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

New Release Tuesday!!! (9/3/13)

Today's pretty much a bust.  Sure, we've got a few flicks that I want to check out, but there's nothing out there right now screaming for a MUST BUY.  Don't worry though, next week the world will be blessed with Star Trek Into Darkness......uh, yeah....prepare for some epic hypocrisy on ITMOD's part.  Until then, grab your best glue-on Selleck 'stache and roll your pennies because Jesse Stone is all boxed up for your pleasure.

BUY?

Jesse Stone - The Complete Collection:  I grew up entranced by the cool of Tom Selleck.  Magnum P.I. was a staple of our household; to this day I'm just biding my time till The Wife & I can dump our lives and finally set up our Hawaiian detective agency.  Of course, we all know that Selleck was never able to break free from that character.  Despite wildly entertaining films like Runaway & Quigley Down Under, he never made a career out of the big screen like he rightfully deserved.  A few miserable misfires later (Mr. Baseball, Her Alibi) and Selleck simply settled into the TV guy.  Friends, Last Stand At Sabre River, Boston Legal, Monte Walsh.  Some decent stuff, but nothing terribly exciting.  When the Jesse Stone TV Movies plopped onto the boob tube I didn't really bother - they just seemed like the kinda movies the Barnes & Noble grannies consumed and no other.  Then the boys over at cineAWESOME! did their Stonetastic episodes, and they convinced me to purchase the first Robert Parker adaptation.  I was pretty much hooked.  You can read my own Jesse Stone adventures right HERE.  Ok.  They're not "great" films, but they are addictive.  And the series contains a killer cast of background players: Saul Rubinek, William Sadler, Viola Davis, Stephen McHattie, Rebecca Pidgeon, William Devane, Krista Allen, Mimi Rogers, etc.  And now all the Stone films are gathered in one big box complete with your very own PPD Baseball Cap.  But does it come with whisky & depression too?

Bay of Blood:  Kino continues its Mario Bava Blu Ray Collection with this grandaddy slasher.  Here is the film where Jason Voorhees got all his tricks.  Bay of Blood is not as classy or as iconic as Bava's Black Sabbath or Danger Diabolik, but it's certainly more grand guignol with the proper geysers of gore.  And as with previous Bava Kino releases, the bloody reds will look beautifully beastly in HD.


RENT!

The Iceman:  Haven't seen it yet, but Michael Shannon is definitely the guy to play the infamous mafioso hitman.  Just look at that poster!  Is there anything scarier than that stare?  Don't think so.  Too bad Zack Snyder couldn't quite capture the fear brought on by the Shannon brow.  Sure, he made plenty use of his twitchy screams...."I WILL FIND HIM!"  But that's neither here nor there, I'm just doing that blogger thing in which I slam on something while praising another - how very hipster of me?  After all, how else can I fill up this page with drivel?

Now You See Me:  I need to see this simply for the cast.  Word on the street is "mediocre" but I don't think another film this year has assembled a group of actors this eclectic or interesting.  I doubt Michael Caine & Morgan Freeman get much screentime, but I'm excited to see the Zombieland reunion of Woody Harrelson & Jesse Eisenberg.  Plus, Mark Ruffalo always cranks out a good detective.

Empire State:  Well, this just appeared outta nowhere.  How broken is cinema that a film staring The Rock goes straight to DVD?  Or is the real question, how terrible is Empire State that it goes straight to DVD?  Lughead Liam Hemsworth can't cut it in the NYPD so he settles for a gig driving an Armored Car.  Heists & Hijinks ensue, and The Rock shows up to take down the troublemakers.  The trailer looks.......like a movie.  A movie we've all seen a half dozen times already.  Still, Dwayne Johnson is making a play for 2013's Actor of the Year and ITMOD is committed to all of his properties.

AVOID!

The Lords of Salem:  I root for Rob Zombie.  Not sure why as nearly all of his films have disappointed me in some fashion.  The man has a sense of style for sure.  He obviously likes the same movies I like.  But as he pulls from Stanely Kubrick & Roman Polanski he just can't make his copies work on their own.  The Lords of Salem has a great cast of iconic actors, but it's also spearheaded by a vacuous lead performance from Zombie's own wife.  Frankly, if you're into this sorta thing you should probably just watch The Devil's Rain.  It's campy, stupid, beautiful, and genuine.  The Lords of Salem is just another nostalgic pretender to the throne.

Sharknado:  I just can't.  Purposeful "Bad Movie" Making is becoming more than a little tiresome.  I know we live in a pop culture universe where nostalgia is king, and we love to laugh at idiocy as much as we do at real comedy.  But Sharknedo?  It's a tornedo filled with sharks!?!?  That's hilarious!......no, it's dumb.  And the movie looks like crap cuz it is crap and not ironically amazing or whatever.  Stop supporting crap.  Go watch Death Race 2000 instead.

