Derrick

Link, please?

I'm down as well.

Big update today folks! First off, the submissions period for AMAZING ALTERNITY STORIES has ended, and quite frankly, we couldn't be happier with the selection of pseudo-psycho-histories that we got; so, look forward to seeing a TOC and a cover in the far-flung future! Next up, Joel Jenkins' THE NUCLEAR SUITCASE is available now in our very own store, as well as on Amazon, so get buying folks. If you need some incentive, feel free to check out the sneak preview we posted earlier! Speaking of new releases, we've got another one coming down the pipe, namely DILLON AND THE LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN BELL! If you'd like a taste of Derrick Ferguson's newest action-adventure offering, check out the first chapter for free on the Dillon page! If you liked Dillon and the Voice of Odin, you'll love Dillon and the Legend of The Golden Bell! And on the subject of Mr. Ferguson, we have a new entry in the ever entertaining Movie Review Notebook for you-this time, Derrick gives you his opinion on SURROGATES, starring Bruce Willis! And just as a reminder...our message board is up and running, so feel free to stop in and say hi or start a discussion on any of our fine titles! Finally, if you've got the time, spread the word about PWP to your friends! http://www.pulpworkpress.com/

Your opinion of Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN is pretty much the opinion I have, Des. For me, the highlight of this episode was the review in the car ride home. Getting the impressions of the movie while it was fresh in your mind and that of Ben's was what made the episode for me.

Dan & Mike There's a really good give and take between you guys that I really enjoy. Makes the podcast worth listening to not only for the informative and entertaining discussion about the stories but the way in which they're discussed. Kinda sorry that you guys won't be covering the Peter Cushing DOCTOR WHO movies as I have fond memories of watching them on Saturday afternoons here in Brooklyn back during the late 70's, just before Channel 9 started showing the Tom Baker episodes. But it's just as well as the Peter Cushing Doctor Who isn't a Time Lord. He's a human scientist/inventor whose name actually is 'Doctor Who' Both movies are a lot of fun but my understanding is that a lot of purists don't like the severe divergence from established canon. Liked the discussion about Rose Tyler and I agree that she seemed more suited as a Companion to Eccelston's Doctor rather than Tennant's. And yeah, Rose is selfish and self-centered but when people start hating on her I just say; "Well, that's the character. Not every Companion can be Sarah Jane Smith or Donna Noble, y'know." One of the things I really like about this podcast is that you guys watch the show and critique it based on its historical perspective. It really grinds my grits when I hear so called fans say they can't watch movies/TV shows from the 60's/70's because "the acting is so corny" or "the special effects are so cheesy" Sorry to tell you this folks but they didn't have CGI and Dolby Sound back then. They did the best they could with the technology they had. And they did very well. And an excellent point was made that never in their wildest dreams did the producers/writers/actors back then think that 40/50 some years later, people would still be watching these shows and talking about them. Television was very much disposal entertainment back then.

Has anyone else seen the pilot yet? What are your thoughts? I haven't seen it yet but to me this looks like ABC making yet another effort to try and have another LOST type of series. Whatever it is, I'm going to watch it for no other reason than the totally gorgeous Gabrielle Union is in it.

I've only seen FINAL DESTINATION 2 and thought it one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. It's as if the writers sat down and wondered "what if Death is Wile E. Coyote?"

Haven't watched it yet but as with most new shows, I'll give it three episodes before I make up my mind about it. Since I'm not all that crazy about FAMILY GUY in the first place I'm not really expecting much from this. I'd be more enthusiastic if they had given Quagmire his own show. Is it just me or did STARDUST really, really, really want to be THE PRINCESS BRIDE? If you had told me a movie starring Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise could be boring and dull as hell I'd have called you crazy. That was until I saw LIONS FOR LAMBS. I've got SONS OF ANARCHY and FRINGE back on TV so I'm pretty much a happy boy.

