Matt’s Week in Dork! (9/1/13-9/7/13)

    I started out the week by actually finishing some things.  Yes is the Answer, a sort of oral history of Prog Rock and The Burning Man, Chirsta Faust’s latest Fringe novel.  And the end of the week went crazy with Baltimore Comic-Con, and a visit from Dan and Chris.

Dredd:  A satisfyingly brutal take on the venerable comic character, Dredd finally does 2000AD’s bent sense of humor and grim future justice.  And yes, the helmet NEVER comes off.  Karl Urban makes a great Judge Dredd, with a constant frown and that chiseled jaw.  The villains are nasty, the heroes are nastier.  The violence is weirdly beautiful and the world building is spot on.  For some reason I’ll never understand, this movie did not get anything like the audience it should have.  I’m constantly seeing stuff online from people just seeing it, saying ‘this is so good; how did I not see it before?’  I don’t know.  I saw it in the theater, and had it been there longer, I’d have gone again.  Loved it then, and love it on this second viewing.

Battle In Outer Space:  A pretty good space launch turned alien attack movie from Japan, this is perhaps too slow paced.  Still, in spite of the slow pace and the occasionally meandering plot, I found myself enjoying the adventures of the various characters.  Cool Toho type model work.  It’s not great, and not as wild and weird as some others of the era.  But it’s good.

Mothra:  The argument could be made that this is just kind of a Godzilla clone, with a giant moth instead of a giant dinosaur.  But so what?  It’s fun, it’s well done, and it’s got some cool model destruction.  The King Kong style island adventure in the middle is cool.  There’s a nice twist in the middle.  And the action is solid.

Lords of Salem:  I’m actually kind of impressed by just how unimpressive this film is.  It’s easy to crap on Rob Zombie.  House of 1000 Corpses was a jumbled mess (with a few interesting bits).  The Devil’s Rejects (his best) is uneven, to say the least.  The Halloween remakes sucks (there; I said it; it sucks).  El Superbeasto was absolute garbage.  And now Lords of Salem.  It has a lot of the disorganized, aimless feel of 1000 Corpses, with the yawn inducing boredom of Halloween.  But, it also looks great.  That’s the thing with Zombie’s work.  He does some good stuff.  He works with different cinematographers every time, but always has very cool imagery in his films, which I assume come from him.  But the writing.  It’s just not there.  I loved a lot of the early scenes of Sheri Moon Zombie walking around, and going about her life.  It had a very nostalgic, New England in the early 80s vibe to it that I thought was quite nice.  But otherwise, the movie is just a mess.  I think he was aiming for some combination of The Devil’s Rain and The Sentinel, but he missed the mark.

Hey look.  A goat.

The African Queen:  “Ain’t a thing I can do about it.”  I enjoy the heck out of this light-hearted adventure movie, set against WWI era Africa.  Bogart and Hepburn are two down and out people on the edge of nowhere, who come together with a hair-brained plan to strike a blow against the Kaiser.  We then follow these two down a torturous river and through the fumblings of a budding romance.  I love that the actors don’t look good.  Hepburn is clearly getting older.  Bogart looks like crap.  They sweat, they get dirty, and they just don’t look like movie stars.  Yet, the film is beautiful to look at.  Is it an amazing, life changing film?  No.  But I get why it’s a classic, and I do really enjoy it.

Wrong:  “I only realized that I loved my face after it had been burned with acid.”  Two years ago, Rubber kind of blew me away.  It was so out of nowhere, so strange, so sickly clever that a movie about a murderous psychic tire (yup!) made it on my top ten list.  Wrong is fun, and it’s weird.  But it’s not on the same level.  Sure, there’s plenty of weirdass behavior and strange images.  But while I enjoyed it, I wasn’t blow away by it.

    So, Friday night, Chris and Dan arrived.  Saturday morning…way too early Saturday morning, we hopped in the car and headed to Baltimore, setting up the Warrior 27 table.  We were each able to make various excursions around the place over the course of the day, and I got to see a lot of cool stuff.  This year stood out for me because of the breadth and obscurity of the cosplay.  I was impressed.  Sure, there were a lot of New Who costumes (only one good enough for me to give a pass on the cliché/overexposure).  And there were a bunch of Deadpools (I don’t get it).  But there was a Captain Haddock (from Tintin) for crying out loud.  There was even a couple of ladies doing the nerdy scientists from Pacific Rim.  It was pretty cool.  After the show, co-Dork Brad and our friend Robert joined us for some Mexican at a place not too far from my house.  Too late to bed, and an early rise the next day for Day 2 of the con.  More on that next week, I guess.

