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1987 was a killer year for blockbuster movies. This was the year that The Princess Bride dazzled us, that Arnold blew us away in Predator, that Timothy Dalton’s James Bond scared The Living Daylights out of us, and that Robocop told us that there would be trouble. And yet, in this massive year for movies, which also included Fatal Attraction, Lethal Weapon, and freaking Dirty Dancing, one movie used a baby to put all the others in a corner. It was directed by Leonard Nimoy, Mr. Spock himself, and starred Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson. The film was...

Worldbuilding is one of the most important parts of fantasy, and one of the best parts of worldbuilding is working out how the characters get from A to B. Fantasy transportation doesn’t just add texture to a story; it can be a crucial part of the plot, and can also reveal a lot about character. For example, we learn a new side to the Percy Jackson series’ Thalia Grace when, during a flying chariot ride, we discover that this bold daughter of Jupiter is afraid of heights. Ideally, fantasy transport does all three, as in Neverwhere, where the characters are...

Holy shit you guys, I never really thought I’d see EGGSHELLS! It’s the weird psychedelic movie Tobe Hooper made in 1969 – five years before THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. According to Hooper it only really played about fifty times, and only in Texas. It had never been on video until 2013, when it was included as a bonus disc for Arrow’s Region B limited edition of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. I didn’t know about it in time to get it. But recently a copy of that disc was donated to the collection of Scarecrow Video, so I checked...

Residents are installing air quality and traffic sensors near schools and homes as more and more facilities open An Amazon last-mile facility, seen from the rooftop of a school in Red Hook, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. By Kaveh Waddell of Consumer Reports and Aliya Uteuova and Andrew Witherspoon of The Guardian This article was produced by Consumer Reports and the Guardian as part of a larger investigation into e-commerce warehouses. For the past year, a pair of plain-looking buildings has been at the center of a simmering conflict in a close-knit waterfront community in New York City. They look...

This is not one of those posts with beautiful photos of a clean, decorated house. This is what real life home renovation looks like in the middle of the mess with unfinished walls, exposed wiring, and old doors that need replaced. But… this is also progress being made, taking the time to figure out what makes the most sense for our needs and budget, and getting everything organized. If there’s one thing you probably know about me, it’s that I like my things organized… even my power tools in an old dirty garage. The next big project on my list is...