All posts by Andrew Swartz

I am a life long fan of popular culture. This web site is filled with links to clips of musical, movie, and media video clips of things I have found of interest over the years. I hope you find some of this stuff to your liking. Drop me a line and let me know.
action, action adventure

RECOMMENDED HOLIDAY ACTION MOVIE VIEWING!

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You may be a big fan of Christmas themed movie at this time of the year and that is fine.  But there is a wide variety of viewing experiences available to you and a good action movie may be what you are looking for.  I will recommend a few thoroughly enjoyable action/adventure flicks.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) – Clint Eastwood as a bank robber on the run who winds up getting drawn back into a repeat heist attempt on a bank where everything eventually went bad the first time out.  The second attempt ends up no better.  This is a very entertaining, well paced movie with plenty of violence, humor and beautifully shot locales that it will keep you glued to it.  Jeff Bridges and George Kennedy turn in memorable performances.  This was written and directed by Michael Cimino who would go on to direct The Deer Hunter, an epic of another kind.  One of Eastwood’s better films.

Die Hard 2 (1990) – Bruce Willis back as John McClane, a New York city cop, with a nose for terrorist plots.  This time he is spending time in an airport before Christmas battling rogue military types who are involved with nefarious misdeeds.  Nice action interludes and some pretty implausible heroic antics from Willis.  It is amazing how it all draws you in.

Jaws (1975) – For good or bad, this movie ushered in the era of the big blockbuster Summer or Holiday released film.  In this case, it was for the better.  Although a relatively early effort from Steven Spielberg, it is maybe his most easily watchable film.  This thing packs a whollup every time you see it!  The small coastal town that is plagued by a killer great white shark and the ill equipped attempts made to finally destroy the man killer make for a timeless classic.  Amazingly engrossing storytelling and a visual treat!

Go now and catch up on viewing your own favorite holiday time classics.

action, FAntasy films, ghost story, halloween, haunted places, Horror, horror movie, monster movie, mysterious places, paranormal, science fiction, science fiction films, suspense, unexplained phenomena

Another Five Choices For A Halloween Marathon Movie Day/Night

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When you get right down to it, there are a ton of potential choices for Halloween movie viewing marathons.  For the sake of brevity, I am choosing just five selections which will still take you a good day to get through so plan ahead to take the day off from your work or school grind!

  1.  Wolfen (1981) – a cop is assigned to investigate a series of animal attacks.  Is there a pack of werewolves on the loose in modern day New York?  Some creepy situations and a suspenseful story should keep you entertained throughout.  Albert Finney and Gregory Hines are the stars of this one.
  2. Attack Of The Mushroom People (1963) – OK.  This one is really freaky.  A group of young folk out on a boat trip have an accident and are stranded on a mysterious island.  They take refuge in another landlocked but larger ship.  The ship’s journal is examined and a warning is discovered:  don’t eat the island’s ample mushroom supply.  In order to survive, they’ve got to eat and it’s just easier to grab some of the island’s main staple.  That, as you will find out, is a big mistake.  Dripping with atmosphere and garish color, this is a must see shocker.
  3. The Thing (1951) – Science fiction film cornerstone that still maintains its freshness to this day.  An alien spaceship is discovered buried in the ice by an American military team stationed in a remote arctic outpost.  Although the ship is destroyed, the craft’s only surviving occupant is accidentally reawakened and is in a thoroughly pissed off frame of mind.  A last stand ensues as humans battle a formidable alien foe to the death.  Essential viewing!
  4. The Lost Continent (1968) – More whacked out material as a group aboard a doomed ocean freighter become stranded in the Sargasso Sea, a place of strange clogging and rampant seaweed and some cool matte painting shots of a ship graveyard.  Yes.  There have been others who have also unfortunately succumbed to the deadly area.  Attempting to find a way out of the morass, the ship’s inhabitants have a run in with a population of lost in time Spanish conquistadors who rule the region by force.  Also thrown into the mix are some oversized creepy crawlies who see anything on two legs as there next meal.  This is all great fun.
  5. Lifeforce (1985) – A huge alien ship is investigated by a team of astronauts from Earth and three seemingly human survivors from the other worldly ship are brought onboard the astronaut’s space shuttle.  One by one the human crew succumb to some bizarre malady with only a sole survivor who incinerates the shuttle and takes an escape pod back to Earth.  A rescue mission recovers the three aliens from the wrecked shuttle to the detriment of the human population as they come out of a dormant state and seek out our life sustaining energy or lifeforce.  A plague ensues on Earth as these energy vampires plunder our planet.  Epic destruction and carnage result.  Pretty entertaining!

