Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes ~ I have talked about my love for the Planet of the Apes movies before, actually more than once. And while Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the second attempt to reboot the series was a pleasant and superior surprise, I still had some reservations. I shouldn't have worried at all. Dawn is even better than Rise.

If you know the saga of the Planet of the Apes, you know that Rise and Dawn are covering old territory. We already know the history, we know what happens, and that's the danger of any prequels. And even though the movies in the original series, Conquest and Battle, are by far the most inferior, and provide the basis for Rise and Dawn, I have much praise for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Once again, Andy Serkis and the CGI portraying Caesar, the first leader of the Apes, are the stars over and above anyone or anything else in this flick. Gary Oldman is wasted for the five to ten minutes he appears, Keri Russell continues to age badly, and Kirk Acevedo is a master of playing the same character in every project he's in. Harsh, yes, but those are the only bad things about this movie. The rest is near perfect.

The opening, outside the establishing narration of a world a decade after the last film, is without traditional dialogue. The Apes live in peace in their own home, speaking in a combination of simple pantomime and crude American Sign Language. Caesar himself only speaks aloud once man intrudes on their idyllic life, but don't be fooled, the other apes speak as well. And these apes, CGI and otherwise, out-act the human players.

There is no black and white, or good and evil here. It's man vs. ape, it's true, but factions within each group are at war as well. This tale of trust and war and family is set against another amazing score by my favorite composer Michael Giacchino. He hits all the right notes for the appropriate emotional impact. I've already gotten the soundtrack from iTunes I was so impressed.

Whether you're a fan of either Planet of the Apes franchise, or not, this entry is highly recommended. I can't wait for 2017's War of the Planet of the Apes.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes ~ As a kid growing up in the 1970s, Planet of the Apes was very important to me, and probably to most kids of my generation. I remember asking to stay up to watch the movies on CBS, and their creaky continuity. I remember the lame TV show. I remember the girl across the street who got the Mego PotA treehouse for a gift. It's instilled in my childhood, like the "Brady Bunch," Marathon bars, and the "Six Million Dollar Man," PotA was the 1970s.

All that said, you can imagine my disappointment with the Tim Burton remake, and especially that effed up ending swiped from a bad Kevin Smith comic book. When I heard they were making a prequel to it, my heart sank. A prequel to a bad movie is never a good idea, and besides, let's get real, the original prequels to PotA weren't that great either.

In truth, prequels rarely work, especially when we already know the story. Viewers might just give a pass to a prequel because it's not going to tell them anything they didn't already know. I already know the origins of Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man, you don't need to tell me again. In most cases they aren't even needed, and sometimes even hurt the property. Case in point - Star Wars.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes surprised me though. It hooked me first with an intriguing trailer before throwing the title at me. I wanted to see it before I even knew it was PotA. Finally, I've got hold of it on DVD. Let's see if my instincts were right.

From the start, there are homages , both verbal and visual, to the original series of movies. Much like the preview, the movie itself grabbed me right away. James Franco, in less than annoying mode, is a geneticist searching for a cure to Alzheimer's, testing on apes, and inadvertently succeeds with a chimp named Caesar that he raises himself. John Lithgow gives a wonderful performance as Franco's afflicted father as well. Andy Serkis does his usual as does Tom (Draco Malfoy) Felton, so much for typecasting.

If you know the mythos, you can connect the dots, but there is still a strong emotional story here, not just a this-is-how-we-got-here vibe. The CGI effects make for the needed realism of the tale. While the ape masks and make-up of the original PotA were state of the art for the time, sadly now, they are just, well, ape masks and make-up. These apes look real and emote real, it's very stunning. In fact it's a tribute to the power of CGI done well that the scenes of Caesar and other apes are so hypnotic.

I really dug this flick. When all hell really breaks loose, and the apes begin their 'rise,' I was ten years old again. Yeah, it's that good.

GOD BLESS KEVIN SMITH

A Video Review of "Planet of the Apes" (2001)

Copyright 2003 Glenn Walker

Here's what you have to do to enjoy this movie: forget the original movie from 1968. In the words of Tim Burton, "This is a revisiting not a remake." As pompous as that sounds and as much as I hate Tim Burton as a person (he has great vision and has made a few wonderful films but in my opinion the man is an asshole), it is sound advice.

