The View From The Mountain

I had this 1/1000th scale model kit (from Polar Lights) of the Klingon D-7 battleship from Star Trek on my hands. So I decided to build a space dock for it. I knew I wanted some kind of gantry covering the ship on top, so I used these plastic girders from Evergreen and assembled them into the basic shape of the D-7. I scratch-built the buildings you see on the gantry from styrene sheet. Then I covered them with greeblies--these are bits and pieces of model kits that I placed on the surface of the buildings to give them some texture. I also made sure to give the D-7 plenty of battle damage, so as to give it a good reason to come in for repairs. And so, after a really rambunctious time on the Romulan DMZ, the Klingon Battlecruiser K'Prang pulls in for repairs and some blood wine. Then it...

Back in January of this year, Netflix premiered Woman of the Dead , a crime thriller from Austria with slight supernatural overtones. I figured I’d give it a shot, since I was in the mood for a good Lifetime-type crime story. Do you know what I mean when I refer to these Lifetime TV movies? They’re goofy crime “thrillers” regarding soccer moms who become amateur sleuths that wind up being so silly that they’re more unintentionally funny than anything else. But within the first fifteen minutes of its first episode, Woman of the Dead proves itself to be more of a Hitchcockian thriller: a darker, high-brow, and sophisticated thriller that’s genuinely exciting. Anna Maria Mühe stars as Brunhilde Blum (everybody calls her Blum), an undertaker in a small Austrian mountain town where it seemingly snows all year round. Her beloved husband works as a cop with the local police force--until the moment when he gets savagely run down on his motorcycle by a black Range Rover that abr...

Released in June of 1973, The Legend of Hell House was a supernatural gothic horror movie that was based on the book, Hell House , written by Richard Matheson. On the surface, The Legend of Hell House can be seen as a remake of The Haunting , the 1963 classic ghost story movie that was adapted from The Haunting of Hill House , the equally classic Shirley Jackson novel. Both films deal with paranormal investigators probing a legendary haunted house, but Matheson’s take on the story was different in that science played a stronger role, and Hell House had a very nice twist at the end. Directed by John Hough (he also helmed Twins of Evil , and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry , among others), Hell House abruptly begins when physicist Dr. Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill) is called to the estate of a millionaire (Roland Culver), who makes him an enticing offer: take a paranormal team to The Belasco House, otherwise known as “the Mount Everest of haunted houses,” to determine if ...

After a disastrous first attempt at making a movie in 2000, with Dungeons & Dragons , they’ve tried it again in 2023 with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves . And this time, they’ve scored a bullseye in creating a very successful quest. Fresh from the behind the scenes shenanigans of the vastly disappointing Don’t Worry Darling , Chris Pine stars (and also has a producer credit) here as charming thief Edgin Darvis, who breaks out of jail with his partner in crime Holga Kilgore, played by the always great Michelle Rodriguez. Edgin is eager to reconnect with Kira (Chloe Coleman), his young daughter, whom he left behind when he and Holga got caught while trying to pull a heist. They were out to score a magical amulet that would have brought Edgin’s deceased wife back from the dead. But, Edgin discovers that his old partner, Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant)--who promised Edgin that he would take care of Kira--has become the ruler of the city of Neve...

The first Ant Man movie was a pleasant surprise when it was released back in 2015. Paul Rudd starred in the title role as a man who can shrink himself down to the size of an ant (and more), thanks to a special suit. The film was well-directed by Peyton Reed, who took over at the last minute from director Edgar Wright ( Shaun of the Dead ). While Ant Man is considered a second-tier hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he’s been around since his first appearance in 1962, in the comic Tales To Astonish , having been created by such big-league comics talents as Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby. The first Ant Man film worked superbly by having its titular character operate as a street level hero. Rudd plays Scott Lang, an ex-convict who’s struggling to make it in the world, only to fall back into a life of crime, thanks to Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his grown daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly). Hank was the one who created the Ant Man suit, and the mo...

I’ve always loved the paranoid thriller. It’s the type of thriller that sees our hero either go on the run (usually for something that they didn’t do), or try to deal with such a vast, monolithic conspiracy that it makes them want to go on the run. Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest , Oliver Stone’s JFK , and The X-Files all immediately come to mind as the type of paranoid thriller that I love. These are the kind of manic, gotta-keep-moving, paranoid thrillers that leave their heroes unable to trust anybody, even their dogs (“Et tu, Rover? You little Shih Tzu!”). Three new paranoid thriller TV series are available on streaming right now, and the first of these I’ve watched is The Diplomat , on Netflix, starring the sublime Keri Russell. An explosion aboard a British aircraft carrier creates an international crisis that Kate Wyler (Russell), the newly appointed American ambassador to England, must avert. Wyler is a veteran Foreign Service officer who’s used to doing a l...

Back in the 1980s, I got caught up in the whirlwind of the Dungeons & Dragons craze (a craze that's still going strong today) and bought myself one of their dragon kits. I never got around to actually building and painting this kit until very recently. It was the new D&D movie starring Chris Pine that actually spurred me onward. I was also inspired to build this after watching the fantastic House of the Dragon TV series. And here she is, in all of her glory. I had to glue on the wings with superglue, then secured them in further with putty. I then painted her with a burgundy red and green paint job, with a honey brown color painton her legs and underside. I also used a black wash on the figure to really bring out the great sculpt job. She came already standing on a rock base, which I glued down to a large block of solid wood. The wood base worked well, because the dragon, being solid metal...