March 10th, 2010 
rberry 
There sure was a lot of junky cartoons in the late ’70s, one of which was Rickey Rocket, which appeared as a part of the Plastic Man show. Sort of like Fat Albert in space, this featured an all black cast with a homemade spaceship that had scruffy hair and a streetwise style. Some Wikipedia digging shows that the cast featured Johnny Brown who is famous for playing “Bookman” on Good Times, and John Anthony Baily as the questionably named “Sunstroke” who went on to have a career in such porn films as New Wave Hookers. I’ll at least give the cartoon credit for being fairly original and this was in the days when not all cartoons were used to be toy commercials, so that’s at least saying something.
Dear Alex and Annie…the show no kid liked!
ABC used to pad the start and end of their Saturday morning cartoons with cool stuff like Schoolhouse Rock, but back in 1978 they thought 2 suspender wearing dorks and t-shirts with their names on them would be great to feature answering questions from real kids. I hated the theme song, and even though I’d watch just about anything, I’d generally turn the channel when this duo hit the screen. Their heart was in the right place, I suppose, but kids are generally the last people that want to see a show by child psychologists!
Donna Drake, who played “Annie”, when on to have another role in the soap opera The Doctors in 1982, while Bing Bingham who played Alex went on to write the 2005 film “Faith of My Fathers” which was the story of John McCain’s days as a POW. You can visit Bing’s site here.
Alice In Wonderland Is Hardly Wonderful
Alice in Wonderland is an unappealing boring movie that squanders money, talent, and time like no film I’ve seen before. There’s almost nothing to like about this film, and studios should seriously question giving Tim Burton more than 20 million to make another movie again.
First off, the film is revolting to look at. From the sets to the character design, it’s simply an ugly movie in every regard. The combination of garish makeup and CGI trickery makes some of the world’s great actors look horrific, and not in a cool way. Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter looks like some sort of albino zombie with a zebra striped penciling that makes his eyes look as if they have some sort of infection. They’re even enlarged as some sort of special effect that makes them look even more horrible. It’s a stupid looking character, with stupid things to say, and no less than 3 different accents used for no discernable reason. It’s as if Depp can’t decide how he really wanted to portray Hatter, so he tried a bunch of different approaches hoping someone will like at least one of them.
Burton and his crew also manage to take Ann Hathaway, one of the world’s great beauties, and make her look like some sort of spastic female impersonator. She looks like Paul Stanley and Johnny Winter had some sort of mutant baby. It’s a hard to watch performance that showcases Ann walking around and waving her arms as if she’s in some sort of ballet.
Helena Bonham Carter takes the cake, however, as the red queen, who is portrayed with a giant head and shouts out all of her lines (50% of which are a shrill “Off with her head!”). There’s just nothing to like about her in this movie.
Some of the CGI creatures are appealing to watch at least. The Cheshire Cat is gorgeously rendered as has a deliciously wicked voice supplied by Stephen Fry. I also enjoyed seeing The March Hare, who was wonderfully twitchy and manic.
I’ll give credit where credit is due to the film’s lead character, Mia Wasikowska, who is a believable Alice who has the right mix of pluck and naiveté to pull this off. When everything crazy and mad is swirling around her, she never disappears into the background. She’s a competent actress that makes the best of the mess she was given to act in.
The story is minimal. Alice is now 20, and doesn’t remember anything of her past adventures in Wonderland. After refusing the hand of marriage to a homely rich Lord, she is lured back into the rabbit hole and meets the Wonderland characters. They want her to slay the Jabberwocky, and she eventually does. There’s really not much more to it than that.
I saw the film in IMAX 3D and frequently saw double images if I didn’t hold my head just right. If you’re expecting even a tenth of the 3D thrills and quality from James Cameron’s Avatar, don’t. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare, but you can’t help but notice how much Cameron did everything better with his film. And the budgets of these films probably aren’t too far apart. There’s scenes were Alice is walking through mushroom infested areas that look like Pandora-lite. When Alice falls down the rabbit hole, it’s a squandered opportunity to show things off in 3D, but everything’s so fast and blurry, it’s a headache to even look at.
I’m surprised that the film actually wasn’t rated PG-13. There is a beheading, Alice walks across a moat full of severed heads, the Dormouse stabs an eye out of a scary monster, a giant bird has his head crushed to a pulp with a boulder, and there’s a remarkable amount of battle-scene violence. Disney must have pulled some strings to keep it PG.
