Tuesday, January 31, 2017

The CN Tower Glows Tonight



As I walked to the subway after attending an event at the TIFF Lightbox Theatre, I could not miss the light-show presented by the CN Tower. There was a light, and wet, snowfall which no doubt added to the atmosphere.

The picture was taken from King Street. My peek was between towers of Metro Hall.

(I will post about the event, "Underground: The Funnel Experimental Film Co-op 1977-1988", in the next couple of days after I work my thoughts.)

"Hyper-Reality" Promotional Card 2



Last year I posted a few pieces regarding an uncompleted 35mm short film of mine titled Hyper-Reality. The first of my postings was The Aliens of Hyper-Reality. Yesterday I posted a bit on a promotional card.

The picture above is of a second card idea and it includes the additional title of "Attack of the Scanner Heads". My intent was to make this appear to be one episode of a full series, which of course would not exist -- or would it?....

Monday, January 30, 2017

"Hyper-Reality" Promotional Card



Last year I posted a few pieces regarding an uncompleted 35mm short film of mine titled Hyper-Reality. The first of my postings was The Aliens of Hyper-Reality.

The above picture is a promotional card built by Bob Yoshioka. The advert's "Hyper Reality" type I drew by hand and based it on the cartoony logos of the old Irwin Allen shows -- in this case I mimicked the title for Lost in Space. The insert picture of the rocketship is a sample from storyboards I generated for the film. The bloke holding the Arriflex camera is me. (The photo was taken years ago for a shoot unrelated to Hyper-Reality.)

Maybe some day soon I can actually put the promo card to good use.

Sunday, January 29, 2017

My VHS Purge: Strategic Air Command





As part of a downsizing project eight years ago I purged most of my pre-recorded VHS tape collection. I've never been a big collector of movies -- my DVD library is fairly small -- but the fact is I had accumulated around 70 tapes: 

Strategic Air Command (1955) Shot in VistaVision, and starring Jimmy Stewart, it is very much a film of its time. But, although born during McCarthyism, this picture avoids glorifying "Strategic Air Command" outright. The men and women have a job to do. No serviceman comes across as blood-thirsty or rings in any way of "I wanna get those Russkies". There is a conscience within the film, a quality all but absent in most films of this type produced today.

Mention must be made of Jimmy Stewart's service on bombers during WWII. His piloting of the Convair B-36 and, later in the film, a Boeing B-47, feels right. 

Strategic Air Command is not a great film, I don't think, but it entertains in an almost sombre manner. And the sugar bowl-sweetness between Stewart and onscreen wife June Allyson is not to be missed. The highlights, for aviation fans certainly, are anything involving SAC bombers flying high above the clouds. In particular the B-36 is lovingly photographed as it soars. Victor Young's beautiful score elevates these sequences, making them almost poetic. Now that is something you do not get anymore. (What's a tune?)

I liked Strategic Air Command when I first watched it on late night television in late 1976 and I still like it.

Saturday, January 28, 2017

My VHS Purge: Taxi Driver





As part of a downsizing project eight years ago I purged most of my pre-recorded VHS tape collection. I've never been a big collector of movies -- my DVD library is fairly small -- but the fact is I had accumulated around 70 tapes: 

Taxi Driver (1976) Stunning filmmaking; all departments, including: Direction (Martin Scorsese), Script (Paul Schrader), Cinematography (Michael Chapman), Music (Bernard Herrmann), Editing (Tom Rolf, Melvin Shapiro), Acting (Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and more), etc.

I remember seeing Taxi Driver for the first time on late night television. Few film viewings have had such a grip on me.

Final Note: Check out the VHS tape's box front above. "Jodie Foster is delightful." She certainly is terrific. The 'critic' -- Liz Smith from Cosmopolitan magazine -- was not incorrect, but for such a quote to end up as the box front's representative critical notice tells me that someone at Columbia Pictures Home Video was not doing his or her job.

I can imagine: "Hey, honey, you like romantic comedies. This looks like it might be fun, and something the kids could watch." (Until they turn the box over to read the back....)

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Four by Three: While They're Busy Passing the Puck


On November 12th of last year I wrote a piece about my frustration over NHL players and their predilection for trying to impress with fancy stickhandling and passing the puck around instead of actually shooting on the net. (Don't risk giving away that puck!)

As the late Douglas Adams might have said about this, although probably referring to football, "It may help attain the often desirable objective of winning the game".

___

I popped back to "Shoot the . . .  Puck! to affix the above sketch.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Star Trump Trek

Like many people I was amused by the Trump Team's application of a term to 'rationalize' results which most of us would claim otherwise to be of incontrovertible facts. (Reality.) The term has exploded: "Alternative Facts." (Actually, this phrase is quoted by George Orwell in his classic dystopian book Nineteen Eighty-Four, first published in 1949. I have that book on my shelf; about five feet from where I'm sitting. Time to reread Nineteen Eighty-Four.)

Later in the day -- this past Sunday -- it occurred to me that there is an episode of the first Star Trek series titled "The Alternative Factor". Mulling over the hilarity of the whole concept of Alternative Facts, I decided to look up the names of other episodes in that classic television series to see how they might be affixed to The Donald.

(Many of Star Trek's episode titles were culled from lines in Shakespeare's plays.)

It was too easy. There were a few titles I didn't bother scribbling jokey comments about, and one in particular I would not touch. After reviewing my notes I trimmed my list down to 30 titles.

The episode name (and my attempt at humour):

Where No Man Has Gone Before (he insists)
The Enemy Within (there is that)
Shore Leave (we're going to need it)
Tomorrow is Yesterday (according to "alternative facts")
A Taste of Armageddon (he will give us)
The Alternative Factor (Trump's television show after his presidency)
The City on the Edge of Forever (and it needs new towers! Forever!)
Operation: Annihilate! (commencing operation)
Amok Time (it sure is)
Mirror, Mirror (in that universe there is a Donald with a goatee)
The Apple ("no it's not, it's a banana")
The Doomsday Machine (is titled the biography)
Metamorphosis (Trump turns into a butterfly; but it's all a dream)
The Deadly Years (is titled a chapter in the biography)
The Trouble With Tribbles ("they were imported and weren't taxed?")
The Immunity Syndrome (he suffers)
A Private Little War (on Twitter)
By Any Other Name (a rose is still a banana)
And the Children Shall Lead (and yes they shall)
Is There In Truth No Beauty? (how about "In Lying"?)
Day of the Dove (now outlawed)
For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (believe it all)
The Tholian Web ("if the Tholians can build a web I can build a wall!")
Plato's Stepchildren (of many, many "steps")
The Empath (Trump isn't in this episode; replaced by a character named "Clinton")
Wink of an Eye (go your social programs)
Whom Gods Destroy (allegedly Trump's favourite title)
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield ("never!....never!")
Requiem for Methuselah ("a disaster!....disaster!")
All Our Yesterdays (hold onto them, for dear life!)



___

That's enough. I had my fun. No more Donald Trump postings. (Of which there are two.)

Let's give the man a chance; he only just took the top office in that great nation. Maybe he'll turn out to be a great President....

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Vintage Films & Swing and the Toronto Public Library

Toronto's public library system is pretty darn smashing!

As a regular patron I have no qualms about promoting any of its programs. The mix of events put on by the TPL is nothing short of grand. (Talk of cutting funding to the system, or even outright closing branches, to me is nothing short of egregious. Needless to say there are 'elements' that would love to close branches and fire shelves-full of employees: "Stop the gravy train!" Hey, read at least one book this year and then we'll talk.)

