This one hits hard, the closest person I know that has passed away too soon.

Lyndell was my first boss in the film industry on Wizards of the Lost Kingdon II. Lyndell wanted nothing to do with me when the show's Art Director foisted me upon him. He handed me a broom and said get sweeping. I think I was referred to as a waste of skin. I started as unpaid intern. About two weeks later, Lyndell went to the bosses and told them I really should be getting paid for all the work I did.

We spent the next twenty years or so working together. On most jobs, he was my boss. For a number of shows, when we were both learning the ropes in the Union world, he was my partner. Then he became my boss again as people realized just how great a carpenter he was and put him in charge of projects. But he was unflinching in his perfectionism which cost him, as well.

One of the earliest stories I have of him and why I thought I could never be a carpenter happened at the Corman studios probably in my first month. I was walking through the Bone Yard where old set pieces were kept. Lyndell had set up a table to do some work, cigarette in one hand and machete in the other. With casual strokes, he lopped at a block of green foam. In an instant, a sitting panther emerged. It seemed effortless. If that was what you needed to do to be a carpenter there was no way I was going to make it. Later I learned that nobody does that, only Lyndell.

He used to carry around this box that carried a pipe he had carved. If you asked nicely, he would show it to you. It was from a piece of burl and all around the bowl of the pipe he had carved Tolkien figures complete with Smaug. He had carved it in such a way that there was an opening for your fingers between the 3D figures to actually hold the pipe. At one point, Lyndell was offered Ten Grand for the pipe.

I have never had bigger fights on set than I have had with Lyndell. There was a time on the film The Bodyguard that Lyndell had lost his driver's license and since we were partners, I drove us to work. We got into a knock down drag out fight about tolerances for gaps between floor boards. His tolerances were far tighter than my own. But that was to be expected. He worried how he was going to get home and get back to work the next day. He shouldn't have worried.

Because if anyone had your back it was Lyndell. On the film Tremors, knowing I had higher aspirations in film, Lyndell placed me with the shooting crew as the on-set carpenter so I could see up close and personal how films were made. It was an invaluable experience for me.

When I got in trouble with our bosses, we kind of drifted apart. But if there was ever a chance for him to bring me on a film, Lyndell would pick me up. We worked on some really big films together.

Lyndell always had health issues. There was one particularly grizzly experience when they had to shock his heart to get it into rhythm. He was awake for that. I can't remember, but I think he a defibrillator installed in his chest. At one point, while working, he fell from a ladder and shattered his hand. The X-ray showed a ton of metal holding all the bones in place in his wrist. That spelled the end of his film career.

He was always an artist. He loved to sculpt but settled on painting because he could produce. His latest subjects have been hyper-real depictions of antique motorcycles. He was a big hit at a local motorcycle show in Ventura called Chopper Fest. According to his wife, because of the health problems, he'd been unable to paint for the last six months or so. According to her he was looking forward to getting back to work once he got through this surgery.

I'm currently really pissed at Lyndell. I wasn't down with him yet. My plan was to go down to see him during his recovery. Now, I'm going down for a memorial service.

We did work together one last time. When I made Iron Crotch, I brought Lyndell on board to help out. No pay, of course. But I think he had a good time. He got to meet Master Tu. He got to see my flail around trying to make shots work. We had lunch with the Tu family in the back garden area. We quickly fell back into our old patterns of discourse as if no time had passed at all since last we were together.

I looked forward to getting into a film festival in Los Angeles so we could watch the film together.

This animated series was the first exclusively made for Amazon. It ran 2 8 ep seasons in 2019 & 2022. It’s rotoscope animation, very reminiscent in style and hallucinatory scenes to A Scanner Darkly. Rose Salazar (who I loved as Alita and in the ST tribble short) play Alma, who suffers a near death car accident that propels her into a world of delusion where she’s talking to her dead father (Bob Odenkirk who Im really starting to like) who was a theoretical physicist that may have solved time travel but then was killed. It doesn’t quite take off until ep 3 after the hallucinations kick in, but that’s where I’m at now and it’s mind-bending fun. EPS are just over 20 mins and I shall watch more.

Maa Kali Mahakali | Antara Nandy |Ankita Nandy | Vikram Montrose |Meggha B| New Durga Puja Song 2025

Doc Ock and Aunt May form a strange bond in this melodrama set in the Pacific Northwest. Aunt May cleans up after hours at the local aquarium. Doc Ock longs to escape his aquarium and return to the Ocean. Into their life comes Cameron, living in his barely running van, looking for his missing father to get some badly overdue child support. Cameron takes over for Aunt May after she gets injured at the aquarium. Aunt May tries to turn Cameron's life around. Doc Ock wants to help both of them before he shuffles off this mortal coil.

