Every now and then -- not too often, I hope -- I do "show my age" 'round this wide, wide world of the "Interweb" ... so pardon me if I "wax on" a bit this morning.

Seriously, today's TV audiences really have absolutely no clue of how good they have it when it comes to entertainment choices.  Back in the day when I was a sprite, you were lucky if you had six TV channels; and even having good reception of those six depended upon good weather!  Now, anything and practically everything is available at a moment's notice by simply the click of a mouse.

As one of the web's resident "old dogs," I went looking for a DVD release of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World -- one of the syndicated program's of only the near yesteryear -- and, lo and behold, it's out of print and listed in an amazing couple hundred of dollars cash these days.  Ay carrumba!  (What can I say?  That's too rich for my blood, and I'm kinda/sorta on a 'Lost World' kick, having just finished reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' Caspak trilogy.)  So I don't have any real graphics to add, but I did spend an hour or so yesterday afternoon creating a banner with Photoshop and listing the episodes of the cult hit's first season on the pages.  Seek 'em out, if ye be so bold.

As always, thanks for reading ... and live long and prosper!

​As a long-time Star Trek fan, I’ll admit that I’ve suffered through an awful lot of heartache and heartburn since JJ Abrams took over the cinematic handling of the franchise.
 
Much of my suffering was owed to the reality that – by his own admission – Abrams never really “got” Star Trek.  He was always more of a “Star Wars” guy.  So instead of continuing in the mold of what honestly hadn’t been working successfully (if box office returns are any indication) with the failed Next Generation features, Abrams instead intended to re-brand the franchise visually in a way with stories he wanted to tell.  Much of this involved, sadly, shirking off much of what had come before so that he and his creative team could bring Gene Roddenberry’s vision alive for an all new generation of ticket buyers, an audience with more in common with Transformers-era special effects, IMAX-inspired spectacle, and curiously unintelligent lens flare.
 
Curiously, many Trekkers have observed that, indeed, Abrams’ Star Trek has often times felt much more like his preferred Star Wars, (a franchise he now also has been given some control over … and do NOT get me started on how much I loathed Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens.
 
The 2009 Trek reboot – simply titled Star Trek – had its merits, most of them grounded in quality popcorn flicks, but – so far as my tastes were concerned – the film was mired far too much in the kind of saccharin “Space 90210” mentality, that of youngsters finding themselves and their respective places in the greater universe around them while saving life as we knew it from some time travelling Romulans with a planet-killing space laser (Death Star?).  To make matters worse, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) was just a massively mishandled project from conception to delivery: instead of boldly going where no one had gone before, JJ and his usual cadre of writers attempted to re-imagine 1982’s vastly stellar The Wrath Of Khan in such a way as to continually twist established canon on its head while reveling in its own perceived ingenuity to the point of absurdity.
 
… which brings me to the present’s Star Trek Beyond.
 
I hated the name, but then again I’ve hated the whole “Batman Begins” and “Superman Returns” trend of christening follow-ups, always preferring films to have their own respective identity, such as “Star Trek: The Search For Spock” or “Captain America: Civil War.”  (I’m old-fashioned that way.)  Even worse, I’ve hated the coming attractions, many of which have prominently positioned the director – Justin Lin of the Fast and Furious franchise – alongside images of James T. Kirk not commanding a starship but, instead, racing around (ahem) some alien catastrophie … on a motorbike.  (?!?!?)  Suddenly, Trekkers were being asked to embrace a forthcoming release with a title track sung by Rihanna, and I knew once and for all that – as the saying goes – this was not your father’s Star Trek any longer.
 
Well …
 
Despite JJ’s best efforts to the contrary, the cast and crew finally delivered a legitimate Star Trek film.  It’s still imperfect, but it’s also one that just might help push the franchise – boldly – into the next generation.
​

It’s stardate whatever-point-zero-zero, and James T. Kirk (played by Chris Pine) and company are three years into the Enterprise’s five-year mission.  Much to his surprise, the captain and his crew are at a personal crossroads: they’ve been everywhere, they’ve done everything, and the allure of exploring new life and new civilizations has been stripped away, leaving everyone with that inevitable feeling of “Is this all there is?”  As a consequence, Kirk – the consummate Millennial – has begun entertaining thoughts of moving on to a desk job, albeit one with greater perks and greater pay, when an interstellar distress call finds himself and his crew once more in harm’s way: the annoyingly aggressive Krall (Idris Alba) has his sights set on destroying the Federation, and that’ll naturally put a crimp in Jim’s plans for his own tomorrow.
 
