Jurassic Park III (2001) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 18, 2001

I saw Jurassic Park III opening weekend and had fun with it. While it might not have been a great, or even all that good, movie, Jurassic Park III nonetheless kept me entertained during its somewhat brisk 92 minute running time.

Two memorable moments occurred during that first viewing. 

First was, after the plane had crashed on the island and the assorted characters were climbing out of the wreckage, I leaned over and whispered to my companion, "Just how long do you think the black guy is going to last here?" Only for a dinosaur to come along and eat the poor guy within seconds of my having spoken. I am ashamed to admit we giggled over that lazy (and offensive) trope being played out with such perfunctory speed. Come on, guys. We can and must do and be better than this!

Second was a funny gag involving a ringing cellphone. The sound mix made it sound as if the ringing were coming from somewhere in the auditorium, which had disgruntled audience members grumbling about some damn fool's phone ruining the movie, only for it to be revealed that the cell phone was inside the film's primary dinosaur antagonist. That gag was set-up and paid-off with plenty of b-movie elan and charm.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #70

Parker and Lambert rush to Ripley's aid as Ash continues his mad attack. Suddenly, Ash's head is ripped from his body, revealing wires and circuits where tissue should be. "My God" gasps Lambert. "He's... an android!"

"It's a robot! Ash is a goddamn robot!" Is what Parker says, after knocking Ash's block off (literally, not figuratively) with a fire extinguisher. It took some close listening, but I could also suss out a muffled line of dialogue, "It's an android!" Spoken, once again, by Parker, just after Ash's head is knocked off. Lambert doesn't say anything.

I know, I know. If I keep picking at these nits they are going to get infected. So be it.

Here is some more compulsive nitpicking, just to be joyously pedantic, the image in this card occurs just before the image used on card 69.

Pointing out and correcting these trivial matters is how an aging man has fun these days, I guess. LOL.

Hauntress by Minetaro Mochizuki - Review

It begins with a simple inquiry that draws attention. Attention that becomes a baffling obsession. An obsession that spirals into nightmare. A nightmare that becomes the stuff of urban legend.

The simple inquiry is when Hiroshi Mori, a young student, hears a woman ringing the doorbell and knocking on the door of his neighbor, Yamamoto. Since it is the middle of the night and the ringing and knocking is loud enough to disturb Hiroshi, he steps out to see what is going on. Big mistake.

Standing at Yamamoto's door is a towering woman with long black hair. She is wearing an overcoat and is carrying two paper bags and a satchel. Hiroshi's short encounter with her is dreamlike, with the woman pointing at the Yamamoto's door and asking if he goes to the same school as, "The person who lives here."

If this were a video that last comment would get punctuated by a clip of Dustin Poynter running around with a giant red flag.

The strange woman's attention turns to Hiroshi, of course, and his life is fast unraveled and tossed to the wind.

I am hesitant to offer any further explanation or exploration of Hauntress, as doing so would only spoil unnerving revelations and incidents that would best be experienced with a set of fresh and unaware eyes.

The ad copy on the back of the edition I have describes it as a "1993 horror classic...credited with introducing the concept of stalking to Japan." That was enough to sell me on the manga and, now having read it, I more or less concur.

Hauntress creeped me out and left me hesitant to the point of being afraid to see who it is that is knocking on a neighbor's door in the dead of night...

Arachnophobia (1990) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 17, 1990

Producer Frank Marshall, a longtime collaborator with Steven Spielberg, made his feature film directing debut with this entertaining creepy crawly opus. One that parent company Disney, via its short-lived Hollywood Pictures branch, had a difficult time finding a way to market to the general public. 

I do not know if the term "thrillomedy" was coined for this particular film's release, but the ratio of scares and laughs are very well-balanced. It's a horror-comedy that works because, by and large, the horror aspect is treated dead serious, while the humor comes from how the characters react to said horror.

One thing I do regret is deleting the film's soundtrack album from my collection. That was dumb.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #72

Checklist

And the first complete set of trading cards in my collection has reached its end, with no newspaper ads, books, soundtracks, or related ephemera crossing its posting path. Nothing else to add. Besides, thank you for visiting.

Talk Story Bookstore - A 500 Piece Puzzle

Basket Case (1982) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 16, 1982

While I was unable to see Basket Case on the big screen, I was able to see Basket Case 2 on the very same big screen, it seems. Because the sequel, released in 1990, also had a series of midnight screenings at the very same Roxie theatre. Go figure.

Another 'quick' trip down the rabbit hole of memory lane versus magazine and newspaper archives places my first learning of the existence of Basket Case at either the very end of 1981 or the very beginning of 1982. Whenever it was that I first cracked open the sixteenth issue of Fangoria magazine and studiously examined the plethora of grisly stills from the film.

