Rev up for The Wraith

(repost of a review)

I can't believe I went through the entire decade of the 1980s without ever watching the movie The Wraith.

You know the one I'm talking about: the goofy flick about a ghost sports car and its mysterious black-clad driver that challenges the members of a gang to street races. Every video store open during the 80s was required to have this movie's poster pinned up on its walls.

Charlie Sheen drives the movie's well-worn plot of a murdered man who comes back from the grave to avenge himself upon his killers. It's like High Plains Drifter but with Clint Eastwood trading his spotted pony for a Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor (according to Wikipedia, a "technology demonstrator vehicle").

The movie opens with a couple of animated balls of light coming down from the night sky (because 80s), zooming across the Arizona highways before colliding to form...The Wraith, an all black sports car, with a black-helmeted, black-jumpsuited asthmatic driver - seriously, as the camera is pulling into a closeup of Mr. Helmet Guy, we hear labored breathing; I guess coming back from the dead is strenuous work. His getup looks like a lovechild of a stillsuit from the movie Dune and a Borg from TV's Star Trek: The Next Generation. Then H.R. Giger puked on it for good measure.

The gang of killers is a hilarious assortment of 80s weirdos and wasteoids: lanky leader Packard Walsh, played by lanky Nick Casavettes, who races hapless motorists for their pink slips (heads up: he always cheats); a strangely coiffed Clint Howard is Rughead (Eraserhead must have been his hairdresser); rounding out the gang are Skank and Gutterboy, a couple of perpetually high tweakers who looked like they were ported over from another 80s' gem, Class of 1984. Note: The Crow, another murdered man returns from the grave for revenge flick also has a gang member named Skank. What are the odds?

This is all just silliness writ large. A pre-Tiger's Blood Sheen makes a good pretty boy, but nothing more. His role requires no acting, just show up, look at prettier Sherilyn Fenn (girlfriend of the murdered boy, and now Packard's "property"), and drive a dirt bike. Spoiler: yes, at the end, we see Mr. Helmet Guy take off his helmet to reveal Charlie Sheen, but, between you and me, I don't believe for a second he drove the sleek ebony Murdermobile in all those races.

Speaking of races, don't expect any true fast or furious action from those in this film. The Wraith's races against the baddies always end with an explosion, and those were fairly decent, but the camerawork and race choreography leading up to the kaboom were substandard: I've seen more intense car chases on the local news.

The movie appears to have been a co-production with a local Dodge dealership because every single car - that's EVERY. SINGLE. CAR - is a Dodge automobile. In this town, Ford spells f-i-g-h-t.

I don't know if I could truly recommend a supernatural car chase movie where the sleazy villain has the name of your grandfather's old sedan (remember the Packard, ya'll?) but I guess if you are sufficiently drunk - and NOT driving anywhere - you could do far worse than to let your eyeballs melt to the sights and sounds of The Wraith.

 (Clint Howard from The Wraith from https://medium.com/every-day-is-movies)

MEGAFORCE is a MEGATURD of a movie

You guys all dodged a major bullet by not watching MEGAFORCE. I honestly can't recall a worse movie; it was equal parts achingly dull and plain stupid.

It is obviously a big loud "boy's cartoon" with all the armored dirtbikes, armored six-wheel jeep things, armored airplanes, and armored armor, but boy's cartoons can still work, if you care to tell a decent story with a beginning, middle and end and also populate that story with interesting characters. Megaforce populated itself with accents-in-lieu-of-characters: Michael Beck (The Warriors), the number two guy on the call sheet, was the loudly accented "Dallas" a cowboy soldier; Edward Mulhare (Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Knight Rider) was the strangely British-accented general from the "Republic of Sardun" (which I guess is south of Ireland and east of Philly), Persis Khambatta (who should have been a Bond girl) was the exotically accented Major Zara, Henry Silva was also a thickly cowboy-accented Duke Guerera, and this not-even-close-to-grand ensemble was led by the non-accented Commander Ace "Call me Hunter" Hunter who acted more like a frat boy meets Valley Girl than the capable leader of a military assault unit.

I honestly don't recall what the plot was because I was beside myself when at the 45 minute mark NOTHING had happened in the movie other than they filmed in the desert because the Megaforce HQ was in the desert and then after a long while they flew to the other side of the world to fight...in the desert.

