What Ray Harryhausen taught me

While we’re on the subject of stop-motion animation, today just happens to be the birthday of the granddaddy of them all (well, after Willis O’Brien that is).

Yes, Ray Harryhausen, the man who gave us the wonderful creatures that inhabit films such as The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad, The Three Worlds of Gulliver, the original Clash of the Titans, and, of course, Jason and the Argonauts, is 90 of the Queen’s years old.

Long before the shiny and sparkly CGI was used to divert the attention from a lack of character development and plot, Harryhausen was providing the special effects that brought to life mechanical Minotaurs, giant Cyclops, towering Krakens and an army of skeletons.

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“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him…”

Whilst knocking out a post for Head Full of Snow the other day, I had cause to invoke the name of Steve Austin, or The Six Million Dollar Man to give him his more familiar moniker.

Justin Lee Collins persuades Lee Majors to appear on ‘Bring Back… The Bionic Man’

I remember watching the TV series as a nipper and I’m sure we always referred to it simply as ‘The Bionic Man’ – in fact I’d have wagered that this was the UK title (in much the same way that Top Cat was renamed Boss Cat) but I appear to be wrong on that count. Couldn’t find any evidence to back it up, anyway.

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Edgar Rice Burroughs Proportions

When not meeting the constant demands of the shouty daughter, or writing various bits and pieces for this and that, or penning yet another slice of award-worthy prose for Head Full of Snow, I’m rewarded with the occasional moment to myself. I generally put these to good use by doing a spot of writing.

On Sunday I began the novel which will see me set-up for life once it’s written and published. Can’t give too much away, for obvious reasons, but it’s set to be a rip-roaring adventure of Edgar Rice Burroughs proportions, with a tongue that remains firmly in the cheek.

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Bronx Warriors, Exterminators and Turkey Shoots

Funny how something completely innocuous can spark seemingly the most insignificant of memories. For instance, this week over at LateMag.com, there was a plug for the forthcoming release of Enzo G. Castellari’s 1980′s schlock-fest, The Bronx Warriors trilogy.

Now, Castellari isn’t a name that’ll be familiar to everyone, but for fans of the Spaghetti Western or cult Italian exploitation cinema, his is a name mentioned with a certain amount of reverence, usually in suitably hushed tones… Probably.

Okay, he made a few decent Spaghetti Westerns, including the revisionist Keoma – I’m not one to let an awful soundtrack ruin my enjoyment – but let’s not get dragged away from the original point. Today is not, after all, Enzo G. Castellari day.

It’s more these Bronx Warriors films – The Bronx Warriors, Escape From the Bronx, and The New Barbarians, in turn low-rent rip-offs of Walter Hill’s The Warriors, John Carpenter’s Escape From New York and George Miller’s Mad Max 2 – and more importantly what they signify. Well, what they signify to me.

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George Lucas’s Halloween Horror

It’s ironic that ITV should be showing Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones on Halloween, for I’m sure George Lucas had something horrific in mind when he wrote the screenplay for this and the other two prequels.

That there is now a generation of kids who, through the shortsightedness of ITV, will be seeing the Star Wars films for the first time in the incorrect order, is something close to a bloody great shame.

The fanboy references peppered throughout the prequels – such as Jabba’s appearance in The Phantom Menace, Jango Fett’s armour and the brief glimpse of the Death Star plans in Attack of the Clones, and the final ten minutes of Revenge of the Sith – will mean very little to anybody unfamiliar with the original trilogy.

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