Witchfinder General

Well I finally found and purchased "Witchfinder General" on DVD.
I discovered that Vincent Price isn't really on the screen that much, considering he has the title role, but.....
Ian Ogilvy as "Richard Marshall", a soldier in Cromwell's army, is really the main character of this film.
I grabbed a few images from the film featuring Mr. Price as Matthew Hopkins. I can see why it's not really classified as a "Vincent Price" movie, because he plays his character VERY seriously without any of the quirkiness or campiness sometimes known in his other characters.

Apparently on the first day of shooting, Mr. Price fell off his horse and retreated to his hotel room (he stayed in the "Dicken's Room") for the rest of the day where he rested wearing a white nightshirt and nightcap! He refused to see an English doctor saying they were all quacks!

Here's a great sinister facial expression:
The character to the left was Hopkin's assistant, and man was HE EVIL! He's the one that did all the torturing, while Hopkins said, "Carry on, you are doing God's work."
Here they have a little confrontation...it's the one part of the film that showed some of that "Vincent Priceness" that we all know and love.
I unfortunately couldn't get better images of this scene, which takes place in the dungeon of an old castle. There are a lot of camera moves and fairly fast cutting going on. The film deals with very disturbing subject matter....not so much the religious aspects but just what ignorance and anarchy can fuel.
It takes place during the civil war in England and there is no concrete government. The film reminded me a bit of a Western.....where there's no law and people are slaughtered unjustly and one man (Richard Marshall) tries to fight back. Everybody seems to be taking the law into their own hands and the ending of the film leaves you feeling very hollow and disturbed.

Ah Spring!

Ahhh! How I love daffodils! Last year I dug a new garden and moved some bulbs from the backyard into the front. I also planted a few daffodil bulbs and waited to see what would come up. Well I am delighted to have these little beauties growing in front of my house:



Here is a beautiful purple tulip that was once in the backyard.

And here's my "competition"....Rich's parents are Dutch and this is one of their front gardens.



All the neighbours remark on how beautiful these tulips are. Being right next door to us I get to see them every day, but they really don't bloom very long, so I decided to capture their splendor with my camera. I'm surprised the photos turned out so well, as there was quite a breeze causing the flowers to sway and not sit still!

Some OLD Eek Layouts

How many of you have seen a show called "Eek The Cat"? I just recently watched a couple of episodes on YouTube. Ah, what a walk down memory lane. That's back when we still did everything on PAPER....with a PENCIL....different coloured pencils....and we used a Field Guide....and I don't mean the type you take out with you while bird watching.
Anyhow....here are a few typical layouts that we would do for posing purposes. The backgrounds and overlays etc. would have been done on separate sheets of paper, which I must have lost. Everything was registered on peg bars and drawn on a light-table. I'm not sure peg bars are even used anymore....especially not if using a digital program like "Flash".
This was a secondary character named "Mittens" who was a bit neurotic due to his doting but clumsy owner, Granny. Here he is falling down a short flight of steps at the front door, so we had to indicate a camera move to follow him.

The Shadow Knows!

Recently I've been reading a bunch of old Shadow pulps (courtesy of Rich's collection) and I've become a huge fan of the Shadow! I love the slogan,"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit!" I have come to the conclusion that "Batman" is a rip-off of the Shadow. These books were written in the early 1930's (most of these pictured here are reprints from the '6o's) But Batman didn't come into being until the late 1930's. I don't know enough about the subject really, but the Shadow is a really impressive character!
One thing I found amusing was that these two books have their covers switched. The story "The Crime Cult" should have the illustration from "Hands In The Dark" and vice versa.

Anyway, the Shadow books have been keeping me company on the subway to and from work everyday. I'm going to have to seek out more once I've finished reading these ones.

Pet Dogs of the Past

My Dad has recently undergone a heart operation and it has got me thinking about how quickly we age and all that stuff. It's interesting how much times have changed and people's pets seem to be reflecting those changes also. Back when my Dad was young....back in the late 1950's he got himself a dog. He named the dog "Shane" and he was a German Shepherd.

Shane was a beautiful dog with a gentle nature. Our Dad loved him.

Here's a photo of our Mom with Shane, (with one of her brothers as well).
Sadly, Shane died of cancer and didn't live a long life.
We also lost Mom to cancer 15 years ago.

The next dog my parents got was "Duffy". He was a Shetland Sheepdog, but he wasn't as good natured as Shane and always tried to "herd" us kids. That's me as a baby in the photo. Duffy was eventually given away to a new home.

The dog I have the best memories of was "Ginger". She was a Lhasa Apso and we got her when I was about 12 years old. I'm probably 14 in this photo. We used to do silly things with her, like put sunglasses on her. She was a cute dog, but she could be somewhat aloof when she wanted to be.....unless you had food...then she'd hang around until you gave her some.
She ended up dying of a heart attack when she was around 14 years old.

Now this dog is "Molly". She's a Bichon Frise. In this photo my son was just a baby. He's 11 years old now!
Molly is owned by my Dad and stepmom. But I don't think Molly's going to be around much longer....she's around 14 years old...and has some breathing problems.

Well, I hope this post wasn't too boring.....I guess I did it more for myself than anyone.

I Just Saw "Coraline"

WOW! This film is visually STUNNING! It was an absolute feast for the eyes! Here are some stills I grabbed from the web. These images do not do the film justice. It was beautiful!
I saw it in 3D....with the glasses....and it was absolutely breath-taking.






I think what impressed me the most is that it was done in traditional stop-motion. I LOVE the fact that they built actual sets and used real lighting. It created an atmosphere that you just don't get with CG alone.
Look at this house! Isn't that just gorgeous!? Okay...I'm biased because I LOVE dollhouses. But still......
Apparently, all these cherry blossoms were made from pink painted popcorn!

I highly recommend this film. I took my kids, and although my 8 year old was a little frightened at some parts, I still think it was very family friendly, but NOT sappy. The music was great too.

Mini Valentine Chocolates

For Valentine's Day, my Sweetheart got me this beautiful heart-shaped box filled with lovely dark chocolates from Purdy's Chocolates.

So I decided to make a miniature box with polymer clay chocolates.

Here's a close-up:
And here they are being modelled by one of my daughter's favorite Barbie dolls, Leah, for scale.