#Gimel Everett
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The Lawnmower Man (1992)
The Lawnmower Man is a film at odds with itself. The story hates and fears computers while attributing magic abilities to them. The special effects department loves computers and uses them at every opportunity, even when practical effects would’ve been far easier. In the middle is the audience, forced to suffer through terrible dialogue and a laughable plot that entertains - but only in unintended ways.
Dr. Larry Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) works for Virtual Space Industries, using psychoactive drugs and virtual reality to augment the intelligence and combat effectiveness of his test subjects. After a chimpanzee goes on a rampage, Dr. Angelo pivots his research to focus solely on the intelligence-boosting treatments. He recruits his intellectually disabled greenskeeper, Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey) as a new test subject.
Even if this film was faithfully adapting Stephen King’s 1975 short story, he would’ve wanted his name removed. It boils down to a clumsy mash-up of Flowers for Algernon and Carrie (or Firestarter). When Jobe begins the film, he looks like Harry Dunne from Dumb and Dumber. He’s hanging out with his neighbor, a kid whose cartoonish father abuses his wife and son nightly. You know it’s only a matter of time before bad dad gets his comeuppance and that it’ll probably be a gruesome lawnmower-related death. Why else would the camera linger on its ridiculous design for so long? Then again, maybe he’ll get torn apart by Jobe’s emerging telekinetic powers. As far as superpowers go, they’re pretty useful, particularly once he also learns to read minds and project his thoughts. Meanwhile, his IQ skyrockets to genius levels. Too bad all of these skills fail to impress “The Shop”, the clandestine group funding Dr. Angelo’s research. What results they were after, I don't know. Their original plan of raising an army of ape soldiers pales compared to the destructive power Jobe now wields. It must be an ego thing, as “The Director” always appears on a giant TV screen the size of an entire wall when he’s holding meetings. Whenever he shows up, his camera’s zoomed in so close he’d be a shoo-in for Big Brother.
It’s hard to tell which is more comically evil; "The Director" or Jobe’s abusive adoptive father, Father Francis McKeen (Jeremy Slate). His death is one of the film's biggest disappointments. It shatters any leftover good faith you might’ve had towards the movie. Throughout, we see many shots of virtual reality that are about as enchanting as you'd expect considering the film was made in 1992 and only had a $10 million budget. Your kind heart wants to give the movie a break, thinking "It’s the best they could do at the time." Then, Father McKeen gets it and the effect is pathetic. Worse, it’s the sort of thing that has been done better thousands of times before and since. If director Brett Leonard can't get this simple thing right, there's no point giving The Lawnmower Man the benefit of the doubt; it's a bad movie.
The villains give you plenty to laugh at. The question is, will you laugh harder at them, the random bully that works at the gas station who continuously picks on Jobe, or at the intellectual titan’s girlfriend, a wealthy divorcee who makes bad inuendos and lounge around in her nightgown all day. It’s some of the least erotic material I’ve ever seen, which makes her scenes a riot.
This movie keeps getting wilder and dumber the longer it goes but also overstays its welcome. 108 minutes is too much - though it makes me wonder what the 142-minute director’s cut is like. What else prevents The Lawnmower Man from being a true bad movie classic? Mostly, the fact that the movie is "almost there" far too often. Though you’ll get a chuckle out of the dated special effects, you can tell they might’ve been impressive way back when. It’s not like the tombstone in Plan 9 from Outer Space. Also making you feel slightly bad for laughing at the picture is the ending, which is well done.
There’s an idea in The Lawnmower Man; it never quite comes together. Though it has occasional moments where you can see what the film wants to be and it might even reach its potential, they're drowned out by dated special effects, laughable villains, failed attempts at eroticism and a plot that makes less sense the more you think about it. How they followed this up with a sequel, I have no idea. If it’s as fun as this, I can’t wait to see it. (Theatrical version, August 20, 2021)
#The Lawnmower Man#movies#films#movie reviews#film reviews#stephen king movies#stephen king films#brett leonard#gimel everett#Jeff Fahey#Pierce Brosnan#Jenny Wright#Geoffrey Lewis#1992 movies#1992 films#horror movies#horror films
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#The Lawnmower Man#Lawnmower Man 2 Beyond Cyberspace#Farhad Mann#Michael Miner#Brett Leonard#Gimel Everett#90s
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446 : A-Z Commentaries – The Dead Pit
In Episode 446 we finally get to do an audio commentary for The Dead Pit with Ed and Nina Martinez. This was one of our Kickstarter stretch goals from 2022, and fits nicely with Z For Zombie in our A-Z commentaries series. Friend of the show, Ed Martinez was the Special Effects director of the film and has lots of behind the scenes insights.
