Two More Fistfuls of Favorites! (Matt’s Picks)

    In the Spring of 2012, as Brad and I were still riding high on 2011’s great movies, we got all mushy, and put together our lists of all time favorite films.  Of course there were classics like Jaws and Commando, but there were also some odd choices.  What do you expect from two Dorks like us, who hope with shivering anticipation that the Saw franchise comes back (Saw X needs to be in SPACE!!!) and that there will be a Crank Meets Transporter prequel set in the Wild West?

    Anyway, Brad got to thinking we should do another list, but this time doing our next round of favorites.   Our 11-20.  Cool.  I like making lists (like Liam Neeson).  If you’re so inclined, take a look back at my top 10 films, and here are my next ten favorites:

20.  Howard the Duck:  This movie takes all kinds of guff from every which way (including loose).  But, as I’ve said before, F the haters.  I absolutely love this film.  Lea Thompson is adorable, Howard balances charm and snark.  And I just love the whole look and feel of the film.  You can’t watch it with even an ounce of cynicism.  I know people hate it.  And I don’t think I can come up with an argument for the film that equates to much more than “Oh, come on! It’s awesome, man.”  Because it is.

19.  Forbidden Planet:  What was happening in science fiction literature for decades finally got screentime in this classic science fiction retelling of The Tempest that would pave the way for galaxy adventures like Star Trek and Star Wars.  Postulating a future where it wasn’t just about getting to space, and maybe, just maybe landing on another planet, Forbidden Planet takes us to a time when Humanity has reached out to the stars and established an interstellar civilization.  Amazing special effects, crazy experimental music, and great characters.  A watershed moment in science fiction cinema.

18.  The City of Lost Children:  Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro raided my dreams and came up with this amazing visual feast of chronologically untethered retro-fantasy.  A circus strongman and an orphan thief search the tumbling labyrinth of girders and rust that makes up the city, looking for a young boy who just wants a snack…well, all the snacks.  Along the way, they meet and battle an impressive cast of strange and deviant folk.  Religious zealots, clones, brains in fish tanks, and the Octopus.  It’s beautiful and strange, and it’s wonderful.

17.  The Thing:  It’s hard not to just gush about this movie.  Almost as hard as it was for the thing not to gush out of that Petri dish when exposed to heat.  It may be a ‘perfect film.’  Not only is it intensely unnerving, beautifully shot, and bloody intense.  But it also has great music, excellent effects, and a crackerjack script.  It does what too few horror movies do, and makes a large cast of interesting and endearing characters I find myself caring for.  When one is hurt or dies or turns into a giant mouth that bites someone’s arms off, I’m bummed out.  When that one guy is a little upset that he has had to go through a major ordeal while TIED TO THAT F*&#ING COUCH, it’s funny in a sad sort of way.  And then there’s the ending.

16.  Metropolis:  When all I had seen was the hacked up, 90ish minute version of this film, it was one of my favorites.  Now that I’ve seen the complete (99.9%) version, it’s so much more.  The story transcends time, the set design is gorgeous, and world created remains a tremendous achievement.  The head and the hand must work together.

15.  Streets of Fire:  The 80s and the 50s come together in a rock fueled fantasy world of the city and the streets.  Back from The War, a young man comes to the aid of his sister.  It seems his old flame, a messianic rocker-girl, has been kidnapped by the demonic leader of a motorcycle gang.  Assembling a crew, he has to go into hell to bring her back.  The movie is so 80s you need to wear legwarmers while watching it (that’s a law), and like a lot of movies I love, you have to check your cynicism at the door.  As it says at the beginning, it’s a Rock & Role Fable.  Plus, it’s got the best hammer fight ever.

14.  Conan the Barbarian:  Arnold’s best movie, and the only attempt at adapting Robert E. Howard’s classic Conan stories that got anything at all correct.  With one of the all time great movie scores, top notch, old-Hollywood production design, and so much awesome violence, Conan the Barbarian isn’t just one of the best fantasy films ever made…it’s one of the best films.  Take that, Annie Hall.

13.  Touch of Evil:  Citizen Kane really is a great film.  I do not begrudge its place on many ‘best movie ever’ lists.  But my favorite Orson Welles film is still Touch of Evil.  Heston is great, Welles is disgusting.  The women are fascinating.  The hoodlums are horrible.  Dennis Weaver is shooting his Norman Bates all over the place.  There’s that tremendous single-take scene that opens the film.  So good.

