Showing Tag: "movie" (Show all posts)

CATCHING UP ON THE MOVIES: MONSTERS, WESTERNS AND SUPERHEROES

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, April 14, 2021, In : Pop Culture 

I had the opportunity this past weekend to finally catch a trio of movies I‘d been wanting to see for some time.


First up was the current blockbuster Godzilla Vs. Kong, the fourth (and final, according to some reports) entry in the Warner Brothers “Monster Universe” series that began with 2014’s Godzilla. Like its predecessors, it is a no-holds-barred roller coster ride; not so much a remake as a complete reimagining of the 1962 Japanese film King Kong Vs. Godzilla, the new film makes ...


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SIR ALEC GUINNESS: AN APPRECIATION

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, March 3, 2021, In : Tribute 

People have been going on for years about how Alec Guinness hated Star Wars


He didn’t, not really. What he hated was that so many filmgoers who loved his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi seemed to know him only for that role and were unfamiliar with the long, lengthy career he had enjoyed prior to the 1977 classic.


While Guinness noted in several interviews that he did not really understand the film when it was in production (in a letter to a friend after getting the role, he described the s...


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10 MOVIES EVERYONE SHOULD SEE AT LEAST ONCE IN THEIR LIVES THAT NEVER SEEM TO MAKE ANYBODY ELSE’S LIST OF 10 MOVIES EVERYONE SHOULD SEE AT LEAST ONCE IN THEIR LIVES

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, January 3, 2020, In : Opinion 

In recent years I have run across countless articles posted online listing movies the writer believes everyone should see at least once in their lifetimes. Which is alright, but those lists always seem to include the same titles: “Gone With The Wind,” “Citizen Kane,” “Casablanca,” “The Godfather,” “The Wizard of Oz,” et cetera and so on.


At some point it occurred to me that perhaps all these so-called “movie experts” need to broaden their horizons a little bit and tell ...


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DOC SAVAGE IN HOLLYWOOD: WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, September 26, 2019, In : Pop Culture 

Most Doc Savage fans know about the 1975 film version of the first book, Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze, produced by George Pal (Destination Moon, The Time Machine, When Worlds Collide) and starring former TV Tarzan Ron Ely. There's been a lot of debate over the years regarding the merits of that film.

Many decry its camp sensibilities, the changes made to the original story and the lack of faith Warner Brothers seemed to have for the project (the latter foreshadowing Disney's dismal support o...


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ERB MOVIES OF THE 1970s

Posted by John Allen Small on Monday, June 19, 2017, In : Pop Culture 

As Phillip R. Burger pointed out in an essay included in the 2005 Bison Books reissue of Richard Lupoff’s Master Of Adventure, 1975 was a particularly good year to be a fan of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs.

For one thing, it was the centennial of ERB’s birth, which meant that much attention was being paid to the author and his works. As part of the centennial celebration, Irwin Porges finally published his long-anticipated (and definitive) ERB biography, Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man...
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MY 100 FAVORITE MOVIES (FOR THE MOMENT, ANYWAY...)

Posted by John Allen Small on Monday, October 21, 2013, In : Pop Culture 

One day last week on Facebook my buddy Henry Covert posted a list of his 100 favorite movies and challenged some of us to compile our own lists. This is what I came up with, bearing in mind that such lists can be fluid things and that if I were to compile the same list a week or month or year from now many of those listed here might be in a somewhat different order, or not included at all.

I have long maintained that there is a tie for my all-time favorite motion picture: "Star Wars" (the orig...


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PIC O' THE DAY: "THE SHADOW" SERIAL

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, August 16, 2013, In : Pictures 

Ran across this today and decided I just had to share it...

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WHO WAS THAT MASKED MAN...?

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, July 10, 2013, In : Pop Culture 
Pictured: Clayton Moore, the REAL Lone Ranger; and Armie Hammer, the (unsuccessful) pretender to the throne.


Everyone else has had their say by now. I guess it's my turn.


The family and I went to see the new film version of The Lone Ranger last weekend. It was one of those movies that I had been both looking forward to and dreading ever since first hearing that it was being made. 