--Brad

Brad's Week In Dork! (4/21/13-4/27/13)

Yes, I stalled on the Martin Scorsese-a-thon.  No real reason.  Just haven't tracked down a copy of New York, New York yet.  Looks like I might have to dive deep and purchase the blu ray to make that happen.  But the rest of the week wasn't that crazy.  I found myself in a work stretch of 7 days, coming home and not really wanting to blitz through cinema.  I read a good batch of comics, but nothing I really want to focus on here.  The big news came from the big screen.  Pain & Gain (thanks mostly to The Rock) earned a spot as my second favorite film of 2013 so far (yes, Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects still reigns supreme and I find that so completely strange).  But both Oblivion & Lords of Salem proved to be interesting theatrical experiences, but also films I just couldn't back fully.  I'm still waiting for that Great Movie.  Iron Man 3 hits next weekend, fingers crossed for flawless Summer entertainment.

Animal Man - The Hunt & Animal vs. Man:  Running side-by-side with Scott Snyder's Swamp Thing, but where Alec Holland battles The Rot from the The Green side, stuntman turned super hero Buddy Baker battles the decaying force from the side of The Red.  Green = plant lifeforce.  Red = animal lifeforce.  The big difference here is that where Snyder is completely & utterly faithful to the Saga that came before (you cannot ignore Alan Moore), writer Jeff Lemire has little interest in following Grant Morrison's footsteps.  Morrison's fourth wall shattering comic is written off as nothing more than a dream.  Lemire's Animal Man is as new as The New 52.  And that is absolutely not a bad thing.  The first tradepaperback centers around his daughter Maxine taking on the powers of The Red - after she resurrects the corpses of all the neighborhood pets.  Their journey takes them into the realm where Animal Man's powers began and together they discover the real deal behind Buddy's origin as well as the invading force of The Rot.  The second tradepaperback takes Buddy & family on the road with three servants of The Rot chasing their tail.  Hellblazer John Constantine appears to point Buddy in the direction of The Swamp Thing, and the two books rush towards each other.  Lemire relishes the grotesque, taking full advantage of artists Travel Foreman & Steve Pugh.  These guys know gross.  They've been waiting their whole careers for The Rot.  Twisted creatures covered in tumors, claws, tentacles, and leaking blood & puss.  You want monsters (and who doesn't want monsters?) then you'll get your fill on Animal Man.  The vaults & crypts of EC Comics are not locked shut, but are thrown wide open in The New 52.  Take a peak.

Oblivion:  "That is one pissed off weapon!"  Joseph Kosinski follows up the underrated Tron Legacy with this post-apocalyptic mystery reminiscent of...well, Everything.  Planet of the Apes, Alien, 2001, Outland, Zardoz, Moon, Wall-E, and I Am Legend (the book as well as all 3 adaptations).  As a science-fiction film about science-fiction films it's a good enough time at the movies.  Tom Cruise fights for the users; the human race has fled to Titan after a cataclysmic war with The Scavengers left Mother Earth decimated.  He's a worker bee.  Looking after the drones that guard the hydro towers converting what's left of Earth's natural resources.  Don't want to get too much into spoiler territory here, but whatever the revelations they're too familiar to be exciting.  Tom Cruise makes it work though.  The man knows earnest.  His scowls & shouts can pretty much sell any ridiculous sci-fi trope.  Doesn't hurt either when Morgan Freeman pops by to add an extra layer of exposition.  Production design is the real king of the film.  From the sweeping icelandic landscapes to the industrial Scav bunkers, the world of Oblivion feels legit even when the story settles on homage.

The Lords of Salem:  For the first ten minutes I thought I was going to love this movie.  The opening scene depicting the Satanic Rights of Meg Foster's coven are so delightfully Devil's Rain, and I was hopeful that Rob Zombie's latest would offer another grande trip down genre memory lane.  After all, The Devil's Rejects is a perfect piece of 70s exploitation and the gore hound's crown jewel.  Then the misses shows up.  And Sheri Moon Zombie is not the actress this movie needed.  Her disc jockey banter grinds the film to a halt.  Jeff Daniel Phillips, Ken Foree, & Sheri Moon - just a couple of chums chuckling it up with absolutely zero chemistry.  But every moment Meg Foster is on screen with her wretched staring contests is utterly unnerving.  And when Dee Wallace teeny boppers her way through the black rights, The Lords of Salem is a barrel of dead monkeys.  Rob Zombie is an expert at showcasing nonsensical dream imagery - he makes a great music video.  Goats.  Neon Crosses.  Smoke banks.  Jiggly mutant midgets.  Satan worshiping werewolves.  When he relishes in the blasphemy The Lords of Salem is a creepy, wrong-headed enchantment.