I did not see the film itself until 1983, when it was released on home video by Media Home Entertainment, and I loved it. So much so that I bought my own VHS of the release, just so I could watch it on the regular. Which I did, with relish.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #69

Science Officer Ash... a traitor? Ripley suspects he has been sabotaging their attacks on the Alien for some undisclosed reason. Ash finally confirms this belief by turning his murderous rage against Ripley! 

The Devil's Rain (1975) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 15, 1975

I think I was first made aware of The Devil's Rain by its being mentioned/lambasted in the Medved's notorious tome The Golden Turkey Awards. As I seem to remember it, John Travolta was one of the nominees for the Most Embarrassing Movie Debut award, because The Devil's Rain was his first movie. So it goes.

Whether or not that memory is an accurate one is debatable, though. Because verifying whether or not my memory was correct took me down a rabbit hole of magazine databases and archives, as well as newspaper television listings, that reminded me that the memory of an event and the historical record of said event are two very different things.

I do know that I watched some of The Devil's Rain on late night television. There were several potential dates for when this might have happened. The first would have been on November 2, 1979, when The Devil's Rain aired after a rerun of the Kolchak The Night Stalker episode The Youth Killer on the CBS Late Movie. I also learned that It Came from Beneath the Sea was airing on Creature Features, over on Channel 2, at the same time as The Youth Killer.

The Devil's Rain would wash across the CBS Late Movie two more times in late 1980, maybe. First on August 12, which was a Wednesday, and then again on the more appropriate date of October 24, which was a Friday. That is according to this CBS Late Movie database, at least.

But when I checked the television listings in the Oakland Tribune. The Devil's Rain was only listed for broadcast on August 12. The October 24 time slot says that the 1960 drama Sunrise at Campobello was being aired.

Oh, I also learned that the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake was also broadcast on Friday, October 24, 1980. Which might coincide with a memory of my buying the novelization of The Hearse. The reason for this lodging in my memory was that I had to borrow a nickel from my uncle in order to complete the purchase. He actually barged into my bedroom to make sure he got the promised reimbursement. Dude tracked me down to get his fracking nickel back.

My only memory of The Devil's Rain consists of its opening with scene, wherein Ernest Borgnine and William Shatner engage in some theological fisticuffs, and the film's typical for its era downbeat ending and closing credits.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #71

The Haxan Team

In mid-1997, Angela Donahue, Heather's mother, turned over the controversial footage shot by her missing daughter to a company called Haxan Films. Haxan's editors and directors, already familiar with the curious case, assembled Heather's raw material into what has now become "The Blair Witch Project."

Front (left to right): Haxan's Dan Myrick (co-director), Robin Crowie, Gregg Hale (producer), Michael Monello, Edward Sanchez (co-director). 

The Swarm (1978) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 14, 1978

For those that might not be paying all that much attention to the posting pattern of these clippings, I switch back and forth between the San Francisco Examiner and the Oakland Tribune for the sake of variety. If I were to post by the when or the where I lived at the time I first saw a particular movie, then the corresponding clipping should be one taken from the Oakland Tribune.

Irwin Allen's Production of The Swarm, as I love to refer to it, was one of the most anticipated movies of 1978 for me. That its release just so happened to coincide with my 12th birthday was just icing on the cake.

I had skimmed Arthur Herzog's source novel, but would not actually read it from start-to-finish for another year or two, and studied the tie-in edition's collection of black and white stills from the upcoming movie. Some of those stills were from scenes that were ultimately trimmed from the theatrical prints.

While I enjoyed The Swarm's bombastic silliness and over-the-top cartoonish style, my parents did not. At all. This movie lived in infamy within our household.

But I still enjoyed The Swarm enough to see it an additional two times on the big screen that month. I think it only lasted a mere two weeks in general release before being yanked from most theaters by its humiliated distributor, Warner Brothers.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #68

As I stated with the previous card, these images are out of sequence. The above image is from just before the image of the fight between Ripley and Ash used on card 67. The same same will apply for the two cards that follow this one... 

Orca (1977) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 13, 1977

Dino De Laurentiis followed his 1976 remake of King Kong with Orca, a blatant attempt at crafting a Jaws-sized hit at the box office.

Although not what one would call a critical or artistic success, Orca did manage to break even at the box office. I know I saw it at least twice on the big screen in the summer of 1977. I just loved the idea of a super smart killer whale crushing the collective asses of those responsible for the death of its mate and child.