The pacing is horrible, and I found myself rubbing my eyes trying to stay awake. The music is the standard Danny Elfman autopilot soundtrack you’ve already heard a million times before. To be fair, I took my neighbor to see the screening, and she liked it, as did many people leaving the theater. But they are all wrong, and I am right. Don’t listen to them. Don’t waste your money. In a tough economy, our money deserves better films than Tim Burton’s Technicolor projectile vomit masquerading as a good movie.
Stay Alive Commercials…Marble Fun Game From Yesteryear
They just don’t make good marble slot hole games like they used to. I clearly remember this commercial being effective enough to make me ask for it for a birthday present. It was pretty fun, but my sister rarely wanted to play it , so like most multi-player games, it just sat in my closet. The worst was getting into Dungeons and Dragons and not being able to convince my sister to play. The wait to play it with friends was too much to bear. I wonder if I would have had something like a Gameboy or a PSP back then, if it would have been a blessing or a curse? How much creativity was nurtured, or lost, by not having a handheld videogame to waste away the hours?
Remco’s Baby Laugh A Lot Commercial … Pure Evil!
Wow! I’m a bit late to the Baby Laugh A Lot craze, as there appears to be several weird remixes of this on YouTube, but ho-lee crap this is one scary ass commercial.
Johnny Cash’s “Ain’t No Grave” Is Really Nice
I’ll always look forward to any Johnny Cash recording. He’s definitely one of the fingers on my hand to count of artists I’ll enjoy until my own grave. But objectively, “Ain’t No Grave” is a nice album to hear, even if you’re not a ravenous fan of the man. Sure, it’s not quite as good as the previous records Rick Rubin produced of his, but as a collection of leftover stuff that wasn’t good enough to be on the last album, it isn’t a bunch of lousy outtakes, either.
Some of it is a bit too familiar. The opening track, “Ain’t No Grave” sounds a bit too much like the opening track on his last work, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”, with near identical foot stomping effects. But that’s more Rubin’s fault than Cash’s, and frankly, it sounds good on both, so who cares?
These are definitely the songs of a man who knows he’s dying and is OK with it, both aurally and lyrically. His voice is aged and broken, but warm and pleasant at the same time. Not so much like a Grandpa singing from his bed, but a wise old man in his rocking chair on his porch with a shotgun in one hand, and The Bible in the other. Cash is a God fearing man, and the hymn-like structure of many of his songs makes that clear. Rolling Stone magazine quotes Rubin as saying that he wouldn’t record John Lennon’s “Imagine” because he didn’t like the line, “Imagine there’s no Heaven”.
“1 Corinthians 15:55″ is the sole Cash original on the album, and there aren’t any easy pop covers this time around, except a pleasant version of Sheryl Crow’s “Redemption Day”. “Satisfied Mind” is a nice song about how money and fame don’t give you happiness, while “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound” is a nice song about a wanderer looking for answers. There’s not a track on the collection I felt like skipping over, so that’s always a good sign.
The album ends with the 1936 western classic “Cool Water”, Ed McCurdy’s “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream”, and ends with a wistful version of Queen Liliʻuokalani’s Hawaiian standard, “Aloha ‘Oe”. You can almost picture him in a canoe with June paddling of into the sunset as the song fades.
This is being billed as Johnny Cash’s last studio album, but Rick Rubin apparently has even more tracks that might be used as extras on a giant box set in the future. I can’t help but think that we’ll be hearing new Cash stuff for quite a long time, though. He was a prolific performer with thousands of concerts. His son released an album of old recordings he found in a box some time ago, too.
But Johnny’s already released about 20 times the amount of great songs that most artists aspire to, so I’m happy if this is it.
Aloha ‘Oe, Johnny.
The Crazies Reviewed
The Crazies was a film that really didn’t need a remake. The 1973 original is not a very well known film, and aside from having a good title and a connection to George Romero, I don’t see the benefit of paying any amount of money to do it. That being said, it’s a competent and often scary movie that I enjoyed watching.
The remake of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead opens with Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around”, and this film rips that idea off by using Cash’s “We’ll Meet Again”. The song is a lazy choice doesn’t fit lyrically or musically and just seems to be thrown in there for street cred.
The film opens with a crazed, seemingly drunk local who interrupts the opening game of little league by stumbling on to the field with a rifle. The sheriff (played by multi-layered “Deadwood” Sheriff Timmy Olyphant) confronts him , and let’s just say, it doesn’t end well.
Turns out a plane filled with mind altering chemicals crashed into the town swamp, which disgustingly serves as the local supply for tap water. The Sheriff puts this together and warns The Mayor to turn the water off, and in a scene stolen from Jaws, he is worried about the impact to the farm business and refuses. The Sheriff then goes and turns the water off anyway, making the scene a waste of time, and pretty much everyone in the town is infected, so that’s 10 total minutes of nonsense that served no purpose whatsoever.
There are 2 very well done scenes that are genuinely scary that are at least in the 200 Scariest Movie Scenes Of All Time.
The best of which is a bit where survivors drive their police cruiser into a car wash. The Crazies come to attack them while they’re in the car and the car wash turns on. First you see them through the windows, then they get covered with suds, making you wonder where they are. The car can’t get enough traction to leave, so it’s stuck in there while arms bust through windows, and try to pull people out, foiled by the giant red scrubbing wheels. It may keep you from using a car wash ever again.
Another scene features a room full of possibly infected normal folks strapped to beds in a makeshift medical ward. The lights are flickering and you can hear the unholy metal on concrete squeal of a pitchfork dragging on the concrete. A crazy comes in and starts systematically stabbing people who can’t escape. It’s sadistic and horrible, and pretty fucking horrifying.
There’s also a couple of Sam Raimi-esque fight scenes, involving a bone saw and using a knife impaled hand as a weapon that are pretty good dark comedy.
The ending is just plain silly (wait about 60 seconds into the credits to see the epilogue), but I wasn’t bored and it was a lot better than most horror films that have been released as of late. Ultimately The Crazies is a competent, entertaining, and often scary film that’s worth a look.
Unintentionally Funny Commercials #2: Mr. Bucket
Love this one a lot! “Put your balls in my top, and out my mouth they will pop!” It doesn’t get any better than that!
Unintentionally Funny Commercials Part 1: Boobytrap
The commercial I was looking for actually had a fun Bobbytrap jingle, but this one would have made me laugh like crazy, too! I always imagined some poor woman getting her boobs caught in this game. It of course seems silly and immature now, but in my childhood context, I never really knew that booby had any other meeting other than breasts. I would also laugh hysterically when someone would talk about winning a Bobby Prize. That seemed like the best prize you could get!
Updated Karate Kid Trailer (with fun bonus at the end)
As much as I don’t want to see a remake, this looks like a beautifully shot movie with charm to spare. If you’re jaded, just skip to the end and listen to the 2 second song clip that’s playing when Jackie Chan catches a fly with chopsticks!
The Spectre Is A Great Extra In The New JLA DVD
I always have dug The Spectre, and I brought back our 2007 article on the character written by Bradley Mason Hamlin directly below to remind everyone how cool he is. I was thrilled to learn that there was an exclusive short of The Spectre included in the Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths DVD. It’s done with a great funky early ’70s exploitation vibe that fits the character perfectly. The story isn’t the best, but it captures the spirit of the character, and is worth the extra $5 for the 2 disc version so you can watch it (and you get 2 Justice League Unlimited episodes, to boot). Gary Cole provides the voice for Jim Corrigan, while Alyssa Milano handles the vocal chores for the female lead. It’s a part of what appears to be a new series of that will be included as extras on future DVDs called “DC Showcase” which will feature other characters in the future. Keep up the good work, DC!
The Spectre: A Golden Age Retro Review by Brad Hamlin
“No one suspects that Jim Corrigan is in reality the earthbound ‘Spectre,’ whose mission is to rid the world of crime …”
The Spectre: a superhero ghost who can do pretty much anything he wants, up to and including murder, as long as his motives lie within the confines of American “justice,” rather than the restricted sense of regular American “law.” The Spectre does not adhere to our mortal system of democratic rules. He judges from a higher authority.
I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff.
Talk about the ultimate fantasy character … I mean, what would you do, if in fact, you could do anything? Anything to the bad guys …
You could turn gang members blocking your safe passage home into hamburgers and feed them to hungry dogs. You could turn the local child molester into a living piece of sidewalk that will be forever trampled on and run over by freewheeling children. You could do a lot things, but I think you get the point.
