Ray Harryhausen RIP—and the Movies of April 2013

Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013)

The Last of the Old School Special Effects Masters has passed away. Now Harryhausen joins Albert Whitlock, Derek Meddings, L.B. Abbott and a small handful of others creating special visual effects for the Afterlife—all without computers!

Big Ray was no hired hand, though:

Harryhausen’s was the rare case of the special effects man determining the path of the motion picture routinely—essentially acting as a hands-on producer (even the directors usually hired by him and partner Charles H. Schneer were non-entities: so as not to interfere?). His individualized, specific form of stop-motion animation is intractably tied to the movies they were in and vice versa.

There is a certain tone to Harryhausen’s flicks, combined with an extravagant but classical sense of fantasy that puts his name directly on the same level as George Pal and Walt Disney as the Masters of Family-Friendly Fantasy. You might consider it a level of “cheese” in Harryhausen’s wholesome enterprises, but it is extremely earnest, and absolutely charming—and drips with the hard work of one solitary man.

LIE #85: This Evening, Scream along with God (or, Jesus Freaks vs. Bible Thumpers; Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?)

“Summon the AAAy-toner!”

Can your soul stand the theological implications of 1971’s The Night God Screamed?

You get old-school 42^nd Street madness with this lost exploitation flick about the dangers of uncanny Bible-quoting hippies and the generation gap.

Deliciously nasty 1970s trash, and a great midnight movie!

RIP, Roger Ebert: The Good Soldier of Cinema Has Left the Building (as well as my reviews of the movies of March 2013)

Roger Ebert (1943-2013) has escaped into the future, into that dimension we have yet to see.

No matter what, fans of the Cinema of Weirdness have to love Roger Ebert because he wrote Russ Meyer’s 1970 magnum opus Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, one of the greatest movies ever made.

That’s Roger and Russ above—and if you don’t know which is which, what are you doing here?

Ebert went on to script two more flicks for Meyer: Up! (1976) and my fave, the beyond-whacky Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979).

As a teen, after only having the opinions of NYC-centric-intelligentsia critics like Vincent Canby, Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris to turn to (I won’t bother to comment on the nabobs and halfwits pretending to be critics on New York’s TV stations—even as a kid, I knew they were wastes of skin), discovering Roger Ebert via PBS’ Sneak Previews (I can still whistle its theme!) was a godsend: Ebert was a populist, but he was smart—and, as far as I could tell, he wasn’t a snob.

Snowbound in Hell: Big Stan K. and the Subversion of Expectations

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Like a Combination of Narcolepsy, Dengue Fever and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: The Films of December 2012

The year’s over, long live the New Year! (for roughly 365 days that is—even less now, actually…)

2013 is here, but does a year with “13” in it indicate good luck ahead, or bad?

The movies and shows watched in the twelfth month were, because I am very stressed out lately, mainly entertainment.

Also, lots of films were watched either because my “holds” at the library finally came through (Library Roulette: you never know what’s next!), or else on the recommendation of one of the many sites I routinely visit and read.

Let’s take a look!