The movie also instigated a comical pissing contest with Jaws. Orca kicks off with the titular beast dispatching a great white shark in spectacular fashion. A year later Jaws 2 would feature a scene involving a dead, shark-bit killer whale that has washed ashore. If franchise entries could talk, then Jaws 2 was sneering, "Bitch, please..."

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #70

Private Investigation

In early 1996, frustrated with the official lack of progress on the case, Heather Donahue's family hired private investigator C. D. "Buck" Buchanan, Jr. Involved in full-time law enforcement/investigative service for 32 years, Buchanan probed into all aspects of the unusual disappearance, inevitably exploring the blood-stained history of Burkittsville. On February 8, 1996, Sheriff Ron Cravens informed Buchanan that he believed the student's footage to be a hoax.

Casino Royale (2006) - Soundtrack

Synchronicity strikes again! Just as I was about to reach the soundtrack for Casino Royale in my collection, Patrick (H) Williams just so happened to release a video essay about Daniel Craig's five film run as James Bond. At time of writing it is only available on Nebula, but might have moved over to You Tube by the time somebody discovers and reads this particular entry.

Then again, nobody is reading blogs all that much anymore. Are they?

What was interesting was how the shadow of 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service was cast over the Craig era from the very beginning.

Composer David Arnold described his score for Casino Royale as a being serious and dramatically rooted, as the film's grounded and character focused approach did not allow for any tongue-in-cheek frivolity or outright silliness.

Arnold also said his score was something of a close musical cousin to John Barry's music for On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in that the James Bond theme was not used for color or punctuation at any point during the film proper and was used only for the end credits. Which makes for an awesome album closer as well.

There were no liner notes for this Sony Masterworks CD release, but trumpet player Derek Watkins did get a loving shout out congratulating him on performing his 21st Bond movie score. That means Watkins' trumpet can be heard in every single EON Bond from Dr. No right through to Casino Royale. An impressive and charming piece of movie music trivia.

Jaws the Revenge (1987) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 12, 1987

Oof. I went to see the very first matinee screening of Jaws the Revenge at the Alhambra Theatre on Friday, July 17th. Why? Because Jaws is my favorite movie of all time and, back then, I had the energy to give just about any movie a try.

There was a small group of people a few rows behind me that, before the movie started, joked about how this movie could not be worse than the previous Sea World set entry. They were wrong, of course. So very, very wrong.

This was also the first time a movie snapped me out of a fog of denial regarding what I was watching. To this day I vividly remember the moment when the film cut to a lackluster shot of the mechanical shark flopping in the water and I thought, "That's right, this a Jaws movie." The shock, dismay, and utter horror that washed over me as I realized that I had forgotten what movie I was supposed to be watching was physically palpable and soul crushing.

I also remember the slack-jawed walk of shame and resentment at being seen leaving the theatre after this comically inept abomination had ended.

At least I got to see the film's original ending on the big screen.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #67

Again, the image being used is out of sequence with the events of the film's narrative. So it goes.

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) - Review

I tapped out on the Jurassic Park franchise after 2015's Jurassic World. While I did not think it all that bad of a movie, it also was not all that good of a movie, either. There was a hollowness to it that left me unsatisfied. So I wound up skipping both Fallen Kingdom (2018) and Dominion (2022). 

Which is both sad and odd, considering my love of giant monster movies and creature features. How is it I can still get giddy about seeing a new Godzilla or King Kong movie, but the thought of a new Jurassic World movie has me disinterested and cold?

Two things, I guess. First there is the lingering memory of that unsatisfying hollowness at the center of the first Jurassic World entry. Second might be the bland sameness to the proceedings. Despite all the lip service promises of dinosaurs escaping and integrating into the world, each movie seems content to just keep recycling endless variations of iconic set-pieces from the first Jurassic Park (1993) and its source material.

Gripes about sameness aside, though, I must and will give The Lost World: Jurassic Park props for its San Diego sequence. That was fun.

Yet there was a thing or two about Rebirth that managed to pierce my cocoon of disinterested lethargy regarding the franchise and intrigue me enough to go and give this entry a shot.

First is that Gareth Edwards had directed the film. I have been a fan of Edwards since Monsters (2010) and thought he did a fine job with Godzilla (2014), a wonderful job on Rogue One (2016), and a superlative job with The Creator (2023). Here was someone I thought well-suited to coax something new and interesting out of this timeworn and threadbare franchise.

Second, and something that connected with the core of my inner monster kid heart, was this film having an actual mutant dinosaur (i.e. an honest-to-goodness giant monster element). I could not pass on that...

