New Release Tuesday!!! (8/27/13)

The day has finally arrived.  Forget all this Affleck/Batman folderol.  I Come In Peace is now available thanks to the good folks over at Shout Factory.  They are truly doing the Lord's work, taking our troubled minds off the Gotham City blues.  Life is good again.  Plus, a whole batch of new & old classics.  Q!!!!!!!

MUST BUY DVD OF THE WEEK!

Dark Angel:  In 1990 I was riding high from a string of spectacular Dolph Lundgren appearances.  Obviously, my life was forever altered by Rocky IV ("I Must Break You"), and that titanic Russian (uh-hum, Swede) made hay while the sun shined with such VHS bottom feeders like Masters of the Universe, Red Scorpion, and The Punisher.  However, the piece de resistance was the whackjob buddy cop sci-fi actioner I Come In Peace aka Dark Angel.  An evil drug dealing alien lands in Houston, Texas to harvest humans of a deadly intergalactic narcotic.  This white mullet demon takes down a space cop hot in pursuit and it's up to Dolph Lundgren's no-nonsense detective to save the human race.  Of course, he's gonna need the help of Brian Benben's by-the-book G-Man if we want a snowball's chance of surviving this Reagan-ocalypse.  I actually watched this a couple months back on VOD, and it's certainly not as brilliant as my pre-teen brain once made it, but at the same time, I Come In Peace is too damn weird not to own.

BUY!

Pain & Gain:  Certainly one of the few films released this year I'm comfortable claiming to be a favorite, but that very fact kinda boggles the brain.  I've always enjoyed Michael Bay's blunt mixture of polish and crude adolescence.  Bad Boys II, The Rock, Transformers - I'll go down defending those flicks, and dammit if Pain & Gain isn't his masterpiece.  His pornographer's eye and dimwit humor fit perfectly with this Darwin Award winning crime caper.  Too bad it's all based on some really heinous evil, as this true story makeover can leave a bad taste in your mouth if you let it.  The trick is to ignore the "Based On True Events" sticker.  The Rock's psychotic Jesus freak goes a long way in making that happen.

To Be Or Not To Be:  Like so many Criterion releases, I've never seen this one but I most certainly want to get acquainted.  Shakespeare vs. The Nazis and all done for laughs!  Yes, please.  But don't take my world for it, just listen to Joe Dante's Trailers From Hell.

Q - The Winged Serpent:  An absolute staple of the Gullickson household, and a movie that is guaranteed to transform any child into a Movie Monster Maniac.  David Carradine, Michael Moriarty, and Richard Roundtree team-up to take down a real-deal dragon terrorizing the skies of New York City.  It's absurd how this winged beast hides from the authorities for the first 2/3rds of the movie, but once the screenplay gives the beast free reign of the skyline, the movie nails all the proper B-Movie requirements.  It's been too long since I've taken Q for a spin and I look forward to consuming it in rich, grimy high definition.

RENT!

Pawn Shop Chronicles:  I really do love Wayne Kramer's Running Scared.  The Cooler is great too, but Running Scared is a special brand of crazy not often replicated in the cinematic universe.  After the director stumbled with the boring art house realism of Crossing Over, he returned to an absurdist landscape that reaches for broad comedy rather than settling on the just plain odd.  I caught this just after Comic Con, and all I can say is.....whaaaaaa?  Pawn Shop Chronicles is nearly an anthology film centered around Vincent D'Onofrio's store and the varied customers that pass through.  Paul Walker is a redneck dimwit attempting to overthrow Norman Reedus' meth kingdom.  Matt Dillon is a husband in search of his wife's killer (played possibly by the Sin City creepy Elijah Wood).  Brendan Fraser is a KKK inspired Elvis impersonator who encounters Satan himself at the crossroads.  And Thomas Jane might be Jesus.  Sure, it's kooky, but is it good?  I don't think so.  If you had a problem with the tonal shifts of Pain & Gain than you'll absolutely loose your mind with rage here.  But I certainly had fun gawking at the train wreck.

AVOID!