I remember lots and lots of dust from all the vehicles and dirt bikes rolling around in the desert and then lots of explosions, some in the sky and other on the ground causing more dust, lots and lots of it, to be kicked up. I think this movie was retitled in Japan as "Dust And Explosions Movie Caused By Excitable Man Wearing Fashionable Headband."

Zoran Perisic, he of the Superman: The Movie Zoptic photography process, got a big credit in the opening scenes for the now-as well as then-obvious screen-effects process shots which got big laughs for being so obvious (in the 1978 Superman, they were and are charming). 

Looking at it now, I don't know why kids would like this movie, as that was their target audience. The "action" was simplistic: lots of dirt bikes and a few neat looking six-wheel vehicles tearing up the desert and battling enemy tanks with rockets. Nothing was well-staged or photographed in a fun or unique manner, and all the Megavehicles had a sameness about them (unlike the GI Joe toyline which came out around the same timeframe and was all about variety in characters and vehicles). Aside from Persis being a very attractive woman, none of the characters were fun or memorable - compare the ensemble of Aliens to the group from The Abyss - which one do audiences remember better? Megaforce's group of actors was even more dull than the team in Abyss.

This movie was a giant turkey and it needed to be treated as such. Was Barry Bostwick high on substances while making this movie is the only question I want answered. Lastly, Albert S. Ruddy was the producer of Megaforce. He also produced The Godfather (if you have not seen The Offer on Paramount+ about Ruddy making Godfather you MUST watch it) and before that co-created Hogan's Heroes. Ruddy had such a weird career in Hollywood. He also produced Cannonball Run 1 and 2, the western Bad Girls (with the amazing Jerry Goldsmith score), and Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. 

Fantastic Four: First Steps is on the horizon

The first Fantastic Four movie produced entirely by Marvel Studios and subtitled First Steps is being released to theaters July 25, 2025, and features a mixture of familiar faces and up and coming actors: Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm/The Human Torch), and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm/The Thing. Set in a retro 1960s timeline, the adventurous quartet face the menace of the World Devourer himself, Galactus (Ralph Ineson). I am guessing there will be a cameo from long-time FF comic book menace Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) who is the villain of 2026's Avengers: Doomsday film, but that is merely conjecture.

The Fantastic Four really holds a special place in my comic book-loving heart and after three, count 'em THREE, prior big screen adaptations ranging from mediocre to terrible, I am hoping FF:FS finally hits it out of the park with wonderful characters who are faithful to the spirit of the comics, an engaging storyline (It's Galactus! Don't screw that up!), and stunning visuals and set pieces (It's Galactus! Don't screw that up!).

Fantastic Four. Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

The Fantastic Four, once Marvel Comics' flagship title, now a series canceled since 2015, was like the Star Trek of comic books: a group of adventurers boldly going into the unknown frontiers of space and time and other dimensions, meeting the challenges head on and bringing back that knowledge to help mankind.

Art: Anthony Castrillo. Characters Copyright 2016 by Marvel Comics. No infringement of those rights is intended.


Apparently Marvel Comics decided to stop making FF comics as they don't own the (potentially) lucrative film rights, which they sold off to 20th Century Fox for relatively cheap in the late 90s while undergoing bankruptcy proceedings. Why make new stories in the comics which might fuel the competition's movie coffers? It makes (dollars and) sense, but it still stings.

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby crafted 102 issues together as writer/co-plotter and artist/co-plotter respectively. They gave us not only our flawed quartet of heroes in Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Ben Grimm/The Thing, Susan Storm Richards/Invisible Woman and Johnny Storm/Human Torch, but Doctor Doom, Annihilus and the Negative Zone, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, the Black Panther, Mole Man, the Watcher, Skrulls, the Puppet Master, the Inhumans (Black Bolt, Medusa, Karnak, Gorgon, Triton and Lockjaw), the Frightful Four, and so much more.

There's a gold mine of stories there, enough for several movies. Since Fox tried three times to bring the FF to the big screen and failed, maybe in a few years they might sell the rights back to Marvel so that their film arm Marvel Studios might make a truly great Fantastic Four film.

To the Pogo Plane, everyone!

Ask your doctor if Radiation Shields are good for you.

 What to do, what to do?

copyright 2023 to the rights holder of Space: 1999. no infringement is intended with this parody.

Indiana Jones and The Very Bad Friday

You ever get that feeling you are about to be dipped into a vat of molten gold?

