30 Day Challenge - GameMaker Studio - Day 7

Today was a down day so all I did was reskin the objects to be more 2001 like. In my mind, Dave Bowman has rebelled against his monolith masters and is fighting his way out of their space prison.



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Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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30 Day Challenge: GameMaker Studio - Day 6

I finished this up today. Added sound effects and worked out a bug or two.

Here it is, I could reskin it to make it more fetus-ish, but probably will just move on to the next game.

And here is the tutorial.

The best thing I got out of this one was finding these nifty old school sound generators.

https://beepbox.co

https://sfbgames.com/chiptone


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Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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30 Day Challenge: GameMaker Studio - Day 5

Tonight I added a reset when you die and some code that makes random asteroids appear. I actually won the game, just not in the example below. I actually have no idea what I'm doing. It's kind of a paint by numbers kit for video games.


Here is the tutorial. I'm still working on the sound effects and what ever "polish" could mean.


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Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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30 Day Challenge: GameMaker Studio - Day 4

Tonight I added a scoreboard, a life counter, opening, winning, and game over screens.

Here is the game test, I set the score high and lives low to run through it real fast.



And here is the tutorial I followed.




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Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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30 Day Challenge: GameMaker Studio - Day 3

This one was more challenging and there was a lot of pausing and repeating.

But I learned to add debris and laser fire. Cameron drew the arrow the ship is firing. I haven't figured out how to make the arrow point in the direction it is being fired in yet, but I'm sure it will come up.

Here is the tutorial.


And here is a video of my playing the game.



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Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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30 Day Challenge: GameMaker Studio - Day 2

Today I learned how to add sprites to objects, objects to instances, and then add functions to the objects. This software is a lot of fun! We are making an Asteroids clone, and Cameron is sitting beside me while I tinker away, his brain full of game ideas.

From what I knew on day one to now is a big leap. This is going to be a cool trainset to mess with.

Here is the tutorial I used.




And here is the where we are at on our version of Asteroids, probably the hardest game ever. Notice I added a space fetus.



It is not lost to me that if I could do this in 1972, I would have been the smartest person you knew.


FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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30 Day Challenge: GameMaker Studio - Day 1

To clear my head of Clowns and Monkeys, I've decided to work 30 days on GameMaker Studio and see how far I get.

Episode 6 of CvM is up, and the goal is to finish it this year. but there are other things I want to mess with, and this software, I've cracked it open before but got distracted. So I'm going to working for the next 30 days and see if I can get a basic game out of it.

CvM did get me thinking about controlling the environment and possibly making a game version of one of the old stories I have laying around. It could be a new outlet. So here we go.

Today I did the first tutorial on YouTube.


It just showed me around but already I feel I understand the interface more this time out. The tutorial I tried a year ago wasn't as clear. This one starts very basically, which is where I am at.

What did I accomplish on this go around?

Well, I understand now what a room, sprite, object, and an instance is.

Room = Level
Sprite = Picture
Object = An element that exists in your gave with all its attributes detailed.
Instance = The object placed into the game.

And I drew this wiggling fetus sprite thing.

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Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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John Carpenter's Christmas Carol

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Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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What is a Clown Vs Monkey?

Hello, Mutants!

Every now and then I like to throw out an update on the film, mainly so people who worked on it will know where it is and if it is going to eventually condense into a solid mass.

Well, I keep tinkering on it. Below is a screenshot of my progress spreadsheet, I know, I'm a romantic. So the black boxes are what has been done. The RED boxes are steps that get pretty complex and usually sprout new boxes within them. These individual steps can be total rabbit holes that I fall down and end up spending several days on. Some of them get so deep, that when I finish one I will walk away from the project for a while just so I don't go nuts. You can only ignore life so long, otherwise, you won't still have one when you come back up for air.

So the last red box was this need I had to see a monkey vomit blood, and instead of the blood just disappearing in the air, I wanted to see it splat on the floor. This monkey is vomiting a lot and is making a series of splats. It took longer than I had planned. Also, as all the stories build to a climax, the scenes need more and more action and effects and schmutz, so all that has to be figured out and fidgeted with. Lots of fidgeting and tinkering with this coo-coo clock.

The YELLOW boxes, take some artistic effort and tinker time, but nothing like the RED. The GREEN are "click here, stupid" and just take time to render and click. They are the administrative boxes that take no effort but can be time-consuming when Premiere decides it wants you to reassociate all your files for no reason.

So below, I present, my spreadsheet! When I need to motivate myself I open it up and count the colored boxes and steady my nerves for the next dive. 341 total steps to go, and then we will have the complete 8 episodes. Five are online already. I started this in 2009 and I hope to be done next year so I can say "10 Years in the Making!"

FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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Splatterflix Road Trip Picture Roll

Hello Ghouls and Goblins,

I lost my mind and went to Durham, NC to a weekend-long film horror film festival held at their beautiful Carolina Theater. This is a big complex in the middle of downtown. A classy joint with a full staff of cheerful volunteers. A place you would expect to be hosting all-state orchestra concerts and city commerce conventions, not the putrid degradation and smut of 1980's exploitation cinema. Someone upstairs didn't read their emails and allowed this march of depravity.

