For Sake of Argument

Although I have a love-hate relationship with Top (insert number here) lists, this one from Den of Geek listing the Top 50 Special FX shots in film history is interesting, although it excludes “Close Encounters of The Third Kind.”

For my two cents, among the films listed I’d post “2001” at the top, perhaps because it’s the only film I know which actually depicts space as a noiseless environment, unlike “Star Wars” and countless other sci-fi features which I realize uses the deep rumble of a passing starship purely for drama’s sake.

I was also pleased to see “Dragonslayer” on the list, which I still think holds up as great fantasy and the most realistic depiction of a fire-breather to date – although I’ll be intrigued to see what Weta comes up with for Smaug in its production of “The Hobbit.”

Note To Self

Buy this book and then buy that one.

Fire in The Hole

Yes, believe it or not this is a porno trailer (without nudity).

I wonder what the film's budget was because digital effects look better than on most Stephen Baldwin epics made for the Sci-Fi Channel.

Vintage Paper

On a day out to Chicago with a friend yesterday, after a midday stop at Manny’s Deli we drove north to Chicago Comics (at Belmont & Clark) where following a few other stops we hit a used bookstore with aisles narrower than a submarine’s.

My only purchase here was a Playboy (in good condition) from June 1975, not only because it featured Marilyn Lange, but because it’s fun skimming old, '70s ads of guys in mutton chops and polyester suits so thick they could stop a bullet, plus articles about then-cutting edge technologies (like brick-sized pocket calculators) which today could not compete with a child’s toy.

Also included in the back pages was a brief profile of a young Hollywood director having just wrapped shooting on a flick about a shark, after which he was to begin his next film: a science-fiction effort was to write and direct.

Fill in the blanks.

Cheap Fiddles

Over at Pandagon, they have a piece about China floating an idea last week about the entire world converting to a single currency – a notion which sent the arch-conservative right into convulsions (which they’ve pretty much been in since Obama was elected five months ago).

But even more interesting is how conservative media outlets and their pals took this “story” and flew it into a staged panic, topped off with Fox’s Major Garrett asking Obama last week about his own response to the US dropping the dollar (he rejected the idea), never mind how unrealistic the initial story was.

No matter.

I just wonder if loyal fans of Fox News realize just how stupid its producers think they are to constantly crank them up with classic, Biblically-inspired fears (e.g. one-world governments, socialism), and watch them whirl about like cheap toys?

These people are being played badly, and they don’t even know it.

A Very Brief Review: "The Haunting in Connecticut"

When the montage over the end credits is more interesting than the movie itself, what does that tell you?

Wow, was this bad.

Yet for those interesting in the story’s “true” backgrounds, check out (with a grain of salt) the Discovery Channel special this production is based on.