Sure, I gest, but like so many other space pictures both in and beyond this franchise Star Trek Beyond does suffer from the all-too-cliched “the galaxy is at stake” factor.  (You wanna talk about “Is this all there is?”)  Granted, it’s still a well-proven trick to get your audience to sit up and take notice.  Beyond ends up being as much about “before” as it does what may inevitably follow in future motion picture adventures, a great deal owed to the constantly witty script from the constantly witty Simon Pegg (who also plays Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott).  Smartly enough, Pegg and co-screenwriter Doug Jung go to great lengths in recapturing the ensemble formula that made the original television series as well as the first six Paramount Trek films such winning exploits with the fan base: each and every member of the crew from the top-down had an important role to play in the greater tale, and each and every member was given a greater identity beyond his or her Starfleet profession, be it Uhura’s relationship with Spock, Spock’s relationship with his race, or Sulu’s relationship with – ahem – another man.
 
They’re small bits – individually they don’t amount to much screen time – but as any writer or watcher will tell you it’s the small bits which add up into the greater whole.  These bits give added weight, added breadth, added dimension, in such a way as to engage the audience with characters in search of themselves as much as they are action stars in search of a solution.  Once again, Trekkers are asked to identify with their heroes, and that brings us back to the whole idea of the human ‘Enterprise’ upon which Roddenberry originally asked us to embark.

​

Unlike Star Wars – which has historically always been about lightsabers, blasters, and spaceships – Star Trek has always prided itself on ‘working solutions.’
 
In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker had to use the Force to help guide a missile shot from his X-Wing fighter down a thermal exhaust port in order to destroy the Death Star.  In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Kirk and crew had to convince an artificial intelligence that it had been first built by what it deemed an inferior life form – mankind itself – in order to push the entity to experience emotion.  Granted, both films end with an explosion seen ‘round the world … but it’s the method in which the hero accomplishes the big objective that defines each franchise.  Star Wars is always about “feeling the Force” and making sure it’s good vibes you’re getting so you don’t succumb to the Dark Side; while Star Trek is technobabble, re-routing phase inducers, and what I’ve always called “Bein’ true to the crew.”
 
Indeed, I’m reminded of the story about the NBC executive who first asked Roddenberry to reshoot Star Trek’s original pilot (“The Cage”) only, this time, (I’m paraphrasing) “make it less cerebral.”
 
Beyond harkens back to what made Star Trek a bold vision in the first place.  Where Star Trek (2009) tried to re-brand Kirk in the Han Solo mold and Star Trek Into Darkness did the same (on space amphetamines), Beyond goes back to what’s tried, true, and proven in the franchise: Trek’s best adventures lie in the chemistry of human beings banding together to do what we’ve always done: namely, survive.

​

​Now, this isn’t to say that Beyond is without its faults and controversies (Sulu’s sexual orientation included).
 
For example, Alba’s Krall spends a goodly portion of the picture merely being a space villain; Pegg’s script withholds the alien’s true motivation until far too late in the film, so much so I couldn’t help but keep asking myself over and over along the way what his beef was and if he was ever going to share it with those watching.  Director Lin’s camera trickery includes much of the same whirling, twirling imagery of space, time, and action sequences that has (sadly) come to define contemporary cinema, so much so that I occasionally found it difficult to discern what was happening to who and why should I care about it.  And – last but not least – Chekov is given far too little (of substance) to do, a doubly painful shame given actor Anton Yelchin’s tragic death earlier this year.
 
Still, Beyond succeeds as a Star Trek film largely because it does what JJ’s attempts refused to do: it embraced its heritage.  It looked back at what came before, and – without repeating itself – it delivered a crew worthy of our time and attention, and the characters had to come up with workable solutions to overpower a force greater than them individually but didn’t have a prayer against them as a team.
 