But why the six-hour drive from Woodstock, GA? Number One, what's the point of being a grown up if we can't get to do something fun now and then? Number Two,  since I was six years old, I've had an itch unable to be scratched until now. In the summer of 1982, my television was invaded with the constant loop of the Friday the 13th Part 3 trailer that promised terror and horror that would leap out at you from the screen. The early 80s had a wave of cheap 3D genre movies. Parasite and Metalstorm were actual Charlie Band directed movies, released by his Empire label that actually played in theaters, back when there was place in the market for such things. The next year, I was allowed to see Jaws 3D in the theater, it being PG fair, and that was my first memory of seeing a movie and knowing that it was not very good. Plus the 3D gave me a headache. But the F13P3 trailer was my intro to that series, and my imagination was on fire with how scary and nightmarish this movie must be. I had the same feeling the previous year when The Thing trailer played over and over, and feeling crushed when Rated R flashed at the end. Life was cruel. But imagining what these movies would be like was so much better than the real thing, as I learned later once video stores popped up and my trips to see my Dad on the weekends did not come with a concern of what I rented. Finally I got to see what had been forbidden all these years, and for the most part, as we all discover, the movies were pretty bad. When they did live up to the movie you had in your head, like The Thing, it was a miracle.

That's a long ramble, but the point is, even after I taped F13P3 off channel 46, and messed with the color and contrast levels in an attempt to recreate the 3D effect by wearing the red and blue glasses I held on to from when another channel showed Gorilla At Large, I had never seen it in the native 3D. So what was I missing? This movie made A LOT of money back in 82. I really enjoyed it growing up, especially the face of Jason at the end, but because I had never seen it in 3D, in a theater, there was something missing in from my fan life. So when my newsfeed said they were showing an actual 35 mm print in the actual old-school 3D process, not a digitally projected BluRay. I had to go.

My wife covered all adult responsibilities for me for the next 48 hours and I drove to Durham, NC. I stopped only to get more iced coffee, and not ashamed to say, pumpkin lattes because it's Halloween, fool! I got there in 6 hours, checked into the hotel that was connected to the theater. I'm telling you, this arts complex is nice, and designed for legit community events. Charles Band never had it so good. After changing into my Romero Lives t-shirt and grabbing a sandwich, I wandered into a screening of Mr. Bands Parasite, also from 1982.

The movie Parasite, I had tried to watch it before. It is on Amazon Prime, but my first memory of it was seeing the oversized VHS box at Video USA in Jonesboro, GA. It was not until it showed up on Prime that I tried to watch it, getting 10 minutes in and being unable to continue.

Here's the thing, no movie gets the fair attention afforded to it by a theater screening when you digitally stream it at home.  Movies can take time to get their footing, to pull you in. I am guilty of turning on a movie and if the first shot does not show me some sort of deliberate hand in its design, I will flip to something else. That killed off Parasite on my first attempt. But being trapped in a theater, and hearing the 35 mm print going in the background, and the print being faded and pink, and the investment of $9.50 for the ticket, by God I was going to try and enjoy myself.

Parasite is pretty good. It's an Alien knock-off, ran through Mad Max and a Western. Instead of the big bad riding into town on a black horse, he is driving a black Lamborghini. We get no less than three chest burster scenes. The parasite looks like a giant tadpole with a facefull of fangs. The lead hero looks like William Finley of Phantom of the Paradise, not exactly the Brad Pitt of his day. Demi Moore shows up in her first movie role, and she is fine, shining in this one scene where she is coming out of shock after being attacked by the bad guy, but nothing to indicate she would go on to be a big star. More interesting is Cherie Currie from The Runaways plays a post-apocalyptic gang member who gets the parasite knawing on her leg. She is actually pretty good, not much of a part, but you believe she's actually being eaten by a hunk of rubber by her performance. Also of note is the parasite was designed by Stan Winston, a mere four years before winning an Oscar for Aliens. It shows you that with no time, and no money, all "geniuses" are Charles Band.  Parasite makes overall better use of the 3D effect than F13 (blasphemy!) by taking the time to design the shots to have a pronounced foreground, middle, and background. There are a lot of tables with jars of wooden spoons thrust in the foreground, and lots of generic futuristic garbage hanging from the ceiling to give the shots depth. I appreciated the effort and liked the compositions.

F13P3 was next. I barely had a chance to rest my eyes from the weird 3D process before this one started up. The process is better in some ways than the newfangled Avatar process but does create more eyestrain and when the movies really try to poke at you, I saw a double image. So that was no bueno, but in the standard shots, the effect is really neat. Maybe more interesting than the new effect, or maybe more effort was made in these movies to make use of the possibilities, as opposed to today's post-converted cash grabs.

