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Showing posts from June, 2021

Zooming into middle age

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  Sonic the Hedgehog turns 30 this year. If he were human, the eponymous speedster – “born” today, June 23, 1991, when his first game released for Sega Genesis – would be a Millennial. Like his much maligned generation, while you may love him or hate him, there is no denying the speedy blue hedgehog’s cultural significance.  That original Sonic the Hedgehog game has spawned a number of sequel games, in addition to a comic book series published by Archie Comics, at least two animated shows (the original, poorly drawn cartoon featuring the voice of Steve Urkel, Jaleel White, and a later series with higher production value and an anime inspired style), and a live action/CGI movie.  The story told over the course of those games, shows, comics, and film is convoluted, inconsistent, and sometimes downright confusing. The basic premise is that Doctor Robotnik, née Eggman, is an evil genius who wants to take over the world (or the multiverse) and Sonic and friends have to stop him. The

Getting Personal with Bigfoot

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From the opening moments of On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Journey , you get the feeling it’s going to be a little different than the other Small Town Monsters productions.  Over the last several years, Small Town Monsters (STM) have released a number of films, on a variety of subjects from Bigfoot to Mothman to Dogmen and the weirdest of the weird in classic UFO sightings. But it all started with a trilogy of Bigfoot documentaries. Director/Producer Seth Breedlove and his crew have stayed busy since then, pumping out several films a year with the production value and content steadily improving.  But Whitehall, New York, and its Bigfoot sightings, the subject of Breedlove’s second film, the 2016 release Beast of Whitehall , has never really let go of the filmmaker. In his newest release, On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Journey , Breedlove returns to those upstate New York woodlands to explore the history and depth of reports from this region. Along the way he examines his o