And – dare I say – the performances are all very good.  Pine, Zachary Quinto (as Spock), John Cho (Sulu), and others have finally started to find the familiarity with these characters, so much so that it’s starting to show on screen.  The great Karl Urban continues to be in a league all of his own here as his interpretation of Dr. McCoy really cries out for its own supporting Oscar … or maybe a Hugo or a Saturn, if those organizations recognize that kind of thing.  Somehow it remains as equally reverential (to DeForest Kelley) as it is bold and new.
 
Occasionally, Beyond did get a bit preachy about unity being stronger than the individual (think of it as globalism triumphs nationalism, though I could pick that apart in an instant were I interested), but – as I’ve always said – it’s easy to forgive a screenwriter or a director’s political shenanigans if and when it goes down easy.

​1964’s First Men In The Moon is a bit of a quandary for me as a critic.  I’ll get to why in a moment, but – for now – let’s dispense with some of the important particulars.
 
Directed by Nathan Juran (a man whose resume is strong with such genre credentials as 20 Million Miles To Earth, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, as well as episodes for Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Lost In Space, and The Time Tunnel), the film was adapted from the H.G. Wells source material by Nigel Kneale and Jan Read.  The story finds failed investor Arnold Bedford (played by Edward Judd) and his fiancé Kate (the lovely – and then some – Martha Hyer) joining forces with inventor Joseph Cavor (a sometimes bumbling Lionel Jeffries) on a trip to Earth’s only satellite, but much of the action is in fact explored via Bedford’s flashbacks: when a U.N. trip into space uncovers evidence that someone has been to the lunar surface before them, the investigators seek out and find the codger in an old folks’ home with a dire warning to leave the moon pronto.
 
Though I don’t recall the film specifically from my youth, I can’t help but wonder if I saw previously on television while growing up.  Certain elements of the production (largely the set design, Cavor’s lunar capsule, and costume/creatures of the Selenites) seemed familiar, but I’ll admit the overall arc of the characters was new territory.  Still, ‘Men’ feels like the type of flick that would’ve found a home on my set, perhaps playing on WGN’s popular “Family Classics” out of Chicago.
 
That said, performances are fine, a bit oafish compared to those I usually prefer in my genre choices, as Kneale & Read’s screenplay reduces the inventor to shtick more commonly associated with Abbott and Costello pictures than more legitimate Science Fiction material.  It’s easy to forgive when the production and effects work is this grand (major thanks to the legendary Ray Harryhausen for his contributions here), and – at just over 100 minutes – it largely moves at a good pace once our space travelers have thrown off the bonds of Earth and find themselves in the heavens.
 
As is my custom when reviewing older releases, I do tend to scour the web just a bit to see what I can find written about the film, usually looking for historical trivia which might enhance or amplify some of my impressions of the work.  To my surprise, there’s surprisingly little out there regarding the release; one would think that a Harryhausen picture would have a larger contingent of fans!  While there are fragments about some of the more arcane elements (such as where the film’s spacesuits originated and some discussion about the overall effects process), I was disappointed to learn so little.
 
… which kinda/sorta brings me back to my quandary.
 
First Men In The Moon is heavily dated entertainment.  Its sense of humor – much of it is chocked into the first half – is old, and – as such – probably doesn’t translate well to today’s more cynical audience mindset.  In many ways, the comedy feels directed more at 1964’s children, but the latter half deals with some grittier and slightly more intense subject matter (man versus monster, hints of a possible nefarious plan by the Selenites for Earth, etc.).  I tend to think that those youngsters would’ve been disappointed in what they could followed as our heroes race against the Fates to escape the moon and its insectoid inhabitants.  Even further, I’m not entirely certain those same kids would even understand everything the “Grand Lunar” – their leader – is waxing on about with Cavor.
 
That being the case, Men feels very much like two differing features: a comedy of errors featuring three would-be explorers which then morphs into a mildly meaty existential ‘Star Trekkie’ space yarn about defending your world from would-be invaders.  This isn’t to imply that the picture is inferior; rather, I’d say it’s confusing in the way some older films are in that they don’t mean as much to today’s viewers as they might have to our parents.  Or grandparents.  But when they were young.  If that makes sense.
 
