Buddha's Rhubarb Of Opinions On Media

Glib Reviews of Old Movies Everything Is Coming Up Zardoz!  Day 6 I finished up my little quirky Sci Fi of the 70’s solo film fest last night with George Lucas’ other Sci Fi movie of the 70’s and actually his best sci fi movie of the 70’s as far as actual film making goes. Yes, that’s right. THX 1138 is  a “better film” than Star Wars. THX 1138 - Directed By George Lucas Like I say above I was really impressed with how well THX 1138 holds up to over 40 years later scrutiny. It may not be quite as capital ‘I’ Iconic as Star Wars (that’s episode 4 to the young people) but its pretty close. The look and the feel of it, have aged really well and the dystopia that is on display is in my opinion more realistic to today’s viewers than those of 1971. Robert Duvall is the title character, a hazardous materials handler in a giant factory, he spends his days putting rods of plutonium into small spaces (think the opening of The Simpsons, like that) and at night he ...

Glib Reviews Of Old Movies Everything Is Coming Up Zardoz! Day 5 Phase 4 - Directed by Saul Bass Another 70’s cult classic that I had never seen before, despite bringing the dvd home 2 or 3 times over the years I worked at the video store. One of those movies that I just kept putting off, never in the mood for it. That’s part of my raison d’être in getting back into blogging more often; as much as it is to get me writing every day, it is also to catch up on movies and TV that I have been procrastinating over. I plan to move my TV and comic book reviews from my facebook groups to my blog, more posts, wider audience, they say. So why post only on FB, where it is mostly just my friends seeing it? Anyway, onto the movie.... Legendary Movie Title Designer Saul Bass (from Vertigo to Goodfellas, so many insanely great title sequences, by Bass) only made one movie. It’s a very unique picture, wherein the titles actually appear as part of the structure of the film, through...

Glib Reviews Of Old Movies Everything Is Coming Up Zardoz! Day 4 After a mid festival break so I could go to choir rehearsal, I got back on the 70’s Sci Fi wagon last night, which this time was filled with cheese, oh so much cheese, and some disturbingly relevant to the culture of today observations from two very culty Sci Fi flicks from the 70’s. I wanted to write: “Ye Olde 70’s,” just then. Who am I? Stan Lee?  John Carpenter’s not nearly as dated as you remember Dark Star, and the Disney Film everyone remembers as one of the worst of their childhood, isn’t/they aren’t so terrible, not at all.  But let’s get on to the actual Reviews, True Believers! Dark Star - Directed By John Carpenter It might seem too obvious a choice to pair a film called Dark Star, with one called The Black hole. It is indeed an apt pairing. I had quite an enjoyable evening of cheese and humour, as well as some great cornball low budget fx (Dark Star) and some gorgeous han...

Glib Reviews Of Old Movies Everything Is Coming up Zardoz, Day 3 Well, I took a left turn on day 3 of my little solo 70’s Sci Fi festival, and watched a 70’s Sci fi art film. My previous entries have had the odd bit of artsiness, sure, maybe even a bit of pretentiousness. But none of them are Russian, so.... Yes, I am talking about Solaris, not the ‘remake’ with Clooney, which isn’t terrible, but Soderbergh ain’t no Tarkovsky. Nobody is. And that is a good thing. Solaris - Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky Tarkovsky, I came to, later in life. I never saw any of his films until I started working at video stores at the turn of the millennium. I’d read about them quite a bit, but had never rented any, or gone to an art house. The first one I saw was Solaris. Billed on the cover as the ‘Soviet 2001’, um well maybe. Solaris is obviously not in the same budgetary genre as 2001, and aside from the fact that they both have themes of isolation and identity at their hearts, the ...