The mail order ads in comic books were always promising something amazing, something that seemed too good to be true. The Spy Pen was one of the few things that delivered on what it promised...sort of.
Nowadays, if you're looking for a spy pen, you'll find them with an audio recorder, hidden camera, or even a USB drive built into them. This ad from 1971 promises the ability to see through walls!
You may wonder what miracle of modern 70s technology could perform this Superman-like feat. What could be so amazing to be the "greatest espionage device ever used by German intelligence during WWII and now used by Inter-Pol"?
The answer is: a drill.
Yep, a tiny drill built into the pen will make an "unnoticeable hole right through the toughest plaster or wood. Even someone standing near the wall will not hear the hole being drilled."
Once you drill the hole, you insert the pen into it to use its 172° wide angle lens to be able to view the entire room. And the best part? You can photograph through the lens!
This is the kind of thing that sounds awesome as a kid and pretty sketchy as an adult. I have to wonder how many annoyed parents had to patch holes in their walls because their kid got one of these.
And just like that, we're into the summer movie season. This month has a pretty wide range in the terms of movie quality. In addition to the stuff below, I caught up with new seasons of Bill Nye Saves the World and The Toys That Made Us, both on Netflix. I also discovered The Witching Season (Amazon/YouTube) Halloween short anthology. All of which I highly recommend because if you're on this blog, these shows should be up your alley.
We're six movie in, you know what you're going to get here. Maybe I'm getting worn out on graboids and ass-blasters or maybe this movie was just okay. I mean, it's not terrible, it's just more of the same.
Ice? Ice? Baby: Don't get too excited about seeing Tremors on ice. Even though it takes place in the Arctic, there's some kind of "global warming" thing going on so it still looks like they're in the desert.
And on the other fin, this is a terrible sequel. I suspect the only reason they threw a 2 at the end is so that people wouldn't assume it was a remake/reboot, which is exactly what it is. Just how bad is this movie? There's maybe a good 11 seconds of gore, the rest is mostly horrible acting in the same partially flooded section of corridor using different color lights to make it look like it's not the same section of corridor being reused.
Shark. Bull Shark: The absolute best part (aside from it ending) is the Bond-esque opening titles. If they could have carried this same sensibility throughout the movie, it might have been fun.
Imagine combining the original Battlestar Galactica with Top Gun. Now imagine it's a SyFy Original Movie. Maybe it's not quite that bad, but it's close. I had a hard time following the plot and why they had to do what they were doing. It felt like a bunch of generic sci-fi stuff tossed together, nothing felt quite right about the whole thing.
Sub Space: There are a couple things I did like. One, it's just about a WW2 submarine movie in space. And two, the fighter plane design of the ships.
Rating: 3/10
Evil Genius (2018, Netflix)
Not really a movie but a 4 part documentary on a true crime that seems too crazy to be real. I'm listing it here because I found it to be just that good. I don't remember hearing about the "Pizza Bomber" when it happened but I was hooked after the first 10 minutes or so. I usually rate documentaries on a pass/fail. This one definitely passes!
Deadpool 2 (2018)
Did you like/hate the first one? Then you'll like/hate the second one. It's more of the same but in the best way possible. All the jokes, raunchy humor, and fourth wall breaking you'd expect. Plus, more Colossus, which is a good thing in my book!
Body Slide by One: Little confused with the post credits scene because I''m not sure if it's a joke because they can or if it really changes anything that happened.
Rating: 8/10
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
When this was first announced, my thought was "Do we need this?" I got more interested as the trailers came out and was as surprised as anyone when I walked out wanting a sequel. It's a fun ride once it gets going and I really liked everyone in it, especially Lando and Chewie.
Let the Past Die: As much as I liked this, I think Disney needs to stop catering to us old timer fans and stop dipping into the well of the original movies. I don't need back story movies for the characters I grew up with, leave that to books. I want new stuff in my Star Wars movies, the galaxy is a huge place, there's plenty of room to use Star Wars as a backdrop to tell other stories.
Rating: 8/10
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017, Redbox)
Unlike Deep Blue Sea 2, this is an actual sequel that (sorta) ties into the original. Also unlike that other movie, I had fun watching this one. It's like a mobile game: you spend a couple hours with it, might not remember too much about it later but you know it was a decent time. One of my favorite scenes is Jack Black (acting like teenage Miss Thing) trying to teach Karen Gillan (acting like introverted teen girl) how to flirt.
The amazing folks at the Internet Archive are making sure we don’t lose our gaming history. This time, they're preserving some of the electronic handheld games you may have grown up with in the 70s and 80s.
The Archive's Handheld History page features over 70 games all playable right from your browser. As you can see from the screen grab, they have the Coleco tabletop arcade cabinets, Merlin, and a slew of Tiger Electronics handhelds like Batman, Robocop and even Battletoads. They also have favorites like Tamogotchi and Speak N Spell.
It's a great nostalgia rest stop on the information superhighway. Some of the games have their manuals on the game page as well so you can try out those games you always wanted but never got. Playing a game you don't know without the manual can be frustrating!
I was thrilled to see they have Tron so I was finally able to experience it some 34 years after it was released. I managed to get by the lightcycles but have yet to defeat Sark in the disc toss.
Head on over the the Archive and get your game on!