If anything, watch First Men In The Moon for its sense of wonder.  Forget about the fact that, eventually, there’s an atmosphere which magically/mystically allows our heroes to walk about without pressure suits.  Try not to notice that – when they are protected by those suits – they’re not wearing any gloves, leaving their hands exposed to space radiation.  Look at what Harryhausen accomplished on a respectable budget, and marvel over how so many elements such as aliens and spacecraft and general space hardware still fascinate us today.  You’ll find things that endure, but odds are this isn’t a trip you’ll feel impelled to take anytime again.

Think what you may, but not all genre greats are created equal.  Some of them -- and, quite probably, very many of them -- deserve a little something extra when it comes to features and the like, especially on a website such as this, one dedicated to All Things SciFi.

So it is in that spirit that I'll occasionally be creating these assorted Appreciation Pages.  It's a space that'll give some of the genre greats a bit more focus instead of just the obligatory highlighted birthday mention that we do in this space.

Our first one: the lovely Nancy Allen!  You can access her Appreciation Page right here.

As always, thanks for reading ... and live long and prosper!

​Chalk another one off of my SciFi Bucket List: Strange Invaders (1983) turned up on one of those obscure pay-cable-channels I have as part of my package, so I DVR’d the thing and took it in last night in a single sitting.  (Occasionally, I break up my viewing of some of these older films out of consideration for time constraints, but I had plenty of spare time last night.)
 
Strange Invaders is one of those films I’ve always heard good things about from friends and colleagues.  As I’ve mentioned before, I worked in the home video market for a short time, and – back in the day – many of these more obscure titles would hit the shelves on a fairly consistent basis.  This was a popular rental for its time, and many of the folks who returned it said good things of it – the story and the production value – but I’d never quite taken it in, though I wanted to given my affinity for the subject matter (alien visitation).
 
The story is as follows: Centerville (IL) is the small Midwestern town that is the recipient of a visitation that turns into something vastly more interesting (which the audience learns later in the film) – a 25-year study by a ‘higher species’ to understand Earth and its inhabitants, though we’re never quite told for what purpose.  Cut to 25 years later, and Charles Bigelow (played by Paul LeMat) agrees to watch his daughter while his ex-wife – Margaret (Diana Scarwid) – travels home to Centerville for her mother’s funeral.  When two weeks go by and the woman hasn’t returned, Bigelow decides to head to the Midwest himself, only to discover something’s afoot in the sleepy li’l place … and before it’s all over he might just uncover one of the greatest conspiracies of his generation!
 
Invaders is actually chocked full of talented players, including the always reliable Nancy Allen as ‘National Informer’ reporter Betty Walker and the immeasurably gifted Louise Fletcher in the role of chief conspiracist Mrs. Benjamin.  (Seriously?  No one could give her a first name?)  June Lockhart, Charles Lane, Fiona Lewis, and Kenneth Tobey round out the cast (in roles ranging from human to alien-inhabited humans); and the ensemble appears to have a reasonable amount of fun with the UFO-themed material as any group would.
 
Essentially, what transpires in the picture’s second half involves Bigelow’s daughter being abducted (for purposes that never quite get explained satisfactorily so far as this reviewer was concerned), but it’s necessary in order to set the stage for the big finish: the aliens are coming back, and we’re not sure if this will be good or bad for the big blue marble.  There’s a race against time – involving a former contactee (the great Michael Lerner) – and despite some heavy-handedness with all of the set-up much of the flavor turns sugary in the last reel as (SPOILER ALERT) loved ones are reunited for (again) not specific reason provided by the script.
 
Interestingly enough, Invaders taps into many of the more common UFO tropes of its era.  The flying saucer phenomenon was in one of its many heydays (early to mid-1980s), much of which can be attributed to the greater Roswell mythology really coming to life as well as Steven Spielberg’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and E.T. – THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL charming the pants off of audiences (as well as plenty of money from their wallets).  There’s even a throwaway sight gag by Mrs. Benjamin delivered with a nod and a wink: when being asked to identify from photographs the common type of alien he saw, Bigelow is presented with a series of wacky drawings as well as a snap of Mr. Spielberg.  Clearly, Invaders saw itself as being part of that larger cinematic universe, the biggest difference being that its story and presentation lack any of those superior films’ nuances (and production budget).
 