Re-imagining equals same concept but a different story. Mark Wahlberg working with experimental primates at a deep space station follows one of his test chimpanzees through a cosmic storm and ends up on a world where apes dominate and humans serve.

The make-up in the 2001 film is as advanced and sophisticated for today as 1968's was for its day. So real and flexible are the 'masks' that the acting of Helena Bonham Carter and Paul Giamotti is positively phenomenal. Emotion and performance come through as if it were their real skin. Every actor is completely unhindered by the apelike visage.

The same can be said of the rest of the apes' physical appearance from reactions to simple things like walking and running. The battle scenes are marked by the apes' ability to leap and run on all four limbs. In many ways this is an amazing film.

Tim Roth and Michael Clarke Duncan do excellent turns as villains to Mark Wahlberg's usual hesitant hero. I wish he would choose a heroic role that's a definite hero for a change. I know he can pull it off, you know it, I just don't think Mr. Wahlberg does.

We are also treated to few bonuses that stand out. In a cameo appearance as an ape, Charlton Heston, star of the original Planet of the Apes, recites one of his famous lines in a sly bit of irony. Also impressive is the concept of 'humans' rights' in a sarcastic nod to P.E.T.A.

* SPOILERS *

The ending. Good God. Let's talk about the ending. Forget the last five minutes of this film. It's crap and ruins every other logical minute of the film.

In the end Marky Mark leaves the planet of the apes and by all rights and story logic should have returned to his space station in own time. The movie should have ended when his ship blasts off. But it doesn't much to my dismay.

He lands on what appears to be Earth, Washington D.C. to be precise, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial which of course is a monument to General Thade. He is promptly assailed by ape police officers and then we go to fade and credits.

A scene very similar to this appeared in a "Jay and Silent Bob" comic book by the genius Kevin Smith quite some time before this movie started production. When pressed by reporters Burton stated that he had never read a comic book, especially one by Kevin Smith, maintaining the bad blood between the directors since Burton rejection of Smith's brilliant script for the Superman Lives film project.

Kevin Smith's perfect response to Burton's statement? "Well, that explains Batman." God bless Kevin Smith.

Back to the movie. Good special effects, better story logic than the original and some excellent action sequences. That said, 2001's Planet of the Apes is a great flick, excepting the last five minutes. It's probably not going to birth a bevy of sequels like the original though.

Rating: ***1/2

***** Must see
**** Worth seeing
*** So you have eight dollars you want to throw away…
** Is Adam Sandler in this mess?
* A bullet would be quicker.

The above previously appeared in a much shorter and much less interesting form at the late lamented Project Popcorn website at:
http://www.whitevioletpictures.com/popcorn/

REMEMBER IT, DON'T SEE IT

A Video Review of "Planet of the Apes" (1968)

Copyright 2003 Glenn Walker

The original Planet of the Apes is considered a science fiction classic. After seeing it again recently I'd have to say the people doing the considering haven't seen it as recently as I have.

Memories of this flick are better than the movie itself. Everyone remembers the shock ending. What you forget is that the first half of the flick has next to nothing to do with what everyone remembers Planet of the Apes for - the apes. They don't show up until the middle of the film. First we are treated an endless walk through the desert highlighted by Charlton Heston philosophizing on how mankind sucks and is eventually doomed. Ironically he doesn't know how right he is.

Heston again plays the manly man hero as in other 1970s sci-fi flicks like Soylent Green and The Omega Man. Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter satisfactorily portray the primate roles they would repeat in sequels. Maurice Evans plays Dr. Zaius, a part more famous than he himself. One still has to wonder how the originally cast Edward G. Robinson would have done it.

The music is post-modern ambient space crap. Eerie, creepy, experimental and off the wall, it's hard to believe the soundtrack to Planet of the Apes is the early work of Jerry Goldsmith. In its day however this music was considered quite revolutionary. I don't get it.

It's still classic sci-fi and the ending is still a shocker despite the fact everybody now knows how it ends. It is still however one of writer Rod Serling's best twist endings. Planet of the Apes was followed by several sequels and a TV series and cartoon, even a 're-imagining' by Tim Burton, but the first is still the best.