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (8/18/13-8/24/13)

It feels like it's been a month since my last entry - that's because it has! Man oh man, no excuses...except to say that my San Diego Comic Con vacation was so epic and amazing that I've been suffering a massive bout of postpartum depression. It was only a week long pregnancy but the birth produced a bouncing beastly joy baby that's consumed my every waking thought.  This year's Comic Con was so extreme and wonderful that I cannot even put it into the proper words.  I really should do a separate blog post on the adventure, but I fear that too much time has past for any of you to give a good god damn about how wonderful my life has been.  I will leave you with just this - a photo I snapped from the front row of Hall H....

That's right, Sam The Man giving yours truly the stare down.  Absolute chills.  And that is only one of hundreds of photos I took over the course of the weekend.  I saw all the amazing panels you've already read about, scored a sackful of exclusives including the Magnitude Admiral Akbar bust, and participated in the Doug Loves Movies podcast, in which special guest star Leonard Maltin competed on my wife's behalf.   Third year in a row, and it was the best one yet.  I've been in a daze ever since, and for whatever reason I lost focus on ITMOD.  Thankfully, Matt has been watching & doing a bunch of crazy dork stuff and he's been keeping this blog going while I was drifting in the clouds.

Art by Monica Marier

Well, I'm back now folks.  This being the tail end of the Summer Blockbuster season, I spent a lot of time in the theater.  Finally found a film I'm comfortable calling the Best Movie of 2013 - Only God Forgives is a monster.  And quite possibly superior to Drive which won my heart a couple years back.  Don't believe the snobs and the haters, Nicholas Winding Refn's latest is not to be simply dismissed by the critics.  It's a depressing, oppressive winner.  Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, & Nick Frost brought their Cornetto Trilogy to a close with The World's End, and even if it is the weakest of the three, the film was an absolute highlight of the summer.  Seeing all their films back-to-back at The Alamo Drafthouse was easily my favorite theatrical experience of the year.  More on that later.  And, yes, the 18th was my Birthday and I decided this year to tie it into my annual Shat Attack Movie Party.  For a full rundown on the nearly 24 Hours of Shatner Viewing check out Matt's Week in Dork.  Spiders, Whales, & Tommy Guns Oh My!  Another rip roaring success.

Only God Forgives:  An absolutely punishing film.  Nicholas Winding Refn's second collaboration with Ryan Gosling is a mean spirited film draped in the mood of David Cronenberg's body horror, fogged with David Lynch's absurdity, and housed within the long corridors of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.  Like the best of Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese, Only God Forgives is somehow both homage and wholly original.  A greek tragedy centered around an Oedipal complex and a quest for revenge, Ryan Gosling has sinned his way into impotence and only Vithaya Pansringarm's angel of vengeance can release him from his miserable existence.  With it's nearly mute leading actor, it's meticulously composed frame, and shocking outbursts of violence (although surprisingly tame in the gore department) it's no wonder the box office did not embrace this terse melodrama.  And unlike Drive, the Urban Outfitters crowd will find difficulty in embracing the cool of Gosling's murderous demon.  This is not anti-hero cinema, despite a close resemblance to the Frankenstein monster and a killer Cliff Martinez score.

Kick-Ass 2:  Three years ago, I really enjoyed Matthew Vaughn's Kick Ass. Coming off of Layer Cake & Stardust, the director seemed to revel in the mean-spirited vitriol of Mark Millar & John Romita Jr's  wannabe Alan Moore comic book. It's a superhero deconstruction that seemed more concerned with punishing its ignorant fanboys than elevating them to their obsessions. However, with Vaughn's departure the sequel is plopped into the lap working stiff Jeff Wadlow (Cry_Wolf, Never Back Down) and the result is a heartless hunk of wood. From nearly the first line of dialog I was cringing at the performances. Aaron Taylor-Johnson & Chloe Grace Moretz are embarrassingly lifeless. Christopher Mintz-Plasse reads like a High School Musical audition. The film's soundtrack is cobbled together from the previous outing and a Wal-Mart club mix. Utter dreck. The violence is amped but the camera is rammed into the action, shaking uncontrollably, and fogging any sense of choreography.  There might be a little life in Jim Carrey's Colonel Stars & Stripes, but he's barely in the movie and his departure is almost as unceremonious as his entrance.  A real summer snooze.

The Flashpoint Paradox:  Alternative timelines are always fun. Of course, this particular story is based on the tale that spun DC Comics down the New 52 rabbit hole of mediocrity (the positive spin) and confused nonsense (the negative spin).  So I've got some bitter feelings to work through before I can ever fully embrace this adaptation. The basic gist is that anti-Flash (aka Professor Zoom) travels back in time switching key events that pit Wonder Woman's Amazons against Aquaman's Atlantians, all the while Lex Luthor's pitiful humans are caught in the middle. Superman never landed in Smallville. Bruce Wayne was shot down in crime alley instead of his parents. A topsy turvy world that's a lot of fun, but lacks the depth of DC's greatest animated adventures (New Frontier, The Dark Knight Returns).  And next on the DC docket is Justice League - War, an animated spin on The New 52's Justice League.  Not interested.  DAMN YOU FLASH!!!!