Commentary: The Dead Pit – 1989
Directed by Brett Leonard. Written by Brett Leonard and Gimel Everett
Special Effects by Ed Martinez
Show Notes
Making of Dead Pit by Nina and Ed Martinez on YouTube
Trailer for The Dead Pit
Ed’s Mammoth Video
Decades of Horror with Ed Martinez
The Agnews Developmental Center in 2021
Coming Next
Hellraiser Quartet of Torment Coverage and Interview
News Episodes
Jericho Squad 77 Returns
A-Z Commentaries Z for Zombies: Evil Dead 2
More Boom Hellraiser comics discussion
And this podcast, having no beginning will have no end.
web www.clivebarkercast.com
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Opening Music is by Ray Norrish
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All Links and show notes in their Entirety can be found at http://www.clivebarkercast.com
New episode of the Clive Barker Podcast
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The Dead Pit will be reissued on Blu-ray on December 14 via Code Red, in conjunction with Kino Lorber. The 1989 zombie film includes a slipcover that matches the cover.
Brett Leonard (The Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity) directs from a script he co-wrote with Gimel Everett (The Lawnmower Man). Jeremy Slate, Cheryl Lawson, Stephen Gregory Foster, and Danny Gochnauer.
The Dead Pit was previously restored in 2K from the original camera negative. Special features - including a new commentary - are listed below.
Audio commentary by writer/director Brett Leonard, writer/producer Gimel Everette, and actor Jeremy Slate (new)
Interview with director Brett Leonard
Interview with writer/producer Gimel Everette
Interview with actor Jeremy Slate
Interview with actress Cheryl Lawson
Trailers
Dr. Ramzi, a deviant who enjoys torturing his patients, is killed by a fellow doctor and buried in the basement of a mental health facility. Twenty years later, the hospital is up and running again and a "Jane Doe" arrives at the institute with amnesia. Upon her arrival, a major earthquake rocks the building and unearths the now undead Dr. Ramzi and his legion of zombie patients so he can continue his work.
Pre-order The Dead Pit.
#the dead pit#dead pit#horror#80s horror#1980s horror#code red dvd#kino lorber#kino lorber studio classics#dvd#gift#the lawnmower man#jeremy slate#brett leonard#80s movies#1980s movies
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CALIFICACIÓN PERSONAL: 5 / 10
Título Original: The Dead Pit
Año: 1989
Duración: 95 min
País: Estados Unidos
Director: Brett Leonard
Guion: Gimel Everett, Brett Leonard
Música: Dan Wyman
Fotografía: Marty Collins
Reparto: Jeremy Slate, Cheryl Lawson, Stephen Gregory Foster, Danny Gochnauer, Joan Bechtel
Productora: Skouras Pictures
Género: Horror
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122037/
TRAILER:
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REEL TO REAL WAKE UP. Episode 10. The Lawnmower Man.
A weekly show breaking down and discussing movies and how what is depicted in them demonstrates what is happening in the world today and throughout creation. (With Dean Val Vitols, Tim Von Pinnon, Ronald Gust, Pearce Fennell and Kevin Smith). Episode 10. The Lawnmower Man. A 1992 science-fiction thriller-horror film directed by Brett Leonard, written by Leonard and Gimel Everett, and starring Jeff Fahey as Jobe Smith, an intellectually disabled gardener, and Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Lawrence "Larry" Angelo, a scientist who decides to experiment on him in an effort to give him greater intelligence. The experiments give Jobe superhuman abilities, but enhance his aggression, turning him into a man obsessed with evolving into a digital being. This film was adapted from an original screenplay entitled "CyberGod". The title comes from a 1975 short story by Stephen King.
https://www.duanethegreatwriter.net/
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Predator defecation, Digital Distribution & Poor Accounting
Deviboy has gone missing. What nefarious act has the DJ performed? Where is our co-host? Don't worry, he isn't dead, just busy.
It's enough to make your butthole clench. Or it would be, if you were a frog. A species of beetle has been discovered that used predator defecation in order to escape being lunch. It's a bit gross, but points for style.
It's time to enter the future and go entirely digital, according to Take Two's CEO. DJ likes his feelies too much to stop buying physical collectors editions though. Maybe we could convince him with a VR house full of VR collectables?
If you need motivation to get your accounting in order, it turns out animators in Japan are being short changed by the incompetence of the studios' finance teams. Poor business skills in a highly in demand creative industry? Say it ain't so!
This week DJ did nothing of note while Professor hiked across Iceland with a baby.