Well, shame on me, kind of. While competently directed, with a sense of both scale and fun to the proceedings, Edwards was unable to really bring anything new or all that interesting to this entry. While it starts off strong enough, with a nifty and almost terror inducing introduction to the 'D-Rex' mutant in a cold open, everything that follows is just more of the same perfunctory and repetitive stuff.

David Koepp's script is both overstuffed and underdeveloped, offering a collection of character sketches in dire need of some fleshing out and coloring. This is also one of those movies where it is quite easy to suss out who will live and who will be dinosaur chow.

What Rebirth needed was a serious trim. Either cut the stranded family out of the script - which would allow space for the 'characters' played by Scarlett Johannson, Mahershala Ali, Johnathan Bailey, et al, to develop some much needed interesting textures and interpersonal dynamics - or cut down on the mercenary and scientists stuff and make the stranded family the primary characters and play it as a frightening and dangerous fish-out-of-water style adventure.

Either approach might have worked better than the lifeless and disinteresting mishmash of cliches I wound up sitting through. So it goes.

The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula [The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)] - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 11, 1979

The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula was the truncated version of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, one of the very last gasps of the foundering and failing Hammer Film production company. While the original version ran 89 minutes, The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula, shorn of some 14 minutes, was a brisk and, perhaps, borderline incoherent 75 minutes.

Adding further insult to injury was the film having been shelved, or passed over, for theatrical distribution for a whopping five years before getting a token release. My guess is the distributor wanted a Dracula title to capitalize on the expected box office success of Universal's big budget remake of Dracula, which was opening the following Friday, July 13th.

For snorts and giggles, I thought it would be fun to consult the theatre guide for the co-hits(s) that were paired with The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula.

The LUX co-features were Hot, Cool and Vicious, a 1977 martial arts import, and Caravans, a historical adventure from the director of The Enforcer (1976) and Every Which Way But Loose (1978). 

But if triple-features were not your kind of thing, then the Eastmont Four had The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula paired with Mean Frank and Crazy Tony, which was an Italian buddy film about a small-time criminal (Tony LoBianco) teaming up with a high-profile gangster (Lee Van Cleef) to escape from prison. 

I know Mean Frank and Crazy Tony better as Escape from Death Row and remember being low-key surprised by how light-hearted and delightful the movie turned out to be.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #69

Heather's Journal

The disturbing tape/film footage and Heather Donahue's equally unnerving journal elicited an array of responses. Some psychologists suggested that the starving, fatigued students may have turned on one another; others feel they were most certainly stalked and murdered by unknown assailants. Still others place the blame squarely on the Blair Witch, feeling that the tragedy is merely the latest in a series of bizarre occurrences dating back to 1786. 

Carrie the musical - Soundtrack

In October of 2013 the revived and revamped version of Carrie the Musical was mounted and performed by the Ray of Light Theatre in San Francisco.

While I remembered reading of the legendary smoking crater the original production made on Broadway, closing after only 16 previews and 5 performances, I never dreamed I would ever be able to see the damn thing.

Which remains true. Because this version had a retooled book, which reshaped the show into a psychological-drama focused on the effects of bullying. Seven songs from the original show had also been dropped and replaced with all-new ones. Not that I knew any of this at the time I took my seat at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco.

Perhaps it was my diminished expectations for the show going in, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I even bought the revival's Premiere Cast Recording.

It is unlikely this show will ever truly get out from under the shadow of its legendary Broadway failure, but I am still rooting for it to do so. I guess I am a sucker for lost causes.

Moby Dick (1956) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 10, 1956

I remember watching Moby Dick on television and being blown away by it. So blown away that I immediately checked the book out from the local library and attempted to give it a read. I made it through one or two chapters, at most, before giving up. Not bad for somebody that was, most likely, in middle school at the time.

Twelve or so years later, maybe, the novel was assigned reading in an American Literature course I was taking at San Francisco State University. Surprise, surprise, surprise, but I made it through the entire, albeit seemingly endless, book this time around.

While I cannot say that I felt it was the transcendent reading experience the professor teaching the class found it to be, I was surprised at just how much the climax of Peter Benchley's novel Jaws seemed to have cribbed from the climax of Moby Dick. Really.

A few years after that I read Ray Bradbury's novel Green Shadows, White Whale, which was a fictionalized version of his experience working with John Huston to craft the script for the movie adaptation of Moby Dick that I had just so happened to watch and love so many years before.

Bradbury incorporated a great many of his Irish stories, which were inspired by the time he spent in Ireland working on Moby Dick, so the resulting book is more a phantasmagoria of sights, sounds, and experiences than it is a structured story. Which is pretty much par for the course for most, if not all, of Bradbury's novel length works. 