CLERKS II 2006 The Weinstein Company/MGM Directed and Written by Kevin Smith Produced by Scott Mosier I’m a guy who’s very hard on comedies. But that’s usually because I’ve got people telling me that so-and-so is the funniest movie ever made and then when I go see it in the theater or watch it at home on DVD I’m sitting there wondering when I’m going to start laughing. I laughed harder at “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” than I did at any of the “Austin Powers” movies. I’d much rather watch 30’s screwball comedies or 70’s comedies such as “Porky’s” ‘Airplane” “Johnny Dangerously” “DC Cab” “Which Way Is Up” or my personal choice as The Funniest Movie Ever Made: “Blazing Saddles” than watch most of what passes for so called comedies these days. But then the comedy gods smile and once in awhile a movie comes along that does what a comedy is supposed to do: keep me laughing from beginning to end. CLERKS II did exactly that. I’ve seen “Clerks” and I liked that one a lot and it too had me laughing until my sides hurt. But CLERKS II outdid the first one for me as there were several parts where I was laughing so hard I had to pause the DVD and take a break to get myself together so I could continue watching it. And I watched CLERKS II no less than three times in two days and I swear I laughed just as hard the second and third time as I did the first. We rejoin Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) and his best friend Dante Hicks (Brian O’Halloran) a year after the Quick Stop has burned to the ground. The two are now working at Mooby’s, a local fast food joint. It doesn’t exactly say much for the two 30 year old men to be flipping burgers for a living but Dante at least sees a way out: he’s going to get married to Emma (Jennifer Schwalbach) who anybody with two good eyes can see is a born man-eater who is going to be organizing every detail of Dante’s life from now on. The two of them are going to move to Florida where Dante is going to work for Emma’s dad running one of his many car washes. Randal is devastated by his best friend’s leaving but he’s determined to make the best of it and arranges to throw Dante a going-away/bachelor party right inside Mooby’s, complete with a live donkey show. Mooby’s manager Becky (Rosario Dawson) is deeply in love with Dante but she feels she can’t compete with Emma’s money and anyway, she maintains that romantic love is a buncha bullshit. Hanging outside Mooby’s is our old friends, Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) still dealing dope and either commenting or actively interfering in the action. A lot of the humor in CLERKS II is hysterically anti-PC and I loved it for that. There’s a great bit where Randal uses the phrase ‘porch monkey’ within earshot of black customers (Earthquake and Wanda Sykes) and gets into a really funny debate as to why he doesn’t think ‘porch monkey’ is racist. There’s a lot of other racial humor that is used in this movie so if you’re sensitive to that kinda stuff this ain’t for you. There’s also discussions about certain sexual practices, oversized female organs and the bachelor party has to be seen to be believed as it shows us more about ‘interspecies erotica’ than we wanted to know. Director Kevin Smith even has the onions to throw in a full-fledged musical number that is really very good in its sheer joyfulness and the exuberance of the cast and dancers. And Randal gives what is the best review of the ‘Lord Of The Rings’ trilogy I’ve ever heard, partly because it’s exactly how I feel about the trilogy and mostly because Jeff Anderson is simply one hell of a funny guy. Dante and Randal pick up a sort of sidekick in this movie, the devoutly Christian teenager Elias (Trevor Fehrman) who also worships at the alter of The Transformers and spends quite a lot of time rationalizing how The Transformers fit into The Bible. And a variety of customers come in and out of Mooby’s played by Ben Affleck, Jason Lee and Scott Mosier who all put in their twenty-five cents about how Mooby’s is run in general and about Randal and Dante in particular. The only member of the cast I have a problem with is Jennifer Schwalbach who simply bored the hell out me every time she was on screen. The scenes between her and Brian O’Halloran are dull as dishwater compared to the scenes O’Halloran has with Rosario Dawson. They have some really nice scenes together where they simply talk and the dialog Kevin Smith has provided for them sounds like the stuff real people talk about. Some might say that Smith doesn’t have to use so much profanity in this movie but for better or worse, that is how a lot of people talk nowadays. I like Rosario Dawson in anything she does. She’s got a down-to-earth quality that grounds whatever movie she’s in and makes the action a bit more believable. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t look impossibly beautiful like most movie actresses. Rosario Dawson looks as if she could be living right down the street from you. Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith by now have their characters down so well that they shamelessly steal every scene they’re in. But the movie belongs to Randal and Dante. At the core of CLERKS II is a love story and it’s not the triangle of Dante, Emma and Becky. It’s between Randal and Dante. In a weird way they’re already a married couple and I think the movie does an excellent job of showing how much their friendship means to them and what they’re both willing to do to keep it. There are just enough serious scenes between Randal and Dante to lift CLERKS II several notches above what could have been just another raunchy comedy. But if that kinda stuff doesn’t interest you, there’s always the donkey show. 97 minutes Rated R for extreme language and ‘interspecies erotica’ so put the ankle-biters to bed before watching this one, okay? And if you’re sensitive to racial and vulgar sexual humor then I’d suggest you give this one a pass.