Rating: ****

***** Must see
**** Worth seeing
*** So you have eight dollars you want to throw away…
** Is Adam Sandler in this mess?
* A bullet would be quicker.

The above originally appeared in a slightly different form at
Project Popcorn
http://www.whitevioletpictures.com/popcorn/

Dark Shadows 2012

Dark Shadows ~ When I first saw the trailer for this new version of Dark Shadows my thoughts were, "Oh boy, here's Tim Burton raping another piece of my childhood, just like he did with Batman, Willy Wonka, Planet of the Apes, and tried to do with Superman." To an extent, I was right, but if I'm absolutely honest, having seen the film, there's also a lot of love and homage in there too, right next to the blatant disrespect and mockery.

The story for those who don't know is that of Barnabas Collins, cursed by an ex-lover, also a witch, to become a vampire in the 18th century, imprisoned, released and awoken in the 20th century. This was the basis for the last few years of the late 1960s/early 1970s ABC soap opera cult classic "Dark Shadows." Tim Burton, a supposed fan of the series, has decided to remake it as a camp comedy horror drama, emphasis on the camp and the comedy. Not that "Dark Shadows" wasn't camp, mind you, it was, it just wasn't planned to be. Like all good camp, it took itself deadly serious. That's not the case here at all unfortunately. Often, as with most of his films, what's funny to Tim Burton is rarely funny to everybody else.

All the good zingers are in the previews, so don't go in expecting much more. That said however, in between all the failed jokes are tons of in-jokes and Easter eggs for fans of the show. Tim Burton may have disrespected the TV series, but he certainly did know it backward and forward. He does streamline and he does change many details, but still the love is evident. It's when he tries to make fun of it and fails that fans and non-fans alike will cringe.

I dislike Johnny Depp's Barnabas Collins quite a bit. As he sometimes does, it seems as if he made up a character in a improv class and then built a movie around it. Depp might be better off getting together and making movies with that Borat guy rather than raping my childhood with substandard remakes of old soap operas. He does have Jonathan Frid's speech patterns down however. I have to give props to Helena Bonham Carter's Dr. Julia Hoffman for the same reason. Her voice is perfect, but her over the top dye job alcoholic drag queen version of the doctor not so much. Fans of the show will laugh their asses off at her, it's both hideous and hilarious.

Another of my favorites, Jackie Earle Haley is cast brilliantly as groundskeeper Willie Loomis (and yes, I bet that's where "The Simpsons" got the name from). He is one of the highlights of the flick, both dramatic and comedic. Don't blink or you will miss the two second cameos by surviving cast members of the soap opera - Kathryn Leigh Scott, David Selby, Lara Parker, and the recently late Jonathan Frid - as guests at the ball/happening with Alice Cooper.

Michelle Pfeiffer is pretty pedestrian for a role she wanted so badly, but she doesn't have much room to act next to the scene-eating Depp. Same for one of my faves Jonny Lee Miller and newcomer Bella Heathcote - not enough room. I would have loved to have seen more of them, but such is the way of the soap opera. Speaking of over the top scene-stealing, Eva Green from "Camelot" is just absolutely crazy town as Barnabas' nemesis Angelique. It's almost as if the actors got drunk and played make-believe as their characters at some points. Also, much like 1989's Batman, Burton is unable to come up with an ending so it feels like he starts pulling ideas of out his butt. Seriously, the last twenty minutes of this movie are insane, and not in a good way. It's almost unwatchable.

The problem is that it's not all bad, and that this really could have been a good movie, and not just that, a good movie, a respectful remake, and it didn't have to resort to low brow comedy. The credits sequence in the beginning, set to the Moody Blues' "Nights in White Satin," with Victoria Winters coming to Collinsport, is so ABC telemovie that not only would Dan Curtis (creator of "Dark Shadows" as well as more than a few movies of the week) would have been proud, but I was half-expecting to see Kim Darby, Kate Jackson, or Karen Black make an appearance.

There was a lot of stuff to love set amongst the comedic ruins of this flick. I loved both the inside and the outside of Collinwood, the town of Collinsport they built on the set, including the Blue Whale. The bit with Alice Cooper, which in the previews appears to be a one note joke, turns into brilliance by the inclusion of "The Ballad of Dwight Frye" as background for a couple scenes.