So there are another five fine films that I would personally take a day/night to sit through consecutively for a perfect Halloween viewing experience!

action, end of the world, entertainment, halloween, haunted places, Horror, horror movie, monster movie, mysterious places, outer space, science fiction, science fiction films, suspense

TOP 5 MOVIES FOR MY HALLOWEEN VIEWING

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I have given a minute or two of thought to what I would enjoy most viewing on Halloween.  I would most definitely need to take the day off of work because this lineup would probably consume a good 10 hours.  Sacrifices must be made!  Granted this is the first of what may be a series of some of my most adored movies piled together in one marathon viewing.  These movies are what came off the top of my head at the time and can definitely be mixed and matched and replaced with other selections.  I think that makes sense.

  1.  5 Million Years To Earth – 1967 – A Hammer Films science fiction entry that postulates that some long ago Martians visited our remote ancestors and planted the seeds of intelligence in our shaggy, far removed, ancient ape-like relatives.  Is the recently uncovered spaceship located in the London underground still harboring a Martian presence?
  2. The Mummy – 1959 – This is a great one to curl up with your favorite snack and beverage and soak up the suspense.  Very entertaining and satisfying mummy on the loose tale.  Christopher Lee is mainly silent and heavily bandaged as the title character.  Peter Cushing is out to stop The Mummy’s diabolical rampage.
  3. The Fearless Vampire Killers – 1967 – Roman Polanski directed and co-starred in this hugely atmospheric comedy/horror piece about a couple of bumbling monster hunters who try to rescue a damsel who is fortified in a castle full of undead vampires.  Great sets!
  4. Horror Express – 1972 – Another Cushing/Lee vehicle set aboard a trans-Siberian train that transports an ages old ape man found frozen in ice.  The recently unearthed specimen seems to not be fully dead and can swap human hosts!  A true hoot.
  5. Invasion – 1966 – A hospital is literally held hostage as an alien presence temporarily makes a stop on Earth and has to recover its lost property before it can again go back to outer space.  It’s bad enough being in a hospital, as it is!

Like I said, I will make another list of five more films that it would be Heaven to just spend Halloween day watching back to back.  Maybe I’ll defer it until Thanksgiving or Christmas.  I’ve got time off then.  Check some of these films out and enjoy!

 

 

halloween, haunted places, Horror, horror movie, monster movie

HAMMER HORROR FUN – DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1966)

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Back when Hammer Films were all the rage and knocking horror fans dead at the box office, “Dracula: Prince of Darkness” marked the return of Christopher Lee to the title roll of the infamous undead vampire king.  He had gone away from the role after his turn as the blood sucker in the remarkable “Horror of Dracula” (1958), one of Hammer Films’ first stabs at rebooting the Universal monster cycle from films decades before.  Lee appeared in Hammer Films such as “The Gorgon” (1964) and “She” (1965).  He just wasn’t interested in playing Dracula.  But through whatever form of alchemy and monetary incentive, Lee menaced again in “Dracula: Prince of Darkness”.  It had to be money that got him back because this is not the juiciest script that Lee could have gotten.  He has no lines of dialogue but sneers and hisses a lot and manhandles his intended victims.  This is a fun view, though.  Dracula has a life long human servant who makes sure that two couples spend the night in Dracula’s old castle.  You see, Dracula is now no more than collected dust from the last time he was destroyed in “The Brides of Dracula” (1960).  Lee didn’t appear in that entry.  But, anyway, the servant dispatches one of the guests in the bloodiest way possible in order to bathe Dracula’s ashes in the life giving, red stuff.  Before long, the King of Vampires is back terrorizing the countryside in his endless quest for fresh blood.  Plenty of atmosphere, moody music and heroics from Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Hammer veteran Andrew Kier.

halloween, Horror, horror movie, monster movie, unexplained phenomena

BLACULA – 1972- VAMPIRES RUN AMOK!

