The JBL Paragon Loudspeaker.

All 698 pounds of it.

Now available at The Warner Archive

Here's some old newspaper comic film ad things for some Randolph Scott RKO westerns you can now buy here.




Sadly, these strips are not included on the DVDs. I found these on a great blog, The Fabulous Fifties.

There's so much wrong with the world these days.

If you dig around on Internet film-fan sites, you'll find a lot of geeks whining about how their favorite movies aren't available on DVD. (Some are even griping about the lack of a Blu-Ray upgrade. Get real.)

Well, I can whine as good as anybody, so here's a couple of mine.



I got a million of 'em, but these are topping the list these days.

Fridays With Frank (Zappa) #9

FZ (in Mike's Monkee chair) and Michael Nesmith (in FZ's nose and hair, giving the finger).

Nesmith: "I asked Frank Zappa if he would guest on the show. He said, 'I'll only come if I can have your part.' And I said, 'Well, that's fine. If you come on the show and be me, then I'll be you.' So I dressed him up in a shirt and gave him a wool hat so he'd look like me... He was very kind. When people hated us more than anything he said kind things about us. He was talking about the music, about how well it was produced... He offered to teach me to play lead guitar one time. It was an incredibly groovy thing to do. He worked with me for hours, but I never learned."
(From that Zappa book by Barry Miles)

By the way, if you've never heard the three LPs Nesmith made with the First National Band — Magnetic South, Loose Salute and Nevada Fighter — you're really missing out. They're out on CD now, so you have no excuse.

Double Nickels.

More '55 Chevys, lifted from various sites and blogs.

Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus

I haven't been this excited about a new movie in 10 years.

Just dig that title. Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus. Say it out loud. Ain't it great?

This thing is gonna stink. A lot. I can't wait.

For more wonderfulness, here's the trailer.

Shoulda Been There.

Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard and Buck Owens.

Fridays With Frank (Zappa) #8

Came across this on Jimmy Carl Black's website.

Jimmy passed away peacefully Saturday 11/01/08 at 11:00 o'clock pm.

He says hi to everybody and he doesn't want anybody to be sad.

That's him on the right.

7 X 13 = 28

"Did you ever go to school, stupid?"

"Yes sir, and I came out the same way."

From Little Giant. Brilliant.

"The most damnedable ill luck."

That's a frame from a 70mm print of my favorite movie, Where Eagles Dare (1969).

It was recently shown in 70mm with six-track magnetic sound at a widescreen film festival in England. You can read about it here.

"We've been digging in garbage for 18 months."

Two hours of pushin' broom

You're looking at Roger Miller's original handwritten lyrics to "King Of The Road." It's just one of the nifty things you'll find at his site.

Miller's been a favorite of mine since I was a toddler. I still marvel at the way he bumps words into each other.

Mexico, 1966

Classic surf photo by Ron Stoner.

Fridays With Frank (Zappa) #7

Outtake from Cal Schenkel's shoot for We're Only In It For The Money, often held up as the best Zappa/Mothers LP.

Sorry folks, I feel that distinction has to go to Freak Out!

"I need a taco."

I've plugged The Warner Archive DVD-on-demand program on here a few times, and the titles I splurged on (and at $20 for a DVD-R, I do mean splurged) — Wichita and Westbound — have been quite nice. I was happy with the quality — and overjoyed to have these things sitting in my house.

There are a number of other titles I want. More of their Randolph Scotts. Darby's Rangers. But I was really looking forward to one of their latest releases, Freebie And The Bean, Richard Rush's terrific 1974 buddy/cop movie. It's got a ton of great car and motorcycle stunts. Great performances from James Caan, Alan Arkin and Valerie Harper. Plenty of Hawks- and Altman-esque overlapping dialogue. And Paul Koslo!

Well, my best friend pulled the trigger on this one before I did, and judging from his email this morning, he's a bit disappointed in what showed up in his mailbox.

Anything Laszlo Kovacs shot (dig his list of credits sometime) deserves the red-carpet treatment when it comes to DVD, so for this transfer to be anything less than perfect is a big fat drag. Among the many things he pulls off effortlessly during this 114 minutes, the way lens flare helps conceal the fact that Evel Knievel is doubling for Caan is brilliant.

So even if the picture and sound aren't what you'd hoped for, the movie itself is still hilarious. Arkin's still masterful. And it's still got all that loopy dialogue. (How much of it's improvised?)

And Whitey (Koslo) still gets punched in the face through the screen door.

For a limited time, you can buy two Warner Archive films and get a third free with the coupon code SPITFIRE. Not sure when it runs out. Try it.

"La Nave de los Monstruos." Or as I call it, "The What Of The What?"

One look at that photo, and a true 50s sci-fi/horror buff can smell a masterpiece.

However, some of you might need further proof.

"I want to know if you red-necked peckerwoods are too chicken-gutted to finish this thing in the open."

From Ride The High Country (1962)

"The only way to avoid a wipeout is to take this wide, stink-bug stance."

"Did you see that tooth? She had so much bridge work, every time I kissed her I had to pay a toll."

Sure it stinks. But why isn't it out on DVD?

Quality has nothing to do with a movie's presence on DVD. Lots of super-crappy movies are available — Dante's Peak, for instance. This particular crappy movie, Rolling Vengeance, is something I'm dying to see. But can't.

My senior year in college, this thing showed up at the Greeley, Colorado, video store where I worked. I thought it looked like a real hoot — stupid even for an 80s action movie — and I planned to take it home some night. Well, these dudes came and stole it (along with a VCR and a copy of Faces Of Death) before I ever got a chance to see it. The bastards! Why couldn't they have ripped off The Princess Bride or The Lost Boys instead? We had dozens of those.

So now it's more than 20 years later and I still haven't seen this thing. Hope you dirtbags enjoyed it! A quick search shows that it's nowhere on DVD.

But the clip below (sorry about the cussin') makes it look like it'll be worth the decades-long wait.

Fridays With Frank (Zappa) #6

In observance of Mother's Day, here's a Mother with his mother.

Another '55 Chevy

It don't get no better than this 81 minutes right here.

One of my all-time favorite movies — which my best friend James and I used to watch almost daily via a faded 16mm 'Scope print — Pit And The Pendulum. Enjoy.

Fridays With Frank (Zappa) #5

Someplace you shoulda been.