Ten Years Down...

What I looked like when I started blogging on April 23, 2005.

What I look like now.

I began blogging in this space on April 23, 2005. 

It's hard to believe that's ten full years -- and some 7,000 posts -- behind me.  

Time flies when you're having fun, I guess.

When I started this blog, I lived in another city, I was not yet a father (or a college professor, for that matter), and George W. Bush was our president. 

Star Trek was fading out on TV (Enterprise's cancellation was imminent), and the Star Wars prequels were coming to an end with the summer-time release of Revenge of the Sith (2005).

In terms of horror movies, found-footage films had not yet revitalized the genre, and we were still in the thick of the torture-porn age and seeing efforts such as (the incredible) Hostel (2005).

Back then, there was no Facebook for the public (though TheFacebook had been founded), and MySpace was huge.  

In 2005, I was writing Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), and prepping my web-series, The House Between (2007 - 2009) for production.

In the years since the blog started, I've also written The Rock and Roll Movie Encyclopedia, Music on Film: This is Spinal Tap, Music on Film: Purple Rain, Horror Films of the 1990s, Horror Films FAQ, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films of the 1970s, and Space:1999: The Whispering Sea. I've also become a regular columnist for Flashbak.

So a lot has changed, and a lot has stayed the same in the last ten years, I guess you could say.  

There have been many high points (the Chris Carter interview of 2009, Lance Henriksen Blogathon of 2011, and the totally unexpected [positive] response to my reviews of The X-Files: I Want to Believe [2008], Prometheus [2012], and Walkabout [1971] to name just a few).  

I'm trying to conjure up the bad stuff, or blog low-points, but I can't really summon any.  I suppose the lowest point of blogging here is, simply, cataloging those we lose.  

And losing Leonard Nimoy this year was the biggest gut punch of all.

So...how long will I continue to blog?

The short answer: Forever. (Or until Blogger turns out the lights, whichever comes first).

Actually, I'm just going to keep on trucking (or Trekking) until the (probably inevitable) moment when the blog starts losing its readership, and a new one doesn't show up. I'm already planning for Doctor Who's 100th Anniversary in 2063.

To all of you who have been here with me the whole time, part of the time, or even just arrived: thank you for visiting, and thank you for hanging around. 

Thank you for making this a great place to come to work every single day.  

Thank you for listening and reading as I sound off about my love and appreciation for horror, sci-fi, cult-television and everything in-between. You have made these last ten years an extraordinary, life-affirming experience. 

Now I gotta get back to work. 

This blog ain't gonna write itself.

Ten Years of JKM Reflections: Navarone Playset!

This look back at the Navarone Playset was originally featured on the blog August 1, 2012, and garnered several thousand hits...meaning that a lot of grown-ups remember playing with this particular toy as children.

As a child, I generally didn’t collect military toys, preferring instead sci-fi, horror, and fantasy merchandise.  But I made a happy exception for this incredible toy, the awesome “Navarone Playset.”

Apparently, his toy was “loosely” (meaning unofficially…) related to Alistair Maclean’s 1957 novel The Guns of Navarone, which concerned a team of Allied soldiers launching an assault on a German fortress on the (fictional) Greek island of Navarone.   

The novel was adapted to film as “the Greatest High Adventure Ever Filmed!” in 1961, by director J. Lee Thompson.  It was a huge hit, and spawned both a written and filmed sequel, Force 10 from Navarone.  The 1978 movie starred Harrison Ford and was directed by Guy Hamilton.

In real life, there was no Battle of Navarone, but that inconvenient fact did not prevent Marx Toy Company, in 1976, from producing this multi-level mountain fortress, replete with two armies.  As you can see from the graphic, it originally sold for under $15.00 dollars.

The version of the toy I own today, however, is not from Marx at all, but rather from Mego.  Thus I can only assume that Marx sold the Navarone Playset mold at some point between 1976 and 1980.  When I was a kid, I’m pretty certain I owned the original Marx version, and not the Mego re-do.  This molded-in-black Navarone (from Mego) is for my son, Joel.

Anyway, the Mego version you see here in photographs urges one to “Recreate the World War II Battle of Navarone with this unique and exciting action playset.”

Navarone comes with:

“Two foot-high mountain

2 complete armies (92 soldiers)

4 military vehicles

2 long-range cannons

Complete play area in front and back

5 play levels

Working elevator

Working hoist

Authentic WWII flag labels.”

Honestly, as a kid I didn’t want to relive the past with this awesome mountain playset.  Instead, I utilized Navarone as a base for the Galactic Empire with my Kenner Star Wars figures.  In fact, I remember having a number of great adventures with Navarone but almost universally in a sci-fi setting.  I remember one particular adventure in which the crew of the Enterprise (Mego; 1979) had to go behind enemy line -- the Romulan Neutral Zone -- and destroy the base.

Ten Years of JKM Reflections: The Insult Archive (Negative Reader Comments on my review of The Ghost Whisperer)

I've tailored my approach, obviously, but back in 2005, I wrote an extremely harsh review of Ghost Whisperer, a CBS TV series starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. You can read it here.

Well, die-hard fans of the series responded in force to my negative review back in the day, and I wanted to share their remarks and comments with you today, for old time's sake, and for the tenth anniversary of the blog.

This is the Ghost Whisperer fan base, undiluted, and I hope you enjoy reading their thoughts again as much as I have over the years.  All punctuation and spelling are original to the writers.

"What are you talking about. Ghost whisperer is the best. You are so negative. Whatever, everybody has their own opinion and yours is wrong!!!!

"Ghost whisperer is brilliant. You dont know what you are on about and you dont know what good tv is. I know what you think you wrote about it is funny but it isnt!!!!!!"

"So saaaaaaaadddddddddd I am late for this. The guy who wrote about it is basic, shallow, ridicolous and the type of guy who must surely have two frogos hopping inside his head. If you do not believe in ghosts or in the capacity of communicating with the dead..ok. But Please!! A little respect!!!! Well, I really do not know why to waste my time in someone like you... Surely the only series you like are Beavis and Butthead or maybe those basic and disgusting rockers from MTV."

"I just read your comments on the show Ghost Whisperer and even if I have read stupid comments before from other idiots like yourself, you have won the prize. You are clearly the definition of a true ASS !!!

"rwGhost whisperer is the best. If you don't like it don't watch it."

"Touched by An Angel was one of the greatest shows ever produced for TV!! Ghost Whisperer is right up their in the same category! What wrong would you rather have our children watch people killing each other and a other such negative shows? You got it wrong and need to be a big enough person to admit it!

"Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I don't think you gave ghost whisperer a chance. It is a really good show and I agree I would rather our children watch shows like ghost whisperer instead of all the sex, foul language and gorey shows that are on now. I think Jennifer Love Hewitt has real winner with this show."