The Great Gatsby:  I think if Baz Luhrmann had just made his uproarious 20s flapper movie than I would have absolutely loved it, but his aesthetic just never jived with the source material.  I hear what you're saying, but Brad you should not be so beholden to an American Classic and there is always room for interpretation.  Ha!  Show's what you know, I don't give a hoot about the AP English snoozefest.  I just think that Fitzgerald's plot gets in the way of Luhrmann's style, and there was probably a pretty rocking music video at the center of this drab endeavor.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (2/3/13-2/9/13)

I started this week out strong.  Finishing off the Shaft trilogy with its greatest entry, basking in the 80s nostalgia of Walter Hill's Bullet To The Head, and having my brain melted by the two part Dark Knight Returns animated movies.  Then the flu hit.  And I was done.  From the midweek point I was a sleepy wreck of a human.  My Blaxploitation marathon was put on hold, and all I could do was drift through a few episodes of Rome and pick at Richard Stark's The Black Ice Score.  But the beast didn't stay with me long, and I was back to my usual dorky activities before the week was over.  Thank goodness.  I'm done with that nonsense for 2013.

Shaft in Africa:  "Cat named Shaft ain't gonna be bad with a stick."  For some indiscernible reason, the tribes of Africa travel to New York to recruit P.I. John Shaft in their war against the white slave trade.  After being drugged, tortured, and sexually teased by an African princess, Shaft agrees to travel to the dark continent and go deep cover as a champion stick fighter.  This film is beautifully bonkers, and it's everything this franchise never should have become, but somehow the once-upon-a-time NYC Street Soldier turned International Man of Mystery completely works.

Bullet to the Head:  Don't fool yourself.  The 80s are dead.  Walter Hill might be the director on this picture, but this is not the same man who helmed 48 Hours or Red Heat.  He's doing what he can, there is a taste of former glory - And that's enough.  Stallone is a brick.  And he can act where Arnie most certainly struggles.  I love watching him wield axes and punch knives through skulls.  The problem is Sung Kang's goodie two-shoes detective.  He never gets down in the muck with Stallone.  He whines and shirks at the violence.  For this film to truly take hold of its 80s Action Pride, Kang needed to match badass with badass and, unfortunately, he shrugs more often than pulling the trigger.  He's more sidekick than partner and the result is an unnecessary presence.  Still, there is that Walter Hill flavor.  Stallone is a killer.  No shine.  I certainly appreciate that.

Batman - The Dark Knight Returns Parts 1 & 2:  "Gotham City Belongs To The Mutants!!!"  These two animated films represent a geek miracle as equally significant to last year's blockbustering Avengers.  Frank Miller's revolutionary classic always seemed like an impossible adaptation - from it's abrasive politics to its downright cheerful brutality.  What producer in his right mind would touch it with a ten foot pole?  And what studio would allow it the light of day without some serious fine tuning?  Well, in a post Christopher Nolan world, Warner Brothers knows they have nothing to loose and Bruce Timm finally gets his chance to preach the graphic novel gospel.  The first film is fun enough.  Peter Weller's old man Wayne is a beast of character, having stewed in rage for ten years, his Batman returns to the deathwish streets of Gotham with a new thirst for bone breaking justice.  He finds a new Robin, takes on a mentally crippled Two-Face, and goes twelve rounds with The Mutant Leader.  But it's the second film where geeks around the world will loose their collective shit.  In part 2, we get Michael Emmerson's kill crazy Joker & the Tunnel of Love slaughterhouse.  As the Clown Prince of Crime blasts one innocent bystander after the next and thrusts his blade over & over into The Dark Knight's stomach, your mouth will be dropped.  You have never seen a Joker like this.  And you've never seen Batman's anger so perfectly detailed in a wad of spit.  Then you have Ronald Reagan's Superman.  What a tool.  His final (and I mean FINAL) confrontation with Batman is the most epic brawl we've seen in superhero cinema.  I love Nolan's Dark Knight films, but these two animated outings are perfect.  Sure, I miss the noirish machismo of Frank Miller's narration but after a few minutes you'll get over the loss.  The Dark Knight Returns is essential Bat-Viewing and I can't understand why the internet has not exploded with the proper praise.