The Ultimate Justice League of Extraordinary Graphic Novel Book Club (Year 2, Meeting 3):  This month's Graphic Novel was my pick, the first three volumes of Fatale by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips. If you've been following this blog at all than you know that I consider Fatale to be the single greatest comic currently being published on a monthly basis.  Unfortunately, the group and I had to beg to differ.  With the exception of my incredibly intelligent co-dork Matt and my very beautiful wife, the rest of the gang did not seem too impressed with Brubaker's noir/Lovecraft mashup.  There were a couple "OK"s & the rest supplied some shoulder shrugs.  Oh well.  Art is subjective and all that.  The books certainly provided for some interesting discussion centering around Josephine's proactive nature or lack thereof, and I came away this month more in love with Fatale than before.  It truly is a masterpiece and I cannot wait to see where Brubaker & Phillips leave this story.

Fatale - Death Chases Me:  The first volume bounces back and forth from the present day to 1950s San Francisco as Nicholas Lash tries to uncover a supernatural mystery involving his dead uncle and a seemingly immortal woman.  It's a rather brilliant kernel that finds a magical reason to explain the Femme Fatale cliche.  Put simply, Raymond Chandler strained through HP Lovecraft's nightmares, and it's everything this fanboy has ever wanted to see on the page or screen.  You've got Nazis, Cultists, Demons, Cops, Journalists, Dames, and Corpses.  It's the kitchen sink, baby.

Fatale - The Devil's Business:  The events of the first volume send the demon siren Josephine into a LA LA Land seclusion.  It's now the 1970s and Los Angeles is suffering from a cocaine blizzard, Hollywood cultists, and snuff films.  A junkie wannabe actor ekes his way into the wrong party and suddenly he's battling Hell's Army and falling under the hypnotic gaze of Josephine.  Like all the men that fall upon her path, the junkie's future is instantly damned and serves simply as a reminder to our Femme Fatale that her existence is all consuming.  Meanwhile, the present day Nicholas Lash suffers hellish nightmares involving tentacled men and attractive owls.  What's it all mean?  Nothing good.

Fatale - West of Hell:  With the third volume, the mythology of Fatale is blown wide open and, of course, it creates more questions than answers.  In 1930s Texas Josephine meets the Lovecraft stand-in,  Alfred Ravenscroft.  His pulp stories seem to hold the answers to Josephine's visions, and her encounter with him launches her dead-end quest through World War II.  We also meet Mathilda of 1286 France and Black Bonnie of 1883 Colorado, two lovely creatures similarly cursed with the siren affliction.  Their stories offer glimpses at the blood magic at the center of this horror, and the Good vs Evil forces pulling the strings.  And finally, we're given the sad story that brought Josephine & GI Walt Booker together.  Maybe he's not the human monster we once thought?  West of Hell is the volume that sealed the deal on my love of Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips.  There is grand mythology supporting this dirty noir.

Out of Sight:  On Tuesday, Elmore Leonard passed away due to complications after a stroke.  The man was an absolute hero of mine and his books sent me down a path of crime writing I have yet to depart.  I was lucky enough to attend a signing of his some years back, and he was an absolutely gracious man while he snarked at my Mr. Majestyk one sheet.  I remember asking him if he would ever get back to Western's and he simply stated, "No money in it."  To celebrate the man there is only one movie I could have chosen.  Out of Sight is the film that forever proved the truth of George Clooney's charm, and it's one of a fistful of movies to properly capture Leonard's crackerjack characters.  Smart and slick crooks right alongside the painfully boneheaded. Jackie Brown might be the best film pulled from a Leonard novel, but Out of Sight is the closest film to properly deliver the tone - that balance of comedy and drama. Clooney is Super Cool TNT, even when he's hanging around dolts like Steve Zahn's vision impaired Glen or Don Cheadle's glass jawed Snoopy. Out of Sight made crime cool again; without it there certainly wouldn't be a Justified tv show or an Ocean's 11.