Indiana Jones and Marvel Comics Copyright 2023 by the Walt Disney Company. No infringement is intended with this parody.

You Only Pug Twice - James Bond movie poster parody

 Because I love James Bond movies and I love pugs, why not combine the two favs?!

The Hands of Uncle Roger: Master of Fried Rice parody covers

If you love Asian food as I do, then you must know about Uncle Roger. Uncle Roger is a character played by comedian Nigel Ng who is very concerned that Asian cooking be done correctly. If you use a flat pan instead of a wok, add some extraneous non-Asian ingredient like "chili jam", or forget to add the life-altering/life-affirming MSG, then you will come to know Uncle Roger's if not wrath then wonderfully skewed sense of humor as he chastises you as celebrated chefs Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver can attest.

In that spirit I created these parody covers to Marvel's much-loved The Hands of Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu from the 1970s which I call The Hands of Uncle Roger: Master of Fried Rice.

So grab some of your favorite Asian food, be it Chinese fried rice and kung pao chicken, Malaysian nasi lemak, or Korean japchae and curl up with the four-color adventures of Uncle Roger.

original Master of Kung Fu covers Copyright 2022 by Marvel Entertainment.

In A Daze Of Futures Passed

The cover for The Uncanny X-Men #141 is one of the most legendary in all of comics. Penciller John Byrne and inker Terry Austin (likely under the direction of their X-editor Louise Jones (Simonson)) created a grim masterpiece for part one of the two part future-set epic "Days Of Future Past."

For a while now I have been gathering once a week on the interwebs with friends I made on Twiter and we watch fun silly mostly '70s and '80s fare such as Buck Rogers In The 25the Century, UFO and Space: 1999, Star Trek TOS and TAS, Ultraman, Knight Rider and Automan. However there is one show that brought us all together that first time and from which our group's name was coined: Manimal.

Presented for your approval is my loving homage to the incredible Byrne and Austin cover of that X-Men title for the "ManimAlliance" and many of the wacky goofy television shows of yore we have enjoyed and skewered in friendship.

Uncanny X-Men #141 Copyright 2022 by Marvel Entertainment. 

Killer Bees On Horseback -- Once Upon A Swarm In The West

Henry Fonda, one of the greatest actors of his generation, was in many classic films, including the Sergio Leone masterpiece Once Upon A Time In The West.

Fonda was also in The Swarm. That's right the Irwin Allen movie about the killer bees that you used to see on late night TV; now it's hopefully in the free stuff on Amazon Prime or similar.

I thought what could be better than to combine these two films. So I give you Once Upon A Swarm In The West. 

Note: No one will be allowed to leave the theater during the thrilling "bees on horseback" sequence.

Font Trek: The Graphics Picture

Alright I'll admit it: I am a font junkie. I'm not a graphic designer but I love the many, many fonts which have been created over the years for books, movie posters, and advertisements to name a few places.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture has one of the sleekest, coolest fonts there is, one that was arrived at, no doubt, after much thought and deliberation by the filmmakers and the studio. It is a timeless style. But what if they went down a different graphics route? I put together some alternate fonts for fun, including the font perhaps most often used in science fiction movies/TV and books for the 1970s. And I am not talking about The Brady Bunch font.

 

 Star Trek is a trademark of Paramount/CBS Studios, Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended with this parody.

Robert Pattinson's Batmobile Is Just Wacky

 With all the hubbub this weekend from DC's Fandome I just want to remind everyone that Robert Pattinson's Batman drive this new Batmobile. 

The Poseidon Adventure on the Planet of the Apes

Two great genre tastes that go great together (or at least they should).

Journey with us now as our stalwart heroes, including Taylor, a cynical astronaut, Reverend Scott, a cynical priest, Roddy McDowall in surprising dual roles, and a cast of Hollywood luminaries sail aboard the S.S. Poseidon on its fateful voyage. 

The reveries soon turn to screams as the Poseidon encounters the strangest, strongest tsunami wave ever, which not only overturns our ship but sends it thousands of years into the future. A future ruled by Apes!

Parody poster. No copyright infringement is intended with this work.

Bat Slap!

 Batman just doling out a general purpose Bat-slap to the Boy Wonder.

We all know Robin will deserve one sooner or later.

Batman and Robin are Copyright and Trademark 2021 by DC Comics Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended with this parody. 