Black Samson:  "There goes a righteous dude.  He keeps all the honky mother fuckers off the street."  Yep, there is not a more earnest hero in all of blaxploitation.  Rockne Tarkington is a man of many dashikis - he's a lion tamer, a street fighter, and a responsible owner of a respectable topless bar.  When the mob saturates his neighborhood in smack, Black Samson unites the community against the white faced devils and the resulting block war is a fist pumping crowd pleaser.  William Smith as the vein popping racist henchman is utterly fantastic in his depravity, and he makes the perfect foil for Tarkington's impassioned crusader.  It's savage villainy versus calm & cool kendo artistry.  Black Samson is simply a good night out at the movies.

Alex Cross:  I find the popularity of Tyler Perry to be absolutely perplexing.  I don't get the Madea films, and I certainly don't understand his appeal as a leading actor.  As Alex Cross, the all knowing and irritatingly pompous Detroit detective, Tyler Perry is a stern faced block of wood.  If Rockne Tarkington is the ultimate example of impassioned earnestness than Perry is on the opposite end of the righteousness spectrum.  Frowny faces and dead eyes do not make a badass.  Not to mention that the narrative is all over the place.  In one frame a character can be completely out of his mind with rage and in the very next frame he can be totally serene.  It feels like three separate scripts edited together.  Sure, Matthew Fox seems to be having fun as the serial killing cage fighter cum wannabe artist, but the rest of the film doesn't know when to just accept its b movie status.  I can't remember if this film was successful or not, but we gotta put a stop to this franchise immediately.  Morgan Freeman couldn't make it work so please don't bother.

The Black Ice Score by Richard Stark:  After suffering the banality of the Jason Statham film I found myself drawn back into the violent world of Parker.  Written six years after the original novel, this is the eleventh book in the series and yes, Parker has softened a little.  He's got a woman.  He's got something to loose.  When political thugs from the African nation of Dhaba contact Parker for a job, he takes the heist not for the money but cuz his lady might find it noble.  That sounds more damaging to the Parker character than it actually is, Donald Westlake makes the scenario work within Parker's ideology, but The Black Ice Score does feel lightyears away from books like The Hunter or even The Jugger.  Not a highlight in the series, but it got my juices flowing again and I'm already on to the next book.

The Invisible War:  Still working my way through the Oscar nominated docs and this film gave me a powerful wallop.  Filmmakers Kirby Dick & Amy Ziering interview dozens of men & women who were raped while serving in the military.  Their accounts are so prevalent and horrifying that it is hard for my brain to even wrap itself around the tragedy, of both the violent acts as well as the military's seemingly blind eye towards them.  I'm still processing the stories - the resulting anger, pain, frustration, and the expanse of the crimes.   It seems so unbelievable.  But I don't necessarily doubt it...it's just so messed up.  I don't know...the film hurt to watch.  Just damn sad.

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine Season 7:  We finally did it!  The Wife & I worked our way through DS9 and when we past through the other side of the wormhole, the little lady was a true believer in The Emissary.  And with good reason.  This is the single greatest season of Star Trek.  With an endate in place, the Next Generation off the air, and Voyager stumbling around the Delta quadrant, Deep Space Nine had full rein of The Federation toybox and the producers of the show took full advantage.  While Captain Benjamin Sisko recovers from the murder of Jadzia Dax, the villain Gul Dukat finds his own religion in the flames of the pah wraiths.  The Dominion War consumes the season but their seemingly unstoppable evil shows signs of weakness as The Founders fall victim to the cold war tactics of Section 9, the Federation's black ops devision fronted by the delightfully arrogant William Sadler.   The last several seasons have been plagued with seriousness, but like all Star Trek, the writers still find time to be playful - but it actually succeeds in DS9 with its Romulan Baseball and James Darran's swinging Vic Fontaine.  Season 7 of Deep Space Nine really does feel like the beginning of Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica, and it teases the mind for the possibilities of a modern day Star Trek show.  Where No Man Has Gone Before?  How 'bout long arcing narrative storytelling.  Make it so.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (1/27/13-2/2/13)

