of your bedroom, you weirdo.

Next time you see a construction worker tearing down a house, you are seeing a murder. A building collapse? Self-preservation. Think about it. Animals have PETA, but what about homes? Who will speak for the houses?

Not me.

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Ah, the fearsome Steven Seagal. Who wouldn’t tremble in fear at the sight of this guy riding a tank?

For a short while he had a bit of a career. He was never much of an actor, but before he got bloated he was a pretty good karate guy. Unfortunately he was gassed during World War One and developed acromegaly. His features grew big and distorted and Seagal, who once had a slightly promising movie career, became an ugly hulk.

What? That’s the same thing I wrote about Rondo Hatton? OK, take out the World War One thing and it still stands. Bloated? Check. Features grew big and distorted? Check. Ugly hulk? OK, ugly is in the eye of the beholder, but hulk? Check.

Anyway, now he has a career pretending to be a policeman riding a tank to a cockfight.

He must be proud.

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I don’t know what that means, don’t want to know what that means, don’t want you to tell me what that means.

Dave Cummings?

Late Night Movie House of Crap: Superhero Serials

2 May

May 2, 2011

Let me first say that I don’t consider any of this crap. However they are old and in black and white and that’s enough for a lot of people. The special effects may not match today’s cgi magic but a lot of it stands up very well.

End of disclaimer.

This is going to be a big superhero movie summer. Thor, Captain America, and Green Lantern are all hitting the big screen. Comic book movies do well at the box office so it is no surprise that there are more installments of Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, and Iron Man movies in the works, as well as Justice League and Avengers films in the wings.

A lot of people don’t realize how far back these films really go. for many people they go all the way back to the long-gone era of 1978 and Superman the Movie. They should go back quite a bit farther.

Serials were weekly installments of a story that usually ran from 12 to 16 weeks. If you went to the movies from the late 1930’s to early 1950’s for the Saturday matinée you’d likely see one or two serials, a newsreel, some cartoons, a B-movie, and the main feature. A few cents for a ticket kept you entertained most of the day.  Serials also tended to have great lobby cards and I have a few (reproductions, alas) in my collection. But on to the superheroes!

From 1948, here’s Kirk Alyn as Superman:

This isn’t Captain America’s first time on-screen either. From 1944, here’s Dick Purcell:

Think Batman begins with Adam West? Both Superman and Batman had two serials apiece. From 1949 here’s Batman and Robin:

Superman is the world’s most popular hero? Not always. Captain Marvel regularly outsold him and in fact Captain Marvel still holds the record for sales in the millions.

Cool as all of that is, here is the icing on the cake. This is a fan made trailer for what they call a “premake,” a “what if the Avengers film was made decades ago?” You can find a lot of these “premakes,” like Star Wars and Ghostbusters on Youtube. In the spirit of the superhero serials, here is the premake of the Avengers.

Take some time and watch the old stuff. There is some magic there. Some cheese too, but that is part of the magic.