Feeling Depressed...

...And then I checked out Panda Cam from the National Zoo and saw this.

Suddenly, no more depression. Panda's, is there anything they can't cure?

Orange Is The New Black - Season 2 - What I've Seen So Far - With Spoliers

So, I'm about half-way through Season Two of Orange is the New Black. So far, pretty impressed with the continued quality writing and acting. Piper (Taylor Schilling) is as self-centered as ever, although her character is shoved into the background in many of the episodes. Other characters get fleshing out - particularly Kate Mulgrew's Galina and Nick Sandow's Caputo - and a few new characters are introduced, mostly to good effect.

One decision that bothered me was taking Morello (Yael Stone) and turning her, basically, into a delusional nutjob. One of the interesting things about her character in the first season was her attempt to maintain a relationship with her fiancee, in addition to the character seeming to have a pretty normal, friendly personality. In this season we learn that Morello was basically making up the entire thing and that she in prison for stalking and threatening to kill her "fiance" and his actual bride-to-be. It's a plot development that comes out of left field and one that has to have a great payoff. It also doesn't help that the episode ("A Whole Other Hole") that focuses on this storyline is probably the weakest of the series, veering away from the darkly comedic, but grounded in the real-world, tone of the series into a farce.

Also, I may be wrong, but it seems like there is an uptick in the nudity and sex in this season. Not that I mind seeing hot chicks (Kimiko Glenn as the chatty and naive Brook Soso is particularly fetching; and guest actor Nina Rausch in the episode "You Also Have a Pizza" has an amazing pair of breasts) naked and having simu-sex with each other, it seems like a sop to the prurient interest of certain audience members (like me).

Generally good writing, good acting, and characters who are, in general, being developed along interesting lines make Orange Is The New Black a strong show with a nice balance of drama and dark humor. Looking forward to the rest of Season Two.

First Post In A While...And It's About Pacific Rim 2!

Although Pacific Rim had some problems - particularly with the characters - I generally enjoyed it. Seeing mecha pounding on kaiju; what's not to love about that?

Although domestic box office was disappointing, it cleaned up overseas, enough to warrant...A SEQUEL!!!!

More Jaegers, more kaiju, more Guillermo de Toro giving us his vision of a world at war with giant, extra-dimensional invaders. While the plot of the first film had a lot of problems, the setting is rich with possibilities, the visual designs were pretty cool and the effects were stunning. In short, it is a fun sandbox to play in. Hopefully, del Toro comes up with a more compelling plot and develops the characters beyond being a cluster of cliches.

April 7, 2017 is the projected release date. Here's his announcement:

Zombie-athon Starts Next Week

Heading out of town for a long weekend. When I return, for the month of July, the focus of Roadshow will be zombies. Zombie movies, zombie TV, zombie comics, zombie games; if something features flesh eating ghouls I'll be checking it out. Until then, remember, head shots only.

Short Attention Span Review - Where Have All The People Gone (1974) - With The Dessicated Remains Of Spoilers.

When I was growing up in the 1970s, I looked forward to the Movie of the Week. This was something the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) did. While there were various permutations that ran from the 60s into the 90s, the heyday, as far as I'm concerned, was the 1970s. While we have plenty of "made-for-TV' movies now, there was something awesome about being a kid and seeing an ORIGINAL movie on television. I guess I'm getting nostalgic in my advancing decrepitude.

Usually, the film would be some flavor of drama or crime thriller, a longer version of the TV shows that were on. But once in a while you'd get something special. The Night Stalker...Duel...Don't Be Afraid of the Dark...Satan's School for Girls (really)...and, this movie, Where Have All The People Gone?

Peter Graves and his family (including a young Kathleen Quinlan) are in the mountains of central California, looking for fossils as part of the worst family vacation ever. Graves' wife (Jay W. MacIntosh), a biologist, heads home early. While Graves, Kathleen and his son (George O'Hanlon Jr.) are in a cave looking at rocks, the sun flares. This causes a massive EMP and earthquake. Soon, the family Graves finds that most of the people have been reduced to a fine white powder and all the dogs have gone mad, roaming the countryside in feral packs. The family picks up a couple of survivors on the way back home to LA. They find that mom is a pile of white crystals. Before she died she left a note, explaining that the solar flare apparently mutated a virus, which causes the human dessication. The expanded family leaves LA for an uncertain future in the countryside. The end.

Where Have All The People Gone is a pretty good film. The plot is straight-forward - stay alive, get home to mom - and the story addresses the different ways that people cope (or fail to cope) with disasters. Some, like Graves, retain their sense of humanity and want to help. Others are looking out only for themselves. One of the survivors that Graves picks up (Verna Bloom) spends much of the film in a semi-catatonic state, after having seen her children eaten by dogs. The acting is solid and the script develops them enough that they are more than just card-board cutouts. The effects are minimal; but, given the nature of the story, that's all they have to be. A larger budget might have helped once the group gets to LA. We basically see empty streets, even though other survivors describe a city that seems much more devastated by rioting.