Friday the 13th Part 3, how do I go about this. Movies like this, I have seen countless times. I'm a big F13 head. A big Fango kid. These movies were the ultimate subversion growing up. I don't want to speak badly of it. I can say seeing it in a theater, with a crowd, in 3D, was enough. The crowd enjoyed themselves. I enjoyed myself, but seeing it in this context, the film felt very cynical and unimaginative. Maybe I'm an old man, but the criticisms I used to hear and ignore kept popping up in my head and rang true. No story. No characters. No suspense. The scenes could be played in any order and it would not affect the movie. Things I noticed, Jason is still running in this movie. The locations suffer from moving from the east coast to the west coast. Crystal Lake looks like a mud hole and the forest around it is straggly and sandy, with scrub brushes blowing around.  It doesn't have that dark impenetrable forest from the first 3 movies. Two scenes of people having bowel movements, and in both scenes, they pull up their pants without using toilet paper. WHAT! They deserve to die after that. Jason obviously sexually assaulted the main character in a flashback which makes Jason more reprehensible and is along the lines of the character being a vicious mentally handicapped man in the forest, rather than an unstoppable silent killing machine we eventually got with part 6. People constantly speak out their thoughts in empty rooms, like, "Didn't I close this door?" and "Where is that coming from?" and "Who's out there?" This is the majority of the dialog. This type of writing was fine as a kid, and it is funny now, but as I don't understand my kids enjoying YouTube videos of people playing video games, I can understand how this type of movie may not be everyone's bag.

After the movies, I grabbed a burger (local, farm to table, college town fair), hit the hotel and typed until I passed out. around10pm. I know, I should slow down. Up early and headed home. Here is the roll I took off my phone.

Fear and Loathing at Splatterflix

Durham's Grindhouse

So sleazy!

The Den of Depravity

I used to have this on my wall.

Calling all wierdos!

One of the best words in the English language.

Toast POV.

My sandwich had broccoli on it.

Parasite, without the glasses.

35 mm baby!

There is some sort of prism splitter deviding the image.

The riveted crowd for F13.

The glasses were not the tinted sunglasses from 1982,  but mirrored future glasses!

I'm the one in black.

Post movie socialising. I'm hiding in the bushes.

Inside Bull City Burger, where all the cows are given a mani pedi before being bolted in the skull.

Not my actual car.

The legal document.

Next morning, a donut shop named Rise.

The Rise crowd. I bought everything for the drive home.

Apple Fritter! Durn good.

Proof that the metro Atlanta area is not true south anymore as this was the first place I saw pimento cheese as an option for everything. Even the burger place and the sandwich place had pimento cheese items. I remember my grandmother eating the stuff from the supermarket, and me not liking it. But this homemade stuff was awesome!

I also got this avocado thing, it was great.

Finally, at the NC/SC boarder, there is this creepy abandoned castle that was shut down ten years ago due to breaking the gambling laws. Very Carnival of Souls.

That's it! Hope you enjoyed reading!


FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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Clown Versus Monkey: We Are Bonzo

A new scene from the ongoing project, Clown Versus Monkey!



FIGHT EVIL

Sam Drog



Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!



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Infect Your Kids With Movies Day

One of the biggest pains of being a movie nut with kids is that you really want to show them these important movies you grew up with, and more times than not, they are completely resistant to sitting and watching some old dusty science fiction movie with fakey special effects. They would much rather watch a 3 hour YouTube video of someone playing a video game.

I have found that if one of their YouTubers talks about one of my 80s classics, all of a sudden they will run up to me rearing to see something that in the past they had refused to even watch five minutes. This weekend the tide finally turned for Raiders of the Lost Ark! I had tried numerous time to show this to the boy and the elder girl, to no luck. The DVD slowly and sadly going back in the box as they run back to their precious Roblox videos.

So with Cameron's interest peaked, I wasted no time and put on the disk and cranked up the sound. The whole family piled in and we got through the whole thing and all had a great time. Sarah the elder did keep her phone out, peeking up occasionally, but that is expected. She at least came out of her room to participate.

It's been a while since I had watched it, and man I still love this movie. It holds up. It may be perfect, and it also brings to mind the dozens of rip-offs that it inspired that could not capture that same energy and imagination. The kid's reactions were great.

Abbie my youngest is a lot of fun to watch movies with because she gets so into them and is very vocal about her feelings. When Indy and Marion kiss on the ship, she sighs like it is the most romantic thing she has ever seen, until it goes on too long and then she's like, "Yuck!" There were some gory scenes I tried to cover her eyes on, like Marion getting covered in rotting cadavers in the Well of Souls scene, but she pulled my hand away and said: "That's not scary, that's dumb."

The big finally with the fire columns and the melting Nazi's, also showed no signs of trauma. The kids all braced themselves with my warning that things were about to get gross, but when the faces came running down off the bones, they snickered and said it looked like a crayon man. Cam at least was impressed. 

Cam's big reaction was at the end when the Ark meets its final resting place. The room was split on if that was the right ending. I love it to death, it's perfect. Cam was outraged! They went through all that for nothing!?! It blew his mind a bit. I laughed. Later I asked him if the movie was as good as he thought it would be, and he said that it was 1000 times better.

So this was a big win for Dad. With the original trilogy, Jurassic Park, and now Raiders in their minds, I think we have hit at least the most basic of bases that I would feel I had failed them if I had not shown them these while they were still impressionable.

On a side note, I did have my first spontaneous Star Wars geek conversation with Cam last night, over the prequels versus the sequels. I was telling him about the other Indy movies and said there is a fourth one that he can skip, that it is fine, but doesn't measure up to the first three. Kind of like the prequels. And Cam was shocked, said come on, the Pod Race in episode one was awesome. I agreed but said that was all the movie had going for it, besides the Darth Maul fight. He asked me if I like Rogue One.  I said it was okay. He laughed, "Ha, see you do like a prequel!"  I liked the ending battle and the Vader rampage, basically, until the last 40 minutes, I was bored. He loved the horizon lifting up and becoming a solid tidel wave of destruction. It was a great two-sided conversation.