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African prince is “converted” to blood thirsty, undead vampire by Dracula.  The Prince becomes a vampire and progresses through the centuries turning others in to vampires in his passing.  Very entertaining vampire flick from the 1970’s that follows Blacula’s modern day wake of death and destruction as he feeds his hunger for blood.  Naturally, a lot of the film takes place at night which lends a creepy air and some of the surprise vampire attacks are startling.   Some of the action is clumsy and dumb but William Marshall as Blacula lends a sinister, menacing presence.  Fantasy movie veteran Elisha Cook Jr. turns up as a hospital attendant. (See “The Night Stalker”, “House on Haunted Hill”).  As I have said many times before, they don’t make them like this anymore.  This movie has a look that is ALL 1970’s.

music, music video

Keith Moon Departs – 40 Years On

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Wunderkind drummer for The Who, Keith Moon, left this mortal coil 40 years ago.  What a loss.  The legendary madman lead an alcohol and drug fueled existence that bolstered his outgoing personality and flashy, unorthodox, drum style.  Alas, this very fast lifestyle also accelerated an early end to his explosive drumming style and life.  As the years wore on and the intoxicants flowed, so to did his strength and lifeforce get tapped.  Moon died at the age of 32 on September 7, 1978.  Please examine YouTube videos of his earlier days when he was in his prime.  You will be amazed.

ghost story, halloween, haunted places, Horror, horror movie, horror tv, monster movie, mysterious places, paranormal, unexplained phenomena

Vincent Price’s Dracula (1982) – Good Halloween Fare

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A documentary detailing the history of the vampire character Dracula, assembled using various movie clips and the narration of horror icon, Vincent Price.  You’ll see clips from the silent “Nosferatu” and other cinematic appearances featuring the ancient blood sucker such as Lugosi in “Mark of the Vampire”, and the 1950’s alternative vampire film, “The Vampire” .  “VPD” is a good flick to curl up by the fire to watch as we come upon the Autumn season and move closer to Halloween.  Heavy on the garlic fries.  Hehe.

Horror, horror movie

THE THAW – 2009 – CREEPY CLIMATE CHANGE CRAWLIES – UPDATED REVIEW

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The premise of this queasy little tale is that climate change, aka global warming, has caused the partial thawing of a wooly mammoth up in Northern climes that is infested with an ancient parasite that emerges ready and willing to infest a New Age.  The roughly cockroach sized bugs burrow under your skin and lay eggs that basically feed on their host and then emerge ready to find a new home.  This movie is definitely not for the squeamish!  Yes.  I felt my skin crawl on more than one occasion. There are numerous grotesque set pieces throughout this flick.

All in all, an engaging horror film with a cameo from Val Kilmer as the scientist who finds the insects and reiterates the potential horrors lurking unseen that will be unleashed by climate change.  Whether that is true or not is of course speculation or inevitability depending on your point of view.

haunted places, monster movie

GRAVEYARD SHIFT (1990) – CALL SEVERAL EXTERMINATORS!

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A mildly amusing Saturday afternoon diversion, “Graveyard Shift” was based on a Stephen King short story.  Here it is fleshed out into movie length and a large part of that filling is loaded with oozing, despicable caricatures.  A bunch of people you could care less about are tasked with cleaning up the lower level area of a mill located somewhere on the east coast.  Maybe the extraction of all the crap which has accumulated down there over the years will alleviate some of the rat problem that infests the place.  What is not known is that the mother of all rodents resides in the shadowy depths and it is ALWAYS hungry for human flesh.  Not the worst way to waste 90 minutes but stay tuned for some heavy gore scenes between the warring factions of vermin, human and rat.  The King story is quite different in that it involves one man trapped in a collapsing underground labyrinth with a gigantic rodent in hot pursuit.  Yuck!

Check out this link below which recounts graveyard shift workers’ sometimes scary working conditions.  A few good chills will be had:

https://www.ranker.com/list/creepy-night-shift-stories/rosa-pasquarella

action, end of the world, monster movie, mysterious places, science fiction, science fiction films, suspense

THEM – (1954) – Regular Ants Are Bad Enough!

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A real creepy premise in this flick:  giant, mutated ants are on the loose and stalking victims in isolated areas of the God forsaken desert!

I bring you this cinematic, sci-fi gem because of a recent summer time invasion of the small variety of ants in our house in pursuit of the cat’s food.  These little beasts are annoying enough in their present miniature state as they scamper in all directions as you try to eradicate their presence inside your home.  In addition to the trouble of getting them picked up and removed, you get the sinister feeling that the insects are crawling all over you!  Imagine how you’d feel if the ants in question were 10 or more feet in length?

