Don Knotts plays a real space case

The Reluctant Astronaut (1967)
Starring: Don Knotts, Leslie Nielsen, Arthur O'Connell, Jesse White, and Joan Freeman
Director: Edward Montagne
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A small-town carnival kiddy-ride operator (Knotts) is thrust into local fame when his pushy father (O'Connell) submits an application on his behalf to NASA... and the application is accepted.

This film is something of a nerd fantasy. Knotts plays a kindhearted loser of limited talent and ambition (but with plenty of dreams) for whom everything works out in the end. There really isn't much else to this movie, other than the fact that it features a decent cast that all get their individual funny moments.

While I remained mildly entertained throughout the film, I think this is a movie that time has left behind; I suspect it would have seemed a lot funnier in 1967, at the height of space-program mania. (The film is an interesting historical artifact in another way: Leslie Nielsen is featured here as a sqaure-jawed, handsome straight man. It's often forgotten that his career took a hard turn into comedy in the mid-Seventies, and that he actually started out as a dramatic actor.)

What exactly were they predicting?

By now, everyone reading this surely knows that the Mayans, Merlin, and my personal fortune-teller Psychic Bob, have predicted the end of the world in 2012. But none of them have been able to get the exact date.

Is it 12/12/12? Is it 12/24/12? Maybe 6/6/12? Perhaps it's 8/4/12 or 4/8/12?

Maybe the Mayans and other Wise Ancients (and modern possessors of Sight Beyond Sight and/or a large assortment of mind-altering substances) weren't predicting the end of the world, but rather then end of the Democrats?

Maybe Doomsday is 11/6/2012, the end of the Obama Presidency and the end of the modern Democrat party, with votes being cast in favor Democrat candidates during the election being between 20% and 12% of the total, depending on the state?

Or maybe this is the answer....

Roy Ward Baker dead at 93

British director Roy Ward Baker passed away in London on October 5, 2010. He was 93.

Baker started in the film industry as a tea boy at Gainsborough Studios, but he soon worked his way up to assistant director, contributing to the Hitchcock classic "The Lady Vanishes." He went onto direct many acclaimed and noteworthy pictures, including the epic tale of the Titanic, "A Night to Remember" and the first fusion of horror and martial arts "The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires".

Baker spent the latter half of his career working primarily in television, directing episodes of "The Avengers",
"Minder" and many other series. He also directed Peter Cushing in his final appearance as Sherlock Holmes in the made-for-television movie "The Masks of Death".

Speaking of Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize....

One Year After Obama Wins Nobel, World Looks for Signs of Peace - ABC News

Personally, speaking as an armchair general, Obama hasn't done ENOUGH on the war front. He's managed to make the United States look even weaker than we have been while not achieving any visible progress in Afghanistan, Iraq, or in crushing the various terrorist bugs that annoy us.

That Hope and Change doesn't seem to be working out, does it? (Well, I suppose if you want to build a mosque in lower Manhattan, or threaten the lives of American artists, it's a great time to be alive.)

A pattern of criminality or business incompetence?

Over on his blog, artist and writer F. Lennox Campello is posting a series of reports on an art dealer who at best appears to be very, very incompetent and who at worst may be the con artist and thief that she is alleged to be.

Campello's most recent post involves an artist who is owed over $5,000 in commissions from the dealer. Her name is Isabelle du Toit, and she paints cute pictures of babies and birds. Here's a sample of her work (and you can see more of her paintings at her website):

I seems to me that one case--the Bowland matter, described earlier--could be explained by a series of unfortunate events and misunderstandings that converged and ended up with a dealer selling a painting she had no license to sell. But the addition of a second artist to the mix, as well as the possible timeline that Campello presents in his recent post, seems to demonstrate a pattern of intentional criminality. Even the most generous interpretation leads one to view the art dealer's skills as a business person approaching criminal incompetence. (That said, there are things in the quoted emails that remind me of the smoke blown up the skirts of freelancers by any number of publishers I have known over the years as they were going out of business. Including myself.)

Another little part of the mystery-loving child in me has died. If what is alleged is true, then Campello's coverage is yet more proof that there is no such thing as a criminal mastermind. Even art thieves are pathetic little scavengers.

31 Nights of Halloween: Week One

Here's a handy-dandy index of all the spooky posts that have appeared on my blogs as part of the month-long run-up to the grand night of Halloween!

Each movie or graphic novel is rated on my usual scale of 0 to 10, with 5 and 6 behind low and high average respectively.
Movie Reviews
Arsenic and Old Lace (9/10)
Case 39 (6/10)
Despiser (5/10)
Dracula, 1931 (7/10)
The Fall of the House of Usher, 1960 (8/10)
Fanatic (4/10)
Frostbiter: The Wrath of the Wendigo (3/10)
Insaniac (1/10)
The Mummy Lives (3/10)
The Seventh Victim (6/10)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (9/10)
White Zombie (9/10)

Graphic Novel Reviews
Batman: Haunted Knight (10/10)
Werewolf By Night, Volume One (8/10)
Wrath of the Spectre (9/10)
Zombies Calling (8/10)

Fear-filled Phantasms
Nan Grey & the Great Pumpkin
Saturday Scream Queens: Renee Zellweger & Jodelle Ferland


Menacing Music Videos
Jan Terri's "Get Down Goblin"

For more October monsters and horror,
visit Terror Titans and Shades of Gray!

Jailed Chinese dissident wins Nobel peace prize

Well, this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner has actually done something to deserve it. Unlike Barack Obama.

Chinese human rights campaigners celebrate as Liu Xiaobo wins Nobel peace prize | World news | The Guardian

It's a shame that all those Chinese people working for human rights are wasting their time and blood and lives. China traded one Emperor for another--with the title of "Chairman" put on the org chart instead--and otherwise continued on with the same basically feudal society they've had for thousands of years.

There was a brief moment in history when things COULD have been different for the mainland Chinese, but another such moment probably won't show up for a very, very long time.