This was a fun if somewhat confusing Week in Dork.  After a couple years of nervous anticipation, Jason Statham finally hit the big screen as Richard Stark's Parker.  If you've been reading this blog for even the last few weeks, let alone the last two years, then you know I am a Parker super freak and that from the very first glimpse of the Taylor Hackford adaptation I was rather jittery.  I wish that I could report that the new Parker film (and the only one granted the usage of the actual "Parker" name) is a rip-roaringly good time out at the movies...but, sadly, it's a tragic mess of a movie barely worth the energy it takes to properly deride it.  This will not be the final Parker film.  Although, I'd be shocked if they ever let Jason Statham near the property again - and that would definitely be the right decision.  I think at this point, the producers should just grab Darwyn Cooke's graphic novelization of The Score, cast Michael Shannon as Parker and bask in the glory of "Mad Men With More Murder" (a term coined by my clever friend Kevin).  There's a hit film there - I just know it.  At the very least, this latest cine-tragedy has got me aching to finish off Stark's series of books.

The second momentous release of the week was Robert Kirkman's Invincible #100.  Last year I blitzed through 97 issues in just over a week and I came to the realization that Mark Grayson is the greatest Super Hero character in comicdom.  Issues 98-100, titled "The Death of Everyone," certainly put the young Grayson through the wringer as he went mano y mano with the hulk smashing mad genius of the environmental overlord Dinosaurus........but, I also have to admit that I was not overjoyed by the seminal event.  Solid.  But not the painful, consequence porn that Invincible usually proves time and time again.  But, similar to Parker, maybe the anticipation for the event was too great for genuine adoration.

The real joys of this week came during the back half.  After some solid Oscar Nomination viewing, on Friday, Matt & I returned to the beautiful AFI Silver for Count Gore De Vol's 40 Anniversary of Creature Feature.  I moved to the DC area a little too late to be considered a proper follower of the Count, but he's always been a staple of the horror convention circuit and I dig his brand of late-night, pre-dawn TV goofery.  And for February I've decided to crank out another Blaxploitation Movie Marathon - this is a theme I did a few years ago and I remember having as much fun with Shaft & the Gang as I generally do for my annual October Horror-A-Thons.  I've been meandering about with films of late, and I'm craving a theme.  Richard Roundtree certainly delivers on the promise of the genre.

Parker:  "He was an angel from heaven sent to test us." Cut to black. "In Memory of Donald Westlake" You hear that sound? That spinning, screaming wail? That's Donald Westlake (aka The Dark Half, Richard Stark) infuriatingly spinning in his grave. AN ANGEL FROM HEAVEN!!! GAAAAAWWWWW!!!! That's the very last line of the movie. It's done for a laugh, but it also gets to the very essence of what is so bloody horrible about this most heinous adaptation. Parker is not a good guy. He's a criminal.  A murderer.  He's a professional thief with a set of rules that keeps him well employed and out of prison. He won't hurt you unless he has to...but he will hurt you. I'm not sure who director Taylor Hackford & screenwriter John McLaughlin had in mind when crafting this pap, but it most certainly was not Westlake's creation - my guess is that they were trying for Lee Marvin's Point Blank, but even then they failed miserably. Jason Statham might not be the right choice, but he's also not a terrible one. The opening heist has a little bit of that Stark flavor, and I couldn't help but enjoy it's Prime Cut midwest freakshow. Statham also has a fairly kick ass hotel brawl with knives pushed through hands and toilet bowls cracked over skulls. But the needless and seemingly endless flashbacks, the shoddy CGI bloodwork, and Jennifer Lopez's "What Am I Doing Here!?!?" performance send this flick directly into the black bowels of Wal-Mart's 5 dollar bin. Not the most boring Parker adaptation (that would be Jim Brown's The Split), but since this is the first one to actually have the privilege of the Parker name, it is easily the most offensive.

