Plodding Onwards

 I'm still around. Got another deadline at the end of this week for a project I'm collaborating on. A lot to do. Also trying to squeeze in a few films as well. There's some good stuff coming out now; I plan to take in Silver Linings Playbook, End of Watch and Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan all later this week as well as watching films and TV relevant to the project I'm working on.

Rotten news last week on two counts; my lovely in-laws lost their neighbour of about 40 years suddenly. A shame. Only met him once or twice but he was a good man.

And someone I knew only briefly at university, but who several close friends were much closer to, sadly took his own life last week as well. Very sad. He was a memorable character from those days and a specific night at La Belle Angele in Edinburgh's Cowgate sprang to mind when I heard of his passing: A jumper. A smart ass Indie arsehole (not the chap in question). A smirk. A glass. A fight. Another friend tossed down the stairs (the last person I'd have expected that to happen to). And a bloodied demand to the bouncers for said jumper back. And the night ended with laughter. RIP Olly Lassman.

But there is also good news. Looks like, all going to plan, I'll be an uncle next May. I'm ecstatic about this.

Back to the bloody mess on the page.

Meeting a Hero

The Master Ray Harryhausen, co-author Tony Dalton and this fat fool of a blogger. I take a rotten picture.

The very first film I ever saw in a cinema was The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (not Star Wars as some folks think). It was part of a double bill (playing alongside Chuck Jones' Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie) my dad took me to when I was about 6 years old. I'd been wanting to go to the cinema for a few years by that point, but my disappointment as not seeing Star Wars when I was 4 is the point of an older blog post.

So, my earliest memories of the movies are of a giant Cyclops, a dragon, a tiny princess, a poisoned river and Torin Thatcher fleeing and crying for help from the outset. And it was the monsters which had the biggest effect on me. I was hooked on the buggers. This from a kid who hid at the side of the TV when Doctor Who or Space 1999 came on. Not to take anything away from its director, Nathan Juran, but it was really all about the animation master and pioneer Ray Harryhausen for me. I knew who this guy was before I knew who the Maggie Thatcher was.

I got to know his style early on and was usually disappointed when a monster movie appeared on TV that did not have his name attached. In fact, a small rage would grow in me when it became clear that I was watching iguanas and baby crocodiles with plastic frills on (The Lost World and Journey to the Center of the Earth were particular offenders to me as a kid). If it wasn't Harryhausen, my interest would wane.

And I got the chance to tell the great man about my first cinema experience face to face recently when I met him at a book signing. It was over so quickly (bloody queues) but will remain in my mind for as long as my mind works. It was good to have a chance to thank the man and shake his hand. How often do we get to meet our heroes and thank them? There is the old saying that one should never meet one's heroes as they will disappoint but sometimes the meeting is so brief that the chance for disappointment doesn't get a look in. Maybe that's the way to do it. It was likely just another fan for him but it was a big moment for me.

After my quick gush about The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, he and his co-author, Tony Dalton, also told me that they've found lost footage from Seventh Voyage and there's going to be a new book on the subject next year. Good to hear. And another heartening aspect of the event was that there were a few quite young kids there to meet him and who were into stop motion animation themselves. They knew who he was, despite so many folks my age wanting to write off the younger generation. And he seemed very pleased that they were helping to keep stop motion alive and kicking. Movies like Coraline and well known people like Nick Park and Tim Burton are a part of this also, but they all owe this man a debt. I wonder how likely it is that kids who love modern VFX can name any of the pioneers of that form. Denis Muren, maybe (Another name I knew very early on)?

Harryhausen's the first of my early childhood heroes I've met but I've seen another in action on the set; although, in hindsight, George Lucas has blotted his copy book in recent years. But not totally, mind you (that's a debate for another day). Meeting Terry Gilliam was cool when I was 18 but he was more of a late teens hero and he was great in person. Very generous considering how tired he clearly was.

But, I got the chance to meet one of the people partly responsible for forming my direction in life from a very early age. And to top it all off, his words to me were "Thanks." I left with a very big smile on my otherwise grim visage.

I think The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms is in order today. :)

London Weekend Squirrelvision

I got back from a brilliant weekend in London a few days ago. Highlights include seeing Eric Idle's oratorio based on Life of Brian, called He's Not the Messiah and featuring the rest of the Pythons on stage (sans anglophobe Cleese), meeting Ray Harryhausen, one of my all time heroes, late nights with friends in good pubs and seeing my sister in Cambridge. All in the company of my lovely and quite brilliant wife.

I'll blog about these in a bit more detail soon but if anyone asks again who Ray Harryhausen is, I may lose it (Some people. Jeez!).

"This beast is dangerously radioactive and colourful!"

Wonderful! I check the TV listings and see that It Came From Beneath the Sea is on. Love it! My earliest memory of a Harryhausen film was caught one afternoon in the late 1970's and it both horrified and grasped my little mind, helping spark my love of old monster movies; I particularly love how they refer to the monster as "The Monster" all the way through the film. It is THE Tentacle Film for me. And so seeing it again is on my list, therefore I've tuned in.

It's been fucking colourised.

I'm not a fan of colourisation. I got a VHS of Night of the Living Dead years ago I've not been able to watch all the way through as it was colourised.

But this is not a bad job and apparently Harryhausen is helping oversee the colourisation of all of his B&W movies. But I love the fact it was B&W. Even if it has Harryhausen's blessing, it just ain't right with me. While a good job seems to have been done, they still can't get skin tones right. While all of Kenneth Tobey's wrinkles remain intact, Faith Domergue's usual shiny rouge lips (a real memory of This Island Earth) have been darkened and her skin looks all pasty, predating Siousxie Sioux by some time and giving her a kind of young Joan Crawford look. Not good. She just looks ill.

The Octopus (or is that Decapus?) tentacles look pretty good though, fitting in with the colours Harryhausen used in his later characters.

But at the same time, it just ain't right, I tells ya! Not sure if I'll watch it all.