Tom Baker

Joined June 2018

0 stories

Bio

Author of Haunted Indianapolis, Indiana Ghost Folklore, Midwest Maniacs, Midwest UFOs and Beyond, Scary Urban Legends, 50 Famous Fables and Folk Tales, and Notorious Crimes of the Upper Midwest.: http://tombakerbooks.weebly.com

Stories (480/0)

Tron
Tron is one of my all-time favorite movies, a sci-fi feast that takes place inside a video game world ruled over by the MCP (Master Control Program), a world wherein gladiatorial "programs" battle it out for supremacy, riding rainbow-spewing laser bikes, and going up against floating robot menaces that transform their legs into giant crushing, killing presses. The world is stark, yet weirdly beautiful, an outgrowth of the imagination that conceived a cyberspace realm and brought it to life for the characters to occupy as alternate versions of their meatspace selves. It was groundbreaking stuff in 1982; hence, it flopped at the box office, only attaining cult status in the intervening years, as technology has caught up with and surpassed the virtual world envisioned by the filmmakers.
By Tom Bakera day ago in Futurism
Devil Girl from Mars
Devil Girl from Mars is a 1954 British film about a flying saucer landing on the Scottish moors near a country inn. The residents are a professor, his assistant, an old couple that runs the place, another woman, some society dame, a young boy, a waitress, her escaped convict husband, and whew! I get tired just giving out that roster. Was there anyone I missed?
By Tom Baker5 days ago in Futurism
Turkey Bowl 2
I wrote "Turkey Bowl" to cover movies so bad they didn't really deserve whole articles dedicated to reviewing them. The first two, The Bat (1959) starring Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead, and Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972), starring cult movie director Alan Ormsby, were indeed cinematic slop fit only for feeding to hogs (well, maybe they weren't that bad).
By Tom Baker11 days ago in Horror
Friday the Thirteenth: The Series "Helloween"
Note: The following review contains spoilers. This morning I awoke, as per usual, at around five thirty, rolled out of bed, read for a few minutes, drank some decaffeinated coffee, and signed into my telephone job. While alternating between waiting for calls and drawing macabre faces with my charcoal pencils, I watched an episode of "Friday the Thirteenth: The Series" (which, by the way, has nothing to do with Friday the Thirteenth: The Movies) which was particularly memorable, as it was short on brains but high on shlock entertainment value.
By Tom Baker12 days ago in Horror
JFK
I typically like to rewatch a film before writing about it, but I've seen Oliver Stone's JFK so many times in my life, that I don't really think it's necessary. I know the film like the back of my hand, having sat through it many times, exalting over its recreation of a historical period receding further and further away from us, as time moves on.
By Tom Baker15 days ago in Journal
Pink Floyd - Live at Pompeii
Pink Floyd gathered in the amphitheater in the ruins of Pompeii in 1972 to film one of the greatest concert films and documentaries of a rock group of the psychedelic era. Set amid the ruins of the devastated ancient city, the camera slides up and down, panning left and right over the painted frescoes and grim mosaics that document the lives and loves of ancient people, providing a sort of glimpse into the fate of beings cut short through the sheer absurdity of catastrophic misfortune. Out of the mercurial swamp of the lave flow of Vesuvius, we have the stuff from which is born, from the burbling earth, a new and more magnificent ruin for which time will still have no pity, no mercy, or no remorse.
By Tom Baker17 days ago in Beat
The AI Manifesto
Note: the following may or may not have been written as satire. Regardless, the author considers it public domain, and thus, it may be freely copied, pasted, distributed, recorded, stored in a retrieval system, or stuffed up the backside of any propaganda media hack, news presenter, pundit, priest, politician, or like-minded vulture.
By Tom Baker19 days ago in Futurism
"...Florence, I'll Meet You There."
I woke up one morning, nearly eight years ago, and a dead woman was goading me into writing a poem for her. I have no clue as to why she chose me. I even had the music to which to set said poem (in the manner of a 78 RPM from oh, maybe, 1916 or so). That woman was Florence Lawrence, the "Biograph Girl," the "World's First Movie Star."
By Tom Baker19 days ago in History
UnMaid*
"I have seen the New Man. He was cruel and intrepid. I was afraid of him." An Austrian Painter I'll never forget 2023 as the Year of the Machine.
By Tom Baker23 days ago in Poets
To Quote the Dead Kennedys
"Jigger of formaldehyde," Up my ass, Like a rectal suppository... (Farts in the breeze.) --Okay, so I can't write a fucking haiku, what's it to ya'?
By Tom Baker23 days ago in Poets
Top Story - November 2023
The Sleep of Reason Top Story - November 2023
The scene could be a selection from a feverish nightmare. It could simply be a metaphor for the callous "care" shown by the bourgeoisie toward the starving peoples of the Third World. Do they really get off on watching their victims twist in pangs of desire and hunger, while they dole out the literal equivalent of Marie Antoinette's famous cold-blooded quip?
By Tom Baker24 days ago in Geeks
Glitch City Blues
"Our love can destroy this whole fucking world [...] Let's rust this fucker!" Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) "In the future, everyone will be living in a TV studio." J.G. Ballard (Mid-1980s)
By Tom Baker25 days ago in Gamers

Tom Baker

Bio

Stories .css-19zxm0z-Text{display:inline-block;color:var(--text-default-mute);}(480/0)

Tron

Devil Girl from Mars

Turkey Bowl 2

Friday the Thirteenth: The Series "Helloween"

JFK

Pink Floyd - Live at Pompeii

The AI Manifesto

"...Florence, I'll Meet You There."

UnMaid*

To Quote the Dead Kennedys

The Sleep of Reason Top Story - November 2023

Glitch City Blues

Stories (480/0)