These are little victories I bookmark with Cam, where I think if he can learn to be as calm and communicative with other people as he is with me, maybe he'll be fine out there in the world. Usually, in groups he is completely oblivious to other people his age, even if they try to speak with him and befriend him, he'll ignore and wander away. I remember being similar at his age. He's not concerned about it, so I try to follow his lead. He's been saddled with the most anti-social dad on the planet, so I get it.

FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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5x5: No Small Parts

Note: 5x5 is a new thing, super short stories with a quick illustration, Five paragraphs with five sentences, written at 5 in the morning before work. Thanks! -SD

Opening night and my stomach cramping, my mind racing. Spinning. What is my line? When do I come in . 6 weeks of preparation, gone. Not that I had much to do. Act three. Last Line. “Who ordered the fish.” Or was it steak? Or was it shark?

Dress rehearsal, I did great! Well, didn’t forget my line at least. A sneezing fit did come over me, announcing my entrance a good three minutes before I stepped out. Finally, with my sinuses under control, I entered with my tray and prop entre. Who ordered the… and then, Ah Chew! Again. Rapid fire. Again and again. It took forever to get the fish out of my mouth.

Three hours, that’s how long the play runs, and I had nothing to do for those three hours but think. Stand in the back. Relax. Don’t think. And I didn’t,  but the more I didn’t, the more I did. My hands fidgeting, and when I fidget, I snap. My fingers. Just to dispel the energy. The play was rolling, the audience seated in the dark and Julie, who I loved, was on her fifth monologue, the second most sad one. Darryl, our stage manager, heard the clicky-clack coming from my dark corner and rushed over. “Knock it off!”, he whispered. So I poisoned him.

The syringe was between my teeth and it only took a second. No lights back here, and just as I  rehearsed, slid the needle in, right of the breastplate, and pushed down the plunger. The mixture of Drano of pet tranquilizer was more effective than I had imagined. Like magic. Now you see him breathing, now you don’t.

The night progressed as such. Actors stepping off stage, moving to the sides, where I would be, waiting with my needle. I had enough medicine for the entire theater, including the audience, but this was a modest production, I had modest ambitions. Even so, by act three it was Julie alone on stage, trying to finish the play with no one to answer her lines, finishing her own conversations. She never broke character and I never came out to deliver my line and signal the end of the play. Julie held her pose until the lights awkwardly dimmed to black.

FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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Clown Versus Monkey - Part Five!

Yes! It is true! The experiment continues!







FIGHT EVIL

Sam Drog



Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!



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Clown Versus Monkey Update!

Yep, CvM keeps on getting chipped away at on nights and weekends. It is my version of a train set that some dad's fill the back room with. A little here, a little there. Life comes in and makes you pay attention to your environment, but you always have this little voice in the back of your head telling you to get back to the train set.

So below is the chart for Episode 5. Four little blocs to fill in on the spreadsheet and then I will push this out to the nets. A digital bottle thrown into the big information ocean, were it can bob around a few decades and then one day, maybe someone will click on it and say, "Wha?"

FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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Ten Rambling Thoughts on Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

1. Destiny. I happened to have the day off and wasn't planning on seeing it today. The plan was to wait a week or two and then go on some random Tuesday when the kids were out of school on break. Just ease in, no pressure. I'm a grown up. I can wait. I've been through some lean years and some mean years. Just being off is great, I can sit and think and finish off the last 5000 pages of 'It'.

2. Got the kids on the bus and made some eggs for Stephanie and me. We were sitting and drinking coffee. She asked me what I planned on doing with the day. I shrugged, "Absolutely nothing. Why ruin a perfectly good day off by doing something?" She was going to record a hypnosis session, so needed the house quiet. "Why don't you go see the new Star Wars movie?"

3. All that sober maturity flew out of me. With shaking hands, I fumbled my phone and checked the showtimes.  Why am I sweating? There! There was an 8:30 AM show! 2D IMAX! Assigned seating, there would be no way I was going to get a good seat. But! I was going alone. Right in the middle of the theater, a single chair remained. You believe in fate, boy? Drove to the theater in a frenzy. A Star Wars soundtrack mix playing on the car speakers. What if the car breaks down? What if I get a call that a kid is sick and needs to be picked up from school? My head spun with all the possibilities that could go wrong that would keep me from making this screening.

4. But I made it. Sat right between two couples in my black hoody, the creepy Star Wars loner. The waves of geek radiating off me blistered their skin. I was in nuclear meltdown mode. It happens every Star Wars opening day. I think I'm going to be cool, but I never am. There is this hope that you are going to be transported, but even if it ends up being terrible, this movie will go on to generate hours upon hours of conversation. Complaining about The Phantom Menace has bridged generations and peoples from every continent. Whatever the outcome of The Last Jedi, it will merge into the shared consciousness that all fans are a part of. It's sick and sad, and I know I'm being pandered to by big business, but Star Wars movies are my Pavlov's bell. That first trilogy ruined me and I keep going in the hope of feeling a little awe again.

