Let’s see. Start with books. Or, in this case, book. This used to be such a literary crowd.

When I left for Texas I left up a link for Nathan Shumate’s exceedingly nice volume of Cold Fusion Video reviews, The Golden Age of Crap. One person took advantage of the link. I hope they will let us know what they thought of it. I bought a copy myself, and am entirely satisfied that it is a great bargain.

A friend (coff) bought a new computer, an external hard drive for it, and the latest Microsoft Office suite, disc version. Also, someone else bought a pair of Fujifilm flash memory cards.

Toys & Games: 3 jigsaw puzzles; a dinosaur themed one (cool! 100 pieces), a teddy bear (200 pcs) and the Brooklyn Bridge (2000 pcs–yikes!).

Shoes: A pair of MBT Women’s Lami Sneakers.

Music: One album; Monsterican Dream by Lordi, an import.

Nick-knacks: A 12 pc set of little skull & crossbone button ornaments.

And now, what we’ve all be waiting for. Movies!

The winner this month (I put a link up to it when it was on sale) was 3 copies of Mantango Fungus of Terror / Attack of the Mushroom People. I own it myself, I can’t imagine they didn’t consider the money to be well spent.

We also bought 1 copy each of Clash of the Titans (the real one, obviously); the awesomely delirious kung fu flick Fearless Fighters (again something I own); Forever Evil–which sadly I don’t own, despite the fact that it was written by an features an all too brief performance by the B-Masters’ own Dr. Freex, aka Freeman Williams; a combo disc for Frankenstein Created Woman / The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires; Lordi: Market Square Massacre (presumably the same person who bought the Lordi CD above); Metropolis The Restored Edition; the Ringu Anthology; a Silent Night Deadly Night set; The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (yay!); The Bermuda Depths (yay again) and a Blu Ray of There Will Be Blood.

And that wraps up August. Thanks for stopping by before you buy, everyone.

Doctor Who: The Creature from the Pit (Tom Baker)
Doctor Who: The King’s Demons (Peter Davison)
Doctor Who: Planet of Fire (Davison)

Lots of other good TV out this week, due to the fall season being about to start:

Chuck S3; Criminal Minds S5; Dirty Jobs Collection 6; Less Than Perfect S1; The Norm Show Complete Series; The Office S6; Pie in the Sky S3/4; Prime Suspect The Complete Series; Smallville S9; Supernatural S5

Meanwhile, pop culture fans might want to check Four Complete Ed Sullivan Shows starring The Beatles. Not just great for Beatles fans, I really like the idea of showing the entire episodes, which I’m sure will help place the Beatles in context.

On to movies:

A Fistful of Trinity These are not the comic Trinity spaghetti westerns, but rather four other films starring the team of Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer; 2 Missionaries (1974) Bud and Terence as holy men; Watch Out, We’re Mad (1974) The Trinity boys go after Donald Pleasance; Aladdin (1986) Bud as the genie in the lamp; Soldier of Fortune (1976) Bud as a shining knight with steel fists. Not everyone’s bag, but I can easily recommend the Trinity Two-Pack and the Hill / Henry Fonda movie My Name is Nobody.

The Phantom This is the recent DTV ‘updating’ of the venerable comic strip character, not the rather fun theatrical film starring Billy Zane.

More TCM Greatest Classic Film Collections, offering four great films for an entirely reasonable price. Ideal for people who never got around to collecting some of these earlier:
Gangsters: White Heat, High Sierra, Little Caesar, The Public Enemy. Those are all classics, starring Cagney, Bogart and Robinson.
Hammer Horror Horror of Dracula; Dracula has Risen From the Grave; Curse of Frankenstein; Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. Hmm, I would have gone with Dracula Prince of Darkness or Brides of Dracula rather than Risen from the Grave, but not a bad set at all.

THX 1138 The Director’s Cut Given what the ‘director’s cuts’ of the Star Wars movies were like, I’m not sure this will be an improvement.

DTV Horror
Growth
Headhunter: The Assessment Weekend

Here’s some stuff from last week, since I didn’t do a list.’

Thriller: The Complete Series As noted, I’ve been waiting for this show for a long time. However, the $150 MRSP means it runs about $100 even with the normal discounts, so I’ll be waiting for a severe price drop. That said, the set does offer the complete two seasons of the Boris Karloff hosted suspense show (some crime stuff, more famously a lot of supernatural material), with a ton of extras including 27 episode-specific commentaries, isolated music tracks by composers like Jerry Goldsmith, etc. All together about 56 hours of material on 14 discs, so actually the price isn’t really that outrageous. Still, I’ll rent from Netflix and buy when it’s on sale.

Other TV stuff:

Flash Forward Complete Series; House S6; NCIS Los Angeles S1; Parenthood S1; Persons Unknown S1; Sons of Anarchy S2; Vampire Diaries S1;

Some examples of ‘classic’ era Eurosleaze are out this week: Forbidden Dreams, Lorna the Exorcist and Sexy Radio.

The reviews were good for Michael Caine’s more straightforwardly Dish (oops) Death Wishian version of Gran Torino, Harry Brown. I can’t wait to see it.

OSS 117: Lost in Rio is the second of the French spoofs of ’60s spies films (in which OSS 117 was an actual character).

Point of Terror is a Brit suspenser starring the chick who was Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.

Yay, more Shaw Brothers! This time it’s The Iron Bodyguard, which apparently ranks high enough that it’s getting a deluxe 2 Disc Set.

DTV Horror:
Dead Eyes Open
Flesheater
The Spell

Coelacanth blood. Is there anything it can’t do?

Today at Amazon you can buy the entire run of the Monty Python’s Flying Circus TV show for $35 (!).

Meanwhile, if you’ve only ever seen Hugh Laurie on House, you can marvel as he plays a character of completely inverse intelligence on the celebrated adaptations of P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves & Wooster books, with Laurie’s old partner Stephen Fry as the butler who looks out for his daffy master. All for $21!

Either of these shows would make great Christmas presents, and believe it or not, that date is not as far off as you’d think.

Time to start figuring out what I’ve posted in the first 100 monsters, I guess.

Also on sale, Burn’s more recent The War, his WWII documentary.

Happy holiday, everyone!

“Wheeeeeeee!  Again!  Again!”

UPDATE:  By coincidence, the original artwork by artist Gil Kane is for sale on eBay right now; the owner is asking for $1300.  Anyway, look at the much more restrained art Kane provided.  He must have been pissed when he saw how goofily they retouched it.

Here’s some interior art for the comic, not by Kane:

Second update:  Just for grins, here’s the original magazine artwork for the story’s initial publication in 1941: