Hooray For Ray Harryhausen, by Ric Meyers
What a relief! Fellow audio-blogging ComicMixer Mike Raub put it in perspective for me as soon the credits ended on Cloverfield: “What ever happened to science?” he asked. “Remember the good old days when movie characters would actually think about why something was happening rather than immediately whip out the heavy artillery?”
Well, Mike, my friend, I do, I really do, because this week I got two new, colorized, long-delayed, two-disc special editions from the “Ray Harryhausen Presents” line: It Came From Beneath the Sea and, especially, Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers. In the latter film, particularly, smart people do courageous things to foil an attack from the stars, and the literate, logical, talk – so absent in Cloverfield – would do Mr. Spock proud.
But first things first. It Came from Beneath the Sea arrived first, in 1955, with a Godzilla-esque tale of a nuclear-radiated giant octosquid attacking San Francisco. The following year saw the release of Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers, which was succinct and accurate in its title. Both are being re-released on DVD now because Ray supervised their colorization, and Sony has done a nice job of presenting them in both their original B&W as well as colorized forms, with a “ChromaChoice” toggle so you can go from one to the other with ease.
Only one problem with Ray supervising the coloring: the monsters look great … but the people often also look like they’re made of clay … or used a scoonch too much liquid tanner. All in all, however, it’s one of the more successful colorization jobs, and rarely too distracting. Besides, what with Ray’s Dynamationalized characters, the whole thing has a nice sheen of artificiality anyway, which the colorization folds nicely into.
Good news for fans of Keith Giffen’s run on Legion of Superheroes: He’ll have another chance to play with the team this April, when DC/Wildstorm: Dreamwar hits shelves. The six-issue miniseries will pair Giffen with artist Lee Garbett (Midnighter).
One connection leads to another and then another, whether via the proverbial Six Degrees of Separation or by means of random-chance Free Association. Which explains how the moviemaking Coen Bros., Joel and Ethan, and Ham Fisher’s strange trailblazer of a comic strip, Joe Palooka, come to be mentioned in a single sentence.
After having been tracking it for some time, we are pleased to announce we have finally found the beginning of the end. Ladies and gentlemen, today in 1955, the very first presidential news conference was filmed for television and newsreels. All that business with the media skewing coverage for political gain these days really couldn’t have started without the help of Dwight Eisenhower, his 33 minute conference, and the cameras of NBC, CBS, ABC and the Dumont Network (the 50’s version of UPN or WB before the CW merge).
Think of it as Battle of the Planets, round one.
Over at Marvel.com, the second-tier heroes are getting a first-class treatment with "
IFMagazine