5. Did I like it? Gut reaction? I loved it. Loved it! Rogue One left me cold. It was better on rewatch, but I left that screening feeling gross and used. Force Awakens? I liked it a lot, and it was better than the prequels, but I've had no interest in watching it again after that first time. I don't own it. It was fine, but it told you everything you wanted to hear and didn't break any new ground. A beat for beat remake of  A New Hope wasn't what I was looking for. But it wasn't as bad as the prequels, so that seemed like a miracle. The Last Jedi is on par with Return of the Jedi, maybe better. Nah, nothing is the original trilogy. Those are burnt into my DNA. But for post-1983 Star Wars, this is the best.

6. The characters are so likable and charismatic. Just the type of people you would see in a Pepsi commercial. I like being around well adjusted charismatic people, even if they are make-believe. They seem so freakish to me. It's like I'm watching a freak show. How are these people so cute and lovable. What happened to them to make them so amiable? Yeesh. Darkness. They look like JC Penny back to school catalog models playing spaceman. My mind boggles that they grow people like this. Actors are like unicorns.

7. Thanks to the internet, filmmakers are now directly bombarded by vicious nerds who fill their Twitter feeds with anger and bile and nitpicky criticism. And like an end of year performance review, the producers tabulate this data and form a plan to improve before the next evaluation. Some of the dialog in The Last Jedi sounds like transcripts of disgruntled fans bashing The Force Awakens. Characters mention Kylo Ren being an annoying angsty brat and his goofy helmet. They complain that Ray had never held a lightsaber but was able to defeat him in battle. All the internet jabs at The Force Awakens are given lip service here. It is odd. It's like getting an apology letter from a restaurant that you wrote a bad comment card on. "Sorry you had a bad experience, please come back for some free Jalapeno Poppers."

8. It doesn't sound like I liked it. But I did. I loved it. It is so well paced. Some Star Wars movies have this middle bulge where they plod along and it takes forever to get the story back into the groove before the final battle. None of that here. It has a great beat and rhythm and tells an interesting story filled with failure and hardship, and it was new enough where I wasn't sure how it was all going to work out at the end. And when it gets to the climax, I was terrified they were going to pull the rug out from under me and not give me an ending, to save it for the next one, but nope, they wrapped it up enough so you don't feel that end of Empire TO BE CONTINUED moment. I was in Star Wars heaven for 95 percent of the movie. It has the best opening of them all. One person against impossible odds. And Rose, a new character, is fantastic.

9. Seeing the story of what happened to Luke after Return and to have Mark Hamill own the screen again, it all felt so good. No longer the blond-haired pretty boy, to see Luke as a grizzled old has been, who has seen all that he fought for fall apart. To have that millstone of regret hanging on him, like Kenobi did in A New Hope, that is the best. It is Mark Hamill's movie. I wish he was in it more. Possible Spoiler!!!!.....

....
....
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DON'T READ...(Yoda is in this, and it's a puppet, and the scene with him and Luke is movie gold, best part of the movie)....  DON'T READ 


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End of spoilers.


10. The funniest thing that happened was after the movie I walked to the next door sandwich shop for lunch. I placed my order and scanned the store and saw two other members of the black t-shirt gang also waiting. One wore a Force Awakens shirt. These two other's were not together, but as we waited for our food, I asked if t-shirt guy had just seen the movie, and he had, and I asked if he was okay. The other guy jumped in and we all had lunch together and unpacked the movie. It was random and funny. We didn't give names or facebook pages, we just shared our geeky enthusiasm as we ate and then went our separate ways. A perfect thirty minute impromptu Star Wars fanclub meeting. That is what's so cool about Star Wars. It is a common language. If you and that perfect stranger are both down with the force, you can talk for hours. For fans, a person's politics or religion or what they do for a living is irrelevant. A common love for Yoda bridges all gaps.  Star Wars, bringing maladjusted introverts together since 1977.


Just because it's the internet, here are a few angry nerd nitpicks. Possible coded spoilers.

- How fast can a fleet of star destroyers go?

- They don't have scanners on the bottom of their ships?

- Carpenter did that in Escape from L.A.

- Did going to that rich planet advance the plot at all?

- How many AT-ATs does it take to blow up a half dozen land speeders?

- Hey, something just like this happened in the original trilogy! And this! And this!

But seriously folks, the movie is awesome. See dat movie!


FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

Clown Versus Monkey! Check It Out Here!

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Ten Things I Noticed Rewatching The Terminator (1984)

I went to Wallyworld tonight and saw The Terminator Blu-Ray for 5 bucks which is my kind of cheap. The first one is my favorite. It is scrappy and doesn't waste a second. The movie is perfection when it comes to pace and editing, and it spawned one million rip offs and sequels, none of which are this good. It's 80's animated lighting in a bottle, and everything that can be said, has been said, but here are a few things I noticed for the first time on this rewatch.

1. Brian Thompson is one of the street punks in the beginning that is killed by Arnold. Never noticed that. I knew Bill Paxton was the ""couple cans short of a six pack" guy, but Brian Thompson? Looking pretty normal before roiding out in Cobra two years later.

Known for his "less is more" performance style.

