The Secret of the Levitating Man!
Would you like to know The Secret of the Levitating Man?
If so, click on the video below.
10 Fascinating Facts About “Thunderball”
Matthew Jackson and Mental_Floss present 10 Fascinating Facts About Thunderball. Here are three of my favorites…
1. IT STARTED AS A FILM, THEN BECAME A BOOK, THEN BECAME A FILM AGAIN.
In 1959, Bond creator Ian Fleming began considering a film version of his character, andcollaborated with producer Kevin McClory and writer Jack Whittingham on a screenplay treatment. Fleming eventually tired of the movie business, and went back home to Jamaica to write his next Bond novel, Thunderball. McClory later sued, claiming the novel used elements from the film they’d worked on together. The suit settled out of court, but McClory was granted certain rights to Thunderball in the process, and ultimately served as a producer on the movie. Nearly two decades after Thunderball was released, he served as an executive producer on Never Say Never Again, a Bond film that saw the return of Sean Connery in the title role for the first time in more than a decade (produced by Warner Bros. and not Bond’s home studio of MGM). The plot is in many ways identical to Thunderball.
4. THE JETPACK REALLY WORKED, BUT THE PILOT WOULDN’T FLY WITHOUT A HELMET.
The Bell Rocket Belt used in the film’s opening sequence was a real working jetpack, and two qualified pilots were flown to France to operate it for the moment when Bond lifts off. Bill Suitor, who flew the jetpack on camera, was initially asked if he would mind flying without a helmet so that Bond could look cooler. Suitor refused for safety reasons, which is why Connery wore a helmet in the final film.
6. THE BRITISH MILITARY THOUGHT BOND’S MINIATURE OXYGEN TANK WAS REAL.
Early in the film, Q gives Bond a tiny breathing apparatus that allows him to survive underwater for several minutes, and Bond puts it to good use when trapped in a closed pool with a bunch of sharks. The scene was so convincing that a member of the Royal Engineers called chief draftsman Peter Lamont and asked him how long the apparatus actually worked. Lamont replied “as long as you can hold your breath.” When the engineer countered that Bond was underwater for several minutes onscreen, Lamont replied it was “the skill of the editor.” The engineer eventually hung up.
Bike Parkour, Anyone?
Bike Parkour, anyone?
All of the stunts are pretty impressive, but riding over the bridge and also along the thin guard rail hundreds of feet above the ocean are life-threatening… and I’m just talking about the fear of those who dare to watch.
21 Things We Learned from the “Reindeer Games” Commentary
Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 21 Things We Learned from the Reindeer Games Commentary. Here are three of my favorites…
1. Test screenings resulted in audience feedback that was “not bad, but not what the producers had expected,” and it led to immediate pressure on Frankenheimer to cut the film. The distributors believed the issue was entirely due to length. “In retrospect, I should not have cut the movie.” He believes the theatrical release lost a lot of its edge.
2. Re-shoots inspired by audience reactions at test screenings took more time than planned and left them unable to open during the holiday season. Frankenheimer regrets that decision and would have rather skipped the re-shoots so they could have opened in December. “We missed our optimum time to play the movie.”
17. The scene where Rudy and Ashley fall through the ice was filmed in a field. They dug a hole, filled it with warm water, and added plastic “ice” over it. The underwater scenes were filmed in a tank. Frankenheimer says it’s preferable to the way he did it on 1990’s The Fourth War in which he actually dropped Roy Scheider and Jurgen Prochnow into icy water.
The 30 Best Sci-Fi Movies Ever
Gamesradar posted their choices for The 30 Best Sci-Fi Movies Ever. It’s a pretty good list.
I’ve seen 21 out of the 30. My guess is that most of you have seen even more. And that almost everyone recognized the sweet Steranko Bladerunner art.
“Movie Title Drug Deal” – Very Clever, More Please!
This is a really clever video using only movie titles for dialogue, it presents a clear story with a nice twist at the end.
More, please.
Syfy Presents Every “Twilight Zone” Episode in Order!!
The Syfy Channel runs a Twilight Zone Marathon every year for New Year’s Eve / New Year’s Day.
This year is no exception. Except it is.
This year Syfy is pulling out all the stops and will run each of the 156 Twilight Zone episodes in order! My DVR is locked and loaded. Although I’ve seen nearly every episode, this is my chance to (Z-)view them in order.
The fun starts on December 30th at 7pm.
Paleofuture has a list of the TwilightZone episodes and times that they’ll appear. I’ll be live tweeting along with The Twilight Zone @The Night Gallery and others. Hopefully, you’ll be able to join in too.
RIP – Meadow George Lemon III aka “Meadowlark” Lemon
Meadow George Lemon III better known as “Meadowlark” Lemon of Harlem Globetrotters fame passed away today at the age of 83.
Meadowlark played “before Kings, Queens, Presidents, Popes,” and millions of fans in over 100 countries of the world during his career with the Globetrotters which ran from 1954 – 1979 and over 16,000 games. Dubbed the “Clown Prince of Basketball” Lemon became the face of the Globetrotters and one of the most recognized athletes in the world.
Lemon’s popularity led to commercials, tv and movie roles and two Harlem Globetrotter animated series. In 1993, fourteen years after retiring, Lemon returned to the Globetrotters for a 50 game come-back tour. In 2003, Lemon was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame which was just one of the many honor and awards Lemon earned throughout his life.