All in all, except for the last quarter of the movie, I did enjoy it. It's not "Dark Shadows," it's not the cult classic gothic soap opera of my youth, but I did laugh, I did smile, and I still have my memories. Worth seeing for the curious, the fans, and for those with no point of reference whatsoever. I just would have rather seen the movie it could have been, as opposed to the one it is.

STYLE VS. SUBSTANCE

Video Reviews of "The Last Man on Earth" and "The Omega Man"

Copyright 2003 Glenn Walker

Both movies are based on Richard Matheson’s brilliant "I Am Legend." The Last Man on Earth is from 1964 and stars Vincent Price in one of his better performances. The Omega Man is painfully from groovy 1971 with Charlton Heston who in hindsight appears to have walked through the movie. One wonders how Arnold Schwartzeneggar will handle the role if he ever makes his take; he has acquired the rights.

It is the story of a man alone in a world full of vampires (or victims of a disease similar to vampirism) who want him dead. They stalk him by night and he thwarts them by day. Same story but the movies are miles apart in execution.

There are striking differences that hit you right away. The black and white Vincent Price entry has a more horror movie feel and the enemy is presented immediately as vampires who are reminiscent of the zombies from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead due to the lack of color. Price spends his days cleaning up after and prepping for battle with his nocturnal enemies while Heston cruises the city in a convertible, seeing free movies and general just chillin’ out looking cool.

The Last Man on Earth spends quite a bit more time exploring Price’s character. His narration guides us through his world. We learn the whys and wherefors through his memories and flashbacks, a technique that would have lent more to its remake had they used it. The Last Man on Earth is the superior of the two and is a must-see for sci-fi and horror fans alike.

As for The Omega Man, Heston made a number of these slick sci-fi flicks with bizarre soundtracks and beware-the-future themes for the Woodstock generation including the classics Soylent Green and the original Planet of the Apes. They don’t hold up well today because of the injection of flower power sensitivities. The excellent performance of Rosalind Cash doing her Pam Grier best is a prime example of this approach. It’s a shame, they could have been good as the simple true approach of The Last Man on Earth from only a few years earlier proves that.

The title role in The Omega Man could have been played by any action hero of the era. David Jannsen, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, heck, even O.J. Simpson could have done it. Heston strides through this one with no frills or skills whatsoever save his machismo. He’s one of the few guys who can do this and he looks cool doing it.

Your turn, Arnold.

Fear the Walking Dead

New territory. That's what AMC's "Fear the Walking Dead" is about. More than the bottom line of greed and money and cashing in on the idea of a companion series to the wildly successful "The Walking Dead," it's about unbound, source material-free storytelling.

As most folks know, "The Walking Dead" is based on the black and white Image Comic from Robert Kirkman. When he brought the series to television he made sure that it was different from the comics. While some of the characters, situations, and storylines are similar to the comics, they are not the same. Kirkman's thinking follows two lines of thinking - first, the television series is an alternate universe to the comics, and second, if the viewers knew what was going to happen, why would they watch?

Still, in AMC's "The Walking Dead," if you read the comics, you did have some idea of what to expect, whether it played out that way or not. "Fear the Walking Dead" would be a whole new game however. The series would be clearly taking place in the same universe, but be happening in Los Angeles as opposed to the Atlanta area, and would also be more of a prequel.

"Fear" would occur while Rick Grimes was in a coma in the early days of the 'zombie apocalypse,' (and yes, I know there's no Z word in this world) before the original series. We may even learn how this all started, something that has never been fully explored in the comics. New territory.

From the previews, it would seem to be a subtle and gradual zombie takeover (how long was Rick's coma anyway?) that simultaneously conjures images of both Ferguson unrest and 1970s Battle of the Planet of the Apes. We're looking at military vs. walkers and a family caught up in the transformation of mankind from top of the food chain to prey on the run, at least from the quick cuts we've seen.

I'm looking forward to seeing Kim Dickens. I loved her in "Deadwood" and "Treme," but hated her in "House of Cards" and "Sons of Anarchy," so I'm also looking forward to finding out which Kim Dickens we're getting. I've always been a Ruben Blades fan and it will be fun to see Elizabeth Rodriguez in a starring role outside of "Orange Is the New Black."