The beetle now has a special power : predator defecation
- https://www.inverse.com/science/scientists-discover-the-bizarre-way-this-beetle-escapes-almost-certain-death
- https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30842-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982220308423%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
Take Two CEO’s digital warning
- https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-08-03-take-two-ceo-its-a-matter-of-time-before-the-business-is-entirely-digital
Poor accounting = Low animator wages
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2020-07-30/tokyo-keizai-poor-accounting-at-animation-production-studios-is-the-reason-behind-low-animator-wages/.162383
Games Played
DJ
– DNP
Rating: 0
Dev-i-boy
– DEATH STRANDING -https://store.steampowered.com/app/1190460/DEATH_STRANDING/
Rating: 4/5
Other topics discussed
Donald Trump signs executive order effectively banning TikTok, WeChat in US in 45 days
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-07/trump-issues-tiktok-executive-order/12533938
Microsoft pushes ahead to buy TikTok after US President Donald Trump said he would ban the app in the US
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-04/tiktok-sale-to-microsoft-australia-us-impact-ban/12521546
Facebook launches its new TikTok clone, Instagram Reels
- https://www.smh.com.au/technology/facebook-launches-its-new-tiktok-clone-instagram-reels-20200806-p55izc.html
- https://www.engadget.com/instagram-reels-tiktok-rival-164624402.html
The Simpson : Homer is a giant
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_eRvJXw7b4
Wilson’s Flubber moment
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZhqwMmIBDY
Puffer Fish natural defense (The pufferfish's secondary defense mechanism, used if successfully pursued, is to fill its extremely elastic stomach with water (or air when outside the water) until it is much larger and almost spherical in shape. Even if they are not visible when the puffer is not inflated, all puffers have pointed spines, so a hungry predator may suddenly find itself facing an unpalatable, pointy ball rather than a slow, tasty fish.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraodontidae#Natural_defenses
The Simpsons – In the Belly Of The Boss (From treehouse of Horror 15)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQT5YtI9ecA
Acid Tolerance in Amphibians
- https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-abstract/35/4/239/225162?redirectedFrom=PDF
Take- Two Interactive (Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City and founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take-Two_Interactive
List of Take-Two Interactive games (It publishes games through 2K Games (Battleborn, BioShock,Borderlands,Evolve,Mafia, Sid Meier's Civilization, The Darkness, XCOM), 2K Play (Carnival Games), 2K Sports (NBA 2K,WWE 2K), Ghost Story Games, Private Division (Kerbal Space Program), Rockstar Games (Bully,Grand Theft Auto, L.A. Noire, Manhunt,Max Payne,Midnight Club,Red Dead) and Social Point (Tasty Town, Word Life).)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Take-Two_Interactive_games
Digital distribution of video games (In the video game industry, digital distribution is the process of deliveringvideo game content as digital information, without the exchange or purchase of new physical media.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_distribution_of_video_games
Cardboard disc included with Fallout 76 Power Armor PC edition
- https://www.shacknews.com/article/108552/cardboard-disc-included-with-fallout-76-power-armor-pc-edition
Playstation 5 : Digital Version vs Standard PS5
- https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/ps5-digital-edition-vs-standard-ps5-whats-the-difference
PlayStation Now (PlayStation Now (PS Now) is a cloud gaming subscription service developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The service allows members to stream PlayStation 2,PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4 games on PlayStation 4 and PC. PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 4 games can be downloaded to play locally on PlayStation 4.)
- https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/explore/playstation-now/
Google Stadia (Stadia is a cloud gaming service developed and operated by Google.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Stadia
Price increase for next-gen games is “justified”, says Take-Two CEO
- https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/gaming-news/price-increase-for-next-gen-games-is-justified-says-take-two-ceo-2720955
The G2A Controversy: What Actually Happened?
- https://www.indiegamewebsite.com/2019/07/23/the-g2a-controversy-what-actually-happened/
Digital Right management (DRM) (tools or technological protection measures (TPM) are a set of access control technologies for restricting the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
Denuvo (Denuvo Anti-Tamper, more commonly known as Denuvo, is an anti-tamper technology and digital rights management (DRM) scheme developed by Austrian software company Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH, a subsidiary of Irdeto.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo
Doom Eternal removes Denuvo
- https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-05-21-doom-eternal-removing-denuvo-anti-cheat-following-backlash
GeForce Now (GeForce Now is the brand used by Nvidia for its cloud gaming service.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_Now
You can play with mods on GFN
- https://www.reddit.com/r/GeForceNOW/comments/f3ber7/psa_you_can_play_with_mods_on_gfn/
Hollywood Accounting ((also known as Hollywood bookkeeping) refers to the opaque or creative accounting methods used by the film, video, and television industry to budget and record profits for film projects.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
Crunchyroll's Investigation - The Future of Anime Production in a COVID-19 World
- https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-feature/2020/07/02/the-future-of-anime-production-in-a-covid-19-world
Japanese Work Environment (Many both in and outside Japan share an image of the Japanese work environment that is based on a "simultaneous recruiting of new graduates" and "lifetime-employment" model used by large companies as well as a reputation of long work-hours and strong devotion to one's company.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_work_environment
Average Animator Salary in Australia
- https://www.payscale.com/research/AU/Job=Animator/Salary
Average Salary for Pixar Animation Studios Employees (Pixar Animation Studios pays its employees an average of $85,154 a year.)
- https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Pixar_Animation_Studios/Salary
Death Stranding is pretty much Iceland roaming simulator 2019
- https://www.sausageroll.com.au/entertainment/death-stranding-is-pretty-much-iceland-roaming-simulator-2019/
Heartman (Death Stranding character) (Heartman is a Bridges member who researches the Death Stranding.)