HERCULES, SAMSON & ULYSSES 1963 MGM Directed and Written by Pietro Francisci Produced by Joseph Fryd Before I get to the movie review I ask you kindly to indulge me for a bit while I explain what influenced me to write this review, okay? Thank you kindly. Back when I was growing up in Brooklyn during the late 60’s and 70’s our Channel 9 station would program Italian sword-and sandal movies on summer Saturday afternoons under the blanket title of “The Sons Of Hercules” The show would start out with a memorable theme song. Which you can find of You Tube. The movies starred famous bodybuilders of the time who played heroes with names such as Machiste, Ursus and occasionally there would even be a Hercules movie. These movies were filmed on the extremely cheap but for a lad who soaked up fantasy the way other kids his age soaked up basketball and football they were magic. I loved those Italian sword-and-sandal movies and when Turner Classic Movies aired HERCULES, SAMSON & ULYSSES I watched it and was delighted to find that I remembered this movie from those long ago days when I was a kid sitting cross-legged in front of the family TV set held spellbound by the story unfolding in front of me. Being older I of course could see the flaws and the cheapness of the movie but y’know what? It didn’t matter. Watching HERCULES, SAMSON & ULYSSES put me back in touch with that younger Derrick Ferguson for 90 minutes and that’s a gift I treasure and cherish. For 90 minutes I wasn’t the Derrick Ferguson with adult responsibilities and worries. I was the Derrick Ferguson with nothing more important than a summer Saturday afternoon that seemed to last for a week in which I could do anything I wanted. Hercules (Kirk Morris) is asked to destroy a sea monster terrorizing local fishermen. He agrees and is accompanied by a loyal crew, a fine ship and his young friend Ulysses (Enzo Cerusico) who is the son of the local king. Hercules has been training the boy who is a long way from the heroic deeds he will achieve later on in life. But even at a young age he displays courage, agility and frighteningly keen eyesight. Hercules, Ulysses and the crew find the sea monster and kill it but they’re caught in a horrible storm that leaves them shipwrecked and washed up on the shores of Judea. During their search to find a way home, Hercules is mistaken for Samson (Richard Lloyd) when he kills a lion with his bare hands. Surely there couldn’t be two men in the world who could kill a lion with his bare hands and so Hercules and his friends are captured and sentenced to death by the Philistine King. But The Philistine King’s concubine Delilah (Liana Orfi) persuades the king to let Hercules go so that he can capture Samson. Her reasoning is that the only man who can capture Samson is a man as strong as he is. Hercules accepts and leaves Ulysses and his friends to go capture Samson with Delilah in tow as she obviously has a thing for nearly naked muscle men. That brings us to what we’ve really wanted to see: the fight between Hercules and Samson, which takes place among ancient ruins made of Styrofoam. And it’s a pretty good fight what with Hercules and Samson throwing huge Styrofoam pillars at each other before the fight ends in a draw and the two muscle men deciding to join forces to destroy the Philistine King as well as rescue Ulysses and the others. This is far from being an Academy Award winning movie. The dubbing is horrible and the movie is obviously filmed on a budget of about eleven thousand bucks. But it’s got some scenes that made me laugh such as when after the shipwreck Hercules, Ulysses and their friends are on a raft arguing. Hercules solves the argument by throwing everybody off the raft except for him and Ulysses. It’s a nice little touch that Ulysses has the best eyesight out of anybody else in the movie and sees things long before the other characters. The movie also takes the time to have a sensible reason for Hercules and Samson to meet and team up. And when they do they have a nice moment where they talk about the responsibilities and burdens of being demi-gods. And it doesn't hurt that Liana Orfi wears a lot of dresses that shows off her more than generous cleavage. No, this isn’t a movie I’d ask you to rent but if your cable/satellite provider carries Turner Classic Movies and this happens to come on while you’re in a willing moment, turn it on and check it out. If you’re like me and remember those summer Saturday afternoons when your local TV stations showed Ray Harryhausen movies and Italian sword-and-sandal flicks, you’re the perfect audience for this one. Enjoy. 85 minutes

AH! My bad. I thought sure it was Thomas/Colon. Serves me right for relying on my Swiss-cheesed memory. Thanks!

I've never been much of a Uwe Boll fan but I've heard enough good things about TUNNEL RATS to give it a try. Your stamp of approval on it sealed the deal for me, Des. And CADAVRES sounds depraved enough to entertain me. One thing I'd like to ask since Marvel's "Tomb Of Dracula" was mentioned. Roy Thomas and Gene Colan set out to do the most faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" that had ever been done. They started it but as far as I know they never finished it. You appear to know more about this than I do so maybe you can give me the straight skinny on whatever became of that adaptation.

Couple of questions: 1: Was Susan actually The Doctor's granddaughter? If so, why is there no mention of any of the rest of The Doctor's family? Outside of a reference in a Tom Baker episode that The Doctor comes from one of the oldest and most revered families on Gallifrey we never find out much about his folks. 2: Why did the Doctor allow Susan to go to a regular 'normal' school when it would be pretty obvious she's a whole lot smarter than everybody else. Including the teachers.

First, to business. There's just a few more days until we hit the deadline for outlines for Amazing Alternity Stories, so if you haven't thought of a concept yet, do get cracking. And word has reached us that Joel Jenkins has started work on the fourth Dire Planet novel (more on that later), and Derrick Ferguson nears completion of the second Dillon novel (also, more later). So good news all around, eh? Right. Good. On to the show. We have a treat for you this week, as we've got a sneak peek at Joel Jenkins' The Nuclear Suitcase, soon to be released. So head over to the PWP blog for a look see. And just as a reminder...our message board is up and running, so feel free to stop in and say hi or start a discussion on any of our fine titles! Finally, if you've got the time, spread the word about PWP to your friends! . http://www.pulpworkpress.com/

I have been watching and enjoying "Clash of The Gods". It's been keeping me satisfied until they bring back "The Deadliest Warrior" Actually, the Zeus episode was the one that gave me ideas for stories. We've been told the story of Hercules many times...why not a series about his daddy?