However, the comic book world has certain limitations, and specifically as an art form marketed to kids in 1940—it damn well should have had boundaries to its presentation. You can’t just grow giant-size and crush somebody inside your fist …
Oh, wait a minute, yes you can.
If you’re the Spectre, and you’re getting rid of “bad guys,” you can. And he did. In More Fun Comics No. 56 (Dr. Fate on the cover) a couple of gangster goons run Jim Corrigan off the road with the intent to shoot him when he gets out of his car. Yet, emerging from the vehicle … comes the Spectre! The men jump into their comic book yellow car and try to escape, but the Spectre grows into a giant green-costumed ghost, larger and larger—until the getaway vehicle appears no bigger than a child’s toy. He picks up the little car. The men inside say (via world balloon) “Mercy—please spare us!”
“Why?” says the Spectre. “Cold-blooded killers deserve but one fate!”
The next panel: the Spectre’s closed fist.
The caption above reads:
“As the Spectre’s huge fist contracts, the car and its occupants are crushed to a pulp …”
Pulp is right, classic pulp era comic book storytelling, and I loved reading every moment of the villain’s ghastly demise. I loved watching it happen. That’s just great stuff, and frankly, I don’t mind my kids reading that sort of thing at all. Bad guys get crushed in the end. Okie-dokie.
I’m a collector of the DC Archives, Showcase Presents, Marvel Masterworks, and the Marvel Essential series, so yeah, I am a sucker for this kind of stuff—and granted while the Spectre might not be the greatest collection you can buy out of those four categories—it’s a must have for anyone who wants a real taste, and therefore a real treat, from the golden age of DC Comics’ supernatural superhero books.
The Spectre, created by Superman creator/writer Jerry Siegel and artist Bernard Baily first appeared in More Fun Comics No. 52, cover date February 1940. It’s a classic. We’re talkin old school occult superhero from the first generation of supers, and now … you can own a hardback collection of the Spectre in The Golden Age Spectre Archives Volume 1, (published in 2003) collecting the Spectre appearances from More Fun Comics Nos. 52 to 70.
Beware of bad behavior; buy this book.
-Bradley Mason Hamlin
brad@retrocrush.com
THE SPECTRE RETURNS!
In the ’70s, DC Comics needed a new star attraction for their struggling Adventure Comics title, so they brought out the long dormant Spectre for a series of tightly scripted supernatural revenge stories written by Michael Fleisher and drawn by Jim Aparo. They were collected in a full color 200 page paperback called Wrath of the Spectre in 2005, and it’s still available via Amazon for just a bit above $15.
You can totally see where the inspiration for Freddie Krueger’s over the top gory killing style comes from in these pages. As Brad points out, it’s something The Spectre has done since the ’40s, but it’s neat to see that sort of retribution dished out in a more modern context.
These days, The Spectre has become more of a force of the universe, and doesn’t seem to have time to take out the everyday scum and villainy that he cut his teeth with. We’ve got a whole new breed of criminal out there that’s just begging to get strangled with a giant gold chain, anally raped with an enormous forged credit card, or smoked inside of the world’s biggest crack pipe.
-Robert Berry
rberry@retrocrush.com
Deadpool Corps Issues 1-5 to Feature 5 Interlocking Covers!
Ha, this looks pretty funny, I must admit! Deadpool is a fun character that is NOTHING like the crap version you saw in the Wolverine movie. CLICK HERE to see the entire preview with full size pictures at Newsarama. Which is about the best comic book news site on the net, by the way!
Juggalo News
This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while. Well, if you know about Juggalos, at least!
Ian McShane Cast As Blackbeard in New “Pirates” Film
MTV and other gossipy sites are reporting that Deadwood and Lovejoy star Ian McShane will be playing the iconic Blackbeard in the next installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. This is super exciting news, as I have long thought that McShane would make an excellent Blackbeard! We paid $50,000 to have the special effects wizards at WETA come up with a mockup photo for us, and…well, I’m guessing the guy on Craigslist that said he worked for WETA was lying to me because it looks like something Perez Hilton drew in 10 seconds while waiting in a coffee shop. Are you excited about this news? I AM, for crying out loud!