Bajoran Airlines - We Put The Prophets Before Our Profits

 Need to get away for a few days? Bajoran Airlines has you covered.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is Copyright and Trademark 2021 by CBS Studios, Inc. No infringment of those rights is intended by they parody.

The Vedek Bariel Bariety Show - The Dullest Show on Television

You know him. You hate him. He is Star Trek's most boring character. 

Yes, it is Vedek Bariel. And now he is getting his own variety special: Star Trek: The Vedek Bariel Bariety Show.

Watch as he slowly falls apart, annoying and boring Major Kira, Dr. Bashir and any and everyone else who crosses his dull, plodding path.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is Copyright 2021 CBS Studios. No infringement of those rights is intended with this parody/satire.

AT-ATM

"Imperial Tellers have entered the base! Make your withdrawals now."

 Star Wars is Copyright 2021 by Lucasfilm Ltd and the Walt Disney Company. Original AT-AT art copyright by its creator. No infringement is intended with this parody/satire.

Children of the Popcorn

 

Requiem For A Bigscreen TV

Flint, the Immortal Man from the #TOS classic "Requiem For Methuselah" has a nice TV in his den but not only is it not 4K it is not even widescreen? Where does he get his tech toys from? 

Star Trek is Copyright 2021 by CBS Studios. No infringement is intended with this parody/satire.

Guardian of Forever Buffering

 

Star Trek is a Registered Trademark and Copyright 2020 CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved. No infringement of those rights is implied with this parody.

Space: 1999 episode "The Taybor" Features the Worst Alien Hairstyle in the Universe

This cock was a crock. The episode "The Taybor" of Space: 1999 featured, hands down, the lamest alien menace with the WORST hairstyle in all of sci fi: he looked like a cockatoo.

So in honor of this load of space garbage that even Quark the space sanitation guy (that is a 70s reference, kids, not the Quark from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) would not take out, here is Cockatoo magazine's latest issue. Also their first and only! Collection it all!

Hoarders of the Last Toilet Paper

Just after President Trump declared a National Emergency at the end of last week due to the spread of the coronavirus, American shoppers decided to LOSE THEIR GODDAMN MINDS and go panic shopping, stocking up on - or more precisely hoarding - toilet paper, bottled water, medicines, masks, and more.

Toilet paper? Yes, toilet paper. Sigh.

The human race is doomed.

Pizza: 1999

I used to watch the classic sci-fi TV series Space: 1999 as a kid and I always thought it was more than a bit slow: it was leisurely paced, compared to say Star Trek, episodes were often filmed with heavy shadows on the sets, and lead actor Martin Landau whispered his dialogue when he wasn't shouting it.

But I have had the pleasure of re-watching the episodes online with a group of like-minded folks and they are often a laff riot!

Take this episode, for example:

The moonbase crew, most of them anyway, sit down for an evening of sitar music (why the sitar? why not, said the producers). While the man-bunned electric sitar player strums his heart out, a small group of Alphans just happen to hold a seance in the botany lab -- that's right, they are trying to "make contact" with the plants! Oh, the '70s was full of really far out ideas. Well of course things go terribly wrong in short order, people start seeing a weird apparition, and Alphans start dying.

The man with the plant plan is Italian doctor Dan Mateo, or should-a I say-a "Doctor-a Dan-a Mateo". Yes, kids, he's-a one-a those-a Italian actors who put-a "a" at the end-a most-a his words-a. (I think I might have broken the "a" on my keyboard. Mama Mia!)


This episode is tailor made for people who like to riff on (with love, of course) the movies or TV shows they loved as a kid, with Dr. Chef Boyardee, the psychic plant seance, burn monster apparitions, Barry Morse's antler like sideburns, and Martin Landau's "I'd rather be back on Mission: Impossible" acting choices.

Christmas Comes To Pac Land, and Brings Nightmares For Us All

I just watched the execrable "Christmas Comes To Pac-Land" Pac-Man cartoon special from 1982. I took a bullet for you Internet with this one. We're talking full metal jacket. 

When Santa first appears his sleigh crashes and when Pac Man and his goofy friends find him the animators drew Santa all sprawled out as if he was modeling a Playgirl centerfold! Don't believe me...LOOK AT THE IMAGE BELOW! (Yes, I "took away" his pants to make the gag more obvious, but come on!)  

To cleanse myself of this hideous special, I made up the Santafold for Playelf magazine. You are welcome, Internet!


 

Are Baby Yoda and the IKEA Monkey the Same Thing?