R.I.P. Stan Winston, Cyd Charisse
Word came in over the weekend that legendary special-effects pioneer Stan Winston died at the way-too-young-age of 62.
Winston's first notoriety came in the early '70s with creating the monster costumes for the seminal TV-movie Gargoyles. The next huge splash (as I recall) was creating the aliens in Aliens (based on the H.R. Giger designs from the orginal Alien), Terminator (and all its sequels), Predator, and the mechanical lizards for Jurassic Park. He tried his directorial chops on the under-rated Pumpkinhead, featuring a devil creature that looked very Alien-like.
I guess it's fair to say his swan song was the suit built for Iron Man.
These are but a few of dozens of examples of the man and his company's astounding work. He will be sorely missed.
Dancer Cyd Charisse just died at 86. I am familiar with some of her old movies, most notably Singin' In The Rain with Gene Kelly, The Ziegfeld Follies, and That's Entertainment, which are all terrific, but was otherwise not that big into musicals as a kid. However, she was a knock-out and obviously a legend. I'm sure Mike Smith will have more to say about this beautiful and influential dancer in this week's Rant.
The Incredible Hulk
Saw it over the weekend, loved it. It's easier to ignore the Ang Lee version now. This new Hulk, sort of an even cross between the comics version and the '70s TV version, is the one that will likeliest end up in the highly-anticipated Avengers movie sometime in 2010/11. I hope the current cast stays together---great chemistry! (You know how I am about that!)
If you've seen The Incredible Hulk and want to post some thoughts about it, please join the message board thread, already in progress.
The Tuckermonster Invasion Retrorama writer ED Tucker will be visiting Tampa Thursday of this week (6-19-08), albeit briefly. Most of the PCR staff has work schedule conflicts, but for whoever wants to try and meet up with us, be at the Hooters on Gandy Blvd around 6:30pm.
Weird Week I'm Having
I'm not as tired, frustrated, and distracted as I was last week (thanks to all who wrote and inquired), but I am having a weird week anyway. PCR will be updated in fits and starts as I get focused and my computer decides to function.
Nolan Exits MySpace
Ladies and gentlemen, as of today (Friday), I've had enough of the barrage of bloatware/malware/spyware/adware that comes with my every login to MySpace. It's been a fun two years and three months, but I've become so increasingly afraid of a website I wound up logging into only about twice a week---and dreaded doing even that for what it might do to my computer---that I have put in for cancellation of my personal account ("Nolan").
Every time there's an "upgrade" to the MySpace website there is twice as much cyber-crap and graphics than before. The advent of "Apps" and mysterious alerts that show nothing when clicked on (red flag, that) has only increased the likelihood of getting hacked or accidentally downloading viruses.
The cancellation is in progress and may take a day or two to complete (to their credit, it takes several steps to cancel an account). Sometime over the next couple days, my default photo will disappear from your MySpace pages and presumably be replaced with an "X" or maybe just a blank space where I used to be. I didn't want to do this and have always liked the additional sense of community MySpace brought us, but I can't stand feeling obligated to login to a website that makes me so nervous. NOTE: the BLADE band memorial page on MySpace will continue until further notice, but will not be closely monitored, so please don't write to me through that. Please revert to emails and the Message Board and Readers' Comments like we've been doing otherwise.
To all those who put me at the head of their Top Friends List the whole time, I thank you. I MAY, sometime down the road, create another account, if for nothing else to check out what y'all are doing, but for right now, I need a break from it.
P.S....I've been seriously thinking for some time now about writing a Social Network program for Crazed Fanboy; similar to MySpace but without the ads and the crap. Let me know if you'd be interested in something like that.
Please consider making a donation to help support Crazed Fanboy! Click on the "donate" link below and give whatever you can. I sincerely thank you for any and all consideration.---Nolan