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971) United Artists Directed by Guy Hamilton Produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman Screenplay written by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz Based on the novel by Ian Fleming Memory is a funny thing. Ask me what I had for dinner last night and Ill probably take a few minutes to think about it. Ask me what I did last week and theres a better than average chance Ill tell you I have no idea. But ask me about the Saturday afternoon in 1971 when my father took me to see my first James Bond movie DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER and Ill go on and on for hours recounting every single detail in such a way that you would swear it had happened to me yesterday. I think that the major reasons DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER is my absolute favorite James Bond film of all is because of two reasons: It was the first James Bond movie I saw in a theatre and I saw it with my father, who is also a huge movie fan. He took me to see Sam Peckinpahs THE WILD BUNCH during its original theatrical run and we drove my mother crazy discussing the movie for days and days afterwards. My voracious movie addiction can probably be blamed on them. A favorite story they like to tell about me is when they took me as a baby with them to see THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. While other babies in the theatre were crying and had to be taken out by their disgruntled parents, my parents claim I was totally silent, eyes open as wide as possible, staring at the screen as if hypnotized. I probably was. Movies do that to me, yknow. The movies pre-credits sequence has an unusually brutal James Bond (Sean Connery) hunting down his archenemy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Charles Gray). Although its never stated outright, one can assume Bonds looking for Blofeld to take revenge for the murder of his wife, Tracy in the previous Bond adventure, ON HER MAJESTYS SECRET SERVICE. Bond seemingly dispatches Blofeld in a particularly nasty manner and after the gorgeously lush theme song sung by Shirley Bassey we get into the meat of the plot: Startling amounts of high-grade diamonds are being smuggled out of South Africa to Las Vegas by means of an efficient pipeline of couriers. There is worry that these diamonds will be dumped into the market at some future time, which would drastically drop diamond prices. Bond is assigned to follow the pipeline, an assignment that he clearly thinks is beneath his talents but M (Bernard Lee) quickly puts him in his place: Blofeld is dead, 007. I think we have the right to expect some plain honest work from you now. Bond heads off to Amsterdam to take the place of Peter Franks, an international jewel courier and he makes the acquaintance of the superhot redheaded smuggler Tiffany Case (Jill St. John), the next contact in the pipeline. The trail of deadly diamonds leads Bond to Las Vegas where it quickly becomes apparent that smuggling is only the tip of the iceberg as Bonds archenemy Blofeld returns from the dead with a scheme to hold the world hostage that involves a diamond enhanced laser satellite. Now when I lay it out like that, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER seems like your straightforward action/adventure, right? Nothing could be further from the truth. I broke the story down to its simplest elements out of space consideration but it has been said by many critics and reviewers that the plot of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER is too complicated to properly explain and I have to agree. When you throw in the Howard Hughes-like Willard Whyte who for about half of the movies running time we think is the movies real villain, the homosexual killer duo Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint who run around whacking the various diamond smugglers for no apparent reason and even Plenty OToole (Lana Wood) who at one point in the movie shows up someplace she has absolutely no business being and is drowned for no reason at all…and thats not even half the inconsistencies and plot holes that stick out like a cockroach on a wedding cake. But somehow, none of that seems to matter when youre right there on the edge of your seat watching the movie. Sean Connery IS James Bond and when hes on the screen you cant take your eyes off him. Connery understood the dynamics of a James Bond movie in a way no other actor who played the role would until Pierce Brosnan strapped on the Walter PPK and he occupies the center of the movie with total confidence. He doesnt take it all that seriously but his performance has such wit and charm that while hes clearly having fun with the character and the material he respects it and thereby respects us. The major acting disappointment comes from Charles Gray as Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Gray is simply too effeminate to be a towering mastermind of brilliant evil bent on world domination. He looks as if he would be more at home organizing The Sisters of The Revolving Door Tabernacle Annual Cotillion and Fish Fry. And Norman Burton barely registers on screen as ace CIA agent and Bonds best friend Felix Leiter but lets face facts, except for David Hedison (who is the only actor to have played Felix Leiter twice) and Bernie Casey, Felix Leiter has never been played decently. But weve got dependable regulars such as Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewelyn (Q) and Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny) to pick up the slack and Jill St. John is wonderfully spicy and looks gorgeous as Tiffany Case. And any mention of the acting in this one isnt complete without noticing the excellent work by Putter Smith and John Glover (Crispin Glovers dad) as Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint. The pair are not only properly chilling but also provide a good deal of the movies humor as they grow increasingly frustrated as Bond continually manages to circumvent their efforts to kill him. And I have to mention Lana Wood (Natalie Woods sister) even though its apparent from her first scene that she wasnt chosen for the role for her acting ability. Why is she in the movie then? Ill give you a clue: 36C/D-24-35. Need I say anymore other than I commend the casting director for his excellent eyesight? I even liked Jimmy Dean as eccentric billionaire Willard Whyte. Today Jimmy Dean is mostly known for his line of pork products but back during the 60s and 70s he was a fairly popular country western singer who occasionally acted. Bond rescues Whyte from a Blofeld assassin and for the rest of the movie they click so well that I think the producers missed a bet by not having Whyte become a re-occurring character in the films. By the end of the movie Bond and Whyte seem more like best friends than Bond and Leiter. And it never fails to amuse me that even though people will say that DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER isnt as good as the other Connery Bonds, its the one that has more action sequences people can readily name right off the top of their head than any other Connery Bond. Everybody remembers the chase through the desert with Bond in the moon buggy. Theres the classic Las Vegas car chase sequence that ends with Bond flipping his Mustang up on two wheels to slide through a narrow alley and evade his pursuers. Theres the nail-biting climb Bond performs on the outside of Willard Whytes Las Vegas casino/hotel. The fight in the elevator with Peter Franks. The fight with the outrageously beautiful pair of acrobatic karate killers, Bambi and Thumper. The helicopter assault on Blofelds oil rig headquarters. I suppose that most who read this review will probably have seen DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER on television, either on TBS or SPIKE TV or on VHS or DVD and so wont have the same love I have for the movie as I do. But no matter how many times I see it on television, I always remember seeing my first James Bond film on the big screen with my father and the feelings I had that day have never left me and it was those feelings that made me want to create stories as exciting and thrilling as the one I was watching and I suppose that in a very large way, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER helped shaped my passion to write and for that if nothing else, it will remain my favorite James Bond movie. 125 min Rated PG