Lord of Illusions:  "I was born to murder the world." Clive Barker's third and final film as a director is an underrated genre mashup supported by four performances from actors never again given material this weighty or as against type. Scott Bakula is an exceptional Sam Spade stand-in, and he carries the supernatural shenanigans with Humphrey Bogart's dry acceptance. Kevin J O'Connor, who is normally regulated to the comic relief sidekick persona, is exceptionally sad as the fallen magician but he also manages to evoke dreadful power. Famke Janssen was simply born to be the Femme Fatale; she's pure sex & danger. And Daniel Von Bargen might just be the proudest, shiniest, tubbiest lump of evil to ever Charlie Manson the silver screen. Lord of Illusions is the Chinatown of horror, a neo-noir caked in Barker's special brand of perversity that never got the audience it so rightfully deserved. I'll just have to take comfort in the knowledge that in the Fringe universe Bakula & Barker made a killing with a whole slew of Harry D'Amour detective stories.

Photo Courtesy of The Alamo Drafthouse Facebook Page

The Blood & Ice Cream Shaun Off @ The Alamo Drafthouse DC:  On Thursday night, The Wife & I met up at The Alamo with our friends Matt (you know him), Paul, & Lindsey for the Cornetto Trilogy screening.  I've seen a lot of great movies on the silver screen (Sweet Smell of Success, Lawrence of Arabia, 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Monster Squad), but the key ingredient that transformed this showing into my all time favorite theatrical experience was The Shaun-Off Raffle.  To participate all you needed was a white buttoned up shirt, a red tie, and some red on you.  One quick trip to Target and The Wife & I were cosplaying (a first for me).  

And dammit, can you actually believe I won the raffle!  I can no longer say that I never win anything because I walked away from The Cornetto Trilogy with a free Mondo print of Shaun of the Dead signed by Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost.  Just look at that photo above, I am completely gobsmacked.  I'm still flying high from the win, and as I type this I'm staring googly eyed at the Tyler Stout beauty hanging on my wall.  Just too cool for school.

Shaun of the Dead:  "They're a bit bitey."  Nine years ago I attended a sneak preview of this film and when I walked out of the theater I remember saying to a friend that we had just experienced an instant classic.  Having now seen it a dozen or so times, I still feel that Shuan of the Dead is one of those rare perfect films.  On one hand it is an expertly crafted parody of the George Romero zombie movie, and on the other hand it's a heart wrenching story of both romantic & parental love.  Simon Pegg is the ultimate fanboy hero, he gives all boob tube losers like myself hope of an apocalypse makeover.  It's never too late to get your shit together.  In the last ten years we have seen countless cash grabs into the zombie subgenre, but only Shaun feels like a proper addition to the world originally populated by Romero.

Hot Fuzz:  "If we bashed your head in all sorts of secrets would come out."  Next on their hit list, Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg target Michael Bay's 'splosions but with a good dose of Wicker Man small town creepy.  Simon Pegg is Nicholas Angel, the Dirty Harry of London banished to the dreary boredom of the midlands.  But of course this Supercop will uncover a town wide conspiracy involving a Serial Slasher, Timothy Dalton's absorbingly smug grin, and a gaggle of dimwitted coppers.  The pacing blunders a little, but you'll forgive an overlong running time after a Kaiju climax boggles your brain.  Hot Fuzz doesn't quite get the love blessed Shaun of the Dead, but you would be sorely ignorant if you dismissed this very british ribbing of an American Summer Blockbuster staple.  

The World's End:  "That's why I drink from a crazy straw!  Not so crazy now!"  The genre mashing of this film is not as clear or as clever as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but it succeeds due to the camaraderie between friends.  Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, & Eddie Marsan are a great batch of chums, and their banter is some of the most lovable & cantankerous we've been given in The Cornetto Trilogy.  Pegg's Gary King is easily the most depressingly gloomy character he's played so far, and likewise, Nick Frost's Andy is his most layered lout yet.  Frost's transformation from stiff upper brit to smashing pink Hulk awards the film's greatest laugh.  WWF Smackdown Champion.  I dare not ruin the climax of the movie, but it is certainly a masterstroke.  I only wish it happened fifteen minutes earlier cuz I just wanted more of that samurai insanity.  Sure, it's my least favorite film in the series but it's also one of 2013's finest films.  Cheers.

Paul:  "Three tits - Awesome!"  It's simply unfair to compare this film to The Cornetto Trilogy.  There's just something magical about the Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost combo.  Take one away and it's just not the same.  That being said, the Pegg & Frost duo in any film is worth your attention.  Much more sophomoric and silly than their other efforts, Paul appeals to that dimmer side of my brain.  Seth Rogen is daft and dumb and wonderful as the little green man taunting our heroes across the American west.  Pegg & Frost are exceptionally sweet in their plutonic love, and the genre references are fun enough for nerds everywhere.  Not a classic, but it gets the job done when there is no more ice cream to devour.

