Today, making fantastic creatures onscreen seem to move and breathe and interact with real people is commonplace, almost easy; one can go online and see some pretty darn impressive work being done by people with a little time and money on their hands. But back before the days of computer animation, there were only three ways to put fantastic things onscreen. The first was to have a human being (or, rarely, another animal) wearing a suit that looks like the fantastic creature in question. This rarely worked very [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Forbidden Planet
December 7, 2012 By 2 Comments
Long ago even for me – in 1976, in fact – some friends of my father's heard about my interest in science fiction and invited me to come with them to a science fiction convention – the first I would ever attend, and the last for many years: Boskone 13. I jumped at the chance and went there with Pat and Peggy Kennedy as my temporary guardians, and registered under my first "handle" – calling myself "Kimball Kinnison", appropriately if arrogantly. In retrospect, I spent an awful lot of money to go there and got a lot [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Godzilla
November 16, 2012 By 1 Comment
One dull, rainy weekend in the early 1970s, when I was living in Latham, NY, my brother and I were bored, and my father turned on the TV and checked what was on. This didn't take long, since we could receive exactly 4 channels – Channel 13 (CBS), Channel 10 (NBC), Channel 6 (ABC), and Channel 17 (PBS). He stopped at one and settled back in his chair. "I think you'll enjoy this." At first we didn't get it. It was a bunch of Japanese people, occasionally with a guy I recognized as usually playing [ Continue reading... ]
Under The Influence: Star Wars
May 16, 2012 By 8 Comments
No, I'm not going to call it "A New Hope". That was added AFTER I saw the movie; at the time, Star Wars was just that, with no implication that it was part of anything else. Of all the singular cultural events in my lifetime (as opposed to political events, like 9/11 or Vietnam), I don’t think any of them has had or will ever have the impact of this single summer movie, made for thirteen million dollars (not a terribly large sum even in 1977). It didn't even have the advertising buzz one would expect; I found out about it more [ Continue reading... ]
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