WESTWARD THE WOMEN 1951 MGM Directed by William Wellman Produced by Dore Schary Written by Charles Schnee Based on a story by Frank Capra Here’s a movie that even fans of movies in general and westerns in particular have told me they’ve never seen or heard of when I mention it and I can well understand why. WESTWARD THE WOMEN is by no means a traditional western and every time I watch it I’m kinda amazed that it was made in 1951 since the story is told in such a raw, unglamourized fashion. It features women and minorities prominently in the cast and they are treated not as stereotypes but as honest human beings. Sex and death are handled with realistic brutality and this is a movie where the happy ending is truly deserved by the characters and not just a manufactured one to make the audience feel good. The characters in this movie well and truly go through Hell and when they come out on the other side we feel as though we’ve made every step of the hideously horrible journey with them. Roy Whitman (John McIntire) is an extraordinarily wealthy landowner who owns an entire California valley that he’s turned into a thriving community. Now the only things his men need are wives. ‘Good women’ Whitman insists and not the floozies and harlots his men have become used to consorting with. Whitman intends to go to Chicago and recruit 150 brides and bring them 2000 miles across country to his valley for his men. To accomplish this he hires Buck Wyatt (Robert Taylor) one of the best guides and wagon masters around. Wyatt turns down the job at first and for good reason. He’s a confirmed misogynist, doesn’t like anything about women, and doesn’t even want them to cook for him. This guy’s not only a member of The He-Man Women Haters Club, he’s the president. After Roy promises him a thousand dollar bonus, Buck agrees to take the job. They go to Chicago and recruit the women for the journey. Among them is Fifi Danon (Denise Darcel) a dancehall girl who wants to go to California, leave her past behind and make a new life for herself. Patience Hawley (Hope Emerson) is a woman of Amazonian proportions from a Massachusetts whaling town who has recently lost her husband and three sons in a storm at sea. Maggie O’Malley (Lenore Lonergan) is a bespectacled schoolmarmish type who turns out to be a better shot, rider and roper than any man. She soon finds herself in a rivalry with Jean Johnson (Marilyn Erskine) whose skills easily equal hers. Mrs. Maroni (Renata Vanni) and her young son Tony (Guido Martufi) are also determined to go along despite the fact they speak not a word of English. Right from the start the trip doesn’t go well. The sexual tension between Buck’s crew and the women would be obvious to Stevie Wonder and there is a brutal rape that Buck handles in an equally brutal fashion by killing the man in a scene that you don’t find in most westerns. The guy says to Buck, “Aren’t you going to give me a fair chance to draw?” Buck doesn’t say a word, simply pulls his gun and shoots the dude dead before his hand even touches his gun. The next morning Buck and Roy awaken to find that Buck’s crew has abandoned them along with about a dozen of the women. The only other men besides them is Ito (Henry Nakumura), the Japanese cook and Sid Cutler, one of Buck’s crew who has fallen in love with one of the women and wants to be the father of her unborn child. Despite Roy’s misgivings, Buck insists that he can get the women through to California and he’ll do so if he has to turn them into skin, bone and muscle. “They’re going to hate your guts,” Ito warns Buck who answers back without missing a beat, “I hope they do.” And the rest of the movie is a grueling marathon of suffering and pain as we watch these women encounter Indian attacks, deadly flash floods, starvation, hailstorms, deserts, and that’s just the easy stuff as they make their way across an America that back those days was really savage and wild and hostile and death could come without warning and frequently did. There’s a lot of things in WESTWARD THE WOMEN that makes it different from your average western. First off, the cast is mostly women but they’re not all your average glamorous Hollywood starlets. Except for Denise Darcel who is exceptionally gorgeous the other women are remarkably realistic looking. Some are very pretty. Some are just pretty. Some are okay looking. Some are thin. Some are fat. Some are ugly. Some look like something you’d buy in a live bait store. But all of them have their share of screen time. We’re not just looking at Denise Darcel all the time. And even when we are we grow aware of some disturbing things about her character Fifi Danon. Y’see, she falls in love with Buck and it seems that she spends most of her time deliberately pissing him off so that he can whomp on her. Their whole relationship seems based on violence and there’s a disturbing scene where Buck lashes her with a horsewhip as well as smacking her around with the back of his hand a couple of times. “Is that what you wanted?” Buck asks. Fifi looks up at Buck, wipes the blood drooling from the corner of her lip and there’s obvious sexual satisfaction in her voice and eyes as she answers, “Yes. I’m okay now.” Equally surprising is Buck’s relationship with Ito, the Japanese who signs on as a cook but we never see him cook a single meal in the entire movie. In fact, after the rest of the men leave, Buck finds himself relying more and more on Ito for friendship and counsel. Ito isn’t played as an offensive coolie type spouting pidgin English. For much of the movie he’s riding side by side with Buck and there are scenes where he and Buck argue about how to handle the women and how they’re going to finish this insane journey. They bond one rainy night over a jug of rum they’ve dug up out of a grave. They bicker and quarrel. They make up. They watch each other’s backs. And when and if you watch this movie notice how every suggestion Ito gives Buck, he takes and acts upon. With success. The performances are first rate starting with Robert Taylor and going all the way down to the pooch playing Tony Maroni’s dog. I’ve never been a big Robert Taylor fan but I like him a helluva lot in this movie. His character of Buck Taylor may not go from being a misogynist to a pro-feminist which I would have found highly unrealistic but by the end of the movie he has come to an understanding and respect of women he didn’t have before. Hope Emerson is a standout as Patience who refers to everything in nautical/whaling terms and the relationship between her, Buck and the other women is interesting. Henry Nakumura is wonderful as Ito. I really liked the scenes he has with Buck and what I like even more is there never any mention made of Ito’s race outside of when he and Buck first meet and after that, we never hear anybody refer to Ito being Japanese and in fact, there’s quite of bit of Japanese, French (Fifi Danon is French) and Italian spoken with no subtitles which isn’t as much of distraction as you might think and indeed, is quite powerful in one scene where Mrs. Maroni breaks up a fight between two women and chastises them in Italian. Nobody understands a word she’s saying but everybody knows exactly what she means. So should you see WESTWARD THE WOMEN? I would certainly recommend that you do. It’s a remarkably well-made movie that has a realistic feel and tone to it. The filmmakers really tried to show how hard and difficult it was for people to get across the country back in the days of The Old West. It was tough enough for whole families but for a bunch of women by themselves…well…lemme put it this way: there’s nothing in this movie that says it was based on a true story but it should have been because WESTWARD THE WOMEN is filled with enough heart and truth in it’s story to have been real. And it probably was. It’s a movie that you oughta put on your Netflix list. Or if your cable/satellite provider carries Turner Classic Movies wait for it to show up there. 118 minutes