--Brad

San Diego Comic Con 2012 Part 2 - Friday, Saturday, & Sunday

Friday Morning the alarm was supposed to sound at 4:00 AM.  And maybe it did, and maybe it didn't.  Whatever the case, I did not crawl off of that hotel bed until 6 AM.  But that was ok.  This was not a Hall H day for me, and my only goal for the show was to hit the exhibit hall, spend some money, and snap some photographs.  Bryan was the Dork heading into H for Resident Evil, Looper, and Elysium.  He saw some awesome stuff, told me that Elysium is going to be the flick to beat next year.  We'll see.

If I had only one goal for Friday it was to make it through the Guillermo Del Toro signing over at the Gentle Giant booth.  I thought the chances of me coming face to face with the man who directed my all time favorite ghost story (The Devil's Backbone) was slim to none.  But I was curious, and I had a little hope.  To get a signature you had to purchase either the Blade 2 Reaper Bust Box Set or the limited edition Pale Man statue from Pan's Labyrinth.  Neither were cheap, but I didn't fly across the country to save money.  Double downed on both.

So when I eventually made it into the Exhibit Hall, I sprinted over to the Gentle Giant booth to check on the line.  To my surprise there wasn't one.  They were not even queuing for the event yet.  Doug Jones was going to be there at 11, and the very pleasant Gentle Gianters suggested I come back 15-30 minutes before his signing.  I did just that.  There were three people in front of me.  Jones got their promptly, told me to call him "Dougie," autographed my Pale Man base, gave me a signed card promoting his new autobiography Mime Very Own Book, and I was on my way.  Del Toro was not scheduled to be back till 1, so off I went to explore the rest of the floor.  I guess since you had to lay down at least a hundred bucks to participate in the signing and the fact that it wasn't plastered all over the Program guide, there just was not a lot of interest.  Win for me.

Man.  Look at how huge I look next to Doug Jones.

Anyway...I puttered about the floor photographing a wide array of Cosplayers and toys, toys, toys.  I tried on several occasions to make it over to the Mondo booth, but every time they announced a Game of Thrones, Adventure Time, or Lord of the Rings release the line to get to the front was enormous.  That's definitely one difference between last year and this year.  Last year I could walk up to Mondo and at least snag one of their lesser cherished prints (got that great Daniel Danger Star Trek The Motion Picture in '11), but now I had no hope of scoring Francesco Francavilla's Creature From The Black Lagoon or Jay Shaw's Mimic.  After all, Mondo is making Entertainment Weekly headlines these days, the cat is out of the bag (hopefully it's not in the river).

But ya know what?  Mondo's booth might have been swamped, but you could easily walk up to Mondo alum Jason Edmiston's table and acquire his Planet of the Apes print, or his Night of the Creeps/Monster Squad mashup.  And that's exactly what I did.  At the time he had no one bothering him but me, and we chatted for a good while about the upcoming Crazy 4 Cult show in New York and his success with the Mondo prints.  Basically, it was just me fawning over his work and him blushing a bit.

By now it was 12:30 and I quickly skirted back to Gentle Giant.  Again, there were only five people ahead of me in line.  However, the weird thing was that they were conducting a Slave Leia Photo shoot right in front of us.  So that meant, unless I wanted to Photo Bomb everyone's Comic Con album, I had to duck down behind a half dozen Slave Leia asses.  And when the Leias would part to allow some geek to join their photo op than my head could be seen between their legs.  This lasted a good fifteen minutes and it was a wonderfully awkward Comic Con moment for myself.  If you were lucky enough to be following my twitter feed at the time, I uploaded a couple of super creepy POV shots.  Gross, Brad.

We were all incredibly giddy to be meeting Del Toro.  It's such an odd feeling coming confronting an idol.  Ever since 2001, when I saw The Devil's Backbone at the West End Cinema, I've been obsessing over Guillermo Del Toro.  And then came Blade 2, a sequel to a Marvel film (& comic) that I  really Did Not Like.  But Del Toro brought monsters back to the Vampire Genre (something he would perfect in The Strain novels co-written by Chuck Hogan) and he crafted an excellent action film with a wicked tier of villainy (The Blood Pack's Ron Perlman, Thomas Kretschmann's Damaskinos, and Luke Goss' Nomak).  Honestly, Blade 2 is the film that turned me into the Del Toro uber-fan that I am today.

From that point on I read every interview, scoured every piece of production art, and anticipated every single Del Toro release.  Similar to Quentin Tarantino, the man is a walking genre encyclopedia and his geekery has helped build my own fandom.  Thanks to him I've delved into William Hope Hodgson and Arthur Machen.  I've gorged on every Mario Bava film I can get my hands on.  And I finally saw Brian De Palma's The Phantom of the Paradise, a film that both The Wife & I now deeply cherish.

Sure, already being a Hellboy comic nut, I have very complicated emotions regarding the films.  They're fun, but they're not Mignola. And I loved Pan's Labryinth but I still don't think it's as good as Backbone.  I was a little sad to see him leave The Hobbit but it's probably for the best.  I was deeply disappointed by the deterioration of At The Mountains of Madness, but I'm extremely excited for the Giant Robots vs. Giant Monsters insanity that's going to be Pacific Rim.

Blah, blah, blah.  I love Guillermo Del Toro.  So, here we are, waiting for the Geek God to arrive.  The man means so much to us lowly fans, but when you finally get face-to-face, you're just another anonymous nerd.  All I could think to say was "I'm a really big fan" and he looked up at me and said "You certainly are."  And that was it.  And it was awesome.  Ten seconds with Del Toro, and it's the highlight of my Comic Con experience.  

After that, I wandered around the exhibit hall some more.  Scorring free swag where I could (my favorite piece being the Lionsgate Dredd badge).  And I took more photos of toys and statues.  Loved the GI Joe stuff over at Hasbro.  Still really bummed the new movie's not hitting till next yeat--I seriously need that Rza action figure!

And you could easily get lost in the Sideshow Collectibles booth.  It's one thing to look at their statues online, but to get your nose right up against the glass-to see their massive sizes, their perfect paint jobs-just beautiful stuff.

And over at Diamond Select Toys, I saw a couple of essential Star Trek busts.  Of course, I'm still waiting for the Kirk & Picard busts that were unveiled last year so who knows when Khan & Spock will be mine.

And then there's that "I Must Break You" diaroma over at NECA.  The Prometheus stuff is great and I love that Dutch Predator toy I posted in the last SDCC entry, but Rocky taking one in the face from Drago...doesn't get more awesome than that.  This will have to be recreated here in the apartment.

And then I turn the corner and there's David Hasseloff sitting atop the K.I.T.T. car, being interviewed by some generic G4 girl.  You gotta love these random encounters.  You never know when you're gonna bump into some TV, Comic, or Movie personality.  Too bad my camera was acting up, but these wonderfully blurry shots of mister Baywatch seem appropriate considering his constant jittery excitement.  

Towards the end of the day, once again The Wife & I met up over at the Extras stage.  She had lots of cool Nerd HQ panel stories of the Rza, Stan Lee, Damon Lindeloff, and Guillermo Del Toro.  And while we were chatting and scarfing down con snacks, Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez stepped out on stage for a quick Resident Evil interview.  Later we saw a Children's Hospital reading and then the cast of The Big Bang Theory popped up.  Earlier, thousands of folks crammed into Hall H for their respective panels but here we were practically sitting in their lap.  The Extra interviews were vapid at best, but I managed to get a few cool photos.

Friday night we returned to the Balboa Theater for a Nerdist podcast recording.  Torchwood's John Barrowman was the guest and he provided for some seriously strange conversation.  As audience members brought dozens of vodka tonics to the stage, Barrowman got crazier and crazier.  At one point he dropped trou to reveal his Batman undies, he groped the breasts of not one, but two willing nerdettes, and he forced his french tongue on another male participant.  I've never been a real fan of the Nerdist (that's my Wife); I've mildly enjoyed the occasional interview, but damn I was happy to be there to witness this insanity.

Saturday was the big Hall H day.  And it looks like I was not the only one anticipating big crowds.  I got into the line by 3:30 AM and it was already reaching well beyond the Hilton hotel; it would eventually stretch and wrap around the marina.  The lines were bad last year, but back then we never went beyond the first set of white tents.  But you gotta accept this stuff, you gotta enjoy the line by talking to your neighbor--get social.  Discover the fandom of those around you.  Talk Del Toro.  Talk Hobbit.  Talk Marvel.  Talk Drive Angry-yep, that happened.

And follow Twitter.  Around 9:30, I saw Ryan Gallagher of the Criterion Cast tweet out an S.O.S. for line placement.  I tweeted back that I had a spot just a couple thousand seats away from the Hall H entrance and he was welcome to it in exchange for some Starbucks.  He obliged.  Eventually we also met up with Brendon Connelly of Bleeding Cool and the three of us spent the entire day in Hall H.

The festivities began with Django Unchained.  If you remember my 2011 Dorkies, you'll recall that Django made my #1 Most Anticipated Film of 2012 and it sill remains this year's Must See Film.  The panel consisted of Quentin Tarantino, Jaime Foxx, Walton Goggins, Don Johnson, and Kerry Washington.  The footage shown was just an extended trailer (apparently the same stuff seen at Showest) and it really didn't offer any new insights apart from the already familiar Django trailers.  It got giddy listening to QT jammer on, but it also did not rock me in the way I was hoping.