Django Unchained:  I just can't stay away.  Six watches.  I know I said this last week, but this is definitely my favorite of the Tarantino flicks so far.  You may be able to argue the superior quality of both Jackie Brown & Inglourious Basterds, but Django Unchained is the flick QT made for Brad.  Yeah, it's a Western or Southern - whatever.  So already you're playing in my favorite genre.  But then you add the hero's quest against the backdrop of America's great shame, and the resulting rage is not just cathartic but highly entertaining.  Tarantino drags his audience through the muck and filth of history, a horrendous reminder, but when Django stands victorious in front of an exploded plantation I am on my feet in twisted joy.  It's a brutal watch, but a necessary one.  Entertainment as social conscious.  

Pain & Gain:  Shave 30 minutes from the runtime and we might have had the first great film of 2013.  It's certainly the most captivating performance from The Rock to ever assault an audience.  His Paul Doyle is a born again cokefiend convict who falls in with the Sun Gym Gang when The Church grabs for his manbits instead of his eternal soul.  When rags goes to riches and riches to cocaine, The Rock goes full demento, acting to the heavens and achieving comic genius.  Finally, an actor who understands his Baysplosion surroundings.  And as he's proven in Ted & The Other Guys, Mark Wahlberg only excels when he's wrapped in the absurd.  His orgasmic slow motion expressions are almost as entertaining as The Rock's green inked beard & toeless panic.  Yes, Michael Bay's sophomoric, homophobic, misogynistic comedy has finally found a place in this "True Story" attack on the American Dream.  Should we forgive him now for those Transformer balls dangling over John Turturro's head?  Hell no.  It just so happens that Bay's indulgences fit swimmingly into Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely's screenplay.  The Rock, Walhberg, and Anthony Mackie are a tremendous trilogy of dunces and it's a hoot to see them stumble into the atrocities resulting from their criminal delusions of grandeur.  But should such a gross and tragic "True Story" be a hoot?  It's a little awkward to laugh at The Rock grilling severed hands on his BBQ when THE IS STILL A TRUE STORY crawls across the screen.  It is a messed up and bizarre crime spree that is also funny as hell.  Darwin Awards couldn't possibly do these dolts justice.  Pain & Gain certainly doesn't idolize the dimwits, but the reality makes my enjoyment a little complicated if not distressing.

Creation Entertainment's Official Star Trek Convention - Cherry Hill, NJ:  After work on Friday, The Wife & I braved DC traffic to travel north to the strip malls of sunny New Jersey.  There, tucked away in a corner of the Cherry Hill Crowne Plaza, Creation Entertainment was hosting their Official East Coast Star Trek Convention.  This was Lisa's first Trekkie Con and I was kinda hoping for something epic, but Jersey doesn't do epic.  Billed as the 20 year celebration of Deep Space Nine, the con was little more than a dozen Vendor tables & a sprinkling of Trek Celebrities.  The big names were Avery Brooks (Capt. Sisko), Michael Dorn (Worf), Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher), Nana Visitor (Major Kira), Rene Auberjonois (Constable Odo), and Armin Shimerman (Quark).  They rotated the tables, no one celebrity sticking out through the entirety of the convention, and for the most part we were happy with our awkward fandom interactions.  Lisa chatted vegan lifestyles with Dorn.  Nana Visitor complemented us on our matching Niners ballcaps (aren't we adorable!).  And Rene Auberjonois was very pleasant in accepting Lisa's full-on Boston Legal lovefest.  Every couple of hours one of them would take the stage for storytime.  Nana Visitor revealed Odo as her best DS9 lover "Just think of the shape shifting possibilities."  Cirroc Lofton droned on about his encounter with The Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia, refusing to take questions from the crowd.   Michael Dorn chanted ballbreaking lies of Gates McFadden stripping for the cast of TNG.  And Avery Brooks managed to take a bevy of questions, but offered no answers.  The man is wonderfully jazzy & zen, and probably bat shit crazy.  "Either you're a god or you're not.  I'm a human being...relationship with the divine...it doesn't change me.  I'm not fooled!  I still see you out there!"  Whoa.  Anyway, it was a hotel con.  Quiet.  Odd.  More expensive than you'd like.  But another fun weekend in the weird world of dorkery.

--Brad

A Fistful of Bands! (Brad's Picks)

As we learned in Step Up 4 The Revolution, Dance can set a generation free.  The same can be said for music.  Rock, funk, country, rap - whatever style of weapon - we look to a special band of warriors to deliver thumping freedom to the hearts & minds of the young & old alike.  Now, we can argue whether Elvis Presley or The Beatles or Public Enemy really made a difference in this world or not (for the record, I most certainly think they did) but there is no doubt that the world of cinema is radically altered by the actions of a few great musicians.  Spinal Tap.  Sexual Chocolate.  Mumblin' Jim.  Sex Bob-omb.  The Monkees.  These are the bands that affected serious social change in their worlds.  But they are just the honorable mentions.  My true heroes of Techno, Rock, Country, & Blues are as follows....

5.  Autobahn (The Big Lebowski):  They might say they believe in nothing, but they certainly worship the All Mighty Dollar.  This trilogy of terror (& their toeless girlfriend) set into violent motion a brilliant bumbling saga that, at the very least, brought internal change to The Dude and even the creation of life in the inevitable little Lebowski.  Karl Hungus can at least claim that to himself...and Logjammin' imdb credit.

4.  The Cruisers (Eddie & The Cruisers):  The most earnest band on the list, The Cruisers appear to be the second coming of Dylan, Elvis, & The Beatles all wrapped into one.  The best part is the mysterious death of its lead singer, Eddie Wilson.  When he died he apparently took the greatest work of rock poetry with him, their second album A Season in Hell.  This record was going to change the world.  But Eddie got scared.  And then Eddie got dead...or did he?  A plucky reporter will risk life & limb to find the truth as well as that lost, world-changing album.

3.  Banjo & Sullivan (The Devil's Rejects):  Before they were butchered in a nameless field by a demon-made-flesh called Otis, Banjo & Sullivan were a couple of hicks that belted out tunes like "I'm at Home Getting Hammered (While She's Out Getting Nailed)" and "Dick Soup."  Yes.  They were a couple of sadsack crooners, but dammit, they loved to twang some pervo music.  And I loved to listen.  RIP fellas.

2.  The Hong Kong Cavaliers (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension):  Samurai Scientist Buckaroo Banzai is the greatest musician that ever lived.  Not much is made over his night club jam rock; he's too busy saving the world from the Red Lectroids from Planet 10 to show off, but there's real philosophy in his suicide-stopping trumpet rock - "Wherever You Go There You Are..."  Oh yeah, that's deep man.

1.  The Blues Brothers:  They're on a mission from God.  Not much else to say.  Jake steps out of Joliet and into his brothers super charged Bluesmobile - an epic quest to recollect their band and save the orphanage that raised them.  James Brown, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker.  The brothers and sisters of American Music fight on the side of right against a plethora of jackass goons.  Car Chases, Pile-ups, State Troopers, Country Bumpkins, and the Illinois Nazis don't stand a chance when the Lord's got your back and you've got a briefcase full of blues.  Badass supreme with a side of rubber biscuit.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (10/14/12-10/20/12)

First, a word on the new format...

I'm going to try something new with the Week In Dork.  If you don't like it, please let me know.  Rather than separate this post out with TV OF THE WEEK, MOVIES OF THE WEEK, COMICS OF THE WEEK, etc I'm just going to jump right into the programming from Sunday to Saturday.  If I started the week off with a comic, the column will start off with a comic.  If I started with an episode of TV, the column will start off with that episode.  Basically, I'm just trying to recreate my Dorky Ass life for you the reader as best as possible.

And, man, this has been one of my absolute favorite Weeks In Dork that I've ever had...that is, one that does not contain a San Diego Comic Con or a Stephen King book signing.

Last week, I started ploughing through my Hellboy Library editions in preparation for the 5th Meeting of my wife's Ultimate Justice League of Extraordinary Book Club.  Since we would be discussing one of my all time favorite trades, The Chained Coffin & Others, I wanted to go into it fully prepared.  And that resulted in me reading nearly 20 years of comics in just over a week.  And it was seriously thrilling as well as (maybe-not-so-shocking) emotional...but more on that later.

The Week really started with some itunes catchup on the current season of...

Fringe Season 5 - Episode 3 "The Recordist":  It was just a few weeks ago that I was ranting and raving about how freaking amazing I found season 4 to be, but now we're just a few eps into this Days of Future Past business (I just can't get that X-Men reference out of my head) and I'm still a little nervous about this final arc.  Right now, I'm just not feeling it.  Walter & Astrid?  They're spot on and I love them dearly.  But Peter & Olivia & Henrietta?  Something feels wrong about how they're behaving.  Maybe it's just me throwing a tantrum of where these writers plopped this family, but it also feels like a bit of a manipulative cheat to drive a wedge between them so soon after the uproarious victory of last year.  Anyway, I'm still waiting for my love of Fringe to return - I have faith that these guys are going to pull something special outta their rabbit hat.  This episode specifically deals with a group of outcasts hiding in the woods, free from the eyes of the observers.  They see themselves as recorders of history and there is a nice bit involving a boy and his Fringe comic book.  But I don't really see this playing into the grande scheme of things either.

Prometheus:  Watched my new blu.  And yeah.  Third viewing and I almost immediately felt myself drifting as Noomi Rapace's scientist drones on about faith and the evolution of man.  This is a really beautiful looking movie and the blu ray is just stunning.  But dammit!  Why isn't the film about Michael Fassbender!?!?!  His character is sossss much more interesting and if the narrative had only switched to his side half way through then there could have been something incredibly thoughtful here - David is the evolution of man.  He should be the focus.  Unfortunately, it's a horror film climax with the Frankenstein Engineer stomping and smashing his way through the ship.  Human Bad!  Me Kill!  Whatever.  By the time the medical tests are performed and the Big Giant Head starts popping, I found myself reaching for a couple of graphic novels, and I read them as the film played in the background.  Not a glowing review, that's for sure.

Powers - The 25 Coolest Dead Superheroes Of All Time:  I've been away from Brian Michael Bendis' Powers for what seems like a very long time.  My problem with this comic is that once it reached the mindbendingly awesome Forever storyarc - where the mythology was expanded into centuries past and the stakes seemed to increase into the territory of Earth Shattering - the very next arc brought the characters back to the precinct and stayed there.  Another crime, another investigation...it was just a routine Law & Order when it should have transformed into an epic.  And with the sporadic shipping my interest faded.  Still, I really do love Walker & Pilgrim.  Hell, I own original art from Forever - so I want to stay in love.  With a new trade paperback released, I thought it was time to dive back in.

Picking up where I left off, Deena Pilgrim is still an outlaw.  Infected with the Powers virus, she's Prime Suspect Numero Uno for a string of murders spreading through the city's nightlife.  Imagine Al Pacino's Crusing with capes & cowls and you'll get some idea.  But like most of the murder cases, the character stuff is much more interesting than the plotting.  I dig the intro of Walker's new partner, Sunrise.  I dig that Walker's hiding Powers too.  I dig that Deena is loosing her freaking mind.  But I don't dig the impending return (i.e. doom) of the status quo.

Powers - Z:  I certainly appreciate this arc's attempt to investigate the dark past of Detective Walker.  Some time ago, Walker was a member of a Las Vegas Rat Pack - Post World War II heroes throwing their weight around and making a boat load of scratch in the process.  When one of these Rat Packers turns up a corpse it's up to Detectives Walker & Sunrise to get to the bottom of a sordid love affair.  The Vegas stuff is fun, but is never fully explored - the Powers mythology is always a taste, not a full meal. And again, the murder investigation is not all that thrilling but at least Bendis is clever enough to solve The Who quickly and make The Why the focus.

Powers - Gods:  Well, I hated this.  The latest trade focuses on the death of an actual God...or is it just another cape pretending to be a god.  Frankly, I scratch my head at this notion.  Loosely connected to the Olympia case from the start of the series, it seems a little late in the game to bring religion into the context and all this godspeak nonsense does is muddy the water.  And it sends a signal to this reader that Bendis is scraping the barrel for new homicides to investigate.  However, there is potential in the climax.  There comes an Ultimatum moment...or a BPRD Hell On Earth kinda event...and I don't think you can go back to just investigating SVUs in the next arc...but I've thought that before and I'm afraid the next volume of Powers (Bureau) will be more of the same.

Blow Out:  After last week's wonderful screening of Phantom of the Paradise, I was craving more whacky Brian De Palma and this quenched that particular thirst perfectly.  Blow Out is Brian De Palma at his most pure fanboy; clinically aping Hitchcock & Argento, De Palma delivers a gorgeous, dark-hearted thriller with John Travolta's best performance battling John Lithgow's greatest psychopath.  And Nancy Allen is brilliantly sad as the child-like prostitute in distress, climaxing the film with a beautiful blanket of sad.

Hellboy Library Edition Volume 3:  The Chained Coffin introduced me to the wonderfully mad world of Hellboy, but the Conqueror Worm sealed the deal.  This is the ultimate Nazi Smasher book.  Raiders of the Lost Ark & Conqueror Worm - it don't get better than that.  Big Red & Roger the Homunculus travel to Hunte Castle in an effort to prevent some long dead nazi scientists from returning a Lovecraftian space seed to earth.  But to succeed they're gonna need some serious spectral help from pulp adventurer Lobster Johnson.  Conqueror Worm is also where Mignola's art solidifies into the supreme masterwork we know and love today.  Then you have Strange Places, the book that nearly broke Hellboy...or Mike Mignola anyway.  "The Third Wish", the first half, is a creepy fun tale pitting Hellboy against the fishy Bog Roosh in a battle over his Crown of the Apocalypse destiny.  It's a solid action tale that reminds the reader of the doom & gloom behind the punch 'em up.  But for me, this volume is all about "The Island" back half.  Here, we finally get the origin of The Dragon, Ogdru Jahad.  Sure, it's a whole mess load of exposition but Hellboy fanboys will eat it up.

Hellboy Library Edition Volume 4:  The Crooked Man & The Troll Witch.  There are several really fun short stories in this collection but none of them match the power of the tales found in the previous three Library Editions.  Artist Richard Corben joins the Hellboy family and he's a welcome addition.  "The Crooked Man" is a fun Satan tale set in the icky Appalachian backwoods, but I really love love love love his Makoma story.  It's a fun African folktale that takes on a beautiful dreamlike quality, but again...there's a nice undercurrent of Hellboy brooding.  And that's really what this volume is about - the dread that is Hellboy's existence.  Mignola draws six short-shorts and each one a grim reminder of his Beast of the Apocalypse job title.

Rock of Ages:  Well, I can't really say that this is a good flick but I certainly had a lot of fun watching this goofball movie.  We all know what a crazed Tom Cruise fan I am and the more people seem to hate him the more I seem to love him.  And he's bonkers terrible here as the drunk, monkey loving rocker Stacee Jaxx, but you can also sense he's having a blast in the part.  Especially when he's belting out "I Want To Know What Love Is" into Malin Akerman's vagina.  Sure, Catherine Zeta-Jones is cringe-inducing with her scream singing, and Paul Giamatti is just cashing another paycheck.  And, yeah, Juliane Hough & Diego Boneta are a couple of drones.  But it gave me 90 minutes worth of a good time.  Sue me.

Dark Shadows:  Another nail in the coffin of Tim Burton's career...buried atop a suffocating Johnny Depp.  And seriously, who thought a comedic adaptation of the wonky 60s gothic soap opera was a good idea?  No one was screaming for more Barnabas Collins.  And if there were some Dark Shadows nerd crawling out from under a rock than they would be fairly pissed at this offensive offering.  Even if there is a ridiculously silly WTF Alice Cooper cameo.

The Walking Dead Season 3 - Episode 1 "Seed":  Off to a good start.  Rick & his crew finally reach the prison with Hershel's Farm thankfully behind them.  Lots of zombie slaughter and a couple of human surprises.  We also get a couple of glimpses of Andrea & the Samurai Michonne but not enough to get geeky excited.  And you know what?  Even though I want to love this show, each episode is just another reminder at how superior the comic book actually is and no amount of Greg Nicotero gore can mask that fact.

BPRD - 1946:  More Hellboy crack.  Exploring the vampire subplot from Wake The Devil, 1946 sees Trevor Bruttenholm in post-war Berlin partnering up with supernatural commies and battling it out with one of Hellboy's greatest bottled bad guy.  With this trade, the Mignolaverse is greatly expanded making fanboys like myself giddy with geeky glee.  And Joshua Dysart lends everything some dirty, crumbly bombed-out gloom.

BPRD - 1947:  With the horrors of the Nazi vampire program seemingly laid to rest (uh, again, see Wake The Devil) the newly formed BPRD continues their investigation of the blood sucker menace.  1947 is another fine example of Mignola connecting mythology by mixing the vampire lore with the black goddess Hecate.  Essential reading for Hellboy fans, this latest dip into the past also introduces a couple of fascinating G.I.s that will no doubt play a larger role in upcoming story arcs.  Plus, we get Ota the Exorcist and a young Hellboy discovering the pleasures of catch.

BPRD - 1948 #1:  Hmmmm...too early to tell just yet where this latest chapter in the BPRD backstory will take both characters and readers alike, but it appears we're gonna see more of Russia's demon doll and some good ol' fashioned atomic fear...with the added bonus of space born beasties.  1948 continues to follow the vampire plagued GI as he teaches Hellboy the joys of smoking while ignoring the presence trapped in his haunted noggin.