Rome - Season One:  Here's another HBO series they weren't wrong about.  Finally succumbing to the pressures of friends & neighbors, I devoured the first season of Rome in just two days.  The main arc details the the slow fall of Julius Caesar (the exceptionally cast Cirian Hinds) at the hands of the treacherous Roman senate.  But as much fun as the diabolical politics can be, the real hook of this series lies with Lucius Vorenus & Titus Pullo, two bickering Centurions fated to sway the history of the iconic city.  As Pullo, Ray Stevenson is a Tyrannosaurus of rage and brutality.  He goes from faceless soldier to gladiatorial celebrity and his friendship with Kevin McKidd's Lucius represents one of the best fictional bromances.  Too bad (for them, not us) their historymaking is tied to a flood of blood.  I'm not sure where this show can go once its hit The Ides of March, but I can't wait to find out.  It certainly isn't going to be sunshine and flowers.

X-O Manowar #9:  I am so glad Ninjak is outta this book.  And I don't want him to get his own title.  That cat is just too silly.  The Vine invasion force is knocking on Earth's atmosphere,  but Aric's XO armor has found a way to patch into their hoodoo communication seminars.  Taunt him all you want, but the man has the heart of Conan The Barbarian and the technology of Iron Man - you do not want to mess with him.  Next issue, marks the beginning of the Planet Death storyline and I feel like mankind is pretty much screwed since Aric seems not to give one cuss for this modern society.  Someone better hurry up and appeal to his savage ways before he lets it all go tits up.

Uncanny Avengers #3:  I really loved the first issue.  And I thought the second issue was decent.  But this...?  I like the general concept of this Red Skull clone mucking about with Charles Xavier's brain, but Rick Remender's narrative rambling is getting in the way of the kooky crazy plot.  Lots of eye rolling from this reader.  And despite the delay, John Cassaday's art looks rushed and simple in places - the man is one of my favorite artists but I can see why he's leaving this book.  Marvel Now's rushed production schedule is not doing anyone favors.

Stumptown #5:  Hey!  I thought this book ended with last issue, but it just keeps on going!  Well, apparently this is the conclusion but my thoughts on the series are still the same.  A bit of a bore.  Drugs.  Neo Nazis.  Rock & Roll fanboys.  Another yawn.  Greg Rucka never grabbed me with this lukewarm mystery and P.I. Dex is like any dozen other wannabe hardboiled detectives, only with lady parts.  If you're a fan of this book let me know, cuz I want to understand the appeal.

Deadpool #4:  I need to drop this book.  Four issues into this Zombie President one trick pony and I find the humor to be utterly tiresome.  We get it!  Taft's Fat!  Kennedy Loves Ladies!  No One Cares About Zachary Taylor!  Hilarious?  No.  It's sophomoric at best, and Deadpool himself remains a lamebrain attempt at meta storytelling - you want to know how to break the Fourth Wall in style then watch Boston Legal.   My infatuation with Marvel Now is fading, and I'd be surprised (and a little disgusted) if I continued on with this series.

Winter Soldier #14:  Ed Brubaker's Captain America/Winter Soldier run comes to an end, and it's less than a whimper - it's a full on fart of disappointment.   Bucky finally gets face to face with his Commie Mirror Self and frees Natasha from his evil mental clutches.  'Course she doesn't escape unharmed and her relationship with Bucky is left in ruin.  Black Widow Hunt has been the most yawning of middle-of-the-road plot lines and it's rather depressing to think that Brubaker's final statement on his (re)creation ends with such a thud.

Avengers #3:  Jonathan Hickman seems to be building something big with this Avengers book, but I'm not sure I really want to hang on for the ride.  Jerome Opena's art is stunning, but he's already off the book so enjoy the pretty pictures while they last.  Frankly, I just can't get a hold on these characters.  Iron Man, Cap, Thor, Spider-Woman, Cannonball, Manifold...you can traipse out the entire Marvel Universe but it don't mean a damn if you don't give them enough time to interact with each other let alone the reader.  It's all vague universal catastrophe jargon slapped atop smackdown artwork.  And then suddenly it's over.  Cap basically chastises the Martian troublemakers and everyone goes home happy.  Whatever.

FF #3:  Look!  A comic book that I actually enjoyed this week!  Wee!  A one-eyed, white haired John Storm pops out of the time tunnel with tales of a mad future in which Kang The Conqueror, Doctor Doom, and Annihilus have transformed into one giant puddle of super villainy.  This dark future is just the excuse that revenge seeker Scott Lang has been waiting for, and he charges the FF with a mission to bring down Doom.  FF is easily one of my favorite books to come out of Marvel Now, and its a joy to read...something rare in these straining days of dark edgy storytelling.