However, I also found the feature filled with many flaws, most of which would normally mean sentencing it to the theatrical graveyard.  For example, the script never quite identifies what all of this is meant to be about, instead choosing to explore circumstance without any greater consequence.  Far too often, day becomes night which very quickly becomes day again, making the close viewer wonder exactly how much time has elapsed despite the fact that cinematically it all played out in only moments.  Lastly, the pesky aliens are given rather ominous treatment throughout most of the picture, seemingly robbing the life force of the various contactees; their seeming act of goodwill in returning all whom they’ve taken in the finale is an act of benevolence that comes out of nowhere with little explanation, and it would’ve been nice to have been given some morsel of explanation, regardless of how small … or distasteful.
 
At best, STRANGE INVADERS feels like a kinda/sorta ‘wannabe’: all involved quite possibly thought they were making something bigger than what they delivered.  There’s enough general weirdness in there to suggest that it wanted to explore the world of alien contact, abduction, and all that goes with it; but by only casually mentioning each of assorted facts (much like bullet points in a Powerpoint presentation) it lacks any real depth to be taken seriously.  I’d even stop short of calling it a B-movie (though others have) only because I didn’t find any significant “rewatchability” quotient to it in the slightest; more of a curiosity than a legitimate “find” in the realm of lost pictures, it’s probably best considered a curiosity … much like its subject matter.

Unlike so many others who blog today, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever occasionally getting up on my proverbial soapbox and bellowing out whatever "My Two Cents" might be on a particular subject matter ...

... and that brings me to the summer release of The Legend of Tarzan.

Now, I won't make a big deal about this.  Honestly.  The film isn't a Science Fiction release whatsoever -- clearly, it's fantasy -- but as the Tarzan mythos has been something near and dear to my heart for so many decades (as it has been to many genre fans), I thought it relevant to come to the flick's defense.  (Check out Metacritic.com or Rotten Tomatoes to see that the feature has what I'd say is a relatively low score.)  After all, isn't Tarzan one of the first superheroes?  He certainly has superhuman strength (to a degree), and his abilities to "talk to the animals" might qualify as a superpower in certain corners.

Before going to see it this past weekend, I took some time to read many of the film's most scathing reviews, and methinks these reviewers essentially have a problem with Alpha Males, of which Tarzan definitely is.  He's primal.  He had to be given his story's circumstances, largely because that's the law of the jungle: survival of the fittest.  I get that our modern society is no longer comfortable with a man willing to up and do the kinds of things Tarzan gets up and does without a second thought ... but did the reviewers really expect to go into a 'Lord of the Apes' flick and expect metrosexual nuance?

Please.  Give me a break.

THE LEGEND OF TARZAN has suffered an undeserved drubbing by intellectuals, academics, and pseudo-intellectuals who think mankind has grown beyond the need to tell old-fashioned stories of good versus evil, exactly the tale told wonderfully by a talented cast including Alexander Skarsgard, the up-and-coming Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson, and some fairly gifted effects professionals.

Put aside your politics for two hours, and go be wowwed again.

​My two cents ...

Sequels are a tough business.  Granted, everybody in Hollywood probably knows this truism but that doesn’t stop the suits from greenlighting the next potential blockbuster or money pit.  And – when one truly thinks about it – an inferior sequel really runs of the risk of tarnishing the audience’s fondest memories of the inspired original, so is all of it really worth the chance?  Especially when there’s a twenty-year gap between INDEPENDENCE DAY and INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE?  Wouldn’t something a bit earlier have been far more apropos?
 
Whatever the case, INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE was released, though I have read that it went through a tremendous rehash: originally scripted as a two-picture idea from Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin (the same pair basically behind ID4), RESURGENCE felt more like “regurgitation” as I suspect plenty of changes were made to get this to a single cinematic adventure.  Several of the original’s big players returned; Earth was reset for an all-new level of catastrophe; and the studio was prepared with yet one more event picture to dump in the busy summer marketplace.
 
How does the feature fare?
 
