Random Access

Tuesday – 23 June 2009
This morning’s title comes from The Omega Man, the second movie of our Bad Movie Night double-feature, which I’ll get back to momentarily.

Chris and Mary came over for dinner and Bad Movie Night. We watched Balls of Fury, which neither SaraRules nor I had seen and the aforementioned The Omega Man. Balls of Fury is a movie follows former ping pong child prodigy, Randy Daytona, as he seeks entry into an exclusive tournament being held by Feng, the man who had Randy’s father killed years before. After the movie, Chris told us something about the film that was revealed in the special features: The movie was made as a kung-fu movie… without any kung-fu. After thinking about it for a few moments, we realized that was exactly what we’d seen.

The Omega Man is the 1971 adaptation of I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson. I have now seen all three adaptaions: The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price; The Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston; and I Am Legend, starring Will Smith. This was a good version and a decent adaptation of the original story. The basic premise was the same: An epidemic sweeps the world, killing off most of the population and transforming the remainder into a new offshoot species, leaving Colonel Robert Neville alone and outside. I realized something about this and the other I Am Legend-based movies: Each movie, while telling a variation of the same story, was a reflection of its time. In this case, there were many comments and themes that related to “The Man” draggin down civilization through war (being in the midst of the Vietnam War and Cold War eras) and technology. All-in-all, though dated, it was an enjoyable film.

Stray Toasters

• A collision between two Washington, D.C. Metro trains killed seven people yesterday (1, 2, 3)
• Ed McMahon dies at 86
• Mexican Cartels Lure American Teens as Killers
• How to Start Living in a Tiny House
• 
• While FAIL stickers are amusing, I am still more partial to I Park Like an Idiot stickers.
• Lancaster, PA keeps a close eye on itself
• The crap they built where the beautiful train stations were
• Production stills from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: TV preacher proves that only the Christian God is real
  It’s WTF not because of what he believes, rather because of the “logic” he uses to support his arguments.
• Audio slideshow: Splendour of Saturn

Right on to the friction of the day…

Namaste.