RONDO AWARD NOMINATIONS!

A few photos of my Rondo Award-nominated article When Famous Monsters Gave In To The Force: Star Wars & The End Of The Classic Monster Magazine, which appeared in issue #23 (December 2015) of Monster! This article looked at that period between 1977-78 when the highly influential Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine kicked the actual monsters to the backseat and became a virtual Star Wars fan magazine, reaching such a saturation point that even interior ads hawking new Star Wars products for sale received their own front cover headlines! Still stunned and surprised but very honored and excited by the nomination (as well as this blog receiving a nomination in the Best Website/Blog category for the second year running!

Visit the Rondo website for all the nominees and details on how to vote:

www.rondoaward.com

70s MONSTER MEMORIES

Currently writing a review for Weng's Chop of this magnificent new 400 page full-colour UK softcover which is pretty much like a time capsule of everything that made being a horror and monster movie fan growing up in the 70s so much fun. An expensive volume but well worth every cent.

www.webelongdead.co.uk

THE CHINA SYNDROME

Saturday matinee viewing. Been an age since I watched this 1979 movie from James Bridges all the way through. It's a pretty taut and nicely constructed conspiracy/thriller which also dances on the outskirts of the disaster genre so popular that decade. Great performances from Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon (both Oscar-nominated) and Michael Douglas (who also produced). Fonda's role, as TV newswoman who investigates the cover-up of a near-disaster at a nuclear power plant in California, certainly suited the actress during her years of political activism, and the film received a huge profile boost being released only a week before the infamous near-nuclear meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Some parallels to the mysterious 1974 death of nuclear facility health activist Karen Silkwood can be seen in the screenplay (in fact, this and Mike Nichols' 1983 film Silkwood would make a great double-bill).