- https://deathstranding.fandom.com/wiki/Heartman
Die-Hardman (Death Stranding character) (Die-Hardman, born John Blake McClane, is the third and current President of the United Cities of America and Director of Bridges.)
- https://deathstranding.fandom.com/wiki/Die-Hardman
Deadman (Death Stranding character) (Deadman is a main character in Death Stranding. He appears to be involved in the medical field for Bridges. He is an artificial human, created from a combination of cadavers and stems cells.)
- https://deathstranding.fandom.com/wiki/Deadman
Batman: Arkham Knight PC port was a disaster
- https://www.pcgamer.com/au/batman-arkham-knights-launch-appears-to-be-a-disaster/
How to upgrade your PS4 Hard Drive
- https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/how-to-upgrade-your-ps4-hard-drive/
Blair (The Thing character) (Blair was the Senior Biologist of the U.S. Outpost 31. He is portrayed by Wilford Brimley.)
- https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Blair
All-or-None Law for Nerves and Muscles explained
- https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-all-or-none-law-2794808
John Hinckley Jr. (American who, on March 30, 1981, attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Washington, D.C.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hinckley_Jr.
John Hinckley’s release conditions (Hinckley was released from institutional psychiatric care on September 10, 2016, with many conditions. He was required to live full-time at his mother's home in Williamsburg, Virginia. In addition, the following prohibitions and requirements were imposed on him.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hinckley_Jr.#Release
Ricardo López (known as the "Björk stalker", was a Uruguayan-American pest control worker who attempted to kill Icelandic musician Björk in September 1996.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_L%C3%B3pez_(stalker)
Death of Garry Hoy (lawyer for the law firm of Holden Day Wilson in Toronto who died when he fell from the 24th floor of his office building in Toronto.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Garry_Hoy
The Lawmower Man (a 1992 science-fiction action-horror film directed by Brett Leonard and written by Leonard and Gimel Everett.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lawnmower_Man_(film)
Scared Sh*tless Podcast (TNC Podcast)
- https://thatsnotcanon.com/scaredshitlesspodcast
Shout Outs
29 July 2020 – ‘Phantom of the Opera’ Closes in West End After 34 Years Due to Coronavirus Impact - https://variety.com/2020/legit/global/coronavirus-phantom-of-the-opera-london-west-end-1234719396/
“The Phantom of the Opera” is the latest victim of the coronavirus pandemic. After a 34-year run at Her Majesty’s Theater in London’s West End theater district, Richard Stilgoe and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical won’t be raising its curtains again, according to producer Cameron Mackintosh. However, Lloyd Webber appears to be more optimistic about reopening, tweeting on Tuesday: “As far as I’m concerned Phantom will reopen as soon as is possible” – ALW.
1 August 2020 – Wilford Brimley, ‘Cocoon’ Star and Quaker Oats Pitchman, passed away at 85 - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/wilford-brimley-dead-cocoon-actor-937941
Wilford Brimley, a portly actor with a walrus mustache who found his niche playing cantankerous coots in “Absence of Malice,” “The Natural,” “Cocoon” and other films has passed away. InCocoon (1985), directed by Ron Howard, Brimley portrayed Ben Luckett, one of the residents of the Sunny Shores retirement home whose health miraculously improves after a dip in the pool next door. In the 1980s and 1990s Mr. Brimley was a television fixture as a spokesman for Quaker Oats, gruffly telling viewers to eat the cereal because “it’s the right thing to do,” and Liberty Medical, a company selling diabetes-testing supplies. He died from kidney conditions in St. George, Utah.
2 August 2020 – SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spalshdown - https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/schools/spacex-brings-nasa-crew-back-to-earth-in-first-splashdown-in-45-years-121561
Two NASA astronauts returned to Earth on Sunday in a dramatic, retro-style splashdown, their capsule parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico to close out an unprecedented test flight by Elon Musk's SpaceX company. It was the first splashdown by US astronauts in 45 years, with the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to carry people to and from orbit. The last time NASA astronauts returned from space to water was on July 24, 1975, in the Pacific, the scene of most splashdowns, to end a joint US-Soviet mission known as Apollo-Soyuz. The return clears the way for another SpaceX crew launch as early as next month and possible tourist flights next year. Test pilots Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken arrived back on Earth in their SpaceX Dragon capsule named Endeavour, less than a day after departing the International Space Station and two months after blasting off from Florida. Discovery and Science Channel’s simulcasted coverage Sunday of the return of the Space X Crew Dragon spacecraft from its two-month stint at the International Space Station was watched by 4.3 million viewers on the cable networks, Discovery said. To keep the returning astronauts safe in the pandemic, the recovery crew quarantined for two weeks and were tested for the coronavirus.
