Two Werewolves and a Babysitter

So yes, I absolutely did take a break for Christmas. But I'm back with a triple-feature, hence the title (which now I'm afraid will show up as the title of one of those ebooks on Amazon - guess I'd better hurry and write it myself).

Anyway, read on if you like for my thoughts on WEREWOLVES OF THE THIRD REICH, CARNIVORE: WEREWOLF OF LONDON, and THE BABYSITTER.

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

In case some of you haven't heard, there's a new Star Wars movie in theaters. I figured I'd go check it out.

(Spoilers ahead)

JUSTICE LEAGUE

Okay, still a little off schedule here but I actually had some time off and used it to watch something relatively recent and popular for a change.

JUSTICE LEAUGE (2017)

Directed by Zack Snyder 

Written by Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon

Starring Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher

It's been out long enough that there'll probably be spoilers below the cut....

Merry Christmas Movies!

Ha! I bet you thought I forgot about doing something here this week, didn't you? Well, you were absolutely...right. Hey, when it's tough to keep track of what day it actually is, things fall thru the cracks.

But, I have a little bit of time before work, so since it's actually December now, I guess it's okay to dust off a sadly 'normal' topic for this particular list - some of ArcLight's favorite Christmas movies....

Whole Lotta Nuthin'

I hope everyone who had a long weekend and/or celebrated Thanksgiving had a good one. We actually had Turkey Day and Friday off, but to do that they played around with the schedule so after those two days it was back at it and twelve-hour days and no word on when our next "weekend" will be, so....

This is it for this week.

Have fun, folks.


EDIT -15 hours later

Okay, okay. I couldn't leave it there and after a mind-numbing day at work, I figured I'd at least leave you with some music, so here's some song mashups I particularly dig -

Thunder Busters by Wax Audio

Taylor Swift vs. Nine Inch Nails by Isosine

Don't Stop the Sandman by Rock Sugar

Rock & Roll Until a Reasonable Hour by DJ Cummerbund

TV Shows Not On DVD

So...not only are we still working overtime, but they've extended it to twelve-hour nights. At least we still had a day off for our "weekend."

Anyway, my brain is tapioca pudding so here's some TV series that have yet to (officially) make it to DVD and I wish they'd hurry the heck up....

Listen! Did you see that?!?

Oh...I can't do it this week. We're working even more hours and I just don't have the time or energy.

But...I have to put something here to keep my promise to myself....

I ditched cable a few years back. Between Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and various other apps and Roku channels I'm covered for most anything I actually want to keep up with. For all other times when I just need the TV on for background noise, I can usually pick up some over-the-air station that shows old programs.

One thing that really stands out about them is - they have theme songs. An actual minute or longer piece of music that plays during the opening credits. Nowadays, a short musical 'sting' is about all we get.

So this week, here's a couple of my favorite TV themes in no particular order courtesy of the fine users of YouTube:

Two Movies and a Book

Actually had a little time off at the end of the month. Possibly my last days off until Thanksgiving if the rumors are true. Managed to squeeze in some movie watching and book reading.

Read on for some thoughts on THOR: RAGNAROK, PHOENIX FORGOTTEN, and Rachel Bach's novel  Fortune's Pawn.

Halloween Movies

Another grab-bag as work hours, family commitments, and just a bone-deep tiredness have taken up my time this week.

For all that I love Halloween, I haven't had time to do anything for it this year. That sucks.

Ordinarily, there are at least three films I try and watch during this most joyous time of year. What are they, no one asks? Let me tell ya....

PREDATORY MOON

PREDATORY MOON (2017)

Directed by Shiva Rodriguez 

Written by Shiva Rodriguez

Starring Chris Morrissey, Jonathan Foster, D. Duckie Rodriguez, Jeffrey Crisp, Lowrie Fawley, Mel Heflin

From IMDb:

"Kyle Reading is a zoologist who has been studying wild animal attacks across the country in hopes of finding ways to prevent them. When a young boy is allegedly killed by a bear in Florida, Kyle launches his own investigation. He quickly turns his attention to Dean Clout, the child's uncle, who somehow survived the vicious attack. Dean, infamous for being the town drunk, remembers very little about his brush with the bear. Found unconscious in the woods, he only recalls that he and the boy were left there by a friend who went to run an errand and never came back. But in the weeks following the attack, Dean begins to drop some of his bad habits and pick up some strange new ones. Kyle is convinced that Dean was actually attacked by a werewolf and wants to help him deal with his new condition while keeping the rest of his family safe. He knows that the lycanthropic disease runs in a twenty-eight day cycle and that Dean is running out of time. Unfortunately for Kyle, there is someone who has been keeping a close eye on him. Someone who sees an advantage to having a stranger in town who cries "werewolf"."

