celebration of B movies on the Web, Badmovies.org is an almost overwhelming source of information on flicks with a high cheese factor. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the detailed film summaries on this site cover SF and horror pictures, giving genre fans a long list of delights to
explore, from The Abominable Dr. Phibes to Zarkorr! The Invader.
The bulk of Badmovies.org's content is composed of what it calls movie reviews, but the term review is something of a misnomer. The site's creators do not content themselves with offering their bluntly honest opinions of cinematic greats like Fiend Without a Face or Humanoids from the Deep. In addition to detailed write-ups on the characters and plot of a film, they provide screencaps, sound clips, a minute-by-minute account of things to watch for and sometimes theme songs, too. For most films, there is even a tongue-in-cheek list of things the reviewer learned from watching the movie. (A sample lesson derived from The Angry Red Planet: "If it looks like a man-eating plant, then it probably is a man-eating plant.")
Badmovies.org also has interviews with a number of B-movie directors and actors, a lively message board, a beautifully indexed links area and even a T-shirt for site fans. Its news section is up to date and provides inside dirt on upcoming B-flick releases, studio gossip and more. Truly a labor of love, the site will absolutely delight any B-movie fan who isn't already a devoted visitor.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—December 9, 2002
osted by artist Slawek Wojtowicz, The Ultimate Guide to SF Art on the Web is just what it claims to be—a listing of Web pages and artwork for over 1,100 SF artists, from John Abrahamson to Yasuhiko Yoshikazu.
In addition to offering an easy one-stop gateway to the home pages of individual artists working in SF, fantasy and horror, this index includes studios, galleries, collections and reference sites. One such site is Dreams of Space, which discusses SF art for children's books. Another non-traditional site—one which should definitely not be missed—is Urbicande, a French graphic arts project about obscure cities. The range and style of the various art up for view on these pages varies considerably, offering something for every aesthetic palate.
The featured pages in the guide do not all focus on SF paintings, though. Alaska Dreamer Studios is a jewelry site, while The Beautiful Decay features illustrated poetry. The Cyberplayers offer a unique hybrid of picture book and fantasy-themed theater on the Web. There are also sites on dinosaur model-building, fantasy knives, animation and the storyboards of some major
SF films.
There is nothing to The Ultimate Guide to SF Art on the Web beyond its list of links—and naturally a small proportion of those are out of date—but the treasures compiled at this site are considerable, providing enough beauty in various media to satisfy any SF art lover caught between
the most recent convention and the next.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—December 2, 2002
everal years ago, a commencement speech advocating such useful and whimsical advice as "always wear sunscreen" was falsely attributed to famous writer Kurt Vonnegut, best known in the SF community for such classic fabulist novels as The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse Five. The palpable desire among those who encountered this speech to believe that it constituted actual words of wisdom from their too-silent hero testified to the high regard and affection which Vonnegut's fans have for him. Any words of wisdom, even inauthentic ones, were much in demand.
Well, now there's no need to subsist on spurious Vonnegut. Simply visit Marek Vit's Kurt Vonnegut Corner and you'll have access to all the gleanings of this wonderful writer you can imagine. Here you'll find biographical data, essays about the man and his works, a large compendium of killer quotes, photos of young and old Vonnegut and a trail to other such sites. But perhaps most crucial for the hardcore SF afficionado is the wing of the site devoted to Vonnegut's alter ego, Kilgore Trout. A dreadfully untalented yet warmly humane hack SF writer, Trout was seemingly modeled on the career of Theodore Sturgeon, and actually had a full novel composed in his name by Philip Jose Farmer. In this section, Marek Vit gathers up all the story fragments seeded by Vonnegut throughout his canon and displays them gleefully for our delight. It's like sitting at Kilgore Trout's feet for a boozy gabfest, in which the imaginary dean of so-bad-it's-great SF regales us with his insights into how to cure everything from cancer to war.
And yes, the text of the "sunscreen" speech is available here as well. Read it after you've immersed yourself in the real Vonnegut, and then ask yourself how you were ever fooled.
— Paul Di Filippo
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