12.  Lost Highway:  “Who the hell owns that dog, anyway?”  This is my David Lynch.  It was the first Lynch film I saw on the big screen.  It led me to read Barry Gifford.  The soundtrack is amazing.  It has one great scene after another, one quotable line after another.  And it’s seriously weird.  Years later, I still can’t tell you quite what it’s about, or quite what happened.  You want me to draw a timeline?  Timespiral?  I got nothing.

11.  Logan’s Run:  “You don’t have to die.  You can LIVE!”  Utopia is running down, the system is less than perfect.  But for a society of pretty young things, everything seems A-OK.  Except for those few who donn’t want to ‘renew,’ who want to ask questions.  What starts as an undercover mystery turns into an odyssey.  I love every moment of this film, except for the awful Farrah Fawcett, who has never been worse.  The film has a magic so many are lacking.  Something more than the sum of its parts.

(See 1-10 here and 21-30 here).

-Matt

Dork Art: Kevin Tong's Metropolis

Well, we missed it.  Earlier today frequent Mondo artist Kevin Tong unveiled this gorgeous Metropolis print on his website.  It measures 24 x 36 and cost $60.  Oh well.  There's always ebay.


--Brad

A Fistful of Mad Scientists! (Matt’s Picks)

    With our viewing of Metropolis on the big screen this past Friday, we’re listing our favorite mad scientists. 

5.  Dr. Jonathan Gediman loves his work.  OK, maybe a bit too much.  But he seems like a swell fella.  “What a beautiful, beautiful butterfly.”

4.  Dr. Hans Zarkov knows the Earth is in danger, and he’s gonna save it.  Enlisting the aid of a blonde dolt and his screaming lady friend, Zarkov is off in his garage-built space ship to save the day.

3.  I’m not going to swear that Logan didn’t get his doctorate out of a cereal box, but he sure was on to something.  He brought the best out of Bub, and I think he might have actually succeeded in making the walking dead behave, if he’d had the chance. 

2.  Dr. Zaius may not embody my idea of good science, what with his position as ‘Defender of the Faith,’ but he is an orangutan.

1.  Dr. Clayton Forrester’s love of evil science and subjecting others to awful movies wins him a place in my lump of coal (replaced my heart in 1996).  When I finally get Evil Science Island off the ground, I hope I can reflect a little of his glory.  We stand on the shoulders of giants, after all. 

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (2/19/12-2/25/12)

Other Men’s Women:  A kind of douchy guy starts hanging with his swell chum and said chum’s understanding wife.  All’s well for quite some time, until Douchy McDouche and the cute young wife get a taste of something extra.  Before they can go too far, McDouche takes his leave, but not soon enough.  Problems and troubles.  Blindness, drunkenness, and lots of coffee.  Pretty good movie, though the end, like a lot from the pre-Code days, is kind of bent.  Still not sure what James Cagney is doing in the movie, other than dancing.

The Purchase Price:  Barbara Stanwyck is a torch singing floozy, who flees the life and ends up in an arranged marriage in North Dakota.  OK, sure.  The weird premise ends up working for the most part, and the leads are all quite charming.  It’s a fun old timey romantic comedy with lots of colorful characters and adventures.

The Wall Street Mystery:  This short film is feels like a TV show episode from 30 years later, but it’s enjoyable in a light sort of way.  Though, yikes.  The horribly racist portrayal of the elevator attendant.  Wow.  The investigating doctor is an odd bird, that’s for sure.

Platinum Blonde:  This movie is the berries.  A wise cracking reporter gets a hankerin’ for a rich dame, breaking the heart of his best friend (also a dame!).  Whatever it was that Jean Harlow did to men in her day, she does not do to me.  She’s got comic timing and acting talent, but her sex symbol status is beyond me.  Loretta Young, however, has a certain doe-eyed pluck I find quite charming.  The movie takes on the idle rich as a working man is tempted by the luster of wealth.  Is he a bird in a gilded cage?

A Perfect Murder:  I can’t help it.  I want Michael Douglass to succeed at every turn.  First off, his wife is awful.  Secondly, her boyfriend is a douche.  And thirdly, Douglass is just so danged charming.  The film is extremely 90s, with its no nudity clause sex scenes and almost made for TV, over sanitized feel.  But frankly, Douglass’ reference to a woman as a “Castilian femme fatale” alone was worth the price of admission.  It does serve to remind me just how much I don’t care for Gwyneth Paltrow.  How did she have a career again?

Frisco Jenny:  A young woman from the wrong part of town takes on the world with her wits and cunning.  She’s anything but an angel, but she has one light, her son.  Adopted by a family with money, makes good; better than he’d ever have made with his mother.  Jenny tries to be the young man’s guardian angel, but her shady life and sordid history will haunt them.  The movie follows an interesting path, leading to an interestingly filmed and edited courtroom scene.  Ruth Chatterton gives a heck of a performance as the title character.

The Studio Murder Mystery:  Donald Meek is back as the weirdass doctor/investigator, on the prowl for a good mystery.  His cop buddy that keeps calling him in is great, too.  Just a big dumb lug.  Look, Meek is a strait-up creeper.  I have no idea why they made more than one of these shorts.  And there’s a dude that looks like Nic Cage (once again…vampire?).

Midnight Marry:  “I’ll give you a ring sometime…Maybe.”  A hard-luck kid gets chewed up and spit out by the system, turning into a wild child.  Loretta Young plays the corruptible young woman in this bleak movie about crime, poverty, and the depths of life on the street.  The Depression hit’s the streets like a gut punch.

Terror of the Bloodhunters:  Lacking in the dubious charm of a Corman movie of the same era, this movie is just a bit too dull, and not quite sensationalist as it should be.  The cast is easily forgotten, nor are there any particularly fun or memorable moments.  It is.  That’s about it.

Liane: The Jungle Goddess:  Bad dubbing and awkward, somewhat exploitative stock footage go along with a moderately attractive woman who doesn’t seem to mind taking her top off.  Not at all a good movie, it’s kinda amusing in its way.  Pretty typical of the ‘blonde jungle girl’ subgenre of lowbrow adventure films.

Metropolis:  OK, I know I’ve reviewed this before.  Probably several times.  Heck, I’ve seen this movie countless times (in myriad versions).  But, seeing the complete version, on the big screen at the AFI Silver, with a live band, was a real thrill.  And seeing it with a friend who had never seen it, and another who had never seen any silent film before was a special treat.  What a way to first experience the movie.  And it is a heck of a film.  You can see the roots of so many movies over the decades in its visuals and concepts.  And of course, like many true classics, its messages and themes are as timely today as when it was filmed.  One thing I really like about the movie is that the villains aren’t truly evil.  Even mad scientist Rotwang can be sympathized with.  He is a wronged man, lost in grief, and driven to set things right, not some soulless monster.  And it might be corny, but the overall theme that the head and the hand must be mediated by the heart is something I genuinely believe.  I appreciate the visceral and the cerebral, the high and the low, the mind and the body, the civil and the brutish, order and chaos.  Balance.

Tarzan, The Ape Man:  In an EXTREMELY loose adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic adventure novel, Tarzan appears as a dumb, if handsome, doof.  A plucky young woman enters his life, screams and complains a lot, and romance is born.  There are some pretty cool bits, but I can’t help wishing the book had served as more than a source of a title.  And am I nuts, or are those Indian elephants with prosthetic ears?  I’m not a biologist or anything, but they don’t look right.

Tarzan Escapes:  Much of the goofiness of the first film remains.  But dang if Maureen O’Sullivan doesn’t look seriously hot.  For some reason, Tarzan is still an idiot.  One would think that simply being around Jane and listening to her talk would have taught him a thing or two, but alas, he still does little more than parrot her words.  This movie also makes use of stock footage from previous films.  Watch out for ju-ju, man.  On-gawa.

Coffy:  The movie that made me fall in love with Pam Grier and Blaxploitation, Coffy is crazy.  It’s violent, deviant, filled with memorable characters and performances (not always good, but memorable none the less), and lots of flesh.  If you want a taste of Ms. Grier, the subgenre, or if you’re already a fan but haven’t seen this, check it out.  It’s a must.

