Category: Sci-Fi

I know somebody who knows somebody who’s won an Emmy! In fact, it’s his second such award. Leave it to Bismo to mention it almost as an afterthought in a blog post about beer!

Adam “Mojo” Lebowitz does special effects for the TV show Battlestar Galactica; which, as mentioned previously, we’re watching on DVD with Bismo. The award is for Outstanding Visual Effects for a Series. Here’s Mojo holding his Emmy, dressed for the occasion in Battlestar gear from the original series. Big time congratulations!

My buddy Bismo has been coming over most Friday evenings for a couple of years now, getting us into the DVD releases of recent TV shows we’d never seen. He started with The Tick, a hilarious short-lived live action show that’s an absolute must-see for any comic book fan, past or present. Then we moved on to the somewhat longer-lived sci-fi show Firefly, and its finale movie Serenity, and now we’re watching the ambitious and substantial Battlestar Galactica.

We’re in the second season of Battlestar, and Bismo says the next show will introduce Lucy Lawless’ character. The third season isn’t out on DVD yet, and it’s been announced that the upcoming fourth season will be the last. FiOS Video On Demand has a short feature about the show, with some of the cast. There’s an abrupt splice where I took out a spoiler I don’t want Eric to hear.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/SEP07/BattlestarFeature.flv 400 300]

The Host is a Korean horror movie from last year. Maybe it’s a guy’s flick, but if you can stomach some graphic gore it’s very well made and is worth seeing.

Here are two short scenes I’ve spliced together from The Host. The dialog in the hospital scene is very funny. The Korean actress is Du-na Bae, who is so enjoyable in the Japanese comedy Linda, Linda, Linda. Caution! The second scene is gross.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/SEP07/TheHost.flv 448 252]

The Host is a partial remake to the previously-blogged Godzilla, which in turn was inspired by The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. But another, perhaps less obvious, acknowledgment must be made to Them!, which I consider to be the absolute best of the 1950’s Sci-Fi flicks, along with Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and The Thing, which I haven’t blogged yet.

Unlike The Day The Earth Stood Still, Them! really moves along, as directed by Gordon Douglas, despite having many scenes with conversations and meetings. Not only is there a fun mix of humor and horror in Them!, it’s undoubtedly where the idea in The Host came from, of kids being endangered in a sewer.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/SEP07/Them.flv 400 300]

I think this entry has more links to previous posts than any other I’ve done so far!

My buddy D.F. Rogers and I have been watching Elvis’ TV appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show from 1956-57, and thinking how everybody except Elvis really did seem to be Pod People. This weekend the umpteenth remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is out, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to show a clip from the original movie.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/AUG07/BodySnatchers.flv 430 340]

In an interview done back in the 70’s, director Don Siegel (at left in the picture above) commented on the scene that’s in the video clip.

Allied Artists had an old-fashioned credo that horror pictures couldn’t have humor. I had a great deal of humor in the picture and though they cut out a lot, they didn’t totally succeed. As in the barbecue scene. King Donovan, Carolyn Jones, [Kevin] McCarthy and Dana Wynter have an outdoor barbecue even after they have accepted mentally that something is terribly wrong. Only when they see the pod do they panic.