Superfuzz:  Sometimes you can take great pleasure in a bad movie (see Enter The Ninja), and sometimes no joy can be had. Super Fuzz most definitely falls into the unjoyous category. As much as I love Sergio Corbucci & his vast grim landscape of Spaghetti Westerns, I was appalled by this grossly dumb cop comedy - it really does make the Police Academy films seem like the highest form of comic entertainment. But this is not the first time I've experienced the pain of Italian Comedy. There's just something that doesn't connect between our two continents. Slide Whistles are not actually funny - in fact, let's just avoid goofy sound effects all together. Sped Up Frame Rate is also not comic gold. And Ernest Borgnine dancing on a balloon is not funny...ok, that might have been genius.

The Master:  Similar to There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master is a powerhouse performance piece photographed with the eye of a painter as well as a craftsman.  But also similar to There Will Be Blood, I never quite connected with the emotional turmoil of its three leads.  Joaquin Phoenix is a shaking tyrant of psychosis who stumbles into the equally mental clutches of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's L Ron Hubbard substitute.  But The Master is not an all out assault on Scientology.  Whatever your opinions on the pseudo-ideology (can you guess my viewpoint?) The Master will not change your mind.  It will pick your scabs, but there is fun in that emotional mutilation. The film is a battle for the soul of Phoenix whether it's worth saving or not, and the two lead actors give spine-twistingly painful performances, bending & breaking under the weight of their psychological warfare.  Witnessing The Master is a lot like an ant accepting his place under the magnifying glass; what looked like a pleasant spot to sunbathe transformed into an excruciating glimpse at life's end.

Justified - Season 4 "The Bird Has Flown": Ah, poor Raylan.  His bartender bedroom partner turned out to be quite the devious minx.  With a little help from his Marshal friends, he tracks her & her doofy looking beau across various Kentucky Backyard Brawls and finally retrieves the contents of his looted sock drawer.  But does a van full of chickens stand in the way of true happiness?  Or is it just a sign that Raylan doesn't deserve it?

The Sessions:  You pretty much get everything from this film that you get from reading the logline or watching the trailer.  John Hawkes is a poet trapped inside his body that's in turn trapped inside an iron lung.  He's a virgin looking for love he deems impossible to grasp.  After consulting the most cinematic of Catholic priests (the ever charming William H Macy), he seeks the consult of Helen Hunt's sexual surrogate.  Solid performances.  Hearts will be warmed.  Sex will be had.  But it is very much that quirky indie film that excelled so well at Sundance twenty years back, and it's an era of cinema that holds little interest for me these days.

The Impossible:  This movie destroyed me.  And I mean that as the highest of compliments.  Ewan McGregor & Naomi Watts are Mom & Dad.  They take their three boys to Thailand for a relaxing beachside vacation.  Ten minutes into the movie the 2004 Tsunami hits and the world around them is engulfed in horror.  The family is cast apart - Mom and eldest son, flesh ripped from branches & trash, drag their ravaged bodies across the swampy wasteland while Dad & the two youngest drift from hospital to hospital in search & rescue.  This is a survival saga.  It's not a downer.  It's thrilling.  But exhausting.  I pretty much cried through the entire runtime.  Is it emotional torture porn?  Maybe.  And it does irk me that the real life Spanish family is painted over with white actors.  That being said, McGregor & Watts are phenomenal actors.  And Tom Holland as the eldest son is even better.  They sell the pain, but they also sell the love and the joy.  Grab your hankies and mentally prepare yourself, but when you're ready The Impossible is a powerful celebration of life.

Hansel & Gretel - Witch Hunters:  There is a fun shitty movie to be had here.  But the filmmakers can't seem to find the sculpture in this block of fecal stone.  Gemma Arterton & Jeremy Renner are lifeless as the infamous hag bait children all grown up.  Famke Janssen is even more wooden as the lead Witch plotting to free her sisters from the pain of fire.  And the only thing more inanimate than the players is the script.  I couldn't help but think of Terry Gilliam's unfairly maligned & far superior Brothers Grimm while this dud played out.   I scratch my head - for a film featuring gattling gun massacres & speed racer broom chases there is not an ounce of fun to be had in this plodding B Movie.

