Starcrash (1978)

Starcrash (1978) - Movie review plus screencaps:

"Starcrash!"  a.k.a.  "The Clash of the Stars!"  a.k.a.  "Stellar Clashes Beyond the Third Dimension!"  a.k.a. "The Adventures of Stella Star!"

 Spoilers, I guess...

This Italian Star Wars knock-off from 1978 fails on every level.  Wooden acting.  Hideous costumes.  Fake plastic spaceships.  Out of focus special effects.  Nonsensical plot twists.  Oh, and one of the stars is David Hasselhoff.  Needless to say, it's FANTASTIC!

Smooth Characters

 The movie stars Caroline Munro modeling her exciting space bikini as criminal-slash-adventurer Stella Star.  She's sort of a female Han Solo.  It also stars Marjoe Gortner as Akton, a white guy with a giant space afro who fights with a fake lightsaber and gains various super powers throughout the movie.  He's like a cross between Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Other characters include a robot sidekick with a cartoonish Texas accent and a bald guy with green skin.
 

"Damn, I'm Evil!"

The villain of the flick is Count Zarth Arn who is constantly laughing maniacally while flapping his Dracula cape around.  So evil.  Oh, and I can't forget Hasselhoff; he's basically Princess Leia, although he wears a lot more makeup than I ever saw on Carrie Fisher.

Hoff's Going Heavy on the Makeup

Christopher Plummer is the only person in the film who can act, which makes him stick out like a sore thumb.  He plays Hasselhoff's dad, "The Emperor of the Galaxy." He delivers all his lines like he's in Hamlet or something, with dramatic, William Shatner-like pauses.  The effect is bizarre... like he doesn't realize what movie he's in.  He also has the best line in the movie, when seconds before our heroes are about to die in an explosion, he gazes up at the ceiling and shouts, "Imperial battleship...  halt... the flow of time!"  And then time stops so our heroes can escape, with no explanation ever given for how this amazing feat was accomplished.  Awesome.

Christopher Plummer Doesn't Know What Movie He's In

The plot is a lot of silly nonsense, with Stella Star and her intrepid band of space buddies travelling around in their spaceship getting into adventures while trying to save the universe from the evil Count Zarth.  So the film is broken up into various episodes where we see Stella fight Space Cavemen, Space Amazons, a giant space robot, and what not.
 

Pressing Buttons

Later, the good guys attack the Count's version of the Death Star, which,  is shaped like a giant flying space hand.  Oh, and when it goes into combat, the giant space hand contracts into a fist!  Awesome!  Anyway, they attack the ship by shooting giant golden dildos at it.  Once the dildos crash through the windows of the spaceship, they pop open and soldiers jump out.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

The movie's costumes and sets are ridiculously colorful and goofy.  It looks more like it was made in 1968 than '78, it has the same pop art sensibillity as films like Barbarella, Diabolik, or the Adam West Batman TV series.

Captured by Space Amazons

This movie is DUMB, but it is fun.  And Caroline Munro does look pretty sexy in her space bikini.  I recommend this title to all discerning fans of science fiction cinema.

Rating: 3½ Robots (out of 5)

I See You!

More screencaps after the jump...

Death Watch (1980)

Death Watch (1980) - Movie review plus screencaps

"La Mort En Direct"

I came into this film cold, knowing only that it was a sci-fi movie from the 1980s, starring Harvey Keitel and Harry Dean Stanton, and with the potentially gory title of "Death Watch."  I was anticipating something a little outrageous and trashy, but hopefully kind of awesome at the same time.  Maybe some robots or cyborgs, a few laser beams.  Instead, what I got was a long, talky, meditative look at life, death, and the coarsening of our culture at the beginning of the age of reality TV.

Groovy Cemetery

Not at a bad movie, just not at all what I expected, even though it started to drag quite a bit towards the end, with one long dialogue scene piling up on top of another.  There were a few moments towards the end where I had to resist the urge to fast forward.

Harry Dean Stanton Directs the Action

The film is set in the "not to distant future,"  one of those sci-fi movies where everything looks like the modern day, with just a few bits of technology here and there to indicate it's not.  While that may have worked fine when the film was released, it causes a weird dissonance when watching it today, as everything looks dated in a late '70s early '80s kind of way, and not at all futuristic.  I think sci-fi from the '50s and '60s, where everyone's decked out in colorful jumpsuits, or what not, actually hold up better in this respect; at least they look noticeably different from the present or the past.

Cemetery and Smokestacks

In the film, Harvey Keitel plays a photographer who has video cameras implanted in his eyes, so that everything he sees is recorded.  He is assigned to follow around a dying woman, played by Romy Schneider, for a reality TV show called "Death Watch."   The show chronicles the last days of a dying person's life in a future where death from natural causes is a novelty.
 

Harvey Keitel has TV Eyes

The issues raised about reality TV, and our increasing lack of privacy in the modern world seem a little cliched to my modern eyes, but I may be being too critical; since the film was released in 1980, I suppose the film was actually pretty prescient.

A Tender Passion

The cast was quite good, with Harvey Keitel, Harry Dean Stanton, Romy Schneider, and, towards the end of the film, Max von Sydow, all giving solid performances.  There was also some very nicely composed cinematography.  However, the slow, talky nature of the film, especially in the second half of the movie, lowered my enjoyment enough that I don't think I can actually recommend it.

Rating: 3 Robots (out of 5)

Harvey Keitel and Romy Schneider on the Beach

More screencaps after the jump...

Happy Independence Day!

On the left of this image is the American Quarter, with an image of the first American President, George Washington. On the right is the Canadian Quarter, with an image of the first Canadian Prime Minister, Bullwinkle J. Moose. Thank Zeus I live in a country that elects humans to office, and not talking animals! Long live America!