3 August 2020 – William English, Computer Mouse Co-Creator, passed away at 91 - https://hackaday.com/2020/08/03/william-english-computer-mouse-co-creator-has-passed/
William English, the man who was a key engineer in co-creating a computer mouse and gave the users the facility of moving images on screen, has passed away. Around 1960, English had joined Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) to aid him in the development of a predecessor of what is today’s computer. Their version of the computer has a brown box with buttons or mouse which was a key piece of their model since it helped users control the objects on a screen interface. William’s mouse was utilitarian: a wooden block with two perpendicular wheels on the bottom, and a pair of potentiometers inside to interpret the wheels’ X and Y positions. The analog inputs are converted to digital and represented on the screen. The first mouse had a single button, and the cord was designed to run out the bottom, not the top. William had played an important role in the ‘mother of all demos’ in 1968, during which Engelbart had used a split-screen video to show side-by-side the movements of a hand-controlled mouse and the on-screen movement of the cursor. Engelbart said that he did not know why the device was called a mouse, as it had started that way and they just never changed. Bill designed all the audio-visuals for the demo, set everything up, and staged the 90+ minute presentation by speaking to Englebart and others through headsets. He died from respiratory failure in San Rafael, California, on July 26, 2020.
4 August 2020 – Frances Allen, first woman to win Turing Award for contributions to computing, passed away at 88 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/frances-allen-first-woman-to-win-turing-award-for-contributions-to-computing-dies-at-88/2020/08/06/7ea7d7a2-d7f0-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html
Frances Allen, a former high school math teacher who became one of the leading computer scientists of her generation and, in 2006, was the first woman to win the A.M. Turing Award, considered the Nobel Prize in computing passed away. Renowned for her seminal work in optimizing the creation of computer software programs and high-performance computing systems, Ms. Allen earned her stellar reputation in the esoteric field of software compilers. Simply put, her efforts over a distinguished 45-year career at IBM helped software designers generate more-powerful and efficient code, which led to huge advances in the use of supercomputers and parallel processing, and eventually in all levels of computing. Her work, which set the tone for how people in the field think about compiler optimization, bridged the gap between how computers communicate and how people communicate, thus opening up the use of computers to scientists and engineers and others outside the glass-enclosed fortresses of the data centers. Allen became the first female IBM Fellow in 1989. She retired from IBM in 2002 but remained affiliated with the corporation as a Fellow Emerita. In 2007, the IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Award was created in her honor. She died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease in Schenectady, New York.
Remembrances
4 August 1875 – Hans Christian Andersen - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Christian_Andersen
Usually called H.C. Andersen, was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes and translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. His most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Little Mermaid," "The Nightingale," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Red Shoes", "The Princess and the Pea," "The Snow Queen," "The Ugly Duckling," "The Little Match Girl," and "Thumbelina." His stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated and live-action films. One of Copenhagen's widest and busiest boulevards, skirting Copenhagen City Hall Square at the corner of which Andersen's larger-than-life bronze statue sits, is named "H.C. Andersens Boulevard." At the time of his death, Andersen was internationally revered, and the Danish Government paid him an annual stipend as a "national treasure". He died from liver cancer at the age of 70 in Østerbro,Copenhagen.
4 August 1977 – Edgar Adrian - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Adrian
Edgar Douglas Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian, English electrophysiologist and recipient of the 1932 Nobel Prize for Physiology, won jointly with Sir Charles Sherrington for work on the function of neurons. He provided experimental evidence for the all-or-none law of nerves. Continuing earlier studies of Keith Lucas, he used a capillary electrometer and cathode ray tube to amplify the signals produced by the nervous system and was able to record the electrical discharge of single nerve fibres under physical stimulus. (It seems he used frogs in his experiments) An accidental discovery by Adrian in 1928 proved the presence of electricity within nerve cells. A key result, published in 1928, stated that the excitation of the skin under constant stimulus is initially strong but gradually decreases over time, whereas the sensory impulses passing along the nerves from the point of contact are constant in strength, yet are reduced in frequency over time, and the sensation in the brain diminishes as a result. Extending these results to the study of pain causes by the stimulus of the nervous system, he made discoveries about the reception of such signals in the brain and spatial distribution of the sensory areas of the cerebral cortex in different animals. These conclusions lead to the idea of a sensory map, called the homunculus, in the somatosensory system. Later, Adrian used the electroencephalogram to study the electrical activity of the brain in humans. His work on the abnormalities of the Berger rhythm paved the way for subsequent investigation in epilepsy and other cerebral pathologies. He died at the age of 87 in Cambridge.