Green Shadows, White Whale was the second novel penned by a disgruntled and traumatized screenwriter dramatizing what it was like working with, or for, John Huston. The other was White Hunter, Black Heart by Peter Viertel. While I have seen the Clint Eastwood movie adaptation, I have yet to crack open the actual book it was based on.

I need to do that, some time.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #66

Captain Dallas, convinced that the Alien is using Nostormo's air shafts to move around in, crawls into one of the vents in an attempt to drive the Monster out. Dallas' disappearance chills the blood of his crew-mates... 

Another out of sequence image used for this plot summary. This looks to be from when the Nostromo is either landing on, or taking off of, the inhospitable planetoid upon which the alien craft had crash-landed.

Escape from New York (1981) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 9, 1981

I was so stoked to see this. Sure, it was not a horror movie, but it was a new John Carpenter movie and Debra Hill Production. The dynamic duo responsible for Halloween and The Fog. Adrienne Barbeau was in it, too! And Lee Van Cleef! And Ernest Borgnine! And Harry Dean Stanton!

Man, what a cast. What a concept. What a fun movie it turned out to be. I loved it then and still do today.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #68

Retrieved Video Camera

Both the video and 16mm footage from the discovered backpack prompted FBI investigators to reopen the case of the three missing college students. A special FBI/local authorities task force was set up, but for the second time in as many years, law enforcement officials abandoned the search. Stung by criticism, Sheriff Ron Cravens insisted that he and his people did everything possible to solve the mysterious case. 

Carrie (1976) - Soundtrack

Bruce Kimmel's liner notes for this two disc limited edition release from Kritzerland lavishes an almost hyperbolic level of praise on Pino Donaggio's score for Carrie. In a single sentence Kimmel calls it both "a perfect score" and "a masterpiece of film scoring" with "unforgettable themes that capture every nuance of the film."

The soundtrack album that was released back in 1976 was an abbreviation, of course. 35 minutes of music that, for the most part, was from the second half of the film.

As would be the case with just about every soundtrack album of that era, there were snippets and selections of the score that I loved that were excluded from the album. Not so with this release. It contains every note of the film score, in film order.

The snippets and selections I am glad to have included here? The second part of Track 2 - The Ashtray, Track 5 - Calisthenics, and Track 8 - The Tuxedo Shop.

The Island by Peter Benchley - Newspaper Ad

Nothing the slightest bit subliminal about the sex and violence implied in this advertisement for Peter Benchley's novel The Island, eh? As George Carlin quipped in an unrelated bit about sex in advertising, "You don't have to be Fellini to figure that out." 

I tried reading The Island several times before finally making it all the way through to the end, which did not happen until after I had seen the movie adaptation. 

The generous read on why, at the ages of twelve and thirteen, I kept bouncing off the book might have been the lack of a fantastical threat. A pack of inbred, feral pirates just did not seem all that scary to me. Maybe if Jack Ketchum had given the book a look and polish it might have been more interesting.

Which brings me to the less generous reason for why I kept bouncing off The Island. It read as pedestrian as a sidewalk, as dull as dishwater. It remains the Peter Benchley novel that I least enjoyed reading.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #65

Nice image, also out of sequence. 

Mummy Identities - A 1000 Piece Puzzle from Trick or Treat Studios

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune July 7, 1971

According to the venue listing at the bottom of this ad, the Coliseum Drive-In seems to have had only two screens at one point. I am going to guess that the third screen, which I will assume would be the one that had its back to 880 (aka the Nimitz Freeway) was added at some point in the mid-seventies. Because I remember the Coliseum Drive-In having three screens in 1976.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #67

16mm Footage

October, 1995. University of Maryland Professor David Mercer, an anthropology instructor, was supervising a group of students on a field dig when a hidden backpack was discovered. Inside were 16mm film cans, DAT cassettes, a Hi-8, and a CP-16 camera, as well as a tattered journal. The footage was developed and screened by Sheriff Ron Cravens, providing what appeared to be hard evidence in the disappearance of the three students.

What this card's text does not mention, due to space constraints or an editorial decision, is that the backpack was discovered within the dig itself. I seem to recall one of the documentaries that aired prior to the film's opening that the backpack was discovered in an 'impossible' location, adding another layer of supernatural strangeness to the proceedings.

The Curse of the Werewolf - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 4, 1990

Every year we kick off the Christmas season by attending Smuin's Christmas Ballet. So my eyebrows shot up when I saw that Michael Smuin had directed this musical comedy-thriller that I had never heard of, despite my living in San Francisco at the time of its production. Not that I could have afforded a ticket. So it goes.