Island of the Fishmen (aka Screamers) (1979)

Island of the Fishmen (aka Screamers) (1979) - Movie review plus screencaps:

"Screamers"

A doctor and some convicts from a prison ship get shipwrecked on an uncharted Caribbean island populated with half-man/half-fish creatures, and horrific shenanigans ensue.  Toss in a liberal dose of African(?) tribesman, voodoo, and a sprinkling of zombies just for the hell of it, and you get a movie that sounds like it could be cheesy fun, but never really gets there.

"The Cave of the Dead."  Here's a tip: if you are in a horror movie, and there is cave full of glowing fog named "The Cave of the Dead," DON'T go in it.

The special effects are bad, bad, bad.  It  kind of looks like they took leftover monster bits from other movies and pieced them together to make the creatures.   Like the filmmakers were rummaging through the trash bins of a better movie, and were all, "Hey!  You guys throwing this away?  It's still good.  I can use this!"  Well. actually, there was one cool thing, with this one guy who was being turned from a man into a fishman, but they most have spent their entire budget on it, cuz the rest was super-cheapo.

"Half-Man Half-Fish."  Not the Creature from the Black Lagoon.  Nor an incredible simulation.

The movie is, for the most part, poorly paced and really boring.  I had to resist the urge to fast forward as I watched it.  Richard Johnson (of Bulldog Drummond fame) hammed it up entertainingly as the lead villain, but that was the only thing the movie had going for it.   I would say this movie is not really worth your time, unless you are a die-hard bad movie fan.

Barnes & Barnes - Fish Heads

Rating: 2 Robots (out of 5)

More screencaps after the break...

Creating a Tribute: Tenth Anniversary of 9/11

George Washington, Greg Brady, and Abraham Lincoln Pay Tribute to America's Heroes

A few months ago, I posted this artwork I created in anticipation of the tenth anniversary of 9/11.  The original post is here.  Today being the actual anniversary, I thought I might post a few bits of artwork that went in to creating it.

Original sketch

This is the original sketch I made of my idea.  As you can see, I sketch pretty loosely.  I like to make up most of the details as I go, in the final drawing.

I follow that up buy searching out hundreds of images to use as references, to get the likenesses of the people correct, as well as for details of paramedic uniforms, the pre-9/11 New York City skyline, and things like that.

Then I create a file in Manga Studio, which is the software I use to do most of my drawing, that has all of my photo references in it on various layers, so I can look at them as I am drawing.

I draw all the different elements on separate layers.  So, for instance, I would have Greg Brady on one layer, the New York Skyline on another, the Vinnie Barbarinos on another still...   that way I can later move them around or resize them in Photoshop if I decide to make changes to it.

First version of drawing

This is the first version of the drawing.  You can see that it had Presidents Obama and Bush in it as well as Lincoln, Washington, and Greg Brady.  In fact, when I first had the idea for the drawing, it was only going to have Greg Brady and Barack Obama in it.  But then I decided to add George Bush to it, so that the drawing could better represent the entire ten year period from September 11th 2001 to September 11th 2011.  Also, I didn't want this drawing to appear partisan in any way, it's about bringing this country together, not taking it apart, so having a Republican and a Democrat on it seemed like a good idea.  From there I decided to add Lincoln and Washington as well, as they are our two most iconic presidents, and having them there (along with Greg Brady) seemed to make this all about America, and not any one political party or ideology.

Ultimately, though, I felt it was too crowded up there with so many heads, and ended up going with just the trio of Washington, Brady, and Lincoln.  Because I draw in layers, I didn't have to redraw anything, just click those two layers off.

Drawing with text

I had initially wanted to have some text in the drawing.  I wasn't sure if people would understand what they were looking at without some explanation.  I did leave some text on the T-Shirt version, but for my final artwork, I decided to let the images speak for themselves.

Final colored art

For the final colored version, I removed the text, then shifted the drawing up a little. this made more room on the bottom for the reflections in the water.  When I'm drawing something I plan on coloring, I will often leave areas unfinished so I can finish them in color instead of in black and white, such as the details on the buildings, and the ripples on the water.

Comic: Ding-Dong!

This is a true story, with all the dialogue 100% verbatim, from a convenience store I used to work graveyard shift at in Las Vegas about 10 years ago.  I have a few more stories about this store that I will publish eventually.   The place I'm working at now doesn't have a steady stream of insane customers, though, so I probably won't have any of these that are set in the present.

Freedom Force Stuff

I've recently dipped my toes back in to making skins for Freedom Force.  The old message board most of the Freedom Force community used to frequent, Freedom Reborn, has been down for a long time.  But there is a newer board called Trinity of Freedom where some people are posting now.  I have a thread there with some pictures of the skins I made, if anyone is interested in checking them out.

I also found that my OLD webpage that was on Geocities has been archived here.  It's out of date, but it's got pictures and descriptions of most of the skins I have made over the years.  Eventually, I'm going to transfer all that info to this blog, or another site, but at least it's still around in some form for anyone who wants to see it.

Finally, if you are interested in seeing all the skins I have made that are not on that archived page, or in my thread at Freedom Reborn. click on the Freedom Force tag at the bottom of this post, to see all the posts about Freedom Force I have mad in this blog.

Thanks,
"Atomic Robot"

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn: Glenn Beck's Favorite Records No.10

''There are a lot of universities that are as dangerous with the indoctrination of the children as terrorists are in Iran or North Korea. ... We have been setting up reeducation camps. We call them universities.''
—Glenn Beck, Glenn Beck show on FOX News Channel, Sept. 1, 2010