BADASS DIGEST

Badass Digest is a new favorite website of mine. It's probably the only film-related website I look at any more—mainly because they don't waste posts on who might get cast in a movie that might not even get made because it hasn't been written yet. That kind of thing has driven me away from sites that I used to love (like slashfilm.com) because I just don't care. Show me a trailer and then I can get excited.

Anyway, they've been trying pretty hard to diversify from the pack of movie websites and aren't all that concerned with getting 'scoops' and cheap hits, which is the biggest problem with online news sites nowadays. They still do their fair share of reporting rumors, but it's not as bad as some of the others.

One thing they've started doing is a web series where the EIC/founder of the site, Devin Faraci, goes to awesome places around Los Angeles and Hollywood to film and talk about cool things. My two favorite episodes are embedded below.

In the first, he goes to the Universal Backlot and wanders around the sets of all the classic monster movies from back in the day. It's a little bit of a veiled advertisement for the newly released Universal Monsters Blu-Ray collection, but it's still awesome to see all those old sets still standing and a cool way to learn a few facts that I never knew about   (like the reason Frankenstein walks with his arms out in front of him).

The second, is about prop collector Bob Burns. His basement is full of the original props from some of the greatest sci-fi, horror and monster movies of all time. He's got awesome stuff in there and I'm sure there are tons of things that didn't end up in the video.

Both these videos are right up my alley, because when I was little the first thing that I wanted to do "when I grew up" was make special effects for movies. As soon as I found out that was actually a thing, I wanted to be the guy that made them. Of course, that goes back to needing artistic ability, which I don't have on that level. I can write the shit out of some words, but actual designing and drawing is not a skill set that I possess. Believe me, I've tried. But still, that kind of thing always fascinated me and these videos just enhance that love for effects and props.

Check them out. And head over to Badass Digest.com to see more videos and have a look around. Pretty good stuff.