Month: September 2010

The Long Climb to the Top

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I’m not afraid of heights.  Watching this video of a worker climbing a radio tower [and most of the time free-climbing, without a safety harness] could make me change my opinion of high places.  It’s insane to not only think that some poor worker [and I don’t care how much he/she gets paid] has to climb higher than the Sears Tower to make a repair, but it’s even more insane to think that there are folks out there who want the job. [via Neatorama]

The video has been pulled.  You can learn why here.

William Shatner’s Up Till Now

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As I write this I’m a little less than half way through William Shatner’s autobiography, Up Till Now and I’m already hating that it will end.  Shatner’s stories, observations and asides are entertaining and written as if he was chatting with the reader over a McDonald’s Mocca Frappe.  [Stay thirsty, my friends!]

Growing up, I was a HUGE Star Trek fan [although Spock was my favorite character] and I did enjoy Shatner in Boston Legal and The Twilight Zone episodes [that he headlined], but I wasn’t a TJ Hooker fan.  And except for the Star Trek movies starring Shatner and the original crew, there are no other William Shatner films in my movie collection.  That had led me to believe that I might enjoy only a small part of Shatner’s autobiography.  Boy, was I wrong.  Ever page has either made me smile or given me some interesting insight.  And sometimes both.  For example, Shatner discusses being flown to France with his co-stars for the premiere of an animated film…

In the animated film, Over the Hedge I played Ozzie the Opossum, whose primary survival technique is playing dead, but truly dramatically dead.  Shatnerian playing dead.  Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of DreamWorks, sent the cast, including Bruce Willis and myself to the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of the film.  As we were walking up the red carpet, surrounded by photographers, we were introduced to the French actors who had played our characters in the French version.  Wait a second, I wondered, we’re the stars of the film, right?  I knew we were the stars, our names were in big letters on the lobby cards and credits.  But as this is an animated film our faces weren’t on the screen, and now our voices were replaced by French actors.  So we were the stars of a film in which we didn’t even appear.  What were we doing there?

Think about it.  Pay big bucks to an actor who will never appear on screen and then replace his voice too! It’s gotta make you simply shake your head and smile.

Friday Nite Sketching Live with Beatty & Zablo

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In less than 24 hours I’ll be joining my best bud, John Beatty in his luxurious JBI studio in the heart of beautiful downtown Holly Hill.  John will be sketching live on U-Stream and taking requests for headsketches like those above.  I’ll be there as color commentator and to keep things rolling.  John will have something for every price range and you can get the full details at his site.

I hope you’ll tune in to the festivities — it’d be great to hear from all ZONERS.    The fun starts at 7pm EST… and if you see John doing a Stallone sketch, it had better be for me!

5 Days to Die

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I’m a sucker for good crime noir.  So when I heard about 5 Days to Die by Andy Schmidt [writer] and Chee [artist], I knew I hard to get my order in.   5 Days to Die is the story of…

…Detective Ray Crisara, who suffers a tragic car accident [an attempted hit?] that shatters his family and puts enough shrapnel in his head to give him a five-day life expectancy… And he’s got to choose between being with his family or finding and stopping their potential killer!

If this sounds like something you’d like, then get your order in to your local comic shop.  Want to know more about the series?  Then check out Noir Meets 24 in 5 Days to Die, posted by the fine folks at Neatorama.com.

Lost in Space Trivia

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I was a fan of Lost in Space.  It was a wonderful concept – a family sent on a space mission and thanks to a cowardly stowaway traitor, they get thrown off course and, well, lost in space.  The robot was the coolest and I have to admit that I thought Penny was pretty cute too.  Plus the dad was the guy who played Zorro!

If you are/were a Lost in Space fan, then you might be interested in some little known facts:

  • Carroll O’Connor, who played Archie Bunker on All in the Family, was initially considered to play the role of Dr. Smith.
  • The pilot episode cost $600,000. At the time, it was the most expensive TV pilot to date, with the exception of Star Trek’s $630,000 first pilot episode “The Cage.”
  • The strongly campy nature of the second and third seasons was, by the way, entirely intentional. A year after Lost in Space debuted, the TV series Batman became a spectacular ratings success. Irwin Allen noticed and attributed its ratings to the show’s playful tone. He altered Lost in Space accordingly.

You can learn even more little known Lost in Space facts if you check out this post at Neatorama.

From the Mind of M. Night Shyamalan

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Just the other night four of us were having a discussion about M. Night Shyamalan.  All of us loved The Sixth Sense and Signs.  After that things went south.  Every other movie brought about mixed reactions… but none got the love of The Sixth Sense or Signs.  Yet all of us held on to the hope that M. Night Shyamalan would return with a movie that would once again wow us.

Something About Faster…

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That’s the poster for Faster.  While I like the concept and, if push comes to shove, would have to say that I like the poster, something seems off.  Something about the Rock’s arm is bugging me… I think.  I really can’t put my finger on it and THAT is bugging me.

Let’s just hope the movie doesn’t bug me.  You wouldn’t like me when I’m grumpy.  ; )

Want to see a bigger version of the poster? Sure you do.  So go over to IMPAwards and check it out.

Boris Karloff’s Thriller

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If you’ve read the ZONE for any length of time, then you know about my love of monster movies, drive-in theaters, horror movie hosts like Sammy Terry, as well as scary [well at least they were when I was a kid] tv shows like The Twilight Zone, The Night Gallery, The Outer Limits, and The Invaders.

One show that fits into the horror genre but you’ve never heard me talk is Thriller. Hosted by the legendary, Boris Karloff, Thriller ran for 67 episodes from 1960 to 1962. From all accounts Thriller featured episodes that had some of the best scares and creepy stories that could be found anywhere. Stephen King called it,

“Probably the best horror series ever put on TV.”

Yet, for some reason it never showed up in reruns and only appeared with sporadic episodes on VHS and laser disc. That’s changed now that Thriller -The Complete Series is available on DVD with tons of extras.

If you’re like me, you’re hesitant to plunk down your hard-earned bucks without knowing more. Well, we’re in luck because at A Thriller a Day, one episode of the series is reviewed, you guessed it, each day. Even if I end up not purchasing the series, I’m going to enjoy reading about it. The two guys running the site have a good banter going, they’re refreshingly honest {they’ll call a clunker story, just that] and yet they also have an obvious love for the genre. If I was to make any suggestions to them it would be to change their rating system. Now they rate each episode from one to four Karloffs like this…

Perhaps it would be more horrific if they rated the episodes like this…