Meanwhile Miles O'Brien, on leave from his engineering job I guess, runs a local market/coffee shop and pines for Aunt May, all the while sporting vintage Grateful Dead T-shirts and reminiscing about the years he followed the Dead.

Yep, it all turns out right in the end despite the various twists and turns. There is even an appearance from Miss Kettlewell from Child's Play 2, so you know it's good.

If you are looking for a good weepy, look no further. No sword fights.

The title of this film is translated to be more prurient than it is. IN Japanese, it reads 'woman invisible' which may conjugate to kunoichi somehow but I don't quite know how Japanese conjugation works. 

It's about a squad of female ninjas that infiltrate a political coup and restore order to a fiefdom. The ninjettes (official DM tern for kunoichi) dress like geishas and work their way into the usurping gang's midst, mostly within their gambling/whorehouse because that's what Japanese baddie do. They have these armulet globes that when activated, shoot out weak (90s? more like 70s) special effects of butterflies. My favorite scene is when one of the nineties, dressed in a normal kimono, is captured by random wannabe rapists. She unleashes the butterflies, the rapists freak out, and then she dispatches them all with swift kicks to the nuts. The main ninjette doesn't show her prowess until she strips down to her ninjette uniform that shows her thighs in fishnets. There's a lot of thigh exposing, but not quite enough to earn the title 'vixen'. Note that there are posed breasts, also kinda random. The lead ninjette is cool. Fight choreo is mediocre at best - dated in style and execution. 

Not overly D00M recommended. This is the start of a trilogy and I'll probably watch more. 

Seen here: 

Baian is an acupuncturist assassin who kills with a long needle to the base of the skull. It’s a slow, brooding and beautiful movie, one of those jidaigeki films where every frame is composed like a ukiyo painting. It took me a while to get into it. There’s some fight choreo, including a nice scene where one character has to take an a gang of attackers, but mostly it’s about intrigue and suspense. There’s a lot of eating, a strange focus on food, and drinking sake with loud slurps and gulps. That was somewhat distracting but served as a grounding mechanism. The ending mcguffin was intense. Did not expect to go there and it made the journey worth it. 

There’s a part 2. It’s based on a novel and there’s a previous TV interpretation. I’ll probably give the sequel a go.

Not overly D00M recommended but a good story so far.

Seen censored on YouTube (there a sex scene that blurred ai all you get is a few minutes of mowing. ignore the John Wick comment in the title -that’s so misleading).

—tg

Marty is a pushy, annoying hustler who happens to be good at ping pong. 

It's an OK story, but Marty is an unlikable character and you just want to see him get smacked down so maybe he'll stop being such and asshole. 

The title credit sequence is perplexing (until later in the film).

Also perplexing: the film is set in the mid-fifties, but the soundtrack is heavy with 1980's synth pop, eg: Peter Gabriel's "I have the touch". It doesn't fit at all.

Not terrible...not great. I thought Fran Drescher was good as his mom, and I don't usually like her. 

--tg

NOTES:

Dabin as in dab in not dah-bin
Last time I was here for rock med was the Grateful Dead 5/6/89
342 Jennifer verage
So wasian so kawaiiiiiii
Some folks rockin tradition qipao & robes. Where the f was this when I was growing up? Avante garde man. It’s a curse to be before your time.
2nd guy is a singer who sux - harshing my buzz
Keenan  le or something like that. Like a pop singer. Bumming me out. Who programs this in the middle of an edm show.
Cosplayers from valorant video game
Hello Kitty meets studio ghibli rave
Nurko and we’re back to edm . We stage right beneath the speakers 
Fun bouncy bass drops
First call - my team rocked it. Good save
2nd call immediately after - ver age’s 1st show - beginners luck.
Bumped into TC it Matt, fresh back from Coachella but got call 2 and had to run
Juelz v chyl - pyro is lot
3rd call - Verage has noob fever 
Table service - a chance to sit my ass down 
Gal to pick up
Dabin ok
Jason mraz 
Another guest
2 more calls
I’ve lost count. Busy night
Now waiting for a ride to pick up another drunk gal in lingerie - Thar kind of night