Heroes for Sale:  “It may be the end of us, but it’s not the end of America.”  The horrors of war and the winds of fate take their toll on two men.  A fortunate son who turned yellow in the trenches ends up with awards and accolades, while a workaday schlub gets injured and hooked on morphine.  But schlub or no, he’s got grit and makes good.  But, as with a lot of movies from the time, things don’t go well for too long.  The system crushes all.  And after our hero has been chewed up and spit out, he gets stepped on and ground into the pavement.  It’s no shock that folks in the Depression would identify with movies like this.

    And Ben and I checked out a couple TV shows; John Adams, The Outer Limits, and The Twilight Zone.  John Adams seems pretty interesting.  I need to finish it off one of these days.  It’s not an era I’m especially familiar with, but should be.    And of course, I love me some classic anthology sci-fi.

    I also got through the second disk of Smiley’s People, which I’m enjoying much more than Tinker Taylor Sailor Spy.  It’s a good series, with a slow building tension that makes me hungry for the next episode.

       Book wise, I finished the Halo novel I’ve been picking at for a while.  It was a good deal of fun to read, and I’m interested in what the next one will bring.

    With all that, I still managed to host a second game night, which went quite well, I thought.  I’ll post about that later.

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (2/19-2/25)

Well, I definitely didn't crank out as many movies this week as I've been doing lately but that's probably a good thing for all of us.  You can only steam ahead at that speed for so long before you burn out.  That being said, I still caught a lot of great stuff this week and even started reading Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Princess of Mars.  But the highlights of the week centered on The Wife & I finally completely Twin Peaks and the AFI Silver's screening of Fritz Lang's Metropolis accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra.  These guys were amazing and the idea that my first experience with the Fritz Lang classic was on the big screen with a brilliant accompaniment pounding away to the visuals fills me with great gobs of geeky joy.  If you haven't already you should check out there site and purchase their stuff for your silent film collection.

Got some sad news this week.  My favorite restaurant in the whole dang world, The Tortilla Factory, will be closing March 1st.  The place has been in my neighborhood for the last 37 years and I've been eating there for the last 16.  Since hearing the news I've hit the place up everyday.  I had to make sure that I got my fill of the #5 Beast Feast: A burrito w/red chile sauce, a taco, two enchiladas, and a heap of beans and rice.  It's funny, but as much as I love the place none of my friends or my Wife share the crazy love like I do.  Why is that?  The food is Tex Mex, but it's a Tex Mex that might have been popular in the 70s...your grandma's idea of Tex Mex.  Every time I enter through the doors there's a little bit of a time warp going on.  The loss of that feeling brings genuine sadness to this Week in Dork.

My Last "Beast Feast"

This week also saw the 1 Year Anniversary of In The Mouth of Dorkness.  Seems like a few of you guys out there in Internetland have been enjoying our ranting, but probably not as much as Matt & I have  had with this personal bit of insanity.  Not only has this blog brought us closer to a lot of likeminded madmen and got us an incredibly fantastic regular gig over at cineAWESOME! but it's spared a lot of our friends and coworkers from suffering our Movie Rants/Rages.  To sum it up, this blog makes me as happy as Chewbacca standing behind Marilynn Monroe in a bikini.

"Let's Par-Tay!"

TV OF THE WEEK!

The Walking Dead "Triggerfinger":  Things are starting to go all Dawn of the Dead on Rick & Company.  The retrieval of Herschel from the bar in town became a lot more difficult with a shoot out confrontation with The Others and this week it escalated in some serious gunplay.  But this appears to be just a taste of the hell that's about to come down on The Farm, and I imagine this building to a Human War on par with The Governor battle in the comics.  But will we get The Governor this season?  Is it Michael Rooker?  Who knows, but I doubt it.  And I seriously doubt this season will end with everyone holding up in the prison.  At least I hope not cuz they've done enough holding up at Herschel's place.  Time to get on the road.  And time for Lori to die already.

Supernatural "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie":  Another week, another fun and silly episode of Supernatural.  Feels like forever ago that we dealt with the Leviathan problem and this season definitely lacks some focus, but if these monster-of-the-week episodes are going to be as fun as this one than I really don't mind.  Sam & Dean investigate the death of a batch of parents and it leads them to the Chuck E Cheese terrordome of Plucky Pennywhistle...and you guessed it, there are plenty of Pennywise-like clown demons to rule your nightmares, or at least Sam's nightmares.  The episode also provides for one of this silliest chase-takedowns I've seen as you can witness in the above image.  I really hope Supernatural never ends.  I want these boys to be hunting goblins & ghouls for the rest of my life.