A few years back I must've been going thru a period where I had a little extra cash. I contributed a few bucks to an Indiegogo campaign for a werewolf movie because, well...werewolves.

A few weeks back I was browsing new titles available to stream with Amazon Prime when this movie caught my eye because, well...werewolves.

Lo and behold, the reason it sounded familiar is because this is the movie I ponied up some of my hard-earned cash for so they could do some practical werewolf effects.

What did my $15 get me?

LYCAN

LYCAN (2017)

Directed by Bev Land 

Written by Bev Land and Michael Mordler

Starring Dania Ramirez, Jake Lockett, Parker Croft, Rebekah Graf, and Kalia Prescott, with Vanessa Angel and Gail O'Grady

"When six college kids in a sleepy southern town are assigned a group project to rediscover a moment in history, one of them sets in motion a horrific fate when he proposes they head into the Georgia backwoods to tackle the legend of Emily Burt, the Talbot County werewolf. "Lycan" is a Hitchcockian tale of horror set in 1986 that delves into a hundred-year-old fable where our students are met with very real consequences that go beyond any classroom lessons."

Or so says the back cover of the DVD, at least.

I don't do too many 'blind buys' in this age of Netflix, but for the first time in a couple of weeks (thanks to the nutty work schedule I'm still dealing with) I went somewhere other than the grocery store and saw this. It tripped a couple of my interest triggers so I snagged it.

So how did that turn out for me?

Movie Time!

So here's the thing; I'm still doing a lot of overtime, including weekends. So I've not had the time to watch/read much worth talking about here and even if I had...I'm tired.

But darn it! I'm going to keep trying to put something in this space every week, so if you want you can watch a movie I made while playing around with The Movies PC game several years ago....

Happy First Day of Halloween!!

Greetings!

Yes, big surprise that I'm into the Halloween season I suppose. The weather might start cooling off, cheap horror movie DVDs start showing up everywhere, etc....

Unfortunately, it's also when we start getting busy over in the "real world" so this is another round-up of random bits and bobs.

WONDER WOMAN '77 MEETS THE BIONIC WOMAN

Wonder Woman '77 Meets The Bionic Woman

 

WONDER WOMAN '77 MEETS THE BIONIC WOMAN

Writer: Andy Mangels

Artist: Judit Tondora

Colors: Michael Bartolo & Stuart Chaifetz, Roland Pilcz

Letters: Lois Buhalis & Tom Orzechowski, Kathryn S. Renta

Publication Date: 2017

Published by Dynamite Entertainment

 

 

Well, obviously I couldn't let this one slide. Now that the final issue is out, lets take a look at WONDER WOMAN '77 MEETS THE BIONIC WOMAN, shall we?

 

LYCANTHROPE

LYCANTHROPE (1999)

Directed by Bob Cook 

Written by Bob Cook

Starring Robert Carradine, Christopher Mitchum, Michael Winslow, Jeffrey Alan Chase, Rebecca Holden, and Dalia Garcia

Oh, I didn't want to do this. I mean, I really didn't. But even tho I had a regular two-day weekend this time around, I've been distracted by "real life" things - Dad's fine, by the way - and haven't read or watched anything decent to natter on about. 

I did, however, watch this a few weeks back. So, in the tradition of "I watch bad movies so you don't have to," let's get this week's entry out of the way....

Various and Sundry

Another one-day weekend so something of a grab-bag tonight....

Hurricane Irma is on everyone's mind around here right now. The predictions keep pushing it westward, which is good for where I'm at but doesn't do much for those in its path. Keep your heads down, people. Especially you, Dad.

(Amusing Irma note - at work they passed around a business card with the phone number we're supposed to call to make sure they aren't closed or on a delay or whatever when there's "inclement" weather. I laughed when I got mine because in the years I've been there, thru snow and ice and what have you, I only remember the recording being changed for us twice. If the roof is on the building, they expect us there. And if it's not, they probably expect us to be there to clean up.)