2. Never noticed that there are kids playing in the yard when Arnold kills the wrong Sarah Conner. Makes the scene that much more brutal.

Pretty sick, bro.

3. Michael Biehn is hysterical in this movie. He's terrible, but awesome. His interrogation by the shrink is his best moment, but his confession of love to Sarah Conner is creepy stalker cinema. I get it, John Conner was working over time in the future to get Kyle to fall in love with his mom, which is also creepy. "You think my mom is hot in this picture? I bet my mom would totally dig you." Using time travel to hook your mom up with your dad was its own sub-genre in the 80s.

4. Was Kyle shoving the pipe bombs into the duffel bag supposed to be subtle foreshadowing for the love scene coming up? That Cameron really knows how to set the mood.

Hinty McHint Hint

5. Was the Terminator's skin rotting and stinking up the already filthy hotel he was hiding in? Was Cameron justifying that the rubber Terminator head was looking pretty rubbery by turning it into a plot point? In the shot below, flies are crawling on his skin, and then the greasy janitor asks if he has a dead cat in there. If they are implying that the damaged flesh was diseased and putrid, what a cool little detail that was never developed in the sequels! Another reason I love the original the most.

6. When Sarah tells Paul Winfield that she is at the bar Tech Noir, the frumpy Lieutenant totally knows where she's talking about. Images of him decked out on a Saturday night, dancing roboticly to new wave hits will forever be in my head now.

7. The back and forth between Paul Winfield and Lance Henrickson is great. Lance keeps trying to tell a disturbing cop story and Paul keeps interrupting him. It's really funny. Never noticed it.

8. Who could have predicted that this guy would become such a linchpin of the series. He's in three of the five movies!?!?

9. The Terminator totally flinches when firing his weapon early in the movie. "Eek, that's so loud and flashy!"

10. When Kyle hot wires a car, he picks the absolute worst time to crank it up and tear out. After giving Sarah Conner his whole backstory and keeping cover for 20 minutes,  he doesn't make his move until the Terminator is 10 feet away! Unlucky bastard!

Wait for it... and NOW!

BONUS! I remember Dick Smith's murder being really graphic, but if you frame by frame it, this is all it is...

This and the meat hook scene in Texas Chainsaw. Best Editing Ever.

FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

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Ten Rambling Reasons to See JIGSAW (2017)

Not in the movie.

Ten whole reasons?!? This may be tough, but here we go.

1. No better or worse then the rest of the Saw movies. If you liked the others, you'll like this one. If you are like me, and are baffled by the fact that you keep paying to go see them, even though you never walk out thinking that they are any good, this movie will give you that old Saw feeling.

2. Such a lost opportunity. The last Saw was seven years ago. Before that, the Saw machine cranked one out every year, year after year, from 2004 to 2010. It was a juggernaut, but by cranking them out so fast they never stopped to catch their breath to figure out what was working or not. They became the same four scenes played at random, for 90 minutes, repeated once a year. The four scenes are.

- Police Procedural (Look Scoob, I found a clue!)
- 10 Angry Men in a Factory (Let's stop fighting and start working together!)
- Jigsaw sulking in his lab (Uhhhh, metal shop rules)
- The Traps (why you bought the ticket)

This movie does nothing to change that formula.

3. Because it is so familiar, it felt like putting on some nice old shoes. Or getting hash browns at Waffle House. I got what I paid for. It had been a while, so it was nostalgic. Being let down by a Saw movie is part of the experience.

4. Lost opportunity, because by taking a break, they could have deconstructed these movies and figured out a way to give us something that hit the Saw notes, but subverted our expectations. We all know how these things work by now. By throwing us some curve balls, they could have given us, the constant viewers, something fun. But they made just another Saw movie.

5. I was happy to see Costas Mandylor gone, but they found the most Mandylorian(?) guy they could to fill the spot.

6. Evil morgue girl was great.

7. Unintentional Funny Moment One: Jigsaw, "A young man died because you sold him a motorcycle with no breaks. That young man was my nephew."

8.   Unintentional Funny Moment Two: In a room with cement walls, a character bumps into the wall and it visibly shakes. It's an Ed Wood moment.

9. Unintentional Funny Moment Three: The lady with postpartum depression is played in the most hamfisted after school special manner possible.

10. The acting in the "10 Angry Men in a Factory" scenes are "Unsolved Mysteries" reenactment level awesomeness. Some of the greatest reenacting I have seen all year. Worth watching, very powerful. Bulging Eyeballs, furrowed brows, yelling and spitting, acting like a rabid baboons. Fantastic.

Bottom Line. You waited 7 years. You hired the Spierig Brothers. You could have done something to freshen up before inviting us over. Cooked us something new instead of reheating last weeks leftovers. I don't blame the directors on this one. They consistently give us strong movies, but if you have seen any of the behind the feature docs on the other Saw movies, you know they crank these out in a way not conducive the creative thinking. The train is rolling, you have two weeks to get this thing shot. No time to think. Shoot as fast as you can and just survive it.

Bottom Line Two: All my complaints are the same that my parents said about Friday the 13th movies. So I fully accept that this is generational thing, and that it is now my time to be the angry guy. The only difference is that F13 movies are awesome, and Saw movies are stupid.

