The Twilight of the Gods
What does the future portend for a world inhabited by the franchise generation?
Will the Real Tarzan Please Stand Up?
Tarzan, ERB’s most popular character, has gotten the film treatment since 1918; a handful of portrayals have stood out as true to the character. Will Skarsgard’s live up to the legacy?
Flash, Randy, and Sam on Route 66
Here’s what happens when Flash Gordon, Randolph Scott and Sam Peckinpah meet out on Route 66.
The Long and Winding Road
A tribute to Martin Milner of Route 66 (and Adam 12) fame.
The Joys of Self-Publishing
Monster Hunting is Mordecai’s business. Getting sales is John’s.
ORCA VS. JAWS
This is one of my favorite movies because it is totally insane and it doesn’t care if it doesn’t make any sense. Much better than JAWS…
Kindle Unlimited and the 10 Percent Rule
A few notes on the new KindleUnlimited program from an indie author.
THE MICHAEL JACKSON HOLOGRAM. IT WON’T BE THE LAST.
Michael Jackson performs as a hologram. Who’s next? Bogie?
The Neo-Pulp Electronic Revolution
There’s been something going on in the publishing business the last several years, and it’s nothing less than what I’ve been calling a Neo-Pulp Electronic Revolution.
9/11/01
John M. Whalen shares his personal experience of the 9/11 attacks
Meditation on Cassini
Just stop for a moment and look at the picture above. It’s a picture of Earth as seen from the planet Saturn. The photo was taken by the Cassini Spacecraft yesterday. Just look at it for a minute. Look at those big beautiful rings of Saturn at the top of the frame. Saturn the planet […]
The Loneliest Ranger
The Lone Ranger, Gore Verbinsky’s revisionist telling of the legend of the masked man of the plains, will no doubt go down in history as the box office disaster of the summer of 2013. At a cost of $250 million, plus additional millions spent on advertising, the film failed to draw the public’s interest and has so […]
Slammin’ Pulp Hero Stories
There’s a new book out I’d like to recommend to anyone who’s a fan of pulp fiction– or anyone who just appreciates good writing. My friend Fred Blosser, known in some parts as an authority on Robert E. Howard, among other things, has published SLAMMIN’ PULP HERO STORIES, a collection of fiction he’s written over […]
What Dreams May Come: Richard Matheson
Richard Matheson passed away Sunday June 23 at age 87. He is probably the last of the giants who once walked the land. Rod Serling was one, Paddy Chayefsky was one, Stirling Silliphant was one. And Richard Matheson was most definitely one. Giants not only terms of their ability as writers to conjure the most fascinating […]
Shaun of the Dead
Brad Pitt’s $200 million dollar zombie extravaganza World War Z just opened, and despite the reported problems producer Pitt had getting the film made, including extensive rewrites and shooting of several additional scenes after test screenings, the reviews indicate it’s not the total disaster that everyone expected. Not sure if I’ll drag myself to the theater to […]
Flash Gordon Trilogy on DVD
Howdy friends and neighbors. How’s it going? Been kinda wrapped up with writing projects to post much here. But also since this is a blog that comments on subjects far and wide, it’s been hard to find something to comment on that wasn’t depressing. The news has been filled with stories of bombings, mass shootings, […]
Oblivion
Many reviewers have already pointed out the fact that director Joseph Koskinski’s Oblivion borrows quite a bit from a number of earlier science fiction films, includng Moon, Planet of the Apes, the Matrix, even Star Wars, Attack of the Clones. And that’s all very true. Koskinski’s second feature film after his debut with Tron: The […]
Mars Babylon: A Review of John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood by Michael D. Sellers
Reading Michael D. Sellers’ fascinating book, John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood, we learn all the reasons why John Carter, Disney’s film version of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars, failed at the box office. This extensively researched volume finds there was a perfect storm of incompetence on the part of just about everyone involved […]
Resident Evil
There are some people who think that a movie based on a video game should automatically be considered mindless trash. Good science fiction movies, they say, should be based on loftier sources, such as the sacred texts of Bradbury, Dick, or Heinlein. Or on the holy scrolls handed down from the sanctified Temples of DC […]
Ready When You Are, JJ
They’ve really done it now. It’s over. First George Lucas sold Luke, Obi Wan, Princess Leia, Han and all the others into eternal indentured servitude on the Disney Plantation. Lucas, once a man with ideas and at least a Saturday matinee kind of vision, had finally run out of steam and decided it was time […]
Tarzan, Celebrating the Centennial: A Review
Christmas 2012 was very good. And one of the reasons it was so good was that among the presents that Santa (in this case my son, J. Michael) left under the tree was a hard-cover, coffee table-sized book entitled Tarzan the Centennial Celebration: The Stories, the Movies, the Art. Published by Titan Books, it is […]
The Monster Men
“I wish somebody’d tell me, Tell me if you can I want somebody to tell me What is the soul of a man.” –Blind Willy Johnson J “As he dropped the last grisly fragment of the dismembered and mutilated body into the small vat […]