While nits could be picked, this really is a well-made, tightly scripted and decently acted "end of the world" film. Plus, it has Peter Graves. How can you gone wrong with him? You can check the entire film out on Youtube, embedded below.

Oh, on a side note, after first seeing this on TV, I would arrange my clothing around the house as if I had disintegrated. My mom always found this amusing...or, at least told me she did. My mom is great.

I Love Mondo

It is true, I love the artwork from Mondo. They are a studio in Austin that's been creating amazing variants of movie posters (among other things) for years. These are the sort of posters that would encourage me to see a movie, even if I had no idea what it was about. That is in stark contrast the the photo mash-ups that are the norm for the film industry. I've included a couple of images below the break. Check them out. For more, once you get to the website, go to the Archive section.

eMagazine To Check Out - Far Horizons

Like science fiction, horror and fantasy? Looking for something to read? Check out the Far Horizons e-zine. Added bonus: Starting with the June issue I'll be having material published within its pages. You can find the website - and the May issue - at Far Horizons Science Fiction Fantasy & Horror eMagazine.

MegaMonsterMonth! #7 - Earth Vs The Spider (1958). Trapped in a Web of Spoliers.

It's Bert I. Gordon again. For someone who wasn't that good a filmmaker, I seem to like watching his stuff. Today I'm checking out Earth vs the Spider.

Synopsis

Jack Flynn (Merritt Stone) is driving home to a small town in the southwest after purchasing a birthday gift (a bracelet) for his daughter, Carol (June Kenney). He hits something and his truck crashes. The next day Carol and boyfriend Mike (Eugene Persson) go looking for him. They find the truck, but no body. Spying a nearby cave and thinking he may have crawled in there for shelter they venture inside and find...a giant spider! The local sheriff (Gene Roth) and high school science teacher, Kingman (Ed Kemmer) are eventually convinced that the spider is real. They venture into the cave and gas the spider with DDT. It collapses, apparently dead. But not so fast! While being stored in the high school gym, the spider is revived by rock and roll and gyrating teens (none of whom seem to be under 30). It breaks out and goes on a rampage through the town.

The most inattentive posse ever.

It eventually grows bored of eating people and heads back to the cave, where the sheriff traps it with dynamite; but not before Mike and Carol head inside to look for her birthday gift! The teens manage to survive long enough for the locals to get to the kids, where Kingman arms Mike with an electrode. The two of them catch the spider in an electrical arc which stuns it. The multi-limbed menace falls onto a stalagmite and the film ends with the monster impaled and dead.

Analysis

This is probably the most competent of Gordon's movies. The effects are okay with the matte shots avoiding the transparent look of some of his other movies. There are some pretty gruesome corpses, drained of fluid by the spider. The acting is amateurish, but adequate. Gordon keeps the movie moving along, he throws in enough spider action to balance some dull character interactions and, at 73 minutes, the film does not overstay its welcome. The opening - with Jack screaming into the camera as something slashes across his face, is an arresting way to start he film.

Of course, there are a lot of things wrong with the movie. The effects, although adequate for a film of this type (low-budget) and era(the late-Fifties), look pretty sad when compared to other films of the time (like the superior Tarantula (1955)). The acting is wooden and the "teen" cast is far too old. Although this is often the case in films (with actors in their twenties playing teens) in Earth, some of the high-school students look like they're pushing forty. The script is pretty bad, having characters doing some amazingly dumb things, even by horror movie standards. Would you really want to stage an impromptu sock hop in a room with a huge spider, even if you think it is dead? Would you really go back into the cave of death to get a bracelet? And the dialogue, which tries - clumsily, painfully - to channel the teen slang of the day - laughable.

Notes

One thing I like about this movie is that there is no explanation for the spider. It's not radioactive. Toxic waste hasn't seeped into the ground water. It didn't drop into a tank of bovine growth hormones. It's just a big spider living in a cave. Why? Are there more? Is this just an outlet for a vast, underground world of giants? Who cares?!? Not Bert I. Gordon.

Verdict

This is a bad movie I love. HThe dialogue is goofy, the acting is sub-local theater, the effects are barely competent, but something about the movie makes it fun to watch and doesn't get boring. Because of the this, the many flaws and failings are acceptable, since the movie itself is entertaining and endearingly silly. Check it out.

Here's the trailer:

Free Game - Dog Town RPG

Ever want to be a cinematic gangster trying to seize "a piece of the action" in 1970s New York City? Well, now you can with the Dog Town RPG. The game - the core rules and eight supplements - are available for free at Cold Blooded Games. The system is pretty neat and combat is deadly. The game gives players a specific goal - to raise $100,000 in 90 days - and encourages them to unleash their inner criminal to accomplish this goal.