Twenty years after the events of INDEPENDENCE DAY, Earth has been quickly rebuilt, largely owed to the inclusion of technology left over from the last shellacking the nefarious aliens suffered at Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum’s hands.  However, Smith’s Capt. Steven Hiller is no longer with us, his flying career ended with the tragic first test-flight of the alien/Earthling hybrid aircraft.  His son – crack pilot Dylan Hiller – has stepped up to the plate, along with a new team of Millennial fighter pilots all willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.  As fate would have it, the aliens weren’t done with the big blue marble, and their return only means gangbusters for the box office, right?
 
Sadly, if you’ve seen the first DAY then you’ve seen this one as RESURGENCE basically retreads practically every thematic beat from the feature that inspired it, which essentially was a modern retelling of George Pal’s THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (itself inspired by the H.G. Wells’ novel).  Like the original, the aliens arrive with little to no warning; and – like the original – a goodly portion of the flick is spent destroying Earth’s most popular tourist destinations (a sentiment even worked into the script for light humor).  And – just like in the original – it’ll all find itself back in Jeff Goldblum’s hands (he’s been promoted from TV network repairperson to the head of Earth’s global defenses in perhaps the least credible instance of the Peter Principle caught on film) to save the day … naturally along with a little help from those aforementioned Millennials: they’re here to save us all, you know.
 
The newest additions to the cast – Sela Ward as President Lanford, Patrick St. Esprit as Sec/Def Tanner, and Chin Han as Commander Jiang – are paper thin and really only serve to fill space until the aliens show up gunning for new blood as they’re somewhat ceremoniously dispatched before given a chance to mean a thing to viewers.  Otherwise, RESURGENCE tends to be more about one special effects sequence after another whereas the first one more fashionably balanced each character’s relative quirkiness between the destruction.  Not a single one of the newbies – those who survive as well as those who don’t – exhibit the kind of benign machismo even the earliest victims did in ID4, so one has to wonder whether or not director Emmerich decided good storytelling needed a sabbatical or he was just being lazy.
 
Still, this isn’t to say that RESURGENCE lacks a few good ideas because that’s far from the case.  For example, Pullman’s Whitmore nicely puts this story in motion by revealing he’s lived the last twenty years with tortured nightmares, a reality often cited by UFO abductees and contactees since that phenomenon was embraced by popular culture.  Liam Hemsworth’s newcomer – shuttle pilot Jake Morrison – tries hard to bring some of the Will Smith formula to his performance, and just about the time he flips the aliens “the bird” and begins urinating on the floor of the sprawling alien mothership you’ll believe he could’ve pulled it off had the script given him more time (and a bit more focus).  And newcomer Deobia Oparei plays an African warlord who has spent the last two decades in up-close-and-personal hand-to-hand combat with the remaining offworlders who took up residence on his continent: while much of his storyline ends up being plot exposition to help explain RESURGENCE’s timeline, I would’ve gladly spent more time unspooling the life he must’ve led instead of the life he ends up leading here.
 
Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out one huge problem between the original and its sequel: in ID4, Earth was the underdog … but in RESURGENCE we essentially begin on the same playing field, largely due to the fact that we’ve incorporated so much of their technology into our daily lives.  Sure, this isn’t the case with every aspect of this planetary second coming, but the aliens seem to have more moxie this go-round than they did the first time.  How can Earth resume its underdog status in a story so centered on our being in that capacity from start-to-finish?  Logically, you’d think someone would’ve seen that problem coming a mile away; alas, it wasn’t meant to be in TinselTown.
 
That’s the dirty little secret about SciFi summer releases: they tend to be quick and glib with the facts and figures because what matters most is the “shock and awe” of tent-pole spectacles.  Characters get short shrift as effects work gets bigger and bigger.  Consequently, there’s little substance here – and I’m not saying that the original had much more – but what there is may just be enough to keep viewers interested for the purposes of their $10 admission price alone.  Heck, Jeff Goldblum is even peddling his shtick in TV commercials these days: does anyone really want to see THAT again on the silver screen?  I’m not saying he didn’t need a RESURGENCE: I’m only saying he needed better material and a vastly stronger cast around him to make the same old song-and-dance worthwhile for a second helping, so matter how much money the effects team was given.
 
I’ll admit I was disappointed with the follow-up, but – like I most – I couldn’t look away from the destruction.  Car crashes tend to be like that, too, and that’s not a good thing.