4 August 2014 – James Brady - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brady
James Scott Brady, assistant to the U.S. President and the fifteenth White House Press Secretary, serving under President Ronald Reagan. In 1981, Brady became permanently disabled from a gunshot wound during the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. His death was ruled a homicide, caused by the gunshot wound he received 33 years earlier. On March 30, 1981, 69 days into his presidency, Ronald Reagan and his cabinet members, including Brady, were leaving the Washington Hilton Hotel when a gunman opened fire. The first of six bullets hit Brady. The gunman was 25-year-old John Hinckley Jr. Although Brady survived, the wound left him with slurred speech and partial paralysis that required the full-time use of a wheelchair. Kobrine, his neurosurgeon, described him as having difficulty controlling his emotions while speaking after the shooting, saying "he would kind of cry-talk for a while", and suffering deficits in memory and thinking, such as failing to recognize people. In 1996, Brady received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton, the highest civilian award in the United States. Brady died at at the age of 73 in Alexandria, Virginia. Four days later, the medical examiner ruled that his death was a homicide, caused by the gunshot wound which he sustained in 1981. Hinckley did not face any charges for Brady's death because he had been found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Famous Birthdays
3 August 1811 – Elisha Otis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Otis
Elisha Graves Otis, American industrialist, founder of the Otis Elevator Company, and inventor of a safety device that prevents elevators from falling if the hoisting cable fails. At the age of 40, while he was cleaning up the factory, he wondered how he could get all the old debris up to the upper levels of the factory. He had heard of hoisting platforms, but these often broke, and he was unwilling to take the risks. He and his sons, who were also tinkerers, designed their own "safety elevator" and tested it successfully. He initially thought so little of it he neither patented it nor requested a bonus from his superiors for it, nor did he try to sell it. After having made several sales, and after the bedstead factory declined, Otis took the opportunity to make an elevator company out of it, initially called Union Elevator Works and later Otis Brothers & Co. At the New York Crystal Palace, Otis amazed a crowd when he ordered the only rope holding the platform on which he was standing cut. The rope was severed by an axeman, and the platform fell only a few inches before coming to a halt. The safety locking mechanism had worked, and people gained greater willingness to ride in traction elevators; these elevators quickly became the type in most common usage and helped make present-day skyscrapers possible. He was born in Halifax, Vermont.
4 August 1834 – John Venn - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Venn
English mathematician, logician and philosopher noted for introducing the Venn diagram, used in the fields of set theory, probability, logic, statistics, competition math, and computer science. In 1866, Venn published The Logic of Chance, a ground-breaking book which espoused the frequency theory of probability, offering that probability should be determined by how often something is forecast to occur as opposed to “educated” assumptions. Venn then further developed George Boole's theories in the 1881 work Symbolic Logic, where he highlighted what would become known as Venn diagrams. He built rare machines. A certain machine was meant to bowl cricket balls. The machine was so fascinating that when Australian cricketers were visiting Cambridge, the machines were used to entertain their arrival. The bowl cricket ball machine that Venn built actually bowled out the top ranked player of the team four times consecutively. He was born in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire.
4 August 1975 – Andy Hallet - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Hallett
Andrew Alcott Hallett, American singer and actor who became known from playing the part of Lorne in the television series Angel (2000–2004). He used his singing talents often on the show, and performed two songs on the series' 2005 soundtrack album, Angel: Live Fast, Die Never. After moving to Los Angeles, Hallett worked as a runner for an agency and then as a property manager. He eventually became a personal assistant to Kai Cole, wife of Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon. When the couple and their friends saw Hallett singing at the "B.B. Kings" lounge at Universal City Walk, Whedon conceived a new character for his new show Angel: Lorne, an anagogic demon who reads the hearts and futures of his guests as they sing in his karaoke bar. Hallett was invited to try out for the part, and won it after three auditions. The character of Lorne was featured as a recurring character in 45 episodes before Hallett was added to the title sequence as a series regular for the last nine episodes of the fourth season, and all of the fifth; in total he appeared as Lorne in 76 of the show's 110 episodes. The character's demonic visage involved extensive prosthetic makeup and detailed coloring of his face, neck and hands, leading to early calls for at least two and a half hours of makeup before Hallett's filming day could begin. He was born in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Events of Interest
4 August 1936 – Jesse Owens wins long jump—and respect—in Germany - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jesse-owens-wins-long-jump-and-respect-in-germany
On August 4, 1936, American Jesse Owens wins gold in the long jump at the Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. It was the second of four gold medals Owens won in Berlin, as he firmly dispelled German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler’s notion of the superiority of an Aryan “master race,” for all the world to see. Owens would win his third gold medal and set his second Olympic record of the games in the 200 meters the next day. On August 9, he followed that up by helping his team set a new world record—39.8 seconds—in the 4 x 100 meter relay. Owens and Metcalfe replaced two American Jews, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, originally scheduled to run the relay that day. Later, the U.S. team was criticized for the move, which was thought to be an appeasement of Hitler and the Nazi party, who would likely have been even angrier to see Jews, already a frequent target of Nazi hate and harassment, bring home a medal.
