Boyce Thompson Institute

Here is a gallery of images I took at the abandoned Boyce Thompson Institute in Yonkers in 2009. The building had been recently boarded up, and I wasn’t interested in a breaking and entering charge, so urbex that day was restricted to the marvelous greenhouses. AbandonedNYC went a few years later and was able to get inside, however. The property was sold and redeveloped not too long ago. Alas, the greenhouses did not survive.

Air Force Museum

I took a trip to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio recently. The museum consists of four gigantic aircraft hangars packed full with weapons of war. Old planes, new planes, prop-driven planes, rockets, jets, fighters, bombers, transports, experimental aircraft, drones, cruise missiles, nuclear bombs, slow planes and supersonic planes — the museum even has a gallery of ballistic missiles. I was struck by the sheer amount of genius and financial expenditure that went into creating all these amazing machines. Just the existence of these objects is a testament to scientific and engineering advancement, and we used all this know-how to kill people.

Museums are difficult places to photograph, but I did manage to get a few shots that I think are worth looking at.

Samurai Cop

Samurai Cop, the 1991 stinker from writer/director/producer/editor Amir Shervan, has more shitty filmmaking moments than are possible to recount in any review of reasonable length. Here’s a sample:

  • Fight scenes and car chases have sped up footage to simulate quickness. It’s not subtle, either — approaching Benny Hill Show levels of speed.
  • A great deal of dialogue was recorded in post. That’s not unusual. But Shervan did many of the voices himself, dubbing the voices of stars and bit players, alike. That is unusual.
  • There are a lot of cops in this flick. Many of them wear uniforms. Some of those uniforms don’t have badges.
  • Star Mathew Karedas cut his glorious locks after principal shooting wrapped, but was called back months later for reshoots. Shervan put a ridiculous wig on his head with little regard to whether or not it looked right. It does not look right. In at least one scene, it briefly popped off of Karedas’s head.

Continue reading “Samurai Cop”

Renegades, aka American Renegades

The Luc Besson action mill has turned out some of the most successful action flicks of this century, and also some of the genre’s most overwrought messes. Renegades (released in the States as American Renegades) lies somewhere in between. It has the grandiosity one would expect from a Besson-produced action flick, but the end product is something anonymous. Continue reading “Renegades, aka American Renegades”