First off: great episode. Informative, entertaining and above all, fun. Second off: Even though my friends try to convince me that I'm missing out on the greatest thing since the orgasm I've never been able to get into TORCHWOOD. Several episodes actually put me to sleep. I did DVR the recent CHILDREN OF EARTH which has gotten enough good feedback that I'm willing to give it a try. Third off: Watching DOCTOR WHO on BBCAmerica is the only way to view it as far as I'm concerned. I say that SciFi/Syfy cuts out some scenes to squeeze in more commercials. Some also say I've watched Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" one too many times and as such tend to see conspiracies everywhere. Fourth off: Maybe it's just me but hasn't it been established or just taken as a given that The Daleks recognize The Doctor no matter what incarnation he's in?

I agree about Union Jack's costume. Like Spider-Man's, it's one of the best designed costumes ever. Why? Because it covers the wearer completely from head to toe, giving them maximum protection and anonymity.

I actually was surprised at how much I enjoyed X:MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE. I thought it was a superior superhero movie and worked as well as a action/adventure movie.

TSOTSI 2005 Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa Produced by Peter Fudakowski Directed by Gavin Hood Screenplay by Gavin Hood Based on the novel by Athol Fugard There is an infinity of things to marvel about when it comes to babies but I think one of the most marvelous and wonderful things is the ability of a baby to transform people. Babies make us want to be better people, if for no other reason than they turn those huge eyes on us, eyes filled with trust and for most of us, thats all it takes. TSOTSI is about the redemption of a frighteningly brutal and vicious young man whose spirit has been broken and how a baby is the catalyst for his spiritual reawakening. TSOTSI won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year. Not having seen a whole lot of Foreign Language Films this year I cant say how the competition stacked up against TSOTSI but I have a hard time thinking that any one of them was better than this one. On the surface its a simple story but there are so many other things going on so many different levels that when the movie is over and you turn it over in your head you realize that it was quite profound. Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) lives in Soweto, a community of ragged shacks in the shadow of the gleaming skyscrapers of Johannesburg. Tsotsi is a career criminal and not a particularly good one but what he lacks in planning and intelligence he makes up for in horrific violence. Along with his small gang of three he commits crimes that have more to do with providing an outlet for the volcanic rage in his soul than anything else. They certainly dont do anything with the money they steal other than get high, get drunk, pass out and wake up the next day to repeat the cycle. Tsotsi is an enigma to his friends. Tsotsi isnt even his real name. It means thug. He certainly lives up to the title. One day a robbery goes really wrong and a man is killed. Later on his friend Boston (Mothusi Magano) demands to know how he feels about what they did and demands to know where Tsotis soul is, where his decency is. Boston touches a nerve and Tsotsi brutally beats him into unconsciousness and then walks away with hardly a backwards look. During his lonely walk he finds himself in a gated community and on a sudden impulse, steals a car from a woman who cannot get her garage gate to open and is talking to her husband on the intercom. The woman fights back, Tsotsi shoots her, then steals her Mercedes and hes miles away before he realizes why the woman fought back so savagely: theres a baby boy in the back seat. It never occurs to Tsotsi to leave the baby in a hospital or an orphanage. Hes so used to taking and keeping what he wants that he keeps the baby. Now, if youve been paying attention youll realize that Tsotsi is the last person in the world who should have a baby and indeed, even though he tries his best to care for child (one amusing scene has him making a makeshift diaper out of newspaper) it isnt long