Wish I'd been there.

Random stuff off my desktop.

Time for a little digital housekeeping to get some of this random stuff off my desktop so I can find the work stuff that's scattered amongst all this junk.

First and foremost, here's Presley feeding a baby donkey at Amazing Acres Farms. She went yesterday to their Holiday Farm Camp — and had a blast. The coat makes her look a little like an Apollo astronaut, but it was really really cold yesterday. The donkey's name is Domenic, by the way.


Next, a press sheet for an old Batman tray puzzle from the Sixties. Found it on somebody's blog out there somewhere.


Jennifer found this one somewhere. It's Frank Zappa and his parents — at their house. You know, I sure miss Frank. We've still got all that great music, of course, but it's nice knowing there are people out there like Frank walking around and just generally being brilliant.


There's this thing on the Internets somewhere that lets you construct an illustration of a Volkswagen Beetle of any age, in any color, with a number of accessories. I did mine — then stuck a luggage rack on the top.


And lastly, since I can't seem to break my Big Star infatuation these days, here's the four-piece lineup around the time of #1 Record. If you haven't figured it out by now, I really like Big Star.


Told you it was random.

The Big Star freakout continues.

I'm two-thirds of the ways through Rob Jovanovic's great Big Star book, Big Star: The Short Life, Painful Death, and Unexpected Resurrection of the Kings of Power Pop, which I think has been re-issued with a shorter title. Probably a wise move.

The Big Star story is a sad one, filled with missed opportunities (lots), self-destructive behavior (lots and lots), etc. But knowing how this music was made has really aided my appreciation of a band I loved to begin with. It's also thrown me into a big fat Big Star binge, which is not a bad thing at all.

Came across this original promo poster for #1 Record. Very cool. There's a lot of Big Star reposing on eBay these days.

We'll never know how well this poster really promoted the record, since issues with the label and its distributor sunk any chances of success the band had with this album. But this does serve as a fine example of Truth In Advertising: wise men do check out Big Star.

A couple dozen shopping days left till Christmas.

The very rare masterpiece, Big Star's #1 Record, on eBay. (Radio City is just as good.) It's an original Ardent copy from 1972 in near-mint condition.

Something ridiculous like just 5,000 of these were supposedly sold. The CD is playing in my office right now.

"Try Again" (Bell/Chilton):

Lord I've been trying to be what I should
Lord I've been trying to do what I could
But each time it gets a little harder
I feel the pain
But I'll try again

Lord I've been trying to be understood
And Lord I've been trying to do as you would
But each time it gets a little harder
I feel the pain
But I'll try again


At $100, this seems like a deal.

Why'd They Bother?

Battle Of The (Not Much) Bulge.

I love the epic war films of the Sixties. The Longest Day. The Dirty Dozen. Battle Of Britain. Where Eagles Dare (my all-time favorite movie). The big budgets, wide screen, monster casts and roadshow lengths really seem to work in this genre — while they’ll sink films in others (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang comes to mind).

The other day, I happened upon The Battle Of The Bulge on DVD. Three bucks. I’m in.

Growing up with a film-collector Dad, I was lucky to see many of these films on film, actually projected on a screen. But Bulge I only knew from Sunday afternoons on local TV, where it was always a terrible mess. Pacing destroyed by commercials. Camerawork, blocking and composition completely wasted by panning and scanning Cinerama down to 1.33:1 (which is a crime against nature). Sound piped through a speaker the size of a silver dollar. Basically, all its epic-ness totally stripped away.

It’s a lot more impressive now, with an actual attempt to preserve what the filmmakers where aiming for 40 years ago. Color, framing, sound — they’re all near perfect. We get the entrance, intermission and exit music. Actually, it’s beautiful. A first-class presentation of a Sixties roadshow film.

However, the film itself is where the trouble starts.

First, for an epic, it’s not all that epic, taking a massive military milestone that lasted a month or more, and making it feel like a couple dozen guys and an afternoon. Then there are a number of inaccuracies, beginning with American post-war Patton tanks pretending to be King Tigers and the sunny plains of Spain filling in for the snowy forests of the Western Front. Not to mention some of the lousiest process photography I can remember — just look at Robert Shaw sitting in front of his tank column. Shameful.

Guess they can’t all be The Longest Day can they? And since that film’s director, Ken Annakin, gave us this one, it’s doubly disappointing.

All that said, however, I loved it. Tanks. Cinerama. Robert Ryan. Charles Bronson. Telly Savales. Can you think of a better way to spend an afternoon? I sure can't.

We've lost a couple big ones, folks.

First, Forrest Ackerman passed away Thursday night. The editor of Famous Monsters Of Filmland, 4E had a tremendous influence on science fiction and horror films, literature and fandom. From Steven Spielberg to Joe Dante to Rick Baker and on and on, Hollywood is lousy with Famous Monsters readers turned film-makers.

I once had the incredible privilege to tour the Ackermansion, Forry's memorabilia-filled home. In L.A. to see X, my best friend James and I headed over one afternoon. It was Geek Heaven, one of the finest afternoons of my life. The stuff laying around the place was unbelievable: mountains of artwork, the ape model from King Kong (1933), model spaceships from you-name-it, even Professor Fate's submarine from The Great Race.

I snagged the above photo from someone (sorry) because it reminds me of the time I spent with him. Note that he's wearing Lugosi's Dracula ring (the larger one) and Boris Karloff's from The Mummy. He slid the Dracula one on my hand. "With this ring, I be dead," I quipped. Mr. Ackerman, the absolute king of groaner puns, laughed and threatened to steal it. I was honored.

See ya, Dr. Akula. And thank you.

Actress Beverly Garland has also passed away. She was in a slew of great B movies, from D.O.A. (her first film) to The Alligator People to Gunslinger to Not Of This Earth. If it's from the Fifties and she's in it, you're in good shape. Especially if Roger Corman directed it. It'd be easy to call her a "cult actress" and leave it at that, but that belittles how versatile and good she was -- a very good actress in movies that don't usually have very good actresses.

Beverly was a regular on My Three Sons (which is what many people know her from) and appeared in about a million other TV shows. She also owned a hotel in Hollywood.

And Bettie Page is in a coma.

Calling All Creature Geeks!

There's this blog I check out every once in a while, John's Forbidden Planet. It's always got some incredible old movie poster art and stuff. Check it out. Frequently.

This morning, I can across this on there: an actual color photo from The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954). John says he did a little color-correcting on it, which I thank him for.

There are very very few color photos of the Creature around. These were shot for Life magazine, and it turns out you can buy them. Pretty neat. And just in time for the holidays!

While I'm on the subject of old monster stuff, Famous Monsters Of Filmland's Forrest Ackerman isn't doing very well. Love ya, 4E!