Looking forward to because I've been a fan of the legendary Western character pretty much all my life, ever sinc...


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I'M DREAMING OF A RED PLANET

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, December 6, 2012, In : Pop Culture 

(Yes, that's really me in the lower left corner... as I looked back in January of 1982.)


 

Perhaps it should have come as no surprise that this week’s report by NASA, regarding the data collected by the Mars rover Curiosity, was do doggone anti-climactic in light of all the Internet buzz and media hoopla that ensued after scientist John Grotzinger announced that the findings were destined “for the history books.” 


It’s hard to live up to that kind of advance publicity. Just ask Kim Kar...


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I Don't Care What Anyone Says; I LIKED "John Carter"

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, March 29, 2012, In : Opinion 

Every now and then I find myself in the unusual (and not always desirable) position of championing some cause that seems to fly in the face of mass public opinion. I guess it is not altogether unfair to blame my parents for this tendency; after all, they are the ones who drummed into my mind as a child the importance of standing up for what you believe, and the notion that what is popular is not always what is right.


Sometimes those battles place me on what some would consider to be the wron...


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I WOULD HAVE GONE TO SEE IT...

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, November 17, 2011, In : Pictures 

Between my job at the newspaper and being busy trying to complete a fiction story I'd been invited to write for an upcoming anthology I haven't had much time to even think about this blog here of late. But I didn't realize how long it had been until I got a message this morning asking "Why no new posts?" So I thought I'd pop in just long enough to let the 3 or 4 who pay attention to this blog know I'm still here, and to share another of my fantasy movie posters. This is one I did back in 2003...
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SHADOW OF THE BAT

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, July 22, 2011, In : Pop Culture 


When I was a little boy, there were two heroes that I really looked up to.


The first was my father. Well, I suppose that’s typical enough…every little boy I ever knew wanted to grow up and be just like his old man, and all the little girls wanted to be like their mommies. That is, until all those little boys and girls grew into teenagers, and suddenly Mommy and Daddy were somehow transformed (if only for a brief time) into Mother and Father. The Dreaded Enemies.


The other great hero of ...


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MORE TREK: THE EUGENICS WARS

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, June 24, 2011, In : Pop Culture 


As long as we're on the subject of "Star Trek," let me begin by stating that there's a story behind the above illustration...


Back in 2000, as much for my own amusement as anything else, I wrote an essay entitled "The Eugenics War Declassified," in which I attempted to explain how the Eugenic Wars first mentioned in a 1966 "Star Trek" episode could have still occurred given what had actually transpired historically during the intervening years. As a fan of Philip José Farmer and his Wold Ne...


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"ALL RIGHT... WHO CALLED ME A TREKKIE?"

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, June 23, 2011, In : Pop Culture 


 (Note: The above picture is my son William standing in front of the original model of the USS Enterprise at the Smithsonian Institute's Air and Space Museum during or visit to Washington D.C. in 2009)



 

“I didn’t know you were a Trekkie, Small.”


The comment was made by my boss one day a number of years ago as he happened to overhear a conversation I was having with a co-worker. We were talking about the film “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” which I found (and still find) to...


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(From The Archives) CROSSOVER CONTEST ENTRY

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, June 10, 2011, In : Pop Culture 

(Note: The following was my entry in a contest Time magazine held in the late 1990s - I forget the exact year right off - in which the publication asked its readers to submit ideas for an episode of a television series in which characters from another series make an appearance. The winner was some dummy that had Homer SImpson turning up on an episode of "E.R." I still like MY idea better....)


*      *      *


Dear Time:


My name is John Small. I live in Ravia, Oklahoma, and the following is ...


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(From The Archives) DREAMCASTING DOC SAVAGE

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, May 20, 2011, In : Pop Culture 

I was digging through some old files the other night and ran across something I wrote that suddenly seemed noteworthy again in light of our most recent celebrity controversy... 


It was written in response to a lengthy discussion amongst members of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society concerning an article in the July 7, 1999 edition of Variety in which it had been announced that former actor, former governor and philandering husband Arnold Schwarzenegger was planning to star as Doc Savage i...


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About Me


John Allen Small John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996). Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.) John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something. In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems. He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.

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