before he realizes that hes out of his depth. In desperation he forces a young mother (Terry Pheto) to breastfeed the baby at gunpoint. The young mother seems to see something in the desperation that this savage young man has towards caring for the child and offers to continue to feed and clean the baby for him. Naturally Tsotsi is suspicious but theres something about the simple and dignified way this young woman lives her life that reminds him dimly of his own mother and he agrees. Meanwhile the babys mother has survived the shooting and has given the police a description of Tsotsi and a pair of determined detectives are on the case. Drawings of Tsotsi are being circulated in Soweto and its only a matter of time before somebody decides to cash in on the reward offered. Its a dangerous situation that seems to have only one way it can end since Tsotsi is determined to keep the baby at any and all costs. I really enjoyed the way TSOTSI told its story. The cinematography is quite beautiful and its a pleasure to see theres a director who knows how to leave a camera still for longer for thirty seconds. Ive gotten so weary of the manic camerawork that seems to be the norm for most movies nowadays that it was pleasure to watch a movie that actually took time to linger on faces and people and objects. Scenes are allowed to play themselves out without frantic, jumpy editing. The acting is just marvelous. These are faces weve never seen before and so we dont have the familiar Hollywood faces getting in the way of the story being told and its a great story. There are scenes of great pain and anguish, such as a scene where Tsotsi encounters a tribe of children living in huge concrete construction pipes and another where Tsotsi encounters a cripple man and honestly wants to know what motivates the man to go on living. One scene involving the baby and some ants will definitely have you cringing and may make you turn away from the screen. But theres also scenes of humor, such as the running joke where one of Tsotsis friends continually loses at shooting craps because he cant count and Tsotsi carrying around the baby everywhere in a shopping bag that must be made out of titanium. So should you see TSOTSI? You certainly should. Its worth your time and money to rent the DVD. Its a welcome change from your usual Hollywood diet and if for nothing else, its a fascinating look into another world and another culture many of us don't even know exists. Its got terrific performances and a great story told with exceptional humanity and spirit. 94 minutes Rated R for language and strong violent content.

I think you'll still get some big belly laughs out of it. Some people think that the only way to see comedies is with other people but I don't agree with that. I've seen "Blazing Saddles" maybe a dozen times by myself and laughed just as hard as the dozen times I've seen it with other people. Let me know when you see it. I'd be interested in what you think.

Unfair. I'm a big 'Formers fan from my youth but I'll admit the weaknesses of the franchise, and I'd vomit fiery bile all over Bay and his monstrous chimera of sex and steel. Well, that's you I have friends who are Transformers fans that I cannot discuss the movies, cartoon shows, comic books, etc with as it usually ends up in a bloody struggle in the middle of Main Street at high noon with rusty bowie knives. I have one friend who would not speak to me until and unless I reviewed the first TRANSFORMERS movie on BiTD and I told him where to go and what to do after he got there. And I understand fandom, believe me. I was a sci-fi/comic book/horror/fantasy geek long before it was 'cool' or 'fashionable'. But some of these TRANSFORMERS fans scare the piss outta me.

My wife took me to see TRANSFORMERS 2 after I had been away from home for five days visiting my father in Bennetsville, SC for Father's Day. So she wanted to treat me to a movie. But why TRANSFORMERS 2 I have no idea as we both saw the first one at her brother's house and neither one of us liked it. Otherwise i wouldn't have bothered. My interest in everything TRANSFORMERS is zero. My thing was the SPEED RACER movie which I loved to death and I'm still wondering who I gotta kill to get a JONNY QUEST or SPACE GHOST movie...

THE HANGOVER 2009 Warner Brothers Directed by Todd Phillips Produced by Todd Phillips and Daniel Goldberg Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore If you’ve been following my movie reviews for any decent length of time then you know that while I love comedies I rarely find any recently produced that do what I think comedies are supposed to do: make me laugh. Not just chuckle, chortle or smile. I want to walk out of the theater with my sides aching from laughing so much and so hard. “Tropic Thunder” did that last year and this year it’s THE HANGOVER which is the funniest movie I’ve seen this year so far. I was highly skeptical about seeing this movie as I’ve been reading very positive reviews in newspapers and seen the hype on The Internet. Ever since I got burned on “There’s Something About Mary” and the first Austin Powers movie I’ve been leery about comedy movies that get that kind of hype but in the case of THE HANGOVER, it’s deserved. The movie actually starts off like a thriller or a mystery. Four men are standing by a battered, beat-to-hell vintage Mercedes Benz somewhere in a desert. The four men are just as battered, bloody and look as if they’ve been a street fight with one of the gangs from “The Warriors”. One of the men is on his cell phone trying to explain to a hysterical bride that they have lost her future husband in Las Vegas and have no idea where he is. In fact, they have no idea what has happened since none of them can remember anything after doing shots of Jagermeister on the roof of Caesar’s Palace a day ago. Jump in the Wayback Machine and go two days back: Doug (Justin Bartha) heads for Las Vegas with his two best friends. Phil (Bradley Cooper) is a high school teacher and Stu (Ed Helms) a dentist. They’re joined by Doug’s future brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifanakis) who they’re really not sure about. Alan is somewhat eccentric in manner, speech, dress and…hell, he’s just odd, period. Doug’s always wanted to have a bachelor party in Las Vegas and his buds are determined to see that he has one he’ll never forget. It turns out the opposite: it’s the one that they can’t remember but it must have been one hell of a party considering that they wake up in a $4,000 a night suite, complete with tons of empty liquor and champagne bottles all over the place, a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, a chicken casually strolling around, Stu missing a tooth and Doug just plain missing. Phil, Stu and Alan valiantly sober up and set out on a day long odyssey through Las Vegas, following the most improbable of clues (when and how in the hell did they steal a police car?) as they struggle to piece together exactly what happened the night before and find Doug to get him to his wedding on time. Assuming of course that things didn’t get too out of hand and poor Doug is lying dead face down in a ditch somewhere. Which is a distinct possibility considering some of the characters the boys run into. Such as the Chinese mobster Mr. Chow who is extremely pissed off at our heroes for good reasons I wouldn’t dare reveal here. That’s about all you need to know to go into THE HANGOVER since I really don’t like revealing too much about a comedy movie. What’s the point of me telling you the jokes and depriving you of a laugh? Which is something about THE HANGOVER I really liked: it’s been my experience that trailers for comedies usually have the biggest and best laughs in the movie so that by the time you actually see the movie, it’s a let down because there’s no jokes in the movie that compare to the ones you’ve already seen. I’m happy to report that such is not the case with THE HANGOVER. The jokes you’ve seen in the trailer are far from the funniest ones, many of which couldn’t be shown in a trailer because of their sheer raunchiness. For once, a comedy movie has kept its best gags where they should be kept: in the movie. I really liked the performances in this movie because the cast is mostly unknown to me. With the exception of Bryan Callan, who I know from ‘MADtv’ and ‘Fat Actress’ Mike Epps, Jeffrey Tambor and Rachael Harris, who co-starred with Callan in ‘Fat Actress’ the rest of the cast were fresh faces and that went a long way toward drawing me into the movie’s story in a way that I don’t think would have happened if more well-known comedic actors had starred in this. And Mike Tyson really surprised me as he was remarkably funny in his performance as Mike Tyson. He’s got quite a bit more to do with the plot than the trailer suggests and it’s a tribute to how clever the screenwriters are in the way they logically get Mike Tyson into the action. And THE HANGOVER works on another level in that the actors don’t act like they’re in a comedy movie. You know what I mean and if you don’t, check out one of the worst offenders of this; ‘You, Me and Dupree’. THE HANGOVER’s comedy comes out of the situations these guys find themselves in and not oh-so-clever one-liners thrown in every couple of minutes. The comedy comes from the circumstances and how the characters react to them. The dialog is realistic and I found myself really caught up in the mystery of what the hell happened during that night and where the hell is Doug? So should you see THE HANGOVER? Without a doubt, yes. Don’t wait for the DVD. Get yourself to a movie theater and see this one. It’s raunchy, crude, sometimes depraved, lewd and offensive. But it’s also clever, sharp and funny from start to finish. And that’s the best recommendation I can give any comedy. Rated R: For language, sexual content including nudity and drug use. The f-word and its many variations are thrown around with careless abandon so if you’ve got sensitive ears, don’t say I didn’t warn you. 100 minutes P.S. When the credits start rolling, don’t leap up out of your seat and sprint for the exit as if somebody opened a vial of bubonic plague in the theater. Trust me on this.