Been replaying the first Mass Effect for the umpteenth time. I can't help it. I love my Shepard.

Commander Calico Shepard

I've gone thru the original Mass Effect trilogy multiple times over the years. I'm also about halfway thru my second run of Mass Effect: Andromeda.

That game got a lot of hate - enough that EA and Bioware have effectively abandoned it now (except for some multi-player stuff - big whoop). I think they gave up too easily. Between the sour feelings about the end of Mass Effect 3 and the general dismay that the new games wouldn't have Shepard, they really had to expect a ton of criticism. I'm not going to deny there were some issues on launch, but I'm not sure I've played a big game where there weren't. Even the original trilogy has issues that haven't been fixed to this day. Oh, well...I still liked it. I'll play it at least one more time after the current run. I may not love my Ryder, but she's a lot of fun and grows on me a little more every time I crank it up. In fact, now I'm wanting to get back into it when I finish this.

Pathfinder Cici Ryder

Book-wise, I've recently read Carrie Vaughn's BANNERLESS.

I'm a big fan of Vaughn's writing in general, and enjoyed this a lot, too. On the face of it, it's a post-apocalyptic murder mystery, but it's also a small, deeply personal look into the life of the Investigator, Enid. This isn't a Mad Max sort of world, where everyone scavenges whatever they can thru any means necessary. Possibly because in this instance the Fall, as it's called, was something of a quiet apocalypse. No big war or alien invasion or super-virus. Just a society that was hit by more and larger storms and other events until it was too much. One day the power went off and just never came back on. And right now, with Irma bearing down just weeks after Harvey and Jose' waiting in the wings, with the western half of the country seemingly on fire...it doesn't sound like that far-fetched a scenario.

That should have bored anyone reading this enough for this week. If you're in the path of one of the storms or fires or plagues or whatever else is out there, watch out for yourselves and each other.

R.I.P. Richard Anderson

Richard Anderson

August 8, 1926 - August 31, 2017

It seems like half of the entries since the first time I restarted doing this have begun with me talking about how THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and THE BIONIC WOMAN are two of my favorite TV shows of all time. Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman, head of the OSI and friend to our two bionic heroes, was a big part of that. 

Along with Martin E. Brooks, Anderson was one of the small group of actors to play the same character on two different shows at the same time. They went one better than that by playing the same characters on different shows airing on different networks when THE BIONIC WOMAN switched from ABC to NBC. And with the final bionic reunion movie airing on CBS, they scored a trifecta.

Aside from his bionic adventures, Anderson also appeared on, well, everything it seems like. Several episodes of THE BIG VALLEY with future bionic-buddy Lee Majors, most every other western around, PERRY MASON, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.... Oh, heck, too many to list. Check his IMDb credits out yourself and be impressed.

Special mention should be made about his role in the second Kolchak TV-movie, THE NIGHT STRANGLER, as it pitted him against Darren McGavin who would be Steve Austin's boss Oliver Spencer in the first Six Million Dollar Man TV-movie shortly afterwards. Anderson's Goldman took over in the second SMDM movie after McGavin was committed to the Kolchak TV series.

I had the good fortune to meet Anderson (along with Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner) back in 2015. I wrote about that convention trip here. He'd just turned eighty-nine before the convention, and I have to admit he looked it. During the panel, when Lee Majors made a comment about not knowing when or if the three of them would be together at another convention, I have the feeling I wasn't the only one thinking he was referring to Anderson. Still, he was getting around under his own power, manning his autograph table and talking to fans and generally handling the weekend better than I would've in the same situation, even at my slightly younger age. 

I had a few minutes with him and was able to tell him how much I've enjoyed his work over the years and shake his hand and he seemed genuinely pleased. I'm sure it meant more to me than to him, but I'm glad that so far I've not had to worry about that "never meet your heroes" business. Even tired from all the con stuff, he still had a twinkle in his eye and came across as a good guy and a class act.

Rest in peace, pal....

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING

 

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017)

Directed by Jon Watts

Written by Jonathan M. Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers

Starring Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey, Jr., Jacob Balaton, Jon Favreau, Zendaya, and Laura Harrier

Rated PG-13

Okay, another quick, even more off-the-cuff than usual one here because this weekend...everything went wrong.

