The Wandering Minstrel

This is the inspiration for the flaming skull at the top of the page. After watching an action movie, I was inspired to create a flaming skull logo for this website. In the movie the main character plants explosives around the parking lot where his enemies have parked. Upon detonation, the flaming skull appeared.

I wanted to have that effect embedded into our logo, so I used a Flash™ animation editor to employ the original logo as a mask to allow the flame effect to be seen in the shape of the logo. The clickable image is from an image the Better Half made when I stopped the movie on the flaming skull scene.

Feeling in a nostalgic mood last night, I popped “The Gauntlet” in the DVD player. This is a 1977 Eastwood flick, made while he was married to the very forgettable what’s her name. All of that aside, it was a pretty action-packed flick with lots of gratuitous blowing-shit-up and more shots fired than I can recall seeing for a long time (except for maybe the first 15 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan” another recently-viewed flick).

According to IMFDB, these are some of the guns seen in the flick:

• Smith and Wesson model 66
• Browning Hi-Power
• Smith and Wesson model 10

There were a lot of other guns in the flick, both long and short, that I couldn’t positively identify.

The plot was a thin one, but for an action flick, who really needs much of a plot?

Anyhow, Shockley (Eastwood) played a boozy, has been police detective who has the task of transporting a whore from Vegas to Phoenix. This whore (what’s her name) was to be a witness in a hearing that would implicate the police commissioner with the mob. Thinking Shockley would screw up and fail to bring the witness, he was assigned the job by the commissioner.

The rest was a poetic cacophony of shooting, explosions, helicopters, motor cycle gangs, the whore’s exposed cupcakes, double crossing lawyers and a grand finale when an armor-reinforced bus crashes on the steps of the civic center with a million bullet holes in it.

Very satisfying.

Digging through the old DVD pile is sometimes a lot of fun when you find one that showcases classic firearms. One such flick is “The Quick and the Dead,” starring Gene Hackman, Sharon Stone, Leonardo Dicaprio, Russell Crowe and Keith David.

The flick delivered on old firearms. I’m not sure the following IMFDB Gunography covers them all, but it’s a good start:

1. Colt 1873 Single Action Army Civilian Model
2. Colt 1873 Single Action Army
3. Winchester 1866
4. Winchester 1873
5. S&W 1875 Schofield
6. Lematt percussion revolver/single shot percussion shotgun

Overall, the plot was highly contrived and the special effects, although spectacular, were probably overdone. For example, consider the size of the hole in Sgt. Clay Cantrell’s head (Keith David). Ostensibly, the projectile came from a .44 or .45 caliber handgun. Where can I find some ammo that can do this?

Given the almost constant gunfights and the outrageous cartoon-like caricatures combined with effects like the one above and all the explosions near the climax, this is a fun flick to watch. I give it a four star (out of five) rating.

Last night, I had the need for some Sunday night diversion from worrying about the Monday morning work funk. I looked through the DVD database (I wrote some on-line code for the better half’s extensive DVD collection) and found Swordfish, an action flick with lots of firearms and blowing shit up.

The movie stars Hugh Jackman (a computer ’super’ hacker), John Travolta (a ruthless operator in a secret Government anti-terror operation) , Halle Berry (works for Travolta’s character) and Don Cheadle (a cyber crimes lawman).

The first scenes are of a siege in a world bank where Travolta’s men have placed C4 explosives and ball bearings around a bunch of hostages. Rigged with proximity fuses, these human ‘Claymore mines’ are set to blow if they are taken outside of a certain area. At this point the worst thing happens when an insistent lawman drags a female hostage outside of the bank area - the ensuing explosion scene was nothing short of awesome.

The scene then flashes back in time to find Jackman living as trailer trash practicing his golf swing from the rooftop of his broken-down POS trailer. Halle Berry then shows up and more fun begins.

I won’t get into all of the details, but there was almost non-stop action, guns, intrigue, cyber hacking, a flying bus, missiles and plenty of other stuff to relieve the Sunday night blahs.

GUNOGRAPHY

• Heckler & Koch MP5
• Remington 700
• M40 sniper rifle
• Heckler & Koch UMP
• M16 rifle series
• Beretta M92F
• FN Minimi
• Sig Sauer P220 pistol series
• Heckler & Koch USP
• Heckler & Koch G36
• Z-M Weapons LR 300
• Walther PPK
• Smith & Wesson 4006

Oldies but goodies. Another good take-your-mind-off-of-Monday flick to watch some Sunday evening.

Miller’s Crossing, made in 1990, is a flick starring Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney and Marcia Gay Harden. It’s about two rival gangs fueding, where Byrne’s character plays both sides off each other and gets his ass kicked a lot - really a lot, but survives to get his ass kicked even more.

In 2005, Time magazine chose Miller’s Crossing as one of the 100 greatest movies ever made since the inception of the magazine. I’m not so sure it was that good, but the 1920’s costumes, decor and scenery were outstanding.

Here’s some of the plot (Wikipedia):

Tom Reagan (Byrne) is the long-time advisor and confidant of Leo O’Bannon (Finney), a gangster political boss who runs his Prohibition-era city. When Leo’s Italian rival Johnny Caspar announces his intentions to kill the crooked bookie Bernie Bernbaum, Leo goes against Tom’s advice and extends his protection to Bernie. Bernie is the brother of Verna Bernbaum (Harden), an opportunistic gun moll who shares a longtime relationship with Leo as well as a secret affair with Tom. Leo goes to war with Johnny to appease Verna.

Tom tries everything he can to convince Verna and Leo to give Bernie up to Johnny to end the war, but neither will budge. After an assassination attempt on Leo, Tom reveals his affair with Verna, causing Leo to beat him viciously and turn his back on both of them.

With no other alternative, Tom goes to work for Johnny, and is immediately commanded to kill Bernie at Miller’s Crossing to prove his loyalty. Bernie pleads with Tom to spare him, and Tom allows him to escape. The gang war goes well for Johnny and he quickly assumes Leo’s position as boss of the city. However, Tom begins sowing discord between Johnny and Eddie Dane, his most trusted enforcer. At the same time, Bernie returns and tries to blackmail Tom into killing Johnny.

I gotta say one thing about that assination attempt on Leo; one of the assasins gets killed by Leo who then gets the assasin’s Tommy Gun. Then, by some miracle, the magic 1,000 round magazine kicks in. Leo squeezes off at least 600 rounds in the scene where he offs all the other bad guys and one Ford Flivver. Amazing and fun stuff.

I couldn’t find Miller’s Crossing in the IMFDB, so I can’t give a gunography, even though there were guns aplenty.

Any body know where can I get one of those 1,000 round magazine Tommy Guns?

This is just freakin’ hilarious. I’m still wiping the tears away as I embed this for your enjoyment. And mine too, I might add.

I GOTTA get me a membership at this range.