New Release Tuesday! (9/18/12)

Oh boy.  This week is gonna be hard on the wallet.  I've already snatched up the Indy box set and as I type I'm halfway through the third film.  So dang good.  But this week also offers up one of this year's best films, some classic Mario Bava, the best film in the Halloween franchise, High Def Ed Wood, and The Winchester Brothers.  Frankly, this is all Must Buy stuff for me but if yer only going to go with one purchase this week you already know it's gotta be --

MUST BUY DVD OF THE WEEK!

Indiana Jones Blu Ray Box Set:  Watching the films this very second, I gotta say that the transfer is not the mind blowing experience that was the Jaws disc from a few weeks back.  Still, Raiders of the Lost Ark & Temple of Doom are absolutely gorgeous looking movies.  Not to mention that the Indy movies (yes, including Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--shut up, haters) are some of the best examples of Adventure Cinema going.  Harrison Ford's Dr. Jones was probably my first cinematic role model.  Sure, my first love was the Star Wars trilogy but as a kid the guy I wanted to grow up to be was Indiana Jones.  Cool.  Rough.  Did the right thing, but wasn't afraid to shoot a guy when his back was up against a wall.  And yeah, a little fortune & glory would be nice.

BUY!

Halloween III - Season of the Witch:  This might be blasphemy to some and a few of you might jump ship at the following thought, but Halloween III is the best of the franchise.  You heard me, forget the John Carpenter original.  I like my pumpkin holiday with a heavy dose of sex machine Tom Atkins and mind warping druidic television commercials.  Season of the Witch is a weird, weird, really freaking weird addition to the Halloween saga and I really wish it had been a success so that we could have been gifted with a whole series of Twilight Zoney flicks rather than the endlessly bland resurrections of Michael Myers' stab-a-thons.

Cabin in the Woods:  I'm not sure I totally buy the hype with this flick, but at the same time Cabin in the Woods is still one of the best films of the year so far (queue ITMOD bitching about what a crappy year 2012 has been).  Joss Whedon's script is very Joss Whedony and I'm not even sure if that annoys me anymore in these post-AVENGERS IS THE GREATEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD days.  If I had any complains about this film is that the Horror Elements are not nearly as effective as the wink-wink comedic bits.

Supernatural Season 7:  Not my favorite season of the show.  In fact, it might be my least favorite season so far.  Lots of good humor and action from the boys but the whole Leviathan plot never quite gelled in the same fashion that the War in Heaven did.  But where do you go once you've stopped the Apocalypse?  But they still make me squeal and I'll keep watching until its finally cancelled.

Black Sunday:  One of three Bava flicks hitting blu ray today, Black Sunday is the quintessential Italian Horror mashing the queen of scream Barbara Steele with the intoxicating camera of Bava.  Surreal, diabolic, intoxicating.  It's been a few years since I've had the pleasure and I'm quite looking forward to wrapping myself in the grip of Bava's HD Iron Maiden.

Judge Dredd:  Ok.  Yeah.  This sucks.  Rob Schneider...damn, you are the worst thing to happen to 2000 AD.  And the helmet comes off and stays off and that's horrendously offensive to Euro Comic fans.  But, at the same time, Judge Dredd movie!!!!  Even in the great franchise grab of the 1990s (ha! as if there's an end in sight!) the idea of a Judge Dredd movie was freakishly unreal--and we're getting another one this very month!  Wow.  The Stallone flick is only 10 bucks on blu and it's worth that, a good dip into Mega City One before we hopefully get the genius of Karl Urban's lawgiver.

Ed Wood:  Man, it's so easy to hate on Tim Burton these days.  Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.  Alice in Wonderland.  Dark Shadows.  Terrible.  But once upon a time, Tim Burton was one of my favorite directors and Ed Wood is his masterpiece.  Burton drenches this film with love and affection, and this allows you a window into the beauty of trash filmmaking.  You don't mock Ed Wood, you cherish his enthusiasm, you admire his tenacity.  You don't feel sorry for him, you envy him.  Lovable little weirdo.  And yep, Johnny Depp has never been better.


RENT!

The Babymakers:  "The Jizz is up."  Groan.  Olivia Munn.  Double groan.  However, The Babymakers is directed by two members of the Broken Lizard gang and after my rewatch of The Slammin Salmon  I've been craving their obscene brand of oddball comedy.

The Victim:  Michael Biehn directs himself and his wife in this backwoods horror story and as much as I'm in the mood for the mean, axe swinging butchery of grizzled Michael Biehn the trailer for The Victim looks mediocre at best.  And I have not heard good things.  But, dammit, this is Navy Seals here.  He can do no wrong. ... ... ... Look, I've already admitted that I enjoy Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, that Halloween III is better than the John Carpenter classic, and I have an unhealthy affection for Sam & Dean Winchester, so I might as well go all out and say that Navy Seals is a helluva good time at the movies.

