Ivy + Charles M. Schulz = PROFIT!!!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Gil Elvgren: The Complete Pin-Ups
Monday, July 11, 2011
Wicker Park, Again
I had last seen the 2004 Josh Hartnett thriller WICKER PARK about maybe 5 years ago (recommended to me and lent by a co-worker) and though I really enjoyed it, about the only thing I recalled about the lead actresses were that there was s stoic blonde playing Hartnett’s romantic lead, and an adorably crazy strawberry redhead playing the “fly In the ointment” character.
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| Wicker Park |
So I’m browsing through my catalog of DVD Movies, deciding what to watch, and I realize I haven’t seen Wicker Park since I picked it up for myself, all those years ago! I was just the right time to see it for I had forgotten a lot of the exciting twists and it would be like enjoying the movie all over again!
Watching the movie, I realized how old this movie was when I saw how YOUNG Hartnett was in this flick, and had to laugh seeing Matthew “Shaggy” Lillard as his best friend! Then the main female lead came onscreen, the “stoic blonde”Lisa...
...and I’ll be darned if it wasn’t Diane Kruger, the lass who was SO WONDERFUL as German Actress Bridget Von Hammersmark in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS! I had NO IDEA!
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| Above and Below: Diane Kruger in Wicker Park |
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| in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS |
A little later on in the movie, the mysterious “other Girl” known only as Alex made her appearance onscreen...
...and I was ONCE AGAIN blown away to find that that luscious redheaded troublemaker was none other than Rose Byrne, most recently seen as the young ‘n’ sexy Moira MacTaggert in the X-MEN FIRST CLASS Movie!!! Whodathunkit!
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| Above and Below: Rose Byrne in Wicker Park |
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| Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert in X-MEN FIRST CLASS |
How Awesome! Wicker Park: The Movie that keeps on Giving!
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| Rose Byrne, Wicker Park |
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| Diane Kruger, Wicker Park |
Monday, July 4, 2011
A Harrowing Dinosaur Experience
Like a lot of kids, I was absolutely nuts for dinosaurs when I was growing up, and my favorite book of them all was this one that I used to read at Liberty House whenever my mother went shopping there. I asked for it for my birthday that year, and once I got it it became my most prized possession!
Called simply DINOSAURS AND OTHER PREHISTORIC REPTILES, published in 1960 by Golden Press, and written by Jane Werner Watson with artwork by Rudolph F. Zallinger, this was one of the BEST-illustrated Dinosaur books out there. With the barrage of Dinosaur books available nowadays, it’s hard to believe, but back in the early 7o’s, there were but a HANDFUL of Dinosaur books any library had, and most of them were for little LITTLE kids, accompanied with uninspired sketches or(even worse) cartoonish drawings. But that Golden Book of Dinosaurs- MAN, the artwork was just incredible, and even now as an adult the paintings just amaze me. So much realistic details, as befitting the master who created the "Age Of Reptiles"!!
Look at all the attention to the flora and fauna in this shot of Ornitholestes about to make goulash out of Archaeopterix. ..
…And this double page spread of a terrifying Allosaurus killing a poor defenseless Brontosaurus was my favorite shot of the entire book- I remember staring at this one for HOURS, so moved by the illustration! Note the camptosaurus in the back going “What, ME Worry?” Anyway…So I LOVED this book to death!
When I began first grade, my little brother was too young to go to class, but still had to come along when my mother took me to and from school. One day he said he was too tired to go with her to pick me up, so since we lived only a block away from the school, my mother thought it would be OK to leave him home for a few minutes.
When my mother picked me up and we got back home, we were presented with the image of my brother sitting on top of our refrigerator, where he’d climbed up to get at the bottle of Flintstone Vitamins (everyone loves those Flintstones Vitamins!) which were in a basket up there, supposedly away from children’s reach.
To my mother’s horror, my brother had eaten almost on third of the bottle, and immediately called out family doctor to ask what to do. He had my mother pick up some medicine which would make my brother throw the whole thing up . She administered the stuff to him, but as the results weren’t immediate, he killed time by reading some of our kid books. You can see where this is going.
When I happened to come into the living room, I realize he was reading MY Dinosaur Book- but before I could protest and take it away from him, he paused for dramatic effect and then emptied the entire contents of delicious Flintstone Vitamins from his stomach...and ALL OVER my beloved BOOK!
I remember jumping up and down yelling ARGHHHH! HE BARFED ON MY DINOSAUR BOOOOOOOK! To which my Mom said, "Don’t yell, he couldn’t help it.” I asked “what about my book!” to which she curtly said, You have to throw it away. THROW IT AWAY!!! With tears in my eyes I surveyed the damage- vomit all over the open book on the floor! I was SOOOO fricking traumatized, to this day, I can still remember EXACTLY which PAGE he barfed on, this gatefold with Iguanadon and Trachodon:
Well, Luckily for me, my birthday was coming up, so I was able to get myself a replacement Book, and was so relieved I didn’t even think about what a rip-off it was that I had to blow a birthday gift on a book I already had! You best believe I guarded that copy with my life, and though It’s falling abaprt and bound with scotch tape throughout, I still own that book as part of my childhood treasures!
PS: At the time, the only other Dinosaur Book out there that could compare was the equally stunning (though black and white) illustrations in the DINOSAURS AND MORE DINOSAURS (1965) book by M. Jean Craig and painted by George Solonevich.
A few years later, another amazing book called ALBUM of DINOSAURS (1972) by Tom McGowan and Illos by Rod Ruth came out, and those were pretty much my “BIG THREE” of Dinosaur Books growing up!
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Logan's Run
My friend let me borrow his copy of the 1976 science fiction movie LOGAN’S RUN, a movie I hadn’t seen since 1979 or so (and only on TV), so seeing this again (and unedited for the first time) was a real treat!
Watching it again, it’s amazing how many images from this movie have endured in my memory. Though the special effects in this movie seem more like they belonged in a TV show than a theatrical release, (and I kept feeling like I was watching a 70’s Glen A. Larson Show!) they must have really rocked my world at the time to have such a lasting effect on my subconscious!
And speaking of the Seventies, where else can you have a Dystopian Society looking so DISCO! I tell you, I’m ALL FOR a culture that features gorgeous women all looking like SOLID GOLD dancers with the appropriate blue eye-shadow that would make even Agnetha of ABBA proud! I was loving it from the moment the movie started!
Of course, a big reason of wanting to watch Logan’s Run after all these years is to see lovely Jenny Agutter. I barely remembered her in Logan’s Run and in fact, it wasn’t until years later when she played Nurse Alex in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON that I fell in love with her, and was excited to see her playing Jessica6 again!
Probably the thing I remembered MOST about Logan’s Run was the robot guard BOX, (and what kid watching this movie didn’t dig him!) and it was cool seeing him (it?) again, looking like a precursor to the later Cylons in Battlestar Galactica!
And while we’re on the subject of that Arctic scene, I have to say that having only seen this movie on television, nothing could have prepared me for the scene where Jessica gets out of her wet clothes into the furs…I almost had a heart attack!
Once on the outside, the images were awakening so many memories for me- the Lincoln Memorial and the State Capitol in ruins, covered with vines, as I saw these scene, my mind was going WHOA! I remember THIS!!! Soooo Impressive to a 10 year old kid!
One thing cooll was that while I remembered that Logan and Jessica had met an old man with a white beard, I hadn’t known that they were in fact IN the State capitol! And I had no inkling that all the snippets of poetry Ustinov was saying was from TS Elliot’s Book Of Cats!
Aw, what awesome memories! Like taking a time-machine back to my childhood, back when movies like 2001, Star Wars, Planet Of The Apes, Logan's Run and Silent Running was filling my head with all the wide-eyed wonders of the amazing possible future! And just think that movies like The Empire Strikes Back and Bladerunner were still to come!
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