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Today we answer the question: when are you going to do something about discontinued computer-platform magazines from the UK? Finally!
What a mess. Behold: a magazine devoted to the Sinclair. Gremlin H.A.T.E. was “Hostile All Terrain Encounter.”
As for the platform, you might be thinking “related to the Timex Sinclair?” Wikipedia:
Oh, so it was just a similar name, then?
Ah. Okay. Didn't catch on, but those of us interested in computers were aware of the machine. Didn't know what the hell we could do with it, though. Yes, you can tell this is a British magazine. And yes, this "compo really is for yoo-hoo!"
How many ducks can you find? Not sure supper counts, but probably does.
There’s a unique quality to late 80s / early 90s s ads that can be described as “ouch,” but I have a certain indulgent fondness for it.
It's such a mess, but at the time it was RAD and also interesting and different.
Something you absolutely expected to find in old computer mags:
RAW CODE. Just type it in, and Bob's your programmer.
Honest guv! Sounds well dodgy dunnit?
That's what we thought so we sent David 'Miserly' McCandless out with a crisp new tenner to boldly go where no stingebag had gone before David is still in the game, running his own consulting company. Good for him!
Our final example of what the magazine style of the time turned out without apology:
No, let’s go back to 1986, and see if it was any more, or any less British. Possibly more:
You cannot explain why Scuttle is knicking the knickers. I had no idea that the Hill character had a name. And I don't know what Norah Batty bloomers are. Googling . . . well, for one thing, it's Nora.
Another from1986: I think they may have used Stan Laurel for this character.
Summary:
They loved their acronyms. Of course you can find gameplay on YouTube! Of course!
I love these old computer mags. We knew it was only going to get better.
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A repeat. I did this a few years ago, but I needed another look at another heart-warming home-for-the holidays special. (Note: This is the third time. I did it last in 2015.)
Actually, it's one of the most depressing movies you'll ever see, and one of the strangest. Takes forever - or should I say fir-ever? (sorry) - to get around to what it's doing. We meet a soldier heading out on leave, off to San Francisco to marry his best girl. They'd been planning it for a while, and he's as happy as a chap can be. Before they leave, he gets a telegram:
Yeah, well. Hmmm. So he goes back, finds her, and shoots her? No. He gets on a plane, and it makes an unscheduled landing in New Orleans, because the pilot thinks he can find a plot there. Our hero - the movie seems to be about him, so that's what he must be - checks into a hotel, goes to the bar for a drink, runs into a gabby newspaper reporter.
You can tell he's a reporter, because he's wearing a trenchcoat. Our hero follows the boozyhound newsman to a nightclub, because in addition to being a member of the 4th estate, the reporter's also an advance man for a highclass whorehouse. They apparently specialize in girl-next-door types, or cater to men who like their women miscast:
Deanna Durbin, in a role designed to play against her good-girl image. Paint her lips with a Sharpie, people will forget her earnest virginal qualities! The drunk PR agent who brought the GI to the nightclub passes out - but not before he tells the house Madam to give the stranded GI a ticket to church. Midnight Mass. Naturally, the fallen woman wants to go, and the picture drags the whole audience along for at least five minutes of church. But it's Noir Church:
She loses it, and starts crying. Sobs for about an hour. Afterwards they head off to eat, and she spills her story. Turns out she's the wife of a guy who was sent up for murder in a famous trial. The audience is interested, but wondered why exactly we've spent all the time with everyone else. We're already 24 minutes into the movie. Her problem? She loves a fella what makes her worry, he does. He's charming, but he's also something of a pampered wastrel with a bad temper. But even after he comes home after killing another guy, he can still melt her heart by flopping in bed and flashing the impish I'm-a-naughty-boy grin.
Yes, one of cinema's greatest hoofers, a man better known for effortless charm and grace, a guy you could watch dance wit'out worryin' if you'd gone all fruity or sumptin'. Gene Kelly. It's not his only bad-guy role; he played a malevolent psycho in the most popular radio mystery series of the time, "Suspense" - so this wasn't completely against type. He's just not very good at being something other than the toothy happy hoofer. It's been called early proto-noir, and maybe so; it has the look-and-feel of the noirs now and then.
It's also a fine reminder of how frilly the 40s were.
But Durbin isn't that good. Kelly isn't that good. It lacks the damnation? You're soaking in it! that characterizes good noir. The story is told in fits and starts, out of order. It's grim business, though. When we're done telling the backstory, there's just a few minutes of movie left, and we learn that Gene Kelly has escaped prison, and is coming after his wife. She's happy to see him! Why, she regards herself as partly guilty for not keeping him from doing the things he did. He doesn't care. He thinks she likes working in a high-class bawdy house. He's desperate! Worse, he's poorly motivated! He'd bust out of prison to shoot her? The soldier shows up to justify all his screen time.The room, as is often the case in these situation, fills with every minor character, making you wonder who will get shot so the soldier can shoot him. Tuns out a cop walking past the window pops him. She's sad. The soldier tells her as bluntly as he can - he's dead. Give him up. MERRY CHRISTMAS. Which leads to this remarkable ending. Completely unearned, relying on audience sympathy for dear little Durbin. Silent, it's hokey and melodramatic. With music . . . well, it has a power the movie just doesn't deserve.
Wagner: when you're certain the picture can't carry itself on its own.
That'll do. Tomorrow I will not be provinding Architectural Record snippets. PROMISE.
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