--Brad

Brad's Week In Dork! (4/1-4/7)

Finished The Wire!!!  Soooooooooo Good!  But somehow it didn't consume my entire week.  I knocked it out quick and moved onto a rather massive collection of movies and comic books.  The only film I caught in the theater was Wrath of the Titans and I definitely enjoyed it more than the rest of America.  But I guess the big event this week was the downloading of Amazon's Instant Video app onto my Playstation 3.  Something I once swore I would never do, but I fell to temptation when Morgan Spurlock's Comic Con doc premiered via streaming and once I stepped through the Looking Glass I had to see Ben Wheatley's Kill List.  I don't think I'll make a regular habit of this, I want to see my films first on the big screen when I can, but if there is no other option in the DC Market than I'll fork over 6.99 for the streaming option.  It's a brave new world and I realize that it's the death of ownable media, but you can't fight progress and blah, blah, blah.  

TV OF THE WEEK!

The Wire Season 5:  It might have taken me all of last week to get through Season 4, but I whipped through the final season of The Wire in just two sittings.  8 Hours on Sunday, 2 on Monday.  Bam.  Done.  And I already miss it.  Obviously, I'm way late to the party on this show and I'm sure David Simon would reject my too-little-too-late adoration (Read His Disgust Here), but I'm now here to declare The Wire as one of my all time favorite shows.  And I wasn't so sure about the Newspaper angle at the start of season 5 or McNulty's insane serial killer scheme, but by the midway point I was hooked.  And the confrontation between McNulty & Scott at the station made it all worth it.  Honestly, I was surprised at how Not Depressing the conclusion of the show was--sure, there were plenty of bodies to be buried but not as many as I was expecting.  I would love to live in a world where there was at least one or two more seasons of The Wire to consume, but I thought 5 was a fine conclusion for this cast of characters.  Omar, McNulty, Bubbles, Bunny, and Daniels all had satisfying climaxes, as did the kids from Season 4.  Really glad to see Namond and Prezbo one last time as well.  If by some miracle I'm not the last man on Earth to have seen this show, I encourage you stragglers to jump on this bandwagon.  There has never been a better cop show; I'm willing to stake my reputation on it.

Justified "Coalition":  What the hell!?!?  How could Boyd Crowder leave the guarding of Quarels to a couple of prostitutes and just one goon?!?!  Did he seriously think that this mafia beast man wouldn't take this trilogy of dopes out?  I guess Boyd hasn't had much interaction with Quarels and maybe he just didn't quite understand the savagery of his captive, but it still felt like some tremendously convenient scripting.  That being said, once I got over my fanboy indignation regarding this character flub, I found the build to next week's finale appropriately intense with Limehouse puppet mastering the pawns of Harlan County.  Raylan and Dickie have another showdown, and Trooper Tom...yeash.

Bored To Death Season 1:  After much prodding from Matthew, I finally broke down and watched HBO's half hour comedy.  It was solid.  Don't know if I liked it as much as him, or my wife for that matter, but there's a definite charm to Jason Schwartzman's wino wannabe private dick.  I was kinda hoping for more Noir-ish sendup, but it's more hipstery woe-is-me silly.  Ted Danson is probably my favorite aspect of the show.  His pothead publisher feels like an even more exaggerated version of his Curb Your Enthusiasm character and his cold sore was E-P-I-C.  Thankfully, Zach Galifanakis is not the obnoxious blob that he is in the Hangover films and I kinda adored his relationship with his sperm hoarding girlfriend.  Matt assures me that the second season is even better and I am curious to see what kind of bonkers Schwartzman & Co get into next.

Supernatural "Out With The Old":  Season 7 has been all over the map.  After several stand alone episodes (most of them fun), the boys encounter the Leviathan threat once more.  But not in any major plot development kinda way, just a couple of munchers running rogue from the pack.  There's a great opening sequence involving killer ballet shoes and watching Dean resist the temptation to dance was hilarious, but the rest of the ep was a big meh.  Time to move this story forward.

Supernatural "The Born-Again Identity":  Everyone's favorite angel returns to the series!  Unfortunately so does my least favorite demon, Meg.  Ugh.  That woman just annoys the hell outta me.  And this is yet another episode that deals with (and hopefully wraps up) Sam's latest bit of crazy brain.  I'd like to see the three guys kicking ass and taking names again, but it feels like Cas has been forever regulated to the background.  Bummer.

MOVIES OF THE WEEK!

Take A Hard Ride:  "A Wanted Man, That's All That Matters." The spiritual sequel to the blaxploitation Super Group flick Three The Hard Way, this Spaghetti Western reteams genre titans Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and Jim Kelly against bounty hunter Lee Van Cleef and his army of banditos. The fun resides in the bitter back & forth between man-of-his-word Brown and snake gambler Williamson. Kelly is solid as the half-breed mute with incredible but mysterious Kung Fu skills and Van Cleef is typically reliable, but we're here for the football icons. And the Spaghetti Western sub-genre offers plenty of violent twists and unexpected downbeats.  As usual, check out the rest of my thoughts for this week's Western Review at cineAWESOME!

Wrath of the Titans:  Free from the confines of the original film's remake, Wrath of the Titans is an enjoyable bit of CGI mythological Tom Foolery. Sam Worthington will never be my go-to action hero soldier, but with his hair grown out and the stench of Avatar fading, he's a Perseus I'm comfortable riding Pegasus. If I was 10 years old I'd be gaga for Wrