The Home of the Creative Mind

Welcome to PooBahSpiel, the online voice and home of the creative mind of Mark Monlux, Illustrator Extraordinaire. Prepare yourself for an endless regaling of art directly from the hand of this stellar artist. And brace yourself against his mighty wind of pontification. Updates are kinda weekly and show daily sketches, current projects, and other really nifty stuff.

Monday, April 30, 2012

The Comic Critic Reviews Forbidden Planet

If you’ve ever read my system for rating movies, you’d know that I give extra points for robots. Other sci-fi robots and I might have necked in the backseat at the drive-in, but I confess—I lost my geek cherry to Robby the Robot. Yes, he was in amazing color, but his charisma goes far beyond that. Far from looking like he was designed by socially awkward engineers in a garage (like so many robots before him), Robby looks like a Madison Avenue marketing group designed him. Visually, Robby set the bar a lot higher for what might be expected. (Vast improvements followed soon after.) And Robby was just one of the ingredients that made this movie great. What truly thrilled me as a young boy was the invisible monster. When his footprints appeared in the flattened earth, I held my breath. And I was riveted when he, caught in the energy beams, could be seen. With a little humor, a little romance, a lot of great visuals and action, Forbidden Planet captured my imagination then. It still grabs me now.