Some excerpts from a chat with former Ray Harryhausen producer Arnold Kunert detailing the recent Blu-ray release of Jason and the Argonauts, and others.

Everyone watching is there for the imagination and otherworldly beasts Harryhausen crafted, from the Harpies to the Hydra.

Everything grand about Clash of the Titans, and certainly the only things it is remembered for, happen in the final 45-minutes, where the effects work can take over on an epic scale.

Monsters Inc. will unlikely have the lasting impact of a Wall E., but it’s not trying to be in that same mold either.

The entire concept could have been “Bruce Campbell makes a speech about his shotgun to people in medieval times,” and it would have been successful.

7th Voyage of Sinbad is classic Hollywood. It is a grand-scale adventure, loaded with goofy costumes, magic, monsters, women, villains, and heroes. It’s not a great movie, with long stretches of dull dialogue and wooden performances, but the special effects of Ray Harryhuasen can make anything a classic. Not surprisingly, that’s the case here. Regardless [...]

It is rather surprising that more creature films don’t feature giant squids. We’ve had all sorts of radioactive monstrosities over the years, yet the giant squid is real. Logic dictates that something real is far more frightening than something that isn’t. Though not a giant squid (it’s an octopus), It Came From Beneath the Sea [...]

While a flying saucer seems like the last thing a film would need the stop motion talents of Ray Harryhausen for, it’s amazing to see how his work can make the end result turn out. Without it, you’d have a substandard flying saucer ’50s B-movie. With his skill, you have a near classic. While hardly [...]

What makes a ‘50s giant-monster movie more than a ‘50s giant-monster movie? Ray Harryhausen. Stop-motion expert extraordinaire Harryhausen gave life to numerous film icons, and one of them is the Ymir. 20 Million Miles to Earth carries many of the expected genre plot points, but the stunning stop-motion Ymir is too impressive a sight to [...]