4 August 1944 – Anne Frank captured - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/anne-frank-captured
Acting on tip from a Dutch informer, the Nazi Gestapo captures 15-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family in a sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse. The Franks had taken shelter there in 1942 out of fear of deportation to a Nazi concentration camp. They occupied the small space with another Jewish family and a single Jewish man, and were aided by Christian friends, who brought them food and supplies. Anne spent much of her time in the so-called “secret annex” working on her diary. The diary survived the war, overlooked by the Gestapo that discovered the hiding place, but Anne and nearly all of the others perished in the Nazi death camps. In 1947, Anne’s diary was published by Otto in its original Dutch. An instant best-seller and eventually translated into more than 70 languages, The Diary of Anne Frank has served as a literary testament to the nearly six million Jews, including Anne herself, who were silenced in the Holocaust.
4 August 1995 – Virtuosity premiered theatrically - https://www.scifihistory.net/august-4.html
Actor Denzel Washington has made a few quality stabs at Science Fiction. One of his earliest -- Virtuosity -- premiered theatrically on this day back in 1995. Virtuosity had an estimated budget of $30 million, but only made $24 million at the domestic box office. Here's the plot summary: "A virtual-reality serial killer manages to escape into the real world."
Intro
Artist – Goblins from Mars
Song Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)
Song Link -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNMe6kF0j0&index=4&list=PLHmTsVREU3Ar1AJWkimkl6Pux3R5PB-QJ
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The Dead Pit (1989) – Episode 159 – Decades of Horror 1980s
"I've done life; now I'm doing death." … and you’re still around to talk about it? Wow! Join your faithful Grue Crew - Bill Mulligan, Chad Hunt, Crystal Cleveland, and Jeff Mohr along with a special guest - as they investigate the zombies-in-a-mental-hospital world of The Dead Pit (1989) with the film’s director of special effects Ed Martinez.
Decades of Horror 1980s
Episode 159 – The Dead Pit (1989)
A renegade doctor is shot dead and entombed with his fiendish experiments in the basement of an abandoned wing of a mental hospital. Twenty years later, a mysterious woman is admitted with amnesia, and her arrival is marked by an earthquake - which cracks the seal to the Dead Pit, freeing the evil doctor to continue his work.
IMDb
Director: Brett Leonard
Writers: Brett Leonard, Gimel Everett
Cinematography: Marty Collins
Director of Special Effects: Ed Martinez
Cast
Jeremy Slate as Dr. Gerald Swan
Cheryl Lawson as Jane Doe
Stephen Gregory Foster as Christian Meyers
Danny Gochnauer as Dr. Ramzi
Geha Getzas as Sister Clair
Joan Bechtel as Nurse Kygar
Michael Jacobs as Bud Higgins
Mara Everett as Nurse Robbins
Randall Fontana as Orderly Jimmy
Jack A. Sunseri as Head Orderly Jensen (as Jack Sunseri)
Your Decades of Horror 1980s Grue-Crew is very fortunate to be joined this episode by special effects artist Ed Martinez, the director of special effects for The Dead Pit. Ed and the Grue-Crew talk everything from special effects to Jeremy Slate to director Brett Leonard to stories from the set. The Dead Pit features beau coup special effects including, but not limited to, a dentist drill to an eye, an exploding water tower, needles to the brain, melting zombies, and more zombies than you can count.
Your 80s Grue-Crew calls The Dead Pit an underrated film and definitely recommends it. As of this writing, The Dead Pit is available to stream on Amazon Prime with a Blu-ray scheduled for release August 25, 2020, from Dark Force Entertainment/Code Red.
Every two weeks, Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1980s podcast will cover another horror film from the 1980s. The film for their next episode is Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), chosen by Crystal.
Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: leave them a message or leave a comment on the site or email the Decades of Horror 1980s podcast hosts at [email protected]
Check out this episode!
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V. Innovation with a purpose
Do you remember The Lawnmower Man? It was a Hollywood blockbuster about Virtual Reality. It’s from 1992. Even back in 1992 some pioneering VR companies were touring shopping centres and TV studios with headsets not so dissimilar from the ones you see emerging today. How they worked, and what they did, was clear, even if why you would want them was not. Many of Made’s web developers weren’t even born back then.
No doubt in 1992, in performing arts centres around the world, artistic directors were rushing boardrooms, crying ‘VR changes everything - theatre as we know it is dead’. And perhaps - ultimately - it is. But it’s only just now, in 2017, that VR is reaching a point of convenience where it could feasibly impact on our work in a meaningful way. Of course any Performing Arts Centres to decide in 1992 to divert all their resources into VR would have gone bust long before that happened.
Yesteryear’s science fiction becomes today’s reality, eventually. The iPhone is the Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy made real.
And this is how we feel about many new bleeding-edge technologies. New technology is exciting. Most of the dreams we have about what a technology will do for us in the future come true. Yesteryear’s science fiction becomes today’s reality, eventually. The iPhone is the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy made real. But just because we reach the point when we can envision something, it doesn’t mean its impact is imminent. The event horizon for those technologies is often much more distant than we think. And when the technology does arrive, it often does so after several mis-steps, and in a subtly altered form.
