I couldn’t believe it when I learned that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop himself, passed away today of an apparent heart attack.  One of the most iconic pop stars from our generation, Micheal Jackson will be remembered for the significant mark he made on popular culture.  He will also be remembered for his increasingly bizarre behavior as the years passed, however I prefer to remember him from his Thriller days:

This week, our family watched the classic Disney movies Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) and Return from Witch Mountain (1978) in preparation for a viewing of the Rockfest Race to Witch Mountain which is in theaters now.

The original film, Escape to Witch Mountain, held up pretty well despite the 30+ year time lag since the movie’s release.  Laughable special effects notwithstanding, Tia and Tony are super cute kids with super cool powers and you can’t help but root for them in their escape from the evil Aristotle Bolt (played by Ray Milland) and his henchman Deranian (played by Donald Pleasance).  The children eventually join forces with a crotchety old man played by Eddie Albert, who helps them elude their pursuers and drives them to safety in his Winnebago.

In Return from Witch Mountain, Tia and Tony are adolescents who visit the big city of L.A. for a week.  The kids are separated and Tony is abducted by a pair of villains (played by Christopher Lee and Bette Davis).  Fortunately for Tia, she is befriended by a group of kids who help her find and rescue Tony.  Unfortunately for us, the kids are super annoying - they are in a “gang” called the Earthquakes and are vying for street cred with the other gangs of older kids.  With names like “Rocky”, “Crusher,” “Muscles,” and the unfortunate moniker “Dazzler,” the “gang” of kids had us rolling on the floor with laughter.  Definitely the worst movie of the three.

Race to Witch Mountain is supposed to be a re-imagining of the original film, although the plot bears hardly any resemblance to the first movie.  Gone are the cheesy one-dimensional villains and laughable special effects.  In this movie, our government plays the part of the villain and the special effects have been updated for the 21st century.  Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson takes up most of the screen time, but he manages to be both touching and funny and doesn’t take himself too seriously.  The movie included the occasional throwback to the original film, such as a few scenes in a Winnebago and cameos by the original Tony (Ike Eisenmann) and Tia (Kim Richards), but for the most part the movie was a completely different film.  We enjoyed the movie, however, not a bad way to spend a few hours at a Sunday matinee.

On a recent blustery night, we gathered in the family room for an evening of horror and mayhem.  On the agenda were two creature features: Snowbeast (1977) and The Thing (1982).

Snowbeast is an obscure made-for-TV-movie that takes place in a Colorado ski resort.  I put the movie on our Netflix queue after stumbling across reviews that rate it as one of the cheesiest horror movies from the seventies.  And the movie didn’t disappoint.  In a plot that was clearly inspired by Jaws, skiers begin disappearing from the resort shortly before the annual winter festival.  Naturally the resort decides to go on ahead and hold the festival, and mayhem ensues.

One memorable scene takes place after a member of the ski patrol meets a gruesome fate at the hands of our adorable abominable snowman.  The ski resort holds a small funeral for him up on the ski slopes, complete with a six-gun salute (a six-gun salute for the ski patrol?).

One of the Snowbeast’s trademarks is that the viewer never gets to see a clear view of the monster.  The movie makes extensive use of the “Beast Cam,” in which the viewer supposedly watches scenes unfold from the beast’s perspective, but shots of the actual beast are few and far between.   At the end of the movie after the beast is taken down by a ski pole, the camera pans towards the beast and then abruptly ends before the viewer gets a chance to finally see a clear view of the beast.  Denied!

Unlike Snowbeast, The Thing does not skimp on beast footage.  Also set in a snowy climate, The Thing takes place at a research facility in Antarctica.  The researchers have the misfortune to encounter an insidious alien force that has the power to transform into human form.  Paranoia sets in as the researchers must determine who is still human and who is not.

The Thing includes a number of scenes portraying the alien as it transforms from animal to alien to human form.  Renowned for its special effects, the movie still holds up today in its unnerving depiction of creepy half-human monsters.  The special effects were so good, in fact, that I actually had a hard time watching the movie - I found the movie to be just too gorey for my tastes (and this coming from a woman who is obsessed with Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.  I know, go figure).