Marvel Now Point One:  I kinda hate these Event Anthologies.  This 6 dollar comic gives you a glimpse at a couple of upcoming Marvel Now! relaunches framed around a Nick Fury Jr. interrogation that confused more than intrigued.  I could not care less about the Cable book.  Not gonna buy it.  Guardians of the Galaxy will probably be enjoyable given the writing team, but there's not much here to excite.  Young Avengers...Loki brings some super teens together.  Nova fights some diamond headed monstrosity in the desert.  If there was one short that actually peeked my interest it was the Matt Fraction/Mike Allred FF short showing off Scott Lang's abilities as Ant Man.  Fun.  But with a serious bit of anger motivating the small fry.  But one solid short for 6 bucks?  Yeah, not really worth it.  Another notch in the hype machine.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #16:  This is probably my least favorite issue since the Miles Morales era began.  Spidey continues to try and prove himself to Captain America by battling it out with Hydra soldiers.  Other than that, not much happens.  Get him on The Ultimates already.  And I want to see more Jessica Drew interaction.

Hawkeye #3:  Ok.  So I enjoyed the first two issues.  But this?  I friggin' loved this.  Matt Fraction centers the issue around Hawkeye's ridiculous trick arrows as he & Kate Bishop work their way through his satchel while taking on the tracksuit Bro army.  Laugh out loud funny with the singe greatest use of Clint's costume ever.  If, for whatever hater reason, you are not reading this series than you really need to give it a try.  You will be shocked at how much fun this book truly is.  And Aja's art is freaking perfect.

Godzilla - Half Century War #3:  Coming in at a close second as my favorite single issue of the week, The Half Century War goes full on Kaiju crazy this month.  Ghana, 1975.  Not only is Godzilla on a rampage, but we also get some monster clashes with Megalon, Mothra, Ebirah, Battra, Rodan, and the big puddle smog monster Hedorah.  Even if you're not a Godzilla fanatic, you'll find plenty to enjoy with Stokoe's beautiful rampaging art.

The Sixth Gun #26:  Drake tells Becky the story of his first encounter with the Wendigo while hiding out in a shack.  Solid horror stuff, but I'm starting to feel that this Winter Wolves story will read much better in trade...or at least that's what I'm hoping.  There are some great grisly images here (the stag with its severed head antlers) but I'm losing the plot reading this month to month.

Billy The Kid's Old Timey Oddities and the Orm of Loch Ness #1:  I love The Goon as much as the next person and I really want to love Eric Powell's other oddball creation but I don't think I'm going to continue on beyond the first issue.  Billy The Kid is alive and well; hanging out with some puddle jumping circus freaks.  Looks like we're going to get some Loch Ness mythology mixing with some Universal Monster horror but Kyle Hotz's art is just a bit too much Kelley Jones for me to get excited.

X-O Manowar #6:  So, yeah.  I think it was a mistake to introduce Ninjak in the first six issues.  A) Ninjak is purple, 90s, and lame.  B)  The presence of a purple suited ninja assassin distracts from the already insane world of insect alien conspiracies and religious iron man armor.  It's funny, but I never would have guessed that X-O Manowar would quickly turn into my least favorite Valiant book - seriously, Bloodshot is better.  Crazy world we live in.

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine Season 3:  After several weeks of catching episodes here and there, The Wife and I finally completed the first truly kick ass season of the show.  Odo finds his people.  The Dominion War is nearly upon us.  William Riker guest stars...or does he?  Dick Miller is an A-Hole 21st Century rent-a-cop.  And Ben Sisko gets his goatee.  If you mildly enjoyed the first two seasons of DS9 than you'll start to love it by the third season.  But the Gamma Quadrant conflict trickles where it should rush and things won't really go to pot until the Klingons reappear next season.

The Devil's Rejects:  Much, much better than House of 1000 Corpses.  Rob Zombie is still chucking everything & the kitchen sink at the screen but it's focused through a singular obsession with 70s exploitation cinema.  Frankly this feels less like a horror film and more of a Badlands/Natural Born Killers terror picture.  Bill Mosley, Sheri Moon Zombie, and Sid Haig are deplorable monsters murdering their way through hapless country musicians and hillbilly sluts.  They may be charismatic, but don't fool yourself - these are big bad scumbags.  But maybe not as scary as William Forsythe's unhinged psychopath sherif and yep, he totally steals the show.  The actor has never been better and the climactic staple gun showdown is as thrilling as it is cringing.  Bad people doing bad stuff to each other.  Not entertainment for everyone, but the sicko pervert in me enjoys it enough.  Especially when performed by vintage genre stars.

Hellboy Library Edition Volume 5:  Duncan Fegredo has taken over the art duties (and that does take some getting used to), but Mike Mignola's saga has never been better.  Years upon years of storytelling have all been building to this epic trilogy of stories (to be concluded in Library Edition Volume 6 presumably but for now you can settle on the TPB below).  Darkness Calls is The Wrath of Khan of Hellboy stories.  Not only do you have the sad pig fairy Gruagach seeking retribution against Big Red for his humiliation in "The Corpse" (see The Chained Coffin), but you've also got the big bad Baba Yaga looking to cash in an eye for an eye.  The instruments of destruction are a couple of nifty villains from both history and mythology:  Witchfinder General Henry Hood and Koschei the Deathless.  Like all good Hellboy villains, they're just as sad & pathetic as they are deadly.  Part 1 is mostly beast on beast bashing, but it opens the mythos to the fairy tale crazy of The Wild Hunt.  In Part II, Hellboy joins the Osiris Club on their hunt for rampaging Giants but is quickly betrayed for his increasingly bloodthirsty punch 'em ups.  The Wild Hunt ties Hellboy's lineage to England itself, and we get the best understanding of his origin yet.  

Hellboy - The Storm and the Fury:  Hellboy gets both an ending and a bold new beginning.  The Fate of the World (not just England) hangs in the balance as Hellboy goes up against Nimue, the Queen of Blood.  The pig Gruagach finally sees the fairy folk of yore rise above man and the river of blood that results damns his soul.  This is some seriously heavy stuff, and if you've been reading Hellboy from the beginning than you'll be shocked at the emotions it creates within.  Hellboy has always been a fun bit genre mashing, but it's also always been wrapped in a blanket of gloom - if not all out sadness.  As the impending doom gets closer with every turn of the page, I found myself dreading its conclusion.  There's a moment where Hellboy sits in a ghost pub; he remembers a childhood conversation with Professor Bruttenholm in which he fears a personal connection to Frankenstein's Monster or possibly pulp hero Lobster Johnson.  The memory leaves Hellboy crestfallen, but he must move forward.  Hellboy can no longer bury his head in the sand, he must face who & what he is...or does not want to be.  The Storm & The Fury concludes one of my all time favorite arcs in comics.

Hellboy & Hellboy II - The Golden Army:  After finishing the latest chapter in Hellboy comics I wanted to give the films another shake.  I love, love, love Guillermo Del Toro.  The man is every fanboy's dream.  A geek done good.  The Devil's Backbone is one of my all time favorite films, Blade 2 is one of my favorite action films of the last fifteen years, and I'm beyond excited to see next year's Pacific Rim, his Kaiju Smackdown film.  But the Hellboy films have always bugged me.  Del Toro's films seem more interested in the workmanlike attitude that Hellboy brings to monster bashing and less interested in the brooding sense of doom that The Beast of the Apocalypse title lends to all Hellboy comics.  The first film gets more right than wrong.  The opening WWII sequence makes the whole proceedings worth it frankly, and John Hurt's Professor Broom brings more weight to that character than ever before.  But the romance between Liz & HB distracts.  And the introduction of Myers is such an annoying Hollywood convention.  The Golden Army though is straight up infuriating.  It's soooooo jokey.  And the relationship between Liz & HB has devolved into a bickering sitcom couple.  It's a beautiful flick, and it contains some of the most impressive practical & CG effects blending I've ever encountered.  But when Barry Manilow gets involved, I check out.

Hellboy - The Bride of Hell:  Probably the weakest collection of short stories we've had so far, The Bride of Hell still has a couple of gems.  Richard Corben's Hellboy en Mexico is a real delight, partnering a drunk Hellboy with a couple of vampire hunting luchadores.  There's a demon turkey that's absolutely terrifying.  And I'm shocked at how much I enjoyed Kevin Nowlan's Buster Oakley Gets His Wish - UFOs just don't seem like they belong in the Mignolaverse but they make it work.  The Cowboy!  Still, this just feels like filler until we get Hellboy in Hell at the end of the year.

The Girl:  The Wife & I completed the week with a trip down to Williamsburg.  While staying in a hotel I caught the premiere of HBO's competing Hitchcock docudrama.  Smartly focusing on Hitch's apparent obsession with Tippi Hedren during the filming of both The Birds & Marnie, The Girl paints the master director as a psychopathic rapist-in-the-making.  Toby Jones's whackjob is genuinely scary despite the mimicry performance.  The Girl makes the fanboy in me rather uncomfortable, I don't like looking at Hitch in this pervo light.  It might be true, but I think I'll prefer the goofier undoubtedly less pathetic and more fantastical interpretation of Anthony Hopkins' Psycho-maker come this November.

Bram Stoker's Dracula Original Comics Adaptation #1 & #4:  Down in Williamsburg I scored a couple of issues from Mike Mignola's Dracula adaptation.  This is very much a straight panel for panel adaptation of the Francis Ford Coppola film, but Mignola's art is a perfect fit for the film's theatrical style.  And the best thing about reading this comic is not suffering Keanu Reeve's horrendous English accent.  Now if I can only track down the two middle issues I'll be set.

--Brad