Never mind that Forry disbelieved in any afterlife, Paul Davids’ The Life After Death Project analyzes the strange occurrences that some have interpreted as Famous Monsters founding editor — and one of Paul’s best friends — Forrest J Ackerman reaching out to communicate from beyond the grave.
Too bad I didn’t have this news before the documentary aired on Syfy tonight but all is not lost — the producer will happily sell you a copy of the DVD. In the meantime, sample this 8-minute intro video:
Would I sound crazy if I claimed the closing credits were the best part of Buckaroo Banzai? Probably. Besides, unless someone has watched the whole movie the credits just look like another 1980s men’s fashion commercial. But they are the best part, just the same.
Moviefone: To this day, the end credits of ‘Buckaroo Banzai’ make me very happy. Where did the idea for the end credits even come from? W.D. Richter: Well, actually, an unlikely source was [producer] David Begelman, who was really our enemy for the entire movie. He was the guy who said, “Go ahead, you can make this movie,” but he never got it on any level. And so, when it ended just with a kiss, he said, “it needs something else.” And we had no money, at all, at that point. And he said, “I’m going to pop for some sort of choreographed ending that we can talk about.” We got a choreographer in because there was no way I would know how to movie around all of those people. So it kind of emerged from the end of the postproduction.
My high opinion of the credits was simply based on the music, the choreography, and ultimately, my desire to see more of these characters.
But once I started replaying this video over and over, like a favorite old 45, I noticed a couple of things for the first time –
(1) Seven characters meet at the base of the dam and start marching. Penny Priddy and John Bigbooté join them. That’s nine. Then there’s a cut, everybody turns left at the wall — and suddenly there are 16 or 17 people marching!
(2) Also Perfect Tommy comes out of the left turn wearing a completely different outfit. (Perhaps one that’s more perfect for walking in front of walls?)
Another character’s change in appearance requires no magical explanation because we see him shucking off his jacket.
“I recorded last night’s episode of Grimm and watched it this afternoon,” begins John King Tarpinian. “There was a mention of a writer who had died at the hands of this week’s monster. The name of that writer was Ellis Harlan. Homage or coincidence?”
Meanwhile, a fan has alerted readers of the Harlan Ellison Forum that the lead character in the recent horror film Sinister, a true-crime writer played by Ethan Hawke, is named Ellison Oswalt.
Hmm. I wonder what the chances are that someone will do a mashup where Ellison Oswalt solves the murder of Ellis Harlan? (With an assist from Scooby and the Gang? Kickstarter appeal begins in five, four, three…)
Fans around the country are preparing to celebrate Star Wars weekend — “May the Fourth Be With You” (Saturday, May 4) and “Revenge of the Fifth” (Sunday, May 5). The luckiest will be those attending Toledo Mud Hens minor league baseball games. The team is going to wear Chewbacca-themed jerseys and allow fans to participate in all kinds of activities –
Kazoo giveaway (first 3,000 fans) for postgame Kazoo-Along to Star Wars music
Appearances by Star Wars characters from the 501st Legion, including Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Storm Troopers, and X-Wing Pilots
Star Wars themed face painting opportunities
Star Wars costume photo booth
Star Wars-themed food and beverage items, including Yoda Soda, Darth Chocolate Brownie Sundae, and MORE
Star Wars sound effects and music throughout the game
Star Wars-themed postgame fireworks (Saturday only)
At last Toledo will show its true face to a world that thinks John Denver said it all (“They roll back the sidewalks precisely at ten / And people who live there are not seen again…”)
And if the Wookiees win, that will be a good thing.
Only in the future could we expect to see science fiction writers on stamps – a future that is a little more distant now that the US Postal Service has postponed til 2014 an anticipated set of commemoratives honoring five of them.
The set was originally announced to subscribers of the USPS Commemorative Panel program in February with a July 2013 release date. Ever since there has been fevered speculation about the honorees, who were unnamed. Would the set be composed only of Americans? Would they be a diverse group? Did honorees have to be deceased (no), and if so, had Bradbury been dead long enough to make the list?
Linn’s Stamp News for April 29 carried news of the postponement and reportedly named the writers who will appear on the stamps –
Isaac Asimov
Ray Bradbury
Philip K. Dick
Robert A. Heinlein
Frank Herbert
Collectors discussing the delay observed the science fiction writer issue isn’t the only casualty of the 2013 program. They say the Ingrid Bergman stamp, Just Move stamps, and Medal of Honor Winner stamps and the March on Washington stamp were all set back.
Today, 88 years later, the zeppelin threat is over. Private companies have learned to produce helium. But the U.S. government still has its own reserve: a giant porous rock formation under the Texas Panhandle, whose crannies hold enough helium to fill 33 billion party balloons.
The problem is that customers in business and science fear a shortage if the program is stopped:
Congress says private industry simply didn’t step up to supply more helium, in part because the federal government was selling its helium so cheaply. In industry, it’s said that there has been a spike in demand for helium, and that finding new supplies isn’t easy. That requires drilling in a certain kind of natural gas field, where helium comes up along with the gas.
Both Reagan and Clinton regarded the helium program as government waste and tried to get rid of it – with legislation to that effect passed in 1996. But it rose again, and every new attempt to kill it has… taken gas.
Despite being characterized as a museum technology, dirigibles are still being developed by the Pentagon and NASA. In January, the Aeros Company of Southern California showed the media its high-tech helium airship, prototype for a larger model that’s designed to carry 66 tons of cargo.
“To the men I write about profanity is adornment and ornament and is never vulgar and I try to write it so,” John Steinbeck wrote to his godmother in 1939.
If we didn’t already know that the author of Grapes of Wrath wasn’t writing in the science fiction genre at the time, that line would tell us.
Today everyone feels free to sprinkle those unspeakable (on TV anyway) words throughout a novel – Iain M. Banks’ “Culture” stories are my latest reminder.
And, of course, swearing by any generally-recognized deity would have been out of the question. So in Gray Lensman our hero fills us in on the theology:
“By the way, Kim,” she asked idly as they strolled back toward the ball-room, “who is this Klono by whom you were swearing a while ago? Another spaceman’s god like Noshabkeming, of the Valerians?”
“Something like him, only more so,” he laughed. “A combination of Noshabkeming, some of the gods of the ancient Greeks and Romans, all three of the Fates, and quite a few other things as well. I think, originally, from Corvina, but fairly wide-spread through certain sections of the galaxy now. He’s got so much stuff—teeth and horns, claws and whiskers, tail and everything—that he’s much more satisfactory to swear by than any other space-god I know of.”
Matt Denton finally decided making small-scale animatronics for the film industry was too confining and built a giant mantis robot with hydraulic legs.
It took him four years and hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The robot, driver-operated by joysticks within a cockpit, can only travel at 1.5km/h (1mph) and manage a distance of 5km on a 20-litre (4.5-gallon) tank of diesel.
“It’s not about miles to the gallon, it’s about gallons to the mile,” he said.
“It wasn’t built to be efficient and fast. It was built to look cool and insect-like and fun.”
Never mind that Forry disbelieved in any afterlife, Paul Davids’ The Life After Death Project analyzes the strange occurrences that some have interpreted as Famous Monsters founding editor — and one of Paul’s best friends — Forrest J Ackerman reaching out to communicate from beyond the grave.