This is a classic science fiction film from the 1950’s that postulates that exposure to radiation could mutate a small ant into a formidable, potentially man destroying monster.  And what if there were a nest of these giants?

You get the idea.  Arm your self with a flame thrower and an automatic weapon and you may stand a chance of survival against these denizens from some unnamed Hell!  Give it a look and drink up the lovely desert studio set ups!  Some definitely scary set pieces crop up in this engaging science fiction thriller.

action, comic books, end of the world, entertainment, fantastic television, FAntasy films, Horror, mysterious places, outer space, scary tv, science fiction, science fiction films, star trek

HARLAN ELLISON – R.I.P.

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Legendary science fiction and fantasy writer Harlan Ellison has passed away.  Call him an iconoclast, outspoken, a larger than life character who didn’t suffer fools, especially those he felt tampered with the integrity of his work.  He reached a settlement with CBS 40 years after his script for “Star Trek”-TOS, “City on the Edge of Forever” had been delivered to reclaim his share of the profits generated from his work.  He had more impressions on the television industry collected in his series “The Glass Teat”.  Acidic observations to say the least.

I count Ellison as an early influence in my life.  He was outrageous, profane, and definitely embodied a punk sensibility.  He didn’t take shit from anybody and let the world know it.  When I was maybe a teen or 12 years old, the years recede rapidly, I found out that Ellison would be in town at a book store reading from his latest work.  I got my dad to bring me down there and crowded in to the small store to be in the Man’s presence.  He read from his book and the profanity flowed.  It felt a little awkward with my dad there but he understood the content much better than I could hope to!  A good memory.

I highly recommend the novella “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream”.  I reread it recently and it retains its nightmarish hold.  The idea has been a source of inspiration through the years.   Call it “Skynet” before it was known as such.  You’ll see what I mean.

Harlan Ellison was a great and influential writer.  Go find his stuff and enjoy!

documentaries, entertainment

Movie Cliches: Last Gasp Weapons Firing

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Have you ever noticed the greatly relied on device used in the movies where a character will emotionally discharge a big gun of some type?  I guess the reaction is supposed to characterize a last gasp burst of attack against a nearly undefeatable opponent (Independence Day: Resurgence).  Terminator Salvation has multiple examples of actors unloading weapons’ magazine after magazine in an attempt to stop a non human juggernaut.

To get an idea of what I am referring to, please go to the clip.  You can probably get away with this type of behavior at the target range.

haunted places, Horror, mysterious places, mysterious sounds, paranormal, unexplained phenomena

Theodore Roosevelt’s book “The Wilderness Hunter” Contains Scary Bigfoot Story – 1880’s

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I have come across this story a couple of times and see it as a truly chilling account of hunters turning into prey.  Hunters off in a very remote wilderness “trespass” across an unknown creature’s domain.  Things go very downhill from there. This story is given an air of credibility when it is discovered that this tale was relayed to Theodore Roosevelt by an old Mountain Man and included in Roosevelt’s book, “The Wilderness Hunter”.

After reading it several times over the years, it has yet to loose its fearsome, chilling effect.  Probably my favorite old time Bigfoot report.  Of course, come to find out that there are so many more stories of a related nature waiting to be told both modern and antique.  A little frightening when you think about it.

Well, pull up a blanket and prepare to have your flesh crawl as you listen to this vocal recital of Bauman’s story as presented by You Tuber Bob Gymlan.  My hat’s off to you, Sir.  A nice choice of material and a well done reading.

 

mysterious places, mysterious sounds, space mysteries, unexplained phenomena

Art Bell – R.I.P.

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Art Bell just passed away.  Bell was a very interesting fellow who started the Coast To Coast AM radio program.  Bell was a pretty good interviewer and would let his guests discuss their topics at length.  Bell followed his interests and featured a lot of paranormal topics and brought on guests who discussed UFO’s, Bigfoot, ghosts, and other strange phenomena.  I spent many a night listening to his program and getting scared out of my wits and avoiding sleep.  I have great memories of Bell, his beliefs and his sense of humor.

The clip I linked to is an example of the creepy subject matter so often featured on his show.  A true original who will be missed.