A little digging uncovered that The Curse of the Werewolf was a revival of 1976 'monster-melodrama' written by Ken Hill. The less than stellar review the Examiner critic gave this production, on June 15th, described Hill as an "English writer who takes public domain stories, redesigns them as spoofs, and sets them to public domain songs from long-forgotten operettas." Okay.

Despite having the same title as a 1961 Hammer Film production starring Oliver Reed and directed by Terence Fisher, The Curse of the Werewolf is not based off any pre-existing material. Hill himself heavily revised his script for this production, which also featured an all-new score.

In an Examiner article that appeared in the Sunday, June 10th Datebook, Smuin described the show as "somewhat reminiscent of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, with a dash of Monty Python." 

As promising as that sounds, and as popular and successful as The Curse of the Werewolf was in Canada and England, it having been produced some 35 times from 1976 through to 1990, it seems this presentation had a struggle getting an audience.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #64

After Nostromo crew members split into separate groups, Brett finally finds the Alien... or rather, it finds him. Now seven feet tall, the Beast swoops down on its prey like a gigantic bat!

In the theater of a card reader's mind, perhaps. But not in the actual movie, though.

The image used for this card was trimmed from the finished film, but it can be seen in a 'restored' edit that serves as an illustration as to why less is so often a lot more.

As much as I like the confusion, shock, and terror that Stanton expresses in the pause before the attack, where he tries to scream, but can only get out what sounds like a huff and a growl, is a nice touch. But the painful truth is that it just slows the scene down and dilutes the power of the Alien's first appearance.

Also the Alien is shown way too much before the attack in this version. Although it is nice to be able to see the scene the way it played when Jerry Goldsmith wrote the music for it, before the final edit was actually locked.

The Car (1977) - Soundtrack

Leonard Rosenman's score for The Car was one that I had ached to have a soundtrack recording of for almost four decades. It took thirty-eight or so years for it to happen, but Intrada managed to secure a commercial release of Rosenman's atmospheric and kinetic music for The Car in 2015. Better late than never.

The brevity of the score, which runs a few seconds shy of a mere 34 minutes, might be one reason an album version was not released in 1977. Another could be Rosenman's choosing to score, for the most part, only scenes where the Car is either present or its the aftermath of an attack.

The lone exception to that latter reason are a few moments involving the character Luke (Ronny Cox) and his relapse into alcoholism. The remainder of the human drama and character moments are not scored and play out in an almost noticeable silence.

Jeff Bond, in his liner notes for this release, notes how "Rosenman's dissonant, agitated and aggressive soundscapes [were] a natural fit for horror and science-fiction movies." I both agree and doubt that there was a composer better suited for this material than Leonard Rosenman.

Another interesting and appropriate choice on Rosenman's part, in addition to not giving his score any human coloring, is his use of Dies Irae as the score's primary theme. Dies Irae, perhaps best known for its use in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, becomes an auditory signature for the Car that is every bit as recognizable as its distinctive, and iconic, horn blasts.

Dracula - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 3, 1930

While Universal's film adaptation of Dracula would not start shooting until the very end of September. There is a very real possibility that, at the time this traveling production of the Broadway play performed in Oakland, Bela Lugosi would have known that he had been cast to play Dracula in the film version.  

I'm also surprised to learn that Lugosi and the rest of the Broadway cast performed in Oakland. Go figure.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #66

The Search

After the three students disappeared, separate search teams combed the Black Hills Forest for over a week. Several volunteers, including a few with their own bloodhounds, aided local, state, and federal law enforcement officials, but to no avail. This lack of success convinced many witchcraft believers and historians that the three missing students were the most recent victims of the Blair Witch's ongoing curse. 

Psycho III (1986) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 2, 1986

In addition to the underperforming Big Trouble in Little China, a second sequel to Psycho was also released to theaters and drive-ins across the United States on the fourth of July weekend of 1986.

And, just as was the case with the former, this was another that seemed to come and go from theaters before I returned from an overseas visit to my family. Which seems weird, as I saw Maximum Overdrive on its opening weekend, which was a mere two weeks later, while I was visiting friends in Dallas.

That being said, when I did finally get around to seeing Psycho III I found it to be an atmospheric and interesting close to what I have come to consider an unexpected trilogy of films. I also tend to ignore the contradictory nature of the film's final image, as it smacks of being something mandated by the studio so that a Psycho IV could be (and was) made.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #63

Dallas and his team devise a plan for disposing of the Alien: with an electrical rod, they will force the monster into an air lock and out of the Nostromo!