Justified "When The Guns Come Out":  Three seasons in and we finally hit an episode of Justified that I really just did not like.  Bummer.  But before we get to my complaints let me sing at least one praise.  The confrontation between Timothy Olyphant's Raylan and William Mapother's pimp was plenty fun.  Never bring a knife to a gunfight.  And I hope we see more of Mapother this season.  But most of this episode is wasted on a poor excuse to get rid of Natalie Zea's pointless love interest.  I don't know how she reaches the conclusions that she does after her profession of love to Raylan last episode.  And the final scene of this ep was the sorriest excuse of screenwriting we've had from this usually brilliant series.  Hopefully, this is just a hiccup and next episode will put everything back on track.

Twin Peaks Episodes 26-29:  The Wife and I finally completed our epic run of Twin Peaks and even though I enjoyed the trip immensely (granted, I knew how dark things were going to be left off), I cannot say the same things for her.  As Season 2 builds to a climax and Agent Cooper and Windom Earle march towards The Black Lodge the humor and charm of the series start to fade into the background.  And the final episode of the show is pretty damn scary as Coop navigates the red curtain walls of Bob's kingdom.  The pulsating strobe light, Laura Palmer's screams, Bob's visage.  It's incoherent and rather terrifying.  And as the final episode ticked away, The Wife could sense the very dark place where she was going to be left off at--but even then, she was not prepared for the utterly bleak prequel movie...

MOVIES OF THE WEEK!

Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me:  ‎"I am the arm." I completely understand why fan & critical reaction was so harsh towards Fire Walk With Me. In a lot of respects it is a slap to the face of loyal viewers after the shocking cliffhanger climax of season 2--I don't want to go back to the final days of Laura Palmer; we got all that jazz outta our system! Let's see The Black Lodge! Let's see Windom! Let's see Agent Dale Cooper! So, yeah, Fire Walk With Me will illicit your basic prequel rage explaining plot that didn't need explaining and even mismanaging several key characters. However, I definitely appreciated the Chris Isaak/Kiefer Sutherland's opening investigation, the weird David Bowie phasing, and the tiny glimpses of The Black Lodge that float in and out of the mumbled narrative. Still, it's been 25 years now and I'm ready for David Lynch to finally conclude the Twin Peaks story...a pipe dream? Yeah, but one worth having.

Silent Tongue:  ‎"Insanity is a sorry thing." After his Indian bride dies during childbirth, River Phoenix goes mad with grief refusing to bury his love; he stands guard over the elements hollering at the wildlife and possibly communicating with the dead. His father, Richard Harris travels to the medicine show where he originally bought the squaw for three horses and attempts to barter for Alan Bates' other halfbreed daughter. Things get freakier from there. Silent Tongue is an excellent Weird Western from playwright Sam Shepard that stands on its varied performances and rich dialog. River Phoenix died just months before it's Sundance premiere and it only took in a few thousand dollars at the box office. If you're looking for something different in the genre look no further.  And, as usual, check out cineAWESOME! for my latest Western Review.

Anonymous:  The True Story Of William Shakespeare The Fraud as directed by the man who brought us Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot, and 2012. And it doesn't suck. But the story of the Shakespeare conspiracy does not really engage this particular viewer either. Rhys Ifans is rather good as the Earl of Oxford, but why bother with the Derek Jacobi framing device? Is it's purpose to give the plot an air of truth? No, it's just obtrusive and rather silly. Still, I suppose it's good to know that Roland Emmerich can put a film together that's somewhat emotionally engaging, and contains only one good EXPLOSION!

Hard Hunted:  ‎"We Were Never Lovers and I Faked That Orgasm!" *Machete To The Stomach* The seventh film in Sidaris's Malibu Express Saga starts off a little slow, trading the tropical locals of Hawaii for the rocky deserts of Arizona where Agents Donna & Justin are sunbathe-waiting for their friend to be killed by Al Leong's Raven helicopter. But once the T & A espionage gets back on track in Hawaii the crazy dune buggies, hovercrafts, jetplanes, and speedboats bring these ridiculous characters into explosively odd dialog collision. Seriously, where does Sidaris get all these wonderful toys?