Lemon was a born-again Christian and in 1986 became an ordained minister.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Meadow George Lemon III’s family, friends and fans.
14 Fun Facts About “‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 14 Fun Facts About ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou? Here are three of my favorites…
1. IT WAS ORIGINALLY INSPIRED BY THE WIZARD OF OZ.
Joel Coen revealed as much at the 15th anniversary reunion. “It started as a ‘three saps on the run’ kind of movie, and then at a certain point we looked at each other and said, ‘You know, they’re trying to get home—let’s just say this is The Odyssey. We were thinking of it more asThe Wizard of Oz. We wanted the tag on the movie to be: ‘There’s No Place Like Home.’”
3. THE TITLE IS FROM A PRESTON STURGES CLASSIC.
Sullivan’s Travels (1941) was a Hollywood satire about a comedy director who wanted to make a serious, epic drama, travels the country to research it, and discovers the world is better off laughing. The movie the character wanted to make was titled O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
8. THE MUSIC BECAME AN UNEXPECTEDLY HUGE HIT.
For the movie’s music—and even before they’d finished the script—the Coens turned to musician/producer T Bone Burnett, whom they had worked with on The Big Lebowski in 1998. Along with singer-songwriter Gillian Welch, Burnett found the songs for the movie. Its soundtrack—which combined original and traditional bluegrass, country, gospel, blues, and folk music—was the first movie soundtrack to win the Grammy for Album of the Year since 1994. More than eight million copies of the album were sold.
Alex Toth Black Canary Splash
Here is an Alex Toth Black Canary splash that originally appeared in Adventure Comics #418.
14 Empowering Facts About “9 to 5”
Jennifer M. Wood and Mental_Floss present 14 Empowering Facts About 9 to 5. Here are three of my favorites…
2. IT WAS ORIGINALLY INTENDED TO BE A DRAMA.
Though it’s ranked number 74 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Funniest American Movies of All Time, 9 to 5 didn’t start out as a comedy. “At first we were going to make a drama,” Fonda explained. “But any way we did it, it seemed too preachy, too much of a feminist line. I’d wanted to work with Lily [Tomlin] for some time, and it suddenly occurred to [producer] Bruce [Gilbert] and me that we should make it a comedy. It remains a ‘labor film,’ but I hope of a new kind, different from The Grapes of Wrath or Salt of the Earth. We took out a lot of stuff that was filmed, even stuff the director, Colin Higgins, thought worked but which I asked to have taken out. I’m just super-sensitive to anything that smacks of the soapbox or lecturing the audience.”
3. IT WAS A BLACK COMEDY BEFORE IT WAS A BROAD COMEDY.
“I had written a very dark comedy in which the secretaries actually tried to kill the boss, although they tried to kill him in sort of funny ways,” screenwriter Patricia Resnick told Rolling Stone. “Originally, Jane had been concerned that would be too dark. I screened an old Charlie Chaplin film called Monsieur Verdoux for her. In it, Chaplin’s wife is blind and he has a child. He’s kind of a Blackbeard, he romances a series of woman through the course of the movie and murders them in order to get money and support his family. It is a comedy, but at the end they hang him. I turned to Jane at the end of the movie and tears were rolling down her cheeks—but she was concerned the women wouldn’t be sympathetic enough. I said, ‘He really killed all these women and you’re crying. I just want them to try! They won’t be successful.’ And she said OK. But then when Colin came in, he was very influenced by Warner Bros. cartoons and things like that, and so their attempts to kill him became the fantasy scenes, and he made it a much broader comedy.”
8. PARTON WOULD ONLY STAR IN THE FILM IF SHE COULD WRITE THE THEME SONG.
Parton may have been a Hollywood newcomer, but she was savvy. She agreed to take the part in 9 to 5, but only if she could write the theme song as well. Fonda agreed, and Parton wrote the song while the movie was filming. In 1981, she earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for “9 to 5.”
“Yes, Timmy, There is a Santa Claus!”
Merry Christmas!
Several years ago John Beatty and I teamed up to create “Yes, Timmy, There is a Santa Claus!” John pencilled, inked and colored what I wrote. The story was published in a charity Christmas comic by Tim Gordon.
What you see below is the result of our efforts. I hope that you enjoy them.
Star Trek: The 366 Project!
2016 marks the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, a tv series that lasted just three seasons and yet would not die. Star Trek went on to spawn a cartoon series, comic books, novelizations, several more tv series and many Star Trek movies [with more on the way].
In honor of Star Trek’s 50th Anniversary…
Roddenberry Entertainment, the original creators of Star Trek, is celebrating the anniversary of its brainchild by unearthing rare photos, memos, script pages, documents, and the like from the archives. The initiative, called “The 366 Project,” will see one piece of Trek history posted to Roddenberry Entertainment’s social media channel each day beginning in 2016. Like the title suggests, there are 366 pieces to be released.
If you can’t wait, Entertainment Weekly has three bonus pieces available now!
“Damien” Poster and Teaser Trailer
Although I wasn’t much of a fan of The Omen, I think that the new A&E series based on the film with an adult Damien shows potential.
Check out the teaser below and I hope you’ll agree.
“Umbrella” performed by Casey Abrams and The Sole Sisters
Today we have Umbrella performed by Casey Abrams and The Sole Sisters.