Although I have not watched Alien in some time, I have seen it enough times to know that Dallas and his team still believed they were dealing with a quart-sized creature at this time in the film. One they could capture by hand and either shoot out the airlock or freeze for later study.

This is just another example, or reminder, of how this trading card series stream-lined or altered the film's narrative for whatever reason(s).

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974) - Soundtrack

Although ignored and dismissed by audiences, critics, and even its own production company at time of release, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter would survive to become a minor cult classic. One that, after I managed to catch up with it, became one of my favorite latter day Hammer Film offerings.

Randall D. Larson's liner notes for this limited edition release offers a detailed history of the film's genesis, production, and release, before focusing on Laurie Johnson's excellent score.

"The title sequence of any film," Johnson explains in the liner notes, "is really furnishing a house for a guest to come in to." No surprise that the film's Main Title serves as an auditory introduction to the film's narrative themes.

First is a rousing motif for trumpet that is countered by an energetic theme for violin. This melody characterizes Kronos's heroic purity and nobility. A second theme is then introduced. This darker and less melodic section represents the vampiric menace Kronos will be battling.

While those three themes serve as the foundation and backbone of the score, with variations on them weaved throughout the film, there is another that is pointed out that is worth mentioning. A low-end bassoon is used to create a rumbling texture that introduces and underplays during vampiric attack scenes.

This is a terrific score for a wonderful "little" movie that tried, but failed, to birth a new heroic horror movie icon. Which is too bad, because the potential displayed in this introduction is just breath-taking.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 1, 1986

Having recovered from the stinging rebuke of 1982's The Thing, John Carpenter suffered yet another stinging rebuke with the disastrous under performance of Big Trouble in Little China.

As much as I was looking forward to seeing this on the big screen, I was unable to. I believe I might have been overseas at the time, in Hong Kong, visiting family when it opened. By the time I returned to the United States, Big Trouble in Little China, having sunk like a stone at the box office, had vanished from theaters. So it goes.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #65

Missing

The "missing" poster was first posted in Burkittsville toward the end of October, 1994. Almost exactly a year later, it was redistributed with the discovery of the students' footage. "It's strange that (something) always happens in a fifty-year pattern," commented Bill Barnes, director of the Burkittsville Historical Society. "She (the Blair Witch) always surfaces, or something surfaces that leads to her..." 

At the Earth's Core (1976) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - June 30, 1976

The mid-to-late 1970s saw the release of a handful of science-fantasy adventure movies based on the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs. All of them starred Doug McClure and were directed by Kevin Connor.

Two of the films were produced by Hammer Film rival Amicus Productions. The Land That Time Forgot (1974) and, the subject of today's post, 1976's At the Earth's Core.

Today's subject would also be the last film from Amicus Productions. So it goes.

I don't think I actually watched At the Earth's Core, start to finish, until well into the 21st century. Better late than never, I guess.

Contemporary viewers can snicker and crack jokes about the dated rubber monsters and unapologetic artifice of the film's studio-bound sets, but that is also what gives this movie its ample character and charm.

If watching this film, which even at the time of its original release looked and felt hopelessly out of date, can warm your heart and make you smile, then congratulations. It appears your inner child is alive and well.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #62

The murderous Alien is loose on the Nostromo! It cannot be blown to bits, as its acid-like blood will eat through the metal of the tug. How, then can the Creature be killed? 

Cat National Parks Travel - A 1000 Piece Puzzle

28 Days Later (2002) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - June 27, 2003

2003 was not a good year for me. That having been acknowledged, I can say that the stateside release of 28 Days Later did allow me an appreciated escape into a world of apocalyptic and cathartic terror. What an exhilarating rush seeing it for the first time, on the big screen, was for me.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #64

Finding the Car

The only piece of evidence found by the police was Joshua Leonard's car, parked on Black Rock Road. "We checked the car over completely. Never found any clues with the vehicle," stated Burkittsville Sheriff Ron Cravens who conducted the original search. Cravens has been criticized, off the record, for his handling of the high-profile case by forces within his own department.

Having reached the end of the movie, the cards return to the deleted backstory elements cut from the finished film and that were used to market the movie instead.

Captain America: Civil War (2016) - Soundtrack

While this score for the third Captain America adventure does have its energetic moments, overall it is a formless, characterless assembly of orchestral background noise.

Filmtracks posted a scathing three star review dismissing the score as "a disloyal mess of scatterbrained ideas." Ouch. 

But I have to agree with their assessment that Jackman's work here is "procedural and businesslike." That it offers little that grabs or holds my interest. 

The little would be a momentary blip in the first minute of Track 12, Civil War. Which underplays, or punctuates, the airport fight and was what motivated me to purchase this album and add it to my collection.

That momentary blip returns and is nicely expanded in both Track 18, Clash - underscoring and punctuating Cap and Iron Man's fight over the fate of Bucky (The Winter Soldier) - and Track 19, Closure - where it serves as something akin to a dirge to lament the end of Steve and Tony's friendship.

Everything else is just generic orchestral soundscape. Musical filler with no thematic center to hold it together. Which is just saddening.

Prime Evil - Edited by Douglas E. Winter - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - June 26, 1988

One of the stories in this anthology, which suffers when compared to Kirby McCauley's far larger and more breathtaking opus Dark Forces, stuck in my memory. David Morrell's Orange is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity. That story managed to wallop me good. I loved it.

I also vaguely remember being somewhat baffled and intrigued by Whitley Strieber's story The Pool. It was the first piece of fiction that Strieber wrote after finishing Communion and the thematic connection between the two seemed clear. Beyond that, I remember feeling lost and confused about what I had just read...

1988 was a long time ago and I no longer have the book close at hand. But I was able to track down its table of contents, so I could check to see if anything else in the book might jog a memory. Only two did.

First would be Stephen King's The Night Flier, which contains a bathroom scene that is equal parts gruesome, goofy, and, being Stephen King, pretty darn scary. Have not seen its movie adaptation, yet.

Then there is Peter Straub's The Juniper Tree, which I must admit to having no memory of reading in this anthology, but when I read it in a collection of Straub's fiction, it really knocked me for a loop. Maybe my psyche was ready for just how close to home this story hits.

There is also a Clive Barker story in the anthology, titled Coming to Grief, but I have no recollection of it whatsoever. Perhaps it is time for a refresher?

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #61

A smear of blood blossoms on Kane's chest. Seconds later the fabric of his shirt is ripped open as a small monster head - about the size of a man's fist - bursts through the officer's mangled body!

I read the novelization of Alien before I was able to see the film, so I knew what was about to happen when Kane started coughing and convulsing at the table. Our father, however, did not.

"This thing grabbed onto this guy's face, but then it fell off," I remember him telling mom, after we got home. "And I thought, okay, that must have been the alien and the rest of the movie is going to be about the people on the spaceship. But then the guy starts to get sick at the dinner table and I see Chad's eyes get real wide and he tenses up, so I knew something bad was about to happen."

Alan Dean Foster's description of the event in the novelization was less traumatic than what was shown in the actual movie...

Gigantis The Fire Monster [Godzilla Raids Again (1955)] / Teenagers from Outer Space (1959) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - June 25, 1959

It took four years for the quickie sequel to the first Godzilla movie to reach theaters and drive-ins in the United States.

When it arrived its title, storyline, and characterizations were altered, of course, to better suit the questionable attitudes of the day. Not that the original version was all that better, though. Both are talky and feature special effects that, because of an error in film speed, lack the look and feel of the first, and far more serious, film.

Coupled with Gigantis The Fire Monster would be Teenagers from Outer Space, a notorious no-budget cheapie about nefarious aliens attempting to turn Earth into a breeding ground for giant, carnivorous lobster-like creatures.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #63

Their Fate

Josh's cries for help become more pronounced. "I hear him downstairs!" yelled Mike as he ran through the old house. As he entered what appeared to be the basement, passing walls covered with strange symbols and handprints, Mike's video camera was knocked out of his hands and onto the floor. When Heather entered the room, her 16mm camera recorded the black-and-white image of Mike standing motionless, back to her, facing a wall. Then Heather's camera also hit the ground. 

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - Soundtrack

The score to my favorite Captain America movie takes a far different approach than that for the first film. No surprise, really, considering that The First Avenger was a period piece, while The Winter Soldier is set in a modern era awash with all manner of science fiction infused gizmos and gadgets.

So composer Henry Jackman leaned heavy into electronics and pounding rhythms, rather than instrumentation that invokes a bygone era. Well, save for Track 3, The Smithsonian, when the film called for that very approach.

One flourish I quite like is a processed scream, which sounds something like a bird cry, used as a kind of auditory signature for The Winter Soldier.

When I did a search for information or interviews regarding the score, the former was sparse and the latter rather negative. There was a great deal of grumbling about repeating loops, banging and clanging industrial effects, and groaning electronics.

While I can and do understand the reasoning for those legitimate complaints and criticisms, I do not find listening to this soundtrack to be all that painful of an experience.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - June 24, 1970

My introduction to the first sequel to Planet of the Apes came via its truncated edit on The 3:30 Movie. The bleak, nihilistic direction the film took left me shocked, shook, and slack jawed. I also loved it for what it did, of course.