Metropolis:  It's taken 32 years, but after last year's tributes to the silent cinema (Hugo & The Artist) and a few key Criterion releases, an interest in cinema's original art form has taken a serious hold. And it's impossible to be a fan of film without knowing a little about the history of Fritz Lang's Metropolis and I've owned the Kino release of the 2010 restoration since it's publication. However, when I heard that the AFI Silver would be screening the film with the Alloy Orchestra I made a pact to wait and experience the sci-fi classic on The Big Screen with a Sold Out crowd. I am so glad I did. Similar to my encounter with Citizen Kane a few years back, watching Metropolis for the first time was a revelation. It is indeed the Masterpiece that you've heard about. But unlike Kane or Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, the plot and most of the visual flair of the film had not been spoiled to me via years upon years of pop culture saturation. Yes, I had seen several of the key images depicting Hel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge's Rotwang, and the myriad of fantastic expressionistic sets. But I was unaware of Fritz Rasp's creepy Thin Man. Or Brigitte Helm's seven sins dance. Or the entire plot involving father vs. son. Metropolis on the Big Screen was an amazing experience and will be the movie event to beat in 2012. And Alloy Orchestra's score was stunning; sitting next to them as their music thumped and pounced was similar to living in the film itself.  And yeah, I absolutely had to purchase their score to sync with my blu.

Anatomy of a Murder:  Law & Order's Dick Wolf owes his entire career to this quintessential courtroom drama starring America's Actor Jimmy Stewart as Defense Attorney Paulie Biegler presiding over the not-so-innocent life of Ben Gazzara. Anatomy of a Murder is a long haul story, that draws over all the particulars of the plot with a fine tooth but it's serious eye puts the audience right in the courtroom and it must have been quite an experience for someone who wasn't raised on endless reruns of Sam Waterston's speech of the week . Top notch performances from all involved and it's a beautiful looking film despite being stuck mostly in courtroom benches.  And ya gotta dig Duke Ellington's score.

COMICS OF THE WEEK!

I Killed Adolf Hitler by Jason:  Well, as to be expected, this was a weird one.  Norwegian artist Jason applies his puppy dog style to this science fiction story depicting a future world where anyone can hire hitmen to kill the human pests in their lives.  It centers on one hitman, recently separated from his longtime girlfriend, who accepts a job from a scientist with a time machine to kill the Fuhrer.  Things don't go according to plan and this quick read will supply you with lots of cute pictures involving animals shooting out each other's brains.  Plus Hitler.

Who Is Jake Ellis? by Nathan Edmondson & Tonci Zonjic:  Lots of folks at my local comic shop have been recommending Who Killed Jack Ellis? to me for a while now.  I finally conceded and gave it a read.  It's a fun espionage story with a science-fiction (or supernatural) twist.  Ex-CIA Jon is on the run from both The Americans and a shadowy organization, but it's no big thing cuz he has Jake Ellis living inside his head.  And Jake knows when he should duck and when he should plug a guy.  The first trade could be read as a single story and it's almost tempting just to leave it at that, but I might give the next volume a read in a week or two.  So yeah, good but not a new obsession or anything.


BOOK OF THE WEEK!

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:  If I hadn't been so darn tired I could have easily read the book in one sitting, but as is all I got was fifty pages into the classic pulp adventure story.  I first read the John Carter books nearly 20 years ago but my memory of the tales of Barsoom has pretty much faded completely.  And I have to get this book consumed before the March 9th release date of the new Andrew Stanton movie.  I will say that 50 pages in you can already see where the new Disney film is taking liberties.  The White Apes of Mars are gonna be a whole lot bigger than their novel counterpart and the Attack of the Clones thunderdome seen in the trailer is a cinematic creation that probably should have remained a storyboard concept.  But what's amazing about these books is how fresh they feel for having been written in the early 1900s.  Sure, there's a lack of quotation marks and the dialog is just sorta told at you, but the imagination, the language, and the imagery found inside still holds up.  I do hope we get a good portion of The Old West before the spaceward journey.

--Brad