So I'm excited for some new territory with "Fear the Walking Dead," maybe some answers, and maybe better stories than we have seen the last few seasons of "The Walking Dead." The series begins tomorrow night, and Marie Gilbert will be covering it for Biff Bam Pop!, watch for it right here.

Bionic Nostalgia - The Six Million Dollar Man

Esquire TV (formerly the much missed G4 channel) has been showing old reruns of "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman," shows that while I haven't seen since the 1970s, were huge parts of my childhood, like Evel Knievel, Planet of the Apes, or SSP Racers.

Begun as three made for TV movies of the week, "The Six Million Dollar Man" was very loosely based on the book Cyborg by Martin Caidin. The book and its three sequels were much more serious, adult, and more science fiction-oriented. Much had been changed, but when I read the book sometime in the mid-seventies as a pre-teen I still enjoyed it. The telemovies were wildly successful leading almost immediately into the TV series, which ran for five years, with one spin-off, "The Bionic Woman," and at least three other attempted spin-offs. There were toys, lunchboxes, and all the other paraphernalia one might expect a phenomenon.

The premise was pretty simple. Lee Majors played Colonel Steve Austin, an astronaut and test pilot who was involved in a body crushing accident that left him without the use of an eye, an arm and both legs. Secret government organization OSI offered to rebuild him, "make him better than he was before," with bionics. Now, it's real and is something that happens (although sans super strength and telescopic vision), but then this kind of technology was pure science fiction. In exchange for saving his life, Steve agrees to go on missions for the ominous Office of Scientific Intelligence. It was average spy fare for the most part, and invariably you waited through the boring stuff to see Austin kick some butt at the end, just like "Kung Fu."

Looking back, I remember Kenneth Johnson's ("Incredible Hulk," "V," "Alien Nation") name on the series, but I had forgotten that Glen A. Larsen ("Battlestar Galactica") and Harve Bennett (responsible for the best of the "Star Trek" films Wrath of Khan) were involved as well. The show had a very small cast, usually only Majors, Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman, sometimes Dr. Rudy Wells (played by various actors), and dozens of nameless bad guys who Austin would throw around during fight scenes. Yep, keep it simple.

In hindsight, it is only just okay television, with only the big event episodes standing out. When Steve faced the Robot, played by John Saxon, made by the scientist who would later create the Fembots who pestered the Bionic Woman, was one big event. Or when it was discovered there was another bionic man, a Seven Million Dollar Man, who turned out to be not just a jerk, but later a criminal. Or, at the height of 1970s Bigfoot and Alien fever, the appearance of Sasquatch, played by wrestler Andre the Giant, and later Ted Cassidy. There was even a renegade Venus Probe that fought our hero more than once.

The Robot (weirdly called Maskatron), Sasquatch, and the Venus Probe from above all got action figures in the playsets, it should be noted. Both the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman had action figures from Kenner. There also had the Fembots, Oscar Goldman, vehicles, and lots of mission or fashion outfits. Like Evel Knievel, these were toys that kids of a certain age had to have. I never did though. Evel was my jam.

The episodes I've seen on Esquire are, as I said, only ordinary, but full of nostalgia. I remember "The Six Million Dollar Man" fondly though, despite the season Majors sported a bad mustache. It was the first thing I watched on my first TV, a tiny black and white set, and watching the show that Sunday night was just the best. Simple things are good. More to come.

Apollo 18

Apollo 18 ~ Much like my earlier review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, this movie pulls at my nostalgic heartstrings. NASA, the Apollo program, the moon landings, Skylab, Tang, all that stuff is a part of my childhood, and monumental to the 1970s. It's worth noting that even Steve Austin was an astronaut, that's how tied together this all is. And a movie about a mysterious Apollo 18 mission fits right in with my recent flights of nostalgia.

From the opening moments of Apollo 18 where it portends to be a found footage film, my heart sank. This type of filmmaking rarely works, and if it does, it usually falls apart at the end. Blair Witch and Chronicle are the rare exceptions to the rule. I hoped this would be as well. Just don't think about how it is you're watching this film. It's apparently edited together after the fact, takes advantage of the poor video quality of the missions, and also spotlights bits of film the viewer is supposed to pay attention to. For me, that kind of ruins it. Don't oversell, and don't underestimate your audience.