One such event, actually two, is being hosted by the "Palmerston" branch of the Toronto Public Library. Titled and themed as "Vintage Films & Swing", the screenings are held in the library's theatre. Apparently it's a very fine venue. Not only is a previously unannounced movie projected on a screen, but afterwards a "social swing dance" group performs on the stage. I could not make the screening last week (January 17th) due to work demands, but a friend told me the flick was an obscure one: With Love and Kisses (1936). Excellent choice, even if I have not seen it. I love obscure and "forgotten" films. Many of my own faves draw blank looks from people when I mention the titles.

The screening this coming Tuesday could be fun.

I took a few minutes and converted a little flyer I picked up at the Palmerston branch into HTML:


FREE for retro pop-culture fans
of vintage Hollywood movies and
swing-era tunes... who yearn for a
nostalgia-stewed experience
to make your senses hum.

VINTAGE FILMS
& Swing


Enjoy a (secret) 1930s/40s B-Movie...
Followed by a social swing dance on the
Palmerston Library Theatre's stage...
featuring swing-age recorded tunes.

Jan 17 Tues/Jan 24 Tues
6:00 PM - 8:30PM
NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Palmerston Branch, 560 Palmerston Ave.
416-393-7680
torontopubliclibrary.ca



My VHS Purge: The Brain That Wouldn't Die





As part of a downsizing project eight years ago I purged most of my pre-recorded VHS tape collection. I've never been a big collector of movies -- my DVD library is fairly small -- but the fact is I had accumulated around 70 tapes: 

The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962) Most films one thought of as brilliant in his or her childhood don't stand up when viewed from an adult perspective, but, The Brain That Wouldn't Die is not one of them. In my twenties I saw the cut home video version, with the film's infamously gruesome moment completely missing. I felt robbed of a special childhood moment. (I should note that I first saw Brain when it carried the slight re-title of The Head That Wouldn't Die.)

What happens in cases like this is Public Domain (PD) prints end up saving the day for childhood memories.

Positively drenched in atmosphere, The Brain that Wouldn't Die holds many creepy scenes; and ingredients. I suppose one could argue that, in its own way, Brain/Head is every bit as good as Citizen Kane....

Saturday, January 21, 2017

My VHS Purge: A Night to Remember





As part of a downsizing project eight years ago I purged most of my pre-recorded VHS tape collection. I've never been a big collector of movies -- my DVD library is fairly small -- but the fact is I had accumulated around 70 tapes: 

A Night to Remember (1958) This "Titanic" nut considers the British film classic to be the finest of all the feature length dramatic films made about the famous disaster at sea. I first read Walter Lord's outstanding and absorbing book of the same name when I was 11 or 12 years of age. Seeing the motion picture adaptation a year or two later on television was a visceral experience for me, effectively cementing my interest in the R.M.S. Titanic.

The real story is not so much about a machine, but humanity. A culture of arrogance and vanity (along with bad luck) contributed greatly to the ship's sinking, resulting in the loss of many of its passengers and crew. A Night to Remember is almost documentary-like in its depiction of this tragic event.

Friday, January 20, 2017

A Recommendation for Gorgeous Imagery

While I like to keep this blog about me (moi) there are times I can't resist shouting out for others, especially for friends of some talent.

Toronto-fused writer James Guthrie wrote a piece of short fiction which is about to be published in the Portland-based lit zine The Molotov Cocktail (A Projectile for Incendiary Flash Fiction).

For now, "The Remnant Bloom" can be read on the publication's website: read


Four by Three: It's About the Coffee

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Notes from a Brat: The TV Lunchbox Kids

When I was a child in the 1960s and early 1970s TV-themed "tie-in" lunchboxes were a big thing. The colour screen on the box's exterior was probably more important than any nutrients carried on the inside. The graphic was part of your identity: Perhaps you were a Bonanza fan, a "Bat-fan", or you gravitated towards the Irwin Allen fantasy shows such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea or Lost in Space. It did not matter whether or not these dramatic television programs were good (they were not) but the lunchboxes were a way of advertising our programming -- a statement as to what we little ones thought was cool on television.