No real shock here, but Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim was the hit of the day for me.  When I first heard the idea of giant Kaiju beasties vs. giant mech suits I thought that there really was no way Del Toro could pull of this crazy movie-movie idea.  But when Warner Brothers stretched Hall H into three massive screens and the first gargantuan robot boots cracked along the ice, I was hooting and hollering with the rest of the six thousand fanboys.   Pacific Rim promises to "cancel the apocalypse" and Del Toro drummed up further excitement with the promise of Rocket Punches!  This is some seriously silly Robot Jox entertainment, but I'm hoping Del Toro can elevate this to High Genre Art.

As the cast of Pacific Rim shuffled off the stage and as I tried to calm myself in preparation for the Man of Steel presentation, Will Ferrell & Zach Galifianakis surprised Hall H with some rather banal Campaign comedy.  I don't know, I like Ferrell enough.  I still really love The Other Guys and Anchorman is heaps of fun, but I couldn't muster up any kind of enthusiasm for The Campaign.  And it seemed to me that Galifianakis really did not want to be up there on stage.  There was a trailer, but it jumped into Q & A almost immediately.  Both Ferrell & Galifianakis busted some serious fanboy balls and I was glad to see them leave the stage.

Before Comic Con, Man Of Steel was not a movie I was particularly excited about.  Unlike Batman, Superman is a character I've never really cared for and the idea of Zach Snyder taking his painted slow-mo punches to Kal-El seemed like an odd combo.  But the footage won me over.  Was I still riding high off of Pacific Rim?  Probably.  But Man of Steel does not look like a movie beholden to the Christopher Reeve films and Superman might just need Zach Snyder's action sensibilities.  Plus, I did not see one slow-mo punch painting!  And ya know what?  I don't really hate Zach Snyder.  I just hate Sucker Punch.  I've enjoyed every single one of his other films and I'm guessing I'll enjoy this.  Plus, Henry Cavill's Clark Kent beard is awesome and Russell Crow's Jor-El voice is PERFECT.



The teaser trailer released for The Dark Knight Rises is just a bit of the footage we saw in Hall H.  We also got a bit of Michael Shannon's Zod (? Snyder still not confirming that), a whole lot of Krypton, and Henry Cavill crawling out of a pile of skulls in one shot and covered in flames for another.  Very cool, comic booky stuff.  But there's also this Clark Kent coming-of-super-hero-age imagery that I really responded towards.  Color me excited.

Okay.  I'm just gonna say this.  I'm not really excited for The Hobbit.  I know, I know.  How can I call myself a proper Dork when I'm not panting for Tolkien.  I loved the Lord of the Rings films as much as the next guy, but I just kinda want Peter Jackson to move on.  The Hobbit looks great.  Love seeing Ian McKellen as Gandalf again.  Martin Freeman is perfect for Bilbo.  And I'm sure it's gonna be good.  But I think I'm just ready to get beyond Middle Earth.  I don't know, maybe I'll be singing a different tune come December.  Still, it was great to see all these actors up on stage.  McKellen, I adore you.

After Hobbit, Hall H shrunk back down to one puny screen and all 6,000 nerds wondered, How Was Marvel Going To Top Warner Brothers?  Kevin Feige took the stage to announce Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Awesome.  Brubaker's Bucky on the big screen is a fantastic thought.  Then Rocket Raccoon was projected on screen, Guardians of the Galaxy was announced for 2014 and my Dork brain exploded.  ROCKET RACCOON!  We live in a magical age!

Edgar Wright then joined Fiege on stage to present his Ant-Man test footage.  Seriously.  Ant-Man.  That's happening.  Wha????  How is this going to work?  Shaun of the Dead.  Hott Fuzz.  Scott Pilgrim vs The World.  Man, you should have faith in Edgar Wright by this point.  And his Ant-Man test footage was great.  The suit looked beautiful.  A mixture of classic Pym and the Robert Kirkman mini series, and Wright explained that his film would combine the Silver Age Ant-Man with the Modern Era!  That suggests a serious possibility for the Kirkman story.  And I think that could be tremendous amounts of fun.  "Ant-Man, kicking your ass one inch at a time."

So, what next?  Que Luther Vandross...



Robert Downey Jr seemed to be living the Tony Stark attitude.  He was doing character work at Comic Con; this is not reality, his dialog seemed like something out of WWE.  He was trying to one-handedly snack on a Hershey's Kiss while chuntering on about needing some shawarma.  Arogant and adorable, just like Stark.  The footage we saw looked fun.  Looked like an Iron Man movie.  The new suit looks to be right out of Warren Ellis' Extremis storyline but all that gold will take some getting used to.  A squadron of helicopters destroy his Malibu mansion.  And we get our first look at Ben Kingsley's The Mandarin.  Not Chinese.  He has a scraggy coat covering some sorta band t-shirt.  He's got the Ten Rings.  He's got the throne.  He's got the long hair.  We'll see.