The ABCs of Death:  I love anthology films.  But they're never perfect.  Their mostly fair to midland by nature.  The ABCs of Death is no different.  26 Directors are given a letter of the alphabet and three minutes to tell a story of destruction.  You've got guys like Jason Eisner (Hobo With A Shotgun), Lee Hardcastle (Pingu), Angela Bettis (Roman), Ti West (House of the Devil), and Ben Wheatley (Kill List) with titles like "B is for Bigfoot" & "T is for Toilet".  Some stories are fun.  Some are gross.  Some surreal.  And some are downright terrible.  But it's a great experiment and I was glued to the screen as each letter turned to the next.  My favorite letter had to be "H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion" featuring a World War II bulldog ace and a feline Nazi stripper cat.  Absolutely bonkers.

The House of Frankenstein:  Here you've got all your favorite Universal Monsters clambering to win your attention for a brief 80 minutes  John Carradine makes the briefest of appearances as the dimmest of Draculas and the film really doesn't become enjoyable until his carriage crashes through the sunny skyline.  Boris Karloff kicks ass as the Mad Doctor determined to resurrect Frankenstein's Monster but when does Karloff not kick ass?  Lon Chaney maintains his mopey moon man problems while J Carrol Naish's Hunchback rages over his good looks.  This is not a classic.  But it's of a time & place that's essential for genre lovers.

Shaft:  Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song might have been the birth of the Blaxploitation era, but it was MGM's Shaft that cemented the pseudo-genre as a gateway to bucket loads of cash.  It's a decent crime story.  Nowhere near as good as its inevitable legacy, but Richard Roundtree (along with Issac Hayes' brilliant theme song) is why this private dick will forever be remembered as an icon of cool.  He's got the smile, the wit, the bravado, the mustache, and the jacket.  It's basically Yojimbo all over again as Shaft navigates between Harlem hoods & the Italian Mob.  There's a kidnapping plot and a shattering pistol whipped window that brings a great smile to my face.  But for me it's the sequels where Shaft really scores.

Invincible #100:  After so much build up, I'm pretty sure the final confrontation between Mark Grayson and Dinosaurus was bound to be a disappointment.  And Kirkman's decision to play the most dramatic element of their battle off panel is a clever, if somewhat frustrating manner to supersede our expectations.  The final punch of issue 100 lands like a reset button with Invincible finding himself back in the safe arms of the government.  This is epic stuff...but The Death of Everyone????  This definitely did not live up to the solicitation expectation.  Of course, how much brutality can one book take?  I say, MORE!

Batman Incorporated #7:  Grant Morrison's run in The New 52 has been peeks & valleys.  It certainly doesn't feel like it belongs with the rest of the continuity, but I really don't care if it jives with Justice League or not.  He's still writing Damien Wayne better than anybody else, and the young Robin's return to spandex shown here is sooooo freaking badass.  And his love of animals?  One panel depicting a snuggling pile of Bat Cow, Ace the Bat Hound, and Alfred the Butler Cat?  That's just two tons of comic book fun.  Go save your Dad, Robin.  And bash some teeth in while you're at it.

Shaft's Big Score:  When the brother of the woman he's currently banging explodes all over the neighborhood,  P.I. John Shaft continues his Yojimbo war between Harlem's top goon Bumpy & the white faced Mob.  A lot more gunplay than the original film, Shaft's Big Score is the violent crime drama you're looking for with tumbling car chases and shotgun helicopter battles.  Richard Roundtree supplies even better one-liners, and even bigger badass swagger.  This is the king of cool.

--Brad

Dork Art: I Q NY

Act Now!  This utterly briliant Q - The Winged Serpent is still available over at Mondo!  I don't have the funds to snag this right this second, but I totally would if money grew on trees.  This is definitely one of my favorite Mondo prints...ever.  Yeah, you heard me.  Have you not seen this cinematic masterpiece?