Think of touch-screens and tablets. They existed one way or another for decades, but it wasn’t until the iPhone that we all saw how they really needed to work. You may even be old enough to remember the dotcom boom and bust. Today we order groceries, clothes and - yes - pet food online, and don’t think much about it. But the dotcom boom presumed we’d fall over ourselves to do so the minute it was technically feasible, then punished the pioneering companies that jumped too soon. Ironically, we all purchase our goods online from one of the few dotcom survivors, Amazon. But only because they persisted long enough to iterate until their experience attained pervasive convenience.
For an agency like Made the trick is to be aware without being naive. To comprehend the potential impacts of a technology, to envisage the ways in which it will change our lives, but to act on it just as the impact starts to crystallise.
Whilst we do maintain much older websites, we tend to think of the useful lifespan of a website as three to five years. So when we start work on a new website, we’re looking to address new technologies that will have a meaningful impact on our clients within a three year horizon. Whether it’s mobile, social, emojis or the latest Google algorithm, we need to act when the technology reaches a material tipping point, that’s going to move the needle for our clients. Yes, this kind of thinking led us to miss out on Pokemon Go (which has already Pokemon Gone). No, we don’t regret it.
In the meantime, it’s hard for us to get excited about a new technology in business hours if we can’t find an imminent use. And we won’t waste client billings conjuring up a use to serve the technology. We’re a technology design business, so while individually we’re going to get excited about robots and space travel, that’s not our raison d’être when we’re on the clock.
Required Reading
The Lawnmower Man 1992 science fiction action horror film directed by Brett Leonard and written by Brett Leonard and Gimel Everett.
FoMO a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent.
Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy fictional electronic guide book in the multimedia scifi/comedy series of the same name.
Next month: Mobile First.
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#The Lawnmower Man#Jeff Fahey#Pierce Brosnan#Mark Bringelson#Dean Norris#Brett Leonard#Gimel Everett#90s
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The Dead Pit (1989) — HORRORPEDIA ‘Drop in anytime.’ The Dead Pit is a 1989 American horror film directed by Brett Leonard (Feed; Man-Thing; Hideaway; The Lawnmower Man) from a screenplay co-written with producer Gimel Everett.
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Scream Factory has revealed the details for The Lawnmower Man Collector's Edition release, which hits Blu-ray on June 20. Joel Robinson designed the new cover art; the original poster will be the reverse side.
The 2-disc set includes both the director's and theatrical cuts of the 1992 sci-fi/horror film. It has received a new 4K scan of the interpositive, with the additional director's cut footage sourced from the original camera negative.
Named after - but bearing little resemblance to - a Stephen King short story, The Lawnmower Man is directed by Brett Leonard (Virtuosity) and stars Jeff Fahey, Pierce Brosnan, Jenny Wright, and Geoffrey Lewis.
Special features are listed below.
Disc 1 special features:
Theatrical cut of the film
Cybergod: Creating The Lawnmower Man – Interviews with co-writer/director Brett Leonard, actor Jeff Fahey, editor Alan Baumgarten, make-up effects artist Michael Deak, and special effects coordinator Frank Ceglia (new)
Audio commentary with writer/director Brett Leonard and writer/producer Gimel Everett
Deleted scenes
Vintage electronic press kit with cast interviews and behind-the-scenes footage
Edited animated sequences
Theatrical trailer
TV spot
Disc 2 special features:
Director’s cut of the film
Audio commentary with writer/director Brett Leonard and writer/producer Gimel Everett
Conceptual art and design sketches
Behind the scenes and production stills
Storyboard comparison
Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) is a brilliant scientist obsessed with perfecting virtual reality software. When his experiments on animals fail, he finds the ideal substitute – Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey), a slow-witted gardener. Dr. Angelo's goal is to benefit his human guinea pig and ultimately mankind itself, but evil lurks the guise of "the Shop," a shadowy group that seeks to use the technology to create an invincible war machine. When the experiments change the simple Jobe into a superhuman being, the stage is set for a Jekyll-and-Hyde struggle for the control of Jobe's mind and the future of the world.
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40: The Lawnmower Man w/ Mary Holland & Will Hines (Live in VR)
40: The Lawnmower Man w/ Mary Holland & Will Hines (Live in VR)
Mary Holland and Will Hines join me to watch The Lawnmower Man and discuss in Virtual Reality with a live audience how badly this movie’s premise is executed and how the CGI felt most likely outdated on the date of it’s release. IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104692/ Directed by: Brett Leonard Written by: Brett Leonard and Gimel Everett Starring: Jeff Fahey, Pierce Brosnan, Jenny Wright, Mark…
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There was a time in the world of technology when the use of Virtual Reality Studio (VRS) in movies was nothing more than a myth. But this myth was busted way back in 1992 when Gimel Everett’s The Lawnmower Man hit the theatres. Directed by Brett Leonard, the movie became a commercial success in Hollywood.
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