We see lots of the cast, but sadly the film doesn't give us enough of the astronauts for us to care about them. This probably remains the biggest fault of the film. That said, once into the premise and watching the movie, you can't take your eyes off it. So settle in, dim the lights, and add some vodka to your Tang, you're in for an intriguing and startling ride. Not what I expected at all. Relax and enjoy.

The Lost Universal Monster

Normally when one thinks of the Universal Monsters, there are five biggies one thinks of - Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Invisible Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Of course there are second tier monsters like the Phantom of the Opera, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula's Daughter, the Invisible Woman, and other derivatives.

But does anyone remember the lost Universal monster? Who knows the Gorilla Girl, a monster so popular in her time that her film spawned two sequels? 1943's Captive Wild Woman starred John Carradine, and introduced Acquanetta as the Gorilla Girl. Jungle Woman and The Jungle Captive quickly followed in 1944 and 1945, yet no one seems to remember the lost Universal monster.

The gist of the series is one of surgical terror and mad science. Would the transplanting of human glands into a gorilla create a more human gorilla or a half-human beast that would haunt your nightmares? Your guess is probably right. This precursor to theoretically Planet of the Apes is moody, atmospheric, campy, and a perfect fit into the Universal horror mythos.

Yet, no one remembers. Was it because she was a woman? Even in the horror world were women second-class citizens? Let's look at that list above again. The only females in the bunch are derivative of male major players. Perhaps the powers-that-be ignored the Gorilla Girl on purpose to keep women down.

You can still see these movies, and I suggest you check them out if you can. It's like finding a new Universal horror, and in a way, it really is.

Bad Ronald

Bad Ronald ~ In the early to mid-1970s ABC did tons of TV movies, also known as telemovies or movies of the week. The best of these were low-budget yet very memorable horror thrillers. Warner Home Video has finally released some of these lost classics on DVD in their Archives Collection.

One of these was Bad Ronald, based on the book by science fiction writer Jack Vance, and starring Scott Jacoby (Mario from The Little Girl who Lives Down the Lane) in the title role and Kim Hunter (Zira from Planet of the Apes) as his mother.

Social misfit Ronald accidentally kills one of his tormentors and his equally twisted smothering mother hides him away in a secret room in their house. When Mom heads to the hospital and dies, Ronald falls deeper into dementia. When a family moves into the newly vacant house, and one of the daughters begins dating the victim’s older brother – it gets really creepy as he starts drilling peepholes in walls and pillaging their fridge for food.

A wannabe writer, Ronald, in his loneliness, begins to blur the line between reality and his fantasy world of Atranta, envisioning the daughter as his princess and the boyfriend as an evil duke. When the parents go away for the weekend, Ronald comes out to play, and things take a wild turn into horror movie land and the fun begins.

The stranger living in the walls idea is a classic of the genre, almost as notorious as ‘the calls are coming from inside the house,’ and Bad Ronald is a classic in its own right. I’m glad this is finally out on DVD.

The Indies First All Things Fun! New Comics Vidcast for 1-18-2012

The All Things Fun! New Comics Vidcast is shot live in a real comics and gaming store in West Berlin, NJ - All Things Fun! - co-hosts Ed (Crossed) Evans, Allison (Danger Girl) Eckel and Glenn (Lord of the Jungle) Walker discuss the new comics out this week in two fun video segments, now in high definition, and also available on YouTube. See it here!

The first segment includes discussion of the following topics: Earthquake, Indies first, Fables #113, Legend of Oz The Wicked West #2, Star Trek #5, Tarzan in Lord of the Jungle #1, Crossed Psychopath #7, Planet of the Apes #10, videogame comics, Grant Morrison's Steed and Mrs. Peel the other Avengers, kids comics, Tiny Titans, redheads, and the secret oranges of Wonder Girl.



The discussion continues in segment two including: Scott Snyder's Batman #5, Supergirl #5, fighting in armored bathing suits, DC Universe Presents #5 featuring Deadman, Catwoman #5 by Judd Winick, acid trip Batman, Walt Simonson on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and Legion of Super-Heroes, the big quiet, X-Men Blue, AVX, Ed's Marvels, Mark Waid's Daredevil #8, Avengers #21, and the trades of the week, with bonus sparkles.



Be sure to check out the outrageous new All Things Fun! website, and the All Things Fun! Blogs, by Allison and Glenn, and ATF! on YouTube.

And be back here every Wednesday morning at 11:30 AM EST to watch the new broadcast, and thereafter throughout the week!

Wall-E

WALL-E ~ “Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class,” Wall-E (pronounced Wally) for short, is a love story and a tale of courage. Writer/director Andrew Stanton originally visualized this Disney/Pixar flick as “What if mankind evacuated Earth and forgot to turn off the last remaining robot?” The story expands from there.

Left behind to clean up mankind’s ecological mess while the human race goes off into space, Wall-E soon finds himself alone in this endeavor. When a robot probe, the super-slick EVE model, lands to explore Earth, clunky trash compacter Wall-E falls in love. Eve finds proof of life and returns to space with Wall-E in tow. The plant she finds leads the remaining humans, made fat and lazy by a life waited on by robots, to believe it’s time to come back home.

There are moments when Wall-E could have been as preachy as the early 1970s eco-scifi flicks like Soylent Green or Planet of the Apes but it rarely strays in that direction. Of course the accusative finger of Corporate America isn’t hard to see in Buy ‘n Large but it’s a point not hammered home like it could have been. In the end all is right and everyone lives happily ever after – a nice change of pace from most ecological disaster movies.

It’s worth noting that the first hour of the flick is without dialogue, an achievement worthy of praise in this day and age. With an economy of lines, Jeff Garlin is wonderful as the Captain and Fred Willard is surprisingly good as one of Pixar’s first live-action actors.

Speaking of Pixar, there are tons of great cameos from previous films among Wall-E’s junk collection and among the debris littering Earth. And don’t miss the cartoon before the feature. “Presto” is one of Pixar’s best. All in all, a pleasant family experience.

RIP William Windom

This has been a bad weekend for show business. We lost director Tony Scott to an apparent suicide, singer/songwriter Scott McKenzie of "San Francisco" fame, and just today, Phyllis Diller. But for right now, I'm going to talk about Emmy Award winning actor William Windom.

Windom was perhaps one of the best character actors in television, film and stage. He was memorable in "The Farmer's Daughter," "Star Trek," "Night Gallery," a recurring role on "Murder, She Wrote," and multiple episodes of "Twilight Zone." You might also remember him from the films To Kill a Mockingbird, Escape from the Planet of the Apes and The Detective among others.

But the reason I remember William Windom is a short-lived NBC TV series called "My World and Welcome to It." My big sister Bobbie, for whom I am eternally grateful for teaching me to read at a very young age, insisted I watch the show when I was just a wee one. At the time, I might have thought she put me in front of the TV because it had cartoons in it, but in reality, she was exposing me to a great writer - James Thurber.

The show revolved around a writer and cartoonist based on Thurber and played by Windom, who won an Emmy for his work there. Most of the content of this unique half-hour sitcom was either based on Thurber's stories, essays and cartoons, or on his own life. The one animated sequence that stands out in my mind is "The Unicorn in the Garden." Years later I would find the tale in a book and discover one of my favorite authors.

Thank you, Bobbie, for introducing me to James Thurber, and thank you, William Windom, for bringing him to life. Windom passed away on Thursday from congestive heart failure. He was 88, and he will be missed.

Quickies 7-7-2014

The Black Knight Returns ~ This low budget superhero flick comes from Tomcat Films, the same folks who brought us Thunderstorm. Yeah, I know, I'm a masochist to watch this. This was pretty bad, it was no Thunderstorm, mind you, but pretty bad. It's about on par with the 1966 "Batman" TV series (without the humor or sensibility) crossed with the terrible Marvel movies of the 1970s. The problem? It's 2014. Pass.

Quick ~ At first glance, it's Speed, on a motorcycle, made in South Korea. Based on those three things, I thought this would just be derivative drivel, but I was sooo wrong. I was pleasantly surprised by the opening sequence that reminded me very much of the beginning of Akira. The terrific score only helped to pull me in. This fast furious and fun flick has a motorcycle messenger racing to destinations before the bomb in his helmet explodes, and it rocks.