But a week or two ago I took in this movie for the second time so it's fresh enough to blather on about for a minute and I'm really challenging myself to make this a habit again.

On to the blathering....

THE WARNING - XXI CENTURY BLOOD

 

Okay....busy this week, and only a one-day weekend (which is now over) so I'm just gonna toss this out here so I can say "Yeah, I posted something!"

The Warning is a band comprised of three sisters, the oldest I think is maybe seventeen now, and they rock. I've been catching their videos on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/luisvillarr) for a while now, when I first stumbled upon them while cruising videos of drum covers - it's a thing I do, okay? - and saw then ten-year old Paulina destroy a cover of Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You." They've been complimented by Kirk Hammett of Metallica, who shared their cover of "Enter Sandman" on Twitter, and appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show doing Ozzy's "Crazy Train." 

What I'm saying is, they're good.

Recently they released their first full-length album of all original material, XXI Century Blood. Now, aside from not being an actual movie/comic/book reviewer, I'm also not an actual music critic so I'm just going to drop in the video for the title track here and encourage folks to check 'em out on their own.

 

 

Oh, and drop by their site and buy some stuff:

https://www.thewarningband.com/

 

THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN: FALL OF MAN

 

THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN: FALL OF MAN

Writer: Van Jensen

Artist: Ron Salas

Colors:Mike Atiyeh & Caitlin McCarthy

Letters: Taylor Esposito

Publication Date: 2016

Published by Dynamite Entertainment

 

 

Okay, I was actually going to take a break from The Six Million Dollar Man and/or Bigfoot stuff but I haven't finished the book I'm currently working on and kinda zoned out during the movie I was watching, so I dug out my trade paperback collection of this other SMDM title from the folks at Dynamite.

 

Should be a quick one....

 

THE HUNTING GROUNDS

HUNTING GROUNDS (2015)

Directed by  John Portanova

Written by John Portanova

Starring Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, Jason Vail, D'Angelo Midili, David Saucedo, and Bill Oberst Jr.

Rated R

Just watched a movie. Here's what I thought.

With SPOILERS as usual if you're worried about that sort of thing.

THE BIONIC WOMAN: SEASON FOUR

THE BIONIC WOMAN: SEASON FOUR

Writer: Brandon Jerwa

Artist: David T. Cabrera

Colors: Sandra Molina

Letters: Joshua Cozine

Publication Date: 2014

Published by Dynamite Entertainment

Okay, yeah. A loooonnnngggg time ago I was trying to keep a fairly regular schedule of writing...well, something... and giving rundowns on some comics and movies and such. I ended up never finishing putting down my thoughts on the last two issues of this title, Dynamite Entertainment's THE BIONIC WOMAN: SEASON FOUR.

I'll try and fix that now....

RIP George A. Romero

I was a horror fan pretty much from birth.

Some of my earliest memories (we're talking kindergarten, here) involve getting up extra early on Saturday mornings to watch the tail-end of the late-late-late horror movie that went off just before cartoons started, along with trying to catch Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Night Gallery every chance I could. So NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD had been on my radar all my life as something I needed to see.

In middle school/junior high we had a teacher that collected movies. I know, now days, 'collected movies' doesn't sound like a big deal. Heck, I have a couple thousand myself. But he collected actual, real, honest-to-god film prints. And he regularly brought them in to school and ran them before first bell and during his home room. Just enough time to usually watch a whole movie a week. I had him for two years, so I got to see a bunch of stuff in his class.

Since it was a school setting, most of what we watched were pretty tame fare. A lot of serials from the 30s and 40s - Nyoka, The Tiger Woman, Captain Marvel - that sort of thing. But sometimes, mainly around Halloween, he expanded the selection some. We watched the Roger Corman FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, and the killer-worm flick SQUIRM (he had to hold his hand in front of the project lens during the shower scene - we were, after all, kids).

He had a poster frame by his desk and would swap out movie posters every week or so and one week he put up the poster for NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. It took some cajoling, but finally he relented and so my first viewing of this groundbreaking, classic horror film was sitting in a darkened classroom in one of those uncomfortable school desks along with my classmates with the teacher trying to keep us quiet as kids screamed during the scariest bits.

I never had the chance to tell Romero this story, but I like to think he'd be amused at traumatizing a classroom full of kids. I mean, who wouldn't?