Bottom Line Three: Glad I went. It feels like Halloween when you go see a Saw movie. It's traditional. Never as good as it could be, but that's all part of it.

One more funny moment! These movies are known for their crazy kills. Drowning in corn may be the scariest thing ever put in a movie. Nothing ups the suspense like corn.

CORN! CORN! CORN!

FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

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Ten Rambling Thoughts on Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

1. Do we need a Blade Runner sequel? Oh God, no. After all these years, can't us fans have this little bit of perfection. Do they have to go whoring out our lone shining star to squeeze some last drops of profit from her old bones? Of course they do. That's what the machine does, takes what you love, and ruins it. When I heard they were going ahead with a Blade Runner 2, and Harrison Ford signed on, with Ridley Scott (at the time) directing, my reaction was...

... but they didn't listen to my Facebook cover photo, and they went about their filthy business.

2. I'm so glad they did! Mostly. I am mostly, like 70% glad they did. In fact, I was so giddy during the first 30 minutes that all my angst was forgotten and I was swimming in sci-fi heaven. I'll try to keep this all spoiler free and focus on the positive.

3. So great to be back in Blade Runner land, and to see that world opened up and moved around in, seen from new angles and expanded. Who makes the memories for the replicants? What do other parts outside of Los Angeles look like? This movie digs in and gives you primo, fully licensed, authentic Blade Runner, crafted with care, love, and attention. The details are all here: the rain streaks on the windshields, the back lit misty miniatures, Off World Advertisements, big empty abandoned  buildings. You are back in that world, and it feels so good. 

4. The sound track. Been listening to it since I left the theater. Moody and synthy. In the theater, hearing those synths bounce around in 5.1 full dynamic perfection, with those amazing visuals, worth the price of admission.

5. Harrison Ford in his 70s and finally used as he should be. He's not dressing up like his 20 year old self. He reminded me of a Frank Miller creation. Old Bruce Wayne. He was right in this. Got to hold the old blade runner gun and be grumpy old man. Throw some punches. Finish up some unfinished business.

6. Ryan Gosling was really good in this too. His character goes on a crazy ride, and lots of twists and turns. When he finally looses it, and flips out, I was totally on his side.

7. This movie is like Prometheus in that it gives you the stuff that you wanted, but not in the exact way you were expecting it. A lot of Blade Runner is revisited in this, but flipped, so your expectations are being met and diverted.  We have Pris images, but it is not just Pris done over. It's just the same world, so there are echos of the first one. We have a zoom in, enhance scene, but it's not the SAME scene done again with better effects. It's not Tron Legacy. There is a different story being told here.

8.  I love these late sequels. Kinda like Psycho 2. It makes them special. Give a movie 20 - 30 years to rumble around in your head and then give me something new to chew on. Like Fury Road, did I think Fury Road was needed, no. But Miller killed it. Denis Villeneuve killed it here. Blade Runner has been in our heads so long. The years give weight and connection to these movies. Your relationship becomes more complicated, and then to go back and visit them, to see what they've been up to, it's more of a life event then just another movie. It's like a reunion. But do I want Fury Road 2? NO! Do I want Blade Runner 3? NO! You guys got lucky. Do I want a new Blade Runner movie every year now, and a tv series, and 20 podcasts rambling on and on about it until I die. No I do not. Can't somethings be special, as in rare. 

9. So here is the big problem with Blade Runner 2049. With all it's world building, it is trying to set up a story that is too big for one movie. We can't just have one self contained thing now. it has to be part of a bigger monster. It's the dark side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It makes for great movies moments, but bad stories. This lays the ground work for a bigger sequel, but in doing so leaves out the ending, the point, the feeling that I saw not a movie, but an ad for the main event. Give me some feeling of closure. Ryan G's story is great, and I felt a good wrap up with him, but the fact that good and evil never really come to clash. That the big villain is never challenged in any real way. Is never given his comeuppance, or even humiliated or cut down an inch was very frustrating. Don't worry, he'll get his in the sequel. The sequel!?! I want to see him slapped around now! I want some catharsis! Leto is so creepy in this, and has a sick scene of cruel evil, but nothing comes of it. We are planting seeds here for a 3 picture cycle, one every three years, I guess. And the whole question of is Deckard a replicant himself, still ambivalent. Wait for the sequel, maybe we'll get around to that. 

10. So this was like watching a pro gymnast perform an amazing three bar routine, with spins and flips and everything you could want, and then, at the last minute, the gymnast lands funny and snaps their legs with two terrible compound fractures. They scream in pain and the audience winces and the medics rush them off the stage. This movie, so awesome, and then in the last 15 minutes, I got really antsy, about the time when Harrison Ford is tied to a chair and rendered helpless. Did I wait 30 years to see Harrison Ford tied to a chair!?! How are they going to end this? How does this story payoff. It doesn't really. No, it isn't No Country For Old Men frustrating, but the same ballpark. There isn't a "To Be Continued" card, but I felt they pulled some punches to save the conclusion for some future movie that may or may not happen. Boo!!! But up to that point, a great time.

FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

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Ten Rambling Reasons to Watch ... CULT OF CHUCKY (2017)

This fan poster rules!

1. Don Mancini! This guy has chops! Directing chops, story chops. For a non theatrical horror release, the seventh in a series, you will be amazed at the sure hand he brings to this. This guy knows Chucky, and knows how to push the series in new directions, but still give the audience what they want from a Child's Play movie. He wrote every film, and it is one of the too rare instances where the show runner actually understands what makes his movies tick with an audience. What if Ridley Scott actually had a clue why people liked Alien? What if Lucas knew why everyone adored the original trilogy? Mancini gets it. 
2. So, I admit I got lost on the series around Bride of Chucky. I was hyped, but let down by the jokey tone of that one. Seed of Chucky? I sort of dug that one because it was so different then what the original was. The difference in style between Child's Play and Seed of Chucky is so black to white that it is fascinating to chart how a series evolves and changes. Mancini started to direct with Seed, and what I like about him is he is very clear on the kind of movie he is making. He goes for it, full speed. Seed isn't my favorite, but resurrecting the series after a 9 year hiatus, and getting the tone back on track with Curse of Chucky, was genius. Good move Universal. Good move Mancini, staying involved to steer the ship. These movies could be garbage, like the Wrong Turn sequels, but instead they are made by a real filmmaker who respects the material and the fans!
3. So Seed was pure silliness, and Curse was a chamber drama, and now we have a psycho sexual thriller. By changing the setting, and the sub-genre, you get so many fun opportunities and situations for Chucky to react to. How does Chucky fair in a situation where he is just one of a dozed unbalanced individuals? Setting this in an asylum makes this very fun. If you are a schizophrenic, and you are used to seeing weirdness everyday, a doll walking around is just a typical Tuesday. Mancini doesn't throw away all this potential and actually milks it for all it's worth. Again, bravo sir.
4. Fiona Dourif makes this work. Her character is fascinating, and she has the talent to anchor the story in real emotion, and confusion. She is a broken person, full of self loathing and angst, trying to make peace with the now. Whatever she has to do to live with herself, to navigate these rapids she is tossed into, she will. She's a survivor, and a great protagonist, and you root for her because she wants to do the right thing, but is against a system that sees her as scum of the earth, and has been so convincing of it that she now believes it herself. Even though she knows it was that little plastic doll, she has put that aside, and submitted to their opinion of her. The world has beat her down. When the killings start again, she is vindicated, but not how you would want to be, she is cursed. To keep it vague and spoiler free, her next chapter is both hopeful and nightmarish at the same time.
5. There are a lot of ideas in this. Why did they bother to make it this good. I am sort of amazed how much I liked this. Sure, I am a fan of the series, but let's face it, horror fans are a beaten down lot. We take in so much terribleness, are taken advantage of again and again, so to see a Part 7 that actually is happy to be there, happy you showed up, and is excited to show you a good time, to continue a story you have invested 29 years into with some unexpected TLC... I'm just not used to being treated so nice, I suppose.
6. The acting in this is pretty great, especially the sympathetic doctor played by Michael Theriault and the always angry patient Grace Lynn Kung. Grace's change from skeptic to believer is very entertaining! And the doctor, no matter how off the rails he goes, you get the feeling that he never thinks of himself as anything but a great guy. By making everyone emotionally fragile, we get great character interactions and tension. What we don't get are stupid cliche asylum images were people are acting cartoonish and banging their heads against the wall or chasing invisible butterflies. Who isn't sick of that? It's insulting to mental patients to use them like horror props. So, I appreciated that they treated them like real people, kinda like the teens in Dream Warriors.
7. Tony Gardner handled the Chucky duties in this, and Chucky's look is a step up from the last one. I really liked how he moved, the puppetry was top notch. Some really great characterization going on here. Old school puppets. They could have CGd the hell out of Chucky, but instead they brought in a master to make it work, some of the shots look like they maybe removed guys in green leotards out of the shot, but that's how it should be used, as tech removal.  Thank you, movie.
8. The story opens up Chucky's powers, but! don't worry, it's really cool. If you are a fan, you are really going to like where this goes. It's not a Resident Evil situation where, oh, now Alice can do anything, and there are 50 of her, so who cares. Cult of Chucky knows how far to push it.
9. THE GORE! SO GOOD! There is a drill to the head that is up there with the great slasher kills. All practical and nasty! Horror movies need to pay attention, to keep it real, to keep it rubber.
10. I didn't even mention the return of Alex Vincent as Andy Barclay! You got a little tease at the end of Curse that he may be back, and lo and behold, here he is! All grown up and actually really good. You know, this is fan service, but it feels good! Continuity feels good! Like all those Fango obsessed years were not a waste! Vindicated! He is cool. What they did with his character is so cool. What happens to one of these slasher movie survivors in a world where you can google their name and get the whole slanted story. Hard to make friends, ya know. He's a recluse, and like Ripley, his life has been so dominated by this unstoppable antagonist, his relationship to Chucky has ripened into a sick love/hate affection.

The Brass Tack: Best Chucky Since The Original.

Closing Thought: Tom Holland went on record that he came up with everything that was cool about the original. If Don Mancini was a hack, he would not have been able to keep these wheels turning for 29 years, and keep reinventing the story and keeping it fresh. His skills as a storyteller has me excited for Part 8! Streets of Chucky? 

FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog

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