Nazis at the Center of the Earth ~ Only from The Asylum could something so bizarre originate, well, there or Troma. Scientists in Antarctica finds Nazis living underground. Yep, it's just like Pellucidar or Skartaris, only instead of dinosaurs, it's got high tech Nazis. It's got Josef Mengele, robo-Hitler, and did I mention it stars Jake Busey as, wait for it, a scientist? Twisted fun, Asylum style.

World Without End ~ This 1956 scifi B-movie used footage and sets from 1951's Flight to Mars, and at first seems to be a precursor in plot and theme to both The Time Machine and Planet of the Apes (and its sequel Beneath… for that matter) but it soon falls apart into an uninteresting cross between a town meeting and a frontier western. Worth watching for the 1950s scifi nostalgia.

In Time

In Time ~ This is one of those types of science fiction concept flicks that would have been right at home on a double bill with other 1970s era movies like Rollerball, The Omega Man, Logan's Run, and Planet of the Apes. The concept is the draw point. Here in In Time, the idea is a world where time is currency. Similar to the aforementioned Logan's Run, one has a limited lifespan, 25 in this case, but more time can be earned or stolen, and some people can live for centuries.

This is a lot more clever than it at first appears to be. Much fun is had in dialogue with time measurements in place of monetary amounts. Many of the characters are named after famous watchmakers. Fun.

Justin Timberlake deftly plays Will Salas, who loses his mother to time limit and also is given over a century by a stranger in the space of a day. The stranger also imparts over a century to him before expiring himself. On the run from perennial baddie Cillian Murphy as a Timekeeper (that's futurespeak for cop) for the stranger's murder, Will ends up on the run with Amanda Seyfried as a hostage. She's the daughter of a rich socialite, played by Vincent Kartheiser, Pete Campbell of "Mad Men." This is where In Time spins into current day thriller as opposed to retro-sci-fi.

In Time was written by producer and director Andrew Niccol who's had similar flicks under his belt like Gattaca, The Truman Show, and S1m0ne. It's as if he's got one foot in the day after tomorrow scifi vibe. He also wrote the story that The Terminal was based on and produced a handful as well. I'll be looking for his name in the future based on In Time. There's more to this flick than seems at first glance, worth a look.

Rollerball (2000)

STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE

A Video Review of "Rollerball" (2000)

Copyright 2002 Glenn walker

Chris Klein ("American Pie," "Say It Isn't So"), who took the part after Mark Wahlberg bailed out (to do that other 1970s scifi remake "Planet of the Apes"), is completely dull. Boring as sin, he is a no action hero but inexplicably cast as one here.



The best sequences are of the Rollerball game itself. The side story (which is unfortunately the side story, and the plot) seems as dull as Chris Klein himself.

It's a shame because boreboy's co-stars LL Cool J and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos are intriguing in their parts but sadly their backstories are as lacking as Klein's charisma.

Why remake a classic if it's going to be such a mess? This disappointment from director John McTiernan ("Die Hard," "The Hunt For Red October") will make me think twice before seeing another one from him.

Maybe more character development or more actual gametime would've saved this one. Maybe not.

Charlton Heston 1924-2008

Whether you know him from his many brilliant roles in classic Hollywood or his many Biblical epics or his resurgence in 1970s scifi and disaster flicks or his fierce political leanings both liberal and conservative, Charlton Heston is a man who can never be forgotten.

If you’ve ever heard powerful narration, it’s probably him or someone who wishes they were him. Even if you’ve never seen his films, Heston leaves his mark on early television playing such parts as the leads in “Macbeth” and “Wuthering Heights,” and even in contemporary TV on “Saturday Night Live” and “Dynasty.” He always made his mark no matter where he performed.

From the classic Ben-Hur to the original (and the best) Planet of the Apes to The Greatest Show on Earth to El Cid to his own personal favorite Will Penny to the much-parodied Soylent Green to perhaps both his greatest role and the best Biblical epic ever filmed, The Ten Commandments, Heston was a man among men and an actor among actors. He will be missed.