Of course, I love Shane Black's action scripts from the 80s and I loved, loved, loved his directorial debut Kiss Kiss Bang Bang-so I'm down for Iron Man 3.  And I was glad to hear Black say "To stay on top you gotta touch bottom...we need a little simplicity, a return to the myths that drive us."  You can't get bigger than Avengers, so why bother?  Good call.

But the suit?  As the old saying goes, If Ain't Broke Don't Fix It.  I guess you need a Mark VIII for the third film, but personally I want to see more creative suits.  More underwater armor.  Some Hulkbuster stuff.  We've bought into The Avengers, it's time for Marvel to get nuts and not just offer up a new color scheme.  That being said, we are getting Rocket Raccoon.  That's nuts enough, I guess.  But this Dork is never happy.

And that pretty much did it for Saturday.  Kevin Smith followed Iron Man 3, but I had been trapped in Hall H for twelve hours and the bathroom was shut down somewhere into hour two soooooooo I had to peeeeeeeeeee and left with the rest of the herd.  I don't know what Kevin Smith had to talk about but it looks like most of Hall H followed me outside.  And after a serious whiz, the day was done.

Ah, but if you thought I was done with Hall H you were sorely mistaken.  That's where Sunday started.  With Fringe and Supernatural panels.  In both cases I'm not caught up with the show.  I only just finished the third season of Fringe and I've only seen a handful of Supernatural's season 7 episodes.  So I had a lot spoiled for me on Sunday.  That being said, I'm really looking forward to catching up and diving into the new seasons.

This year being Fringe's final season and final Comic Con appearance, the cast was surprisingly emotional.  When describing their favorite scenes from the show Jasika Nicole, Lance Reddick, and Anna Torv all broke down into tears.  And Joshua Jackson and John Noble had a good time ribbing their weepies.  Torv and Nicole also joked around about all the "scandalous" fan fiction they've been reading and also contemplating performing it--the crowd ate it up.

The Supernatural gang on the other hand were just a bunch of jokesters.  Hall H was all squeals when Jared & Jensen talked about the joys of being tied up for the show.  And both leads seemed to take special delight in rallying the fans with conversations venturing into slash fiction.  It's all just heaps of cheese, but I do love Supernatural cheese.

Next, I left the wife to her Doctor Who panel as I raced up to the second floor for Darwyn Cooke's Parker discussion.  This was one of my favorite panels of the con and the irony did not pass me by that thousands of people were fighting for seats down in Hall H when there were only a handful of enthusiasts in attendance for a good & proper comic book panel.  Sigh.  That's just the way of these things are now.  Get over it.

Cooke talked briefly about the new book, The Score.  He announced that the next book would be an adaptation of Richard Stark's The Handle and that it would possibly lead into Butcher's Moon - the book he wants to conclude his Parker series on.  The plan is for IDW to publish The Handle in late 2013 and then to take a two year break before the next Parker adaptation.  He's loving the books, but he doesn't want us to get bored-or at least, complacent with the Parker series.

From there it moved on to Q & A and I was anticipating a lot of questions about his Before Watchmen books or The New Frontier stuff, but every question was directed to the Parker stories.  Gotta love comic book fans, they stay on point.  Ha ha.  Cooke did not have a lot of time before the next panel, but he gave each fan his full attention and he seemed to relish the 1960s conversations.  When asked if he ever had an interest in adapting other crime novels, like those of Raymond Chandler he responded quickly, "I'm working with the best crime writer who ever lived-Don Westlake...Chandler is second best."  But then he did say he might want to take a crack at "a nice great big greasy Mike Hammer book." Kiss Me Deadly by Darwyn Cooke. Oh man. Yes, please.

After Darwyn Cooke, it was time to finish out Comic Con. I met back up with The Wife & Bryan and we raced through the Exhibit Hall spending as much money on geeky crap as we could. The back half of Sunday is always a little depressing. You can feel the doors closing in around you. Geek Paradise is almost over. Run, Run, Run to get it all in. Take as many photos as you can! Buy as many half-off comics as you can! But then they sound the alarm. 5 PM. It's over. They dim the lights. Get out. Bummer.

But I'm going to leave you with a collection of my favorite Cosplayers (well, The Wife's Monkee Man is numero uno, but you've seen that already). A GI Joe BAT! An adorable Thanos! A Husband & Wife Batman & Melificent! Jabba & Rotta! They don't get any cooler than the freaks at Comic Con.  I love it so damn much.

See Ya Next Year, San Diego!

--Brad