If you ever wanted to play a character like one of the guys in Goodfellas, King of New York or The Departed this is the game for you. The developer (Jonathan Ridd) has done a great job of producing a nice looking product, one that sets out a goal and achieves it. And it's free!

So, go forth, download and start doin' crimes...like getting sushi and not paying for it.

Short Attention Span Review - X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). With Spoilers From The Future.

The really short version: this is a really good film with great acting and solid action. Go see it. Want some more? Keep reading.

The movie is set in two time periods. The first is is in the 2020s (although the future is never given a date, characters make reference to it being "50 years" from 1973), in a world controlled by Sentinels, mutant hunting robots. It resembles the future scenes in the Terminator movies, with dark, storm filled skies, ruined cities and fields of skulls. The remaining X-Men - including a number of new characters - are fighting a losing battle against the Sentinels. They come with a "Hail Mary" plan to send Wolverine's (Hugh Jackman) consciousness into the past, to the year 1973, where the bulk of the movie takes place. Wolverine has to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from assassinating Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) creator of the Sentinels. It is his assassination which prompts the US government to support the Sentinel program. Wolverine must also convince Professor X (James McAvoy) to "hope" again and re-embrace his dream of human-mutant integration. Finally, Wolverine also has to locate Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to assist Professor X in convincing Mystique to abandon her quest for vengeance. Wolverine succeeds...sort of. Once his consciousness returns to the future we see that many of the events of previous films (in particular X-Men 3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine) did not take place and that the future is not a Sentinel-run dystopia. We also get a glimpse of what the next film in the series will be, with the post-credit introduction of Apocalypse (Brendan Pedder). The end.

I thoroughly enjoyed the film. The acting was good, although some characters, particularly Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde, were underutilized. Many of the "supporting mutants" - including, thankfully, Halle Berry's very bored looking Storm - were little more than action figures for the future fight sequences. However, since most of the film is set in 1973 and the entire cast in that storyline is excellent, this lack of characterization doesn't detract form the film. The time-travel aspect of the story works well enough. Yes, there are some holes in the plot; but I can't think of a time travel film (or book) that doesn't require significant suspension of disbelief. The important thing is that a story sets up rules for time travel and then sticks with them, which this does.

There are some plot/story issues, aside from those related to time travel. For example, it is unclear how much people know about mutants. While the impression is given that the government thinks they might not exist, it is a key plot element that Magneto is being kept in a cell in the Pentagon specially designed to negate his mutant powers and that the military has items (like Sebastian Shaw's telepathy blocking helmet) from the fighting in Cuba in the last film. It is also a plot-point that the military has mutants in Vietnam and knows what they are, although it is not clear if they are using their superpowers to fight the war. Later scenes where President Nixon ( Mark Camacho ) and his staff seem surprised by the existence of mutants don't work, given these other plot-points. There are a few other items like this that inconsistent or just don't make sense when you think about them; however, the movie has such a great, dramatic pace and the bulk of the story is well plotted and engaging. The problems aren't exactly nit-picking; but they are minor to the overall flow of the story.

Sentinels future and past.

Visually, the movie is impressive. The action sequences are great. A stand-out sequence is an amazing scene where we get to see how super-speedster Quicksilver (Evan Peters) sees the world (everyone is basically moving in super-slow motion), while he takes out a half-dozen security officers in the Pentagon. The only visual element I didn't like were the future Sentinels. While the '73 Sentinels are a nice mix of the comic book version and a more "real-world" vision of what 20 foot tall robots would look like, the future Sentinels look far too much like a cross between the T-1000 from Terminator 2 and the Destroyer from . It's a drab design, one that does not have the same unique look as the '73 Sentinels and one that does not 'pop' on the screen.

Since the film is based on a comic book, I should address that aspect briefly. Is it as good as the original Days of Future Past story? That's not an easy question to answer. The film takes elements from the comic, but creates its own story, one that works in the continuity of the films. The comic has a much more streamlined story and presents a believable, yet chilling look at a future America under the control of mutant hunting robots. When the comic was released (1981) it was shocking to see such things as heroes being killed (the future X-Men are decimated by the Sentinels), death camps and political assassinations, moreso because I was a child when I first read it. Writers Chris Claremont and John Byrne were at the top of their game, creating a great alternate future and a dramatic, compelling storyline, all in two issues (The Uncanny X-Men, Volume 1, #141 - 142). Overall, I think the comic is more satisfying and has a much more tightly written story, although some of my feelings about this are based on the impact the comic had on me when I first read it.

As both it's own movie, as a sequel to X-Men: First Class and as a series reboot, Days of Future Past succeeds. Check it out on the big screen.