An attempt to bring to the silver screen a work by author Ray Bradbury. Three futuristic stories are “illustrated” through the conduit of a mysterious wanderer whose body is covered in tattoos. Rod Steiger plays the tattooed man who explains the story behind various of his body art. Steiger and Claire Bloom appear in the three episodes playing different characters. Very brooding, dark film that wears it’s ’60’s era influences on its sleeve sometimes not so well. I must say that this is not one of my favorite films and not one I would readily return to. Trippy at times and [More]
A camera set to take photographs at select time intervals catches a strange shape rising out of a lake near Loch Ness. Is it a log, a large fish, a camera aberration? You be the judge. The Internet is just full of such mysterious photos/videos that allegedly show proof of mythic beasts. One day solid proof of such unusual phenomenon may materialize.
“In Search Of” was a documentary series hosted by actor Leonard Nimoy. The show ran in the 1970’s and it’s subject matter covered the mysterious, the supernatural, the uncanny and the just plain weird. Here is a sample episode that pursued the topic of Bigfoot. I remember watching this program religiously on Sunday evenings and enjoying it immensely. A precursor to the vast amount of supernatural/docudrama series which populate the cable TV landscape today. Worth seeking out.
The Joker is certainly one of my favorite comic book characters. Batman’s arch nemesis can be considered among the Top Ten of fictional super villains of any media. But, let’s face the facts. He is totally mad! Sometimes his plans and schemes can get a little out of control. And with the melding of “adult” themes with graphic art forms, The Joker’s naughtiness can basically be allowed to plummet any depth the author of the piece cares to pursue. Here are a few of The Joker’s darkest moments.
I stumbled upon this movie late at night and was instantly appalled! What a horrific, nightmarish spectacle it all is. A unit of Russian soldiers during World War II are unfortunate enough to wander into the Hell of a den of nearly unstoppable human/robot hybrids. The soldiers’ mission is to apprehend a latter day descendant of the evil Dr. Frankenstein himself and put a stop to his hideous killer creations. They should have gone AWOL and fled the mission. The creatures featured in this lovely gore fest are pieced together from dead bodies and curious mechanical parts the good doctor [More]
A self modulating video synthesizer is demonstrated here. Lots of pretty, shifting color patterns and an interesting audio soundtrack accompaniment follow. Maybe best to absorb in small doses? Noodling can be an intense experience at the time of creation but later playback always begs editing. Deciding what to cut and what to leave in can be an agonizing experience!
We visit Forrest J. Ackerman, the creator of “Famous Monsters of Filmland” magazine, and take an abbreviated tour of the “Ackermansion” memorabilia collection Ackerman amassed in Southern California. Plenty of pad puns and dusty monster/horror/science fiction movie artifacts await. How did Ackerman remember where everything was stored?
Dave Brock, longtime Hawkwind guitarist. This concert footage of Hawkwind illustrates their cool use of stage dressing and lights. I mean, have you ever seen anything like this? Probably, since this was a tour which ran back in the early 1990’s. I saw them in a small club in Northern California a few years ago and the intensity of sound volume and shifting, strobing lights and lasers was pretty overwhelming. I loved it!
A perfect document of an intense rock band performing live. Here are The Who performing “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, live, as part of a filmed segment to be included in a documentary about the band’s history, “The Kids Are Alright”. Jeff Stein directed the documentary and caught and edited this spirited performance of the song which originally appeared on their studio release, “Who’s Next”. The Who have always excelled as a live act and this is surely one of their most classic live documents. Keith Moon tirelessly rattles out his drum parts. Roger Daltrey shrieks and howls his way through the [More]
My favorite song from Porcupine Tree, a rock outfit led by Steve Wilson. A sad, harrowing tale of a boy who grew up with “wiring loose inside (his) head” and who matures into, probably, a full blown serial killer candidate. Pretty unpleasant as you listen to the lyrics reflecting the main character’s reasoning that his acts are merely displays of love or romance toward his intended victims. He seems to know something is terribly wrong with him but it is probably too late to do anything about it. Haunting stuff. Crunching, power chords alternate with more gently strummed guitar passages. Steve [More]
Assemblage of concert footage features Pink Floyd in concert playing “Sheep”. This song appeared on their release “Animals”. The Pink Floyd concert experience was a mixed media event with film clips and visuals projected onto a massive screen, lasers, a light show, and huge props reflecting song subject matter. Here we witness a very saturated color film of the performance and hear the rich aural textures of synthesizer (Richard Wright), processed guitar (David Gilmour), reverberating vocals (Roger Waters) and driving drumbeats (Nick Mason) intermixed. Trippy to say the least. Nice use of vocoder near the end of this clip.
Glorious, orchestrated rock tune from Van Der Graaf Generator. I placed “Generator” in parentheses in the title because at this stage of the band’s career, they had decided to abbreviate their title. Anyway, “Pioneers” is an epic composition highlighted by Peter Hamill’s vocals which alternate between mournful wail and guttural snarls. Hammill possesses a truly unique voice in rock. Rob Halford of Judas Priest learned a few tricks from Hamill’s approach it would appear. I like the powerful, effects laden bass guitar. When I first purchased this live set, “Vital” on audio cassette(!!! I date myself), I felt the bass was [More]
I mounted a Contour Action Cam to a Pinewood Derby car for laughs. The race goes by in a hurry but it’s kind of cool. The name of the car was Cyclops, of course.
Very influential, big budget science fiction film from the 1950’s. In the future, a starship from earth ventures to a remote planet to check on the well being of a colony established by earlier explorers. Only two survivors are found from the previous expedition but they flourish in their compound with the assistance of their super workhorse robot, Robby. It seems that survivor Dr. Morbius has learned a few tricks from the previous inhabitants of the planet, the uber advanced Krell. But not all knowledge is necessarily good to have. Morbius harbors some dark secrets of his own that have a [More]