I remember sitting on the school bus one day, waiting for the vehicle to finish loading up kids outside of the CFB Baden Elementary School (in West Germany). A fellow traveller in the seat immediately in front of mine had in his possession what must have looked to me like a pretty specimen of a lunchbox: It had a rich green trim; it showed some futuristic vehicle; it was adorned with the title Land of the Giants. (What's Land of the Giants? I learned something new and important.)

My favourite of the TV lunchboxes was the one for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The artwork, lame on many themed boxes for some inexplicable reason, was absolutely dynamic here: The front-of-box illustration depicted the submarine "Seaview" approaching a giant (giant!) octopus that was resting, but looking mighty angry, with the Flying Sub in its tentacles, on the ocean floor.

I never did get that lunchbox, simply because I never asked for it. My own box was of no TV-theme. It had a tartan pattern with the thermos inside sharing the same pattern. For all its blandness, that lunchbox served me well. When we moved back to Canada there was no need for this piece of school equipment as my school, Frederick Campbell Elementary in CFB Borden, was a few minutes walk from the house. I'd go home, eat, and pop on CFTO and meet The Flintstones.

Also, by this time the television series' Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Land of the Giants had been cancelled. Suddenly their tie-in lunchboxes had become worthless....


Monday, January 16, 2017

My VHS Purge: The Terminator





As part of a downsizing project eight years ago I purged most of my pre-recorded VHS tape collection. I've never been a big collector of movies -- my DVD library is fairly small -- but the fact is I had accumulated around 70 tapes: 

The Terminator (1984). It was the summer of 1985 when I got around to seeing this now classic science fiction film. A coworker told me that he and a friend had been doing their 'Arnie' impressions the day before. (Sounds like, "Give me your address there".) The Fox-Beaches rep cinema must have been listening; with a friend I trotted off to see a recommended flick.

I rewatched The Terminator recently and still think it's James Cameron's best film. (Avatar can disappear into The Fourth Dimension, for all I care.)

Sunday, January 15, 2017

My VHS Purge: The Mummy (1932)





As part of a downsizing project eight years ago I purged most of my pre-recorded VHS tape collection. I've never been a big collector of movies -- my DVD library is fairly small -- but the fact is I had accumulated around 70 tapes: 

The Mummy (1932). A wonderfully creepy, but romantic, horror film that has long been a favourite of mine. I first saw it on late night television when I was in my teens. Before I parted with this particular VHS tape I watched it again and my affections were reaffirmed. The Mummy is more melancholy than I remembered it being but it still contains one of cinema's most chilling scenes.

Film Design: Set Concepts for "Graveyard Shift"








Several times on this blog I have posted pieces about my involvement with the 1987 Canadian horror film Graveyard Shift.

Graveyard Shift








My Old Sketchbook: Forest Lawn Cemetery










The drawings above are of several I rendered in order to find a design for the film's featured mausoleum/cemetery set. As the film was of a very low budget (approximately $150,000 in 1985, probably around 2 million in today's production dollars), I had to strike a balance between something that took up some space but not too much space -- the bigger the structure the higher the cost.

What I chose as a final was a blend between drawing numbers three and four. The bottom one would have taken up "too much space".

Film (TV) Design: Science Show Early Set Doodle


Back in 2002/03 I wrote and produced my own demo/pilot episode for a science show concept I hoped to sell to a television network. (As per the law of averages there were no takers for Mr Science.)

Above is my early design sketch for the concept's central set: A laboratory equiped with a 'high tech' water cooler.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Film Design: Dragon Concept Sketches






Above are several concept sketches I did back in 1990 for a proposed fantasy film. The project, ultimately unrealized, was an initiative of a friend of mine.

(Unfortunately these are pictures of colour photocopies; I hope to find the originals soon.)