Although it’s difficult to choose between the two movies, I think if I had to pick one I would go with Snowbeast just because I happen to really like badly acted B grade horror movies.

Which movie would you choose?

**News Flash**

I was contacted by the folks at Bloomberg (yes - you read that right…they actually sent me a press release) with the news that that John Oates will be interviewed tonight on the show “Night Talk” on Bloomberg TV. Apparently the interview will be available on their web site after the show.

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It’s no secret that I am a fan of mustaches. And there is perhaps no finer mustache than the one adorning the upper lip of John Oates. Ever since discovering John Oates’ mustache on the Herb Urban blog, I have been on the lookout to purchase a Hall & Oates album of my very own.

Well I am happy to report that day has finally come! Just this past weekend, I stumbled across the 1982 record H20 by Daryl Hall and John Oates at Rubato Records.

The first song on the album, “Maneater”, is actually kind of catchy. A little too catchy. I’ve actually caught myself singing it a few too many times over the past few days.  “Oh here she comes, watch out boy she’ll chew you up, oh here she comes, she’s a maneater!”

But the album quickly devolves from there. As we listened to the next song, “Crime Pays,” RollerReggie simply shook his head. “I feel like I am in synth hell,” he moaned. “This song embodies everything I hated about eighties music!”

And so it continued.  We couldn’t even make it to the B side of the record.  RollerReggie and I were overcome with the sheer eighties force of H20.  And the saxophone solos.

But, I didn’t really spend $3.99 to actually listen to this record.  I bought it because John Oates has the best mustache ever.  Therefore, I am one satisfied customer.

Halloween has come and gone.  I’m sure that you have been waiting on the edge of your virtual seat for the answer to last week’s conundrum: what movie to watch on Halloween?  Halloween (the 1978 version) or the original Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)?

My sincerest apologies for making you wait for an entire week (I hope that you will forgive me as I was a little distracted).

So what movie did we end up watching on Halloween night, you ask? Drum roll please… and the winner is… Poltergeist!

“Poltergeist?!”  you say.  “That wasn’t even one of the options!”

Well, you have a good point there.  On Halloween night we were leaning towards watching the original Halloween, but unfortunately I could not find a copy the movie *anywhere*.  (Note to self:  next year, do not go to the video store looking for horror movies the day before Halloween).  I did manage to find a copy of Nightmare on Elm Street after calling *six* local video stores.  No kidding.  Ironically, we realized that Poltergeist was playing on TV and we ended up watching that on Halloween night because we hadn’t seen it before.

What a fantastic film!  Co-produced and co-written by Steven Spielberg, Poltergeist (1982) tells the story of strange phenomena that plague a family in a suburban California home.  When five-year-old Carol Anne (played by Heather O’Rourke) begins having conversations with static on the television, things start to get really bizarre.  Carol Anne is eventually sucked into another dimension by a malevolent poltergeist and her family turns to a group of parapsychologists to rescue her.  With the help of a medium (played with panache by Zelda Rubinstein), Carol Anne is eventually freed and the family flees for their lives.

I think I’ll have to watch the sequels, Poltergeist II and Poltergeist III.

Medium Tangina Barrons, Played by Zelda Rubinstein

President-Elect Barack Obama in 1982 with his grandparents
Stanley and Madelyn Dunham

Thanks to WNGL for turning me on to more Star Wars fun…. the Turkish Star Wars movie!

The following clip includes the the beginning portion of the movie. The music and most of the footage seems very familiar somehow….

I’ve always been a big fan of fantasy films.  Back when I was a tweenager, two of my all-time favorites included  The Princess Bride (I’ve seen this movie at least 50 times) and The Never-Ending Story (I had the biggest crush EVER on Atreyu after I first saw this movie).

So I was excited to recently discover a new (to me) fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, the masterminds behind The Muppets and Labyrinth.  The Dark Crystal (1982) takes place on a magical world filled with fantastical creatures, all of which are played by puppets and animatronics.

The story of The Dark Crystal begins with Jen, who is at the deathbed of his master.  Jen is a Gelfling, a race of (supposedly) elf-like creatures who are all but extinct (although Jen looks distractingly puppet-like).  Jen is charged with the task of bringing order to his world by healing the powerful Dark Crystal.

The Dark Crystal resides in a castle inhabited by the Skeksis, an evil race of power-hungry vulture-like creatures that control Jen’s planet with an iron fist.  In order to heal the Dark Crystal, Jen must find a shard that broke off of the crystal 1,000 years previously and re-unite it with the larger crystal at the exact moment that the three suns of his planet are aligned.  And so Jen embarks on his journey, making friends and encountering adventure along the way.

I watched this movie with The RollerBlog family last week and we found the movie to be entertaining.  It is not quite as good as Labyrinth (David Bowie in tight pants!  ‘Nuff said!) and the animatronics were sometimes a bit distracting, but regardless it is something of a classic.

Our favorite character in the movie was the evil Chamberlain of the Skeksis, who was banished from the castle after a failed attempt to take over the Emperor’s position when the aged Emperor passed away.  The Chamberlain wanders around the countryside, and as he wanders he pokes his nose into other people’s business and continually makes a really obnoxious sound in his throat - something along the lines of “H-m-m-m-m-m…”.  So, naturally, all of the members of the RollerBlog family are obsessed with making that sound whenever we feel like being a little obnoxious.  Good times.

As I have previously mentioned, I happen to be a big fan of Tron (1982), the first major film to extensively utilize computer graphics.

Word on the street has it that Tron 2 is now in the works. A surprise teaser for the sequel (dubbed TR2N) was unveiled at Comic Con this year.

Alas, I was not at Comic Con so I did not see it. Perhaps next year.

Thanks to WNGL for sharing the good word on the Tron sequel.

Some movies from the 1980s stand the test of time, and some, sadly, do not.

The other day, for lack of anything better to do, the RollerBlog family took a chance and settled in for a viewing of the movie Short Circuit (1986). The movie was free on cable, featured a robot in a prominent role, and starred Ally Sheedy from The Breakfast Club. Sounded like a safe bet.

Wrong! The Robot is entertaining enough, and even occasionally endearing (Number 5 is alive!), but that’s about all the movie has going for it. The acting in the movie is terrible, and Ally Sheedy’s performance is downright cringe-worthy. Short Circuit is definitely a movie that has not stood the test of time.

Having grown up during the eighties, though, I can’t always trust my own judgment on such matters. So, I turned to my son (who just turned 12 last week) for a truly unbiased opinion.

RollerKaty: So… what did you think of Short Circuit?

RollerBoy: Wow, Mom. That was a really bad movie.

RollerKaty: Yeah, it was pretty bad wasn’t it? Sorry about that.

RollerBoy: I don’t see how you could have thought that was a good movie when you were a kid. Even I know that was a bad movie.

RollerKaty: …. (embarrassed silence)

So it was with some trepidation that we introduced RollerBoy to another Sci-Fi classic: Tron.

Tron stars Jeff Bridges as Flynn, a genius computer programmer who gets sucked inside the computer system of his former employer ENCOM. He must traverse an alternate electronic universe populated by computer programs and defeat the villainous Master Control Program before he can return to his own reality.

Mr. Rollerblog and I both have fond memories of watching this movie many years ago. I remember thinking that this was possibly one of the coolest movies *ever* in the eighties. Who couldn’t love a movie about video games?

But there was the matter of the special effects to consider. The computer-animated graphics, although groundbreaking at the time, are positively primitive now. I wasn’t exactly sure how well the special effects would hold up 25 years later - especially to someone who was born 14 years after the movie came out.

So we watched the movie. Then came the moment of truth.

RollerKaty: So… what did you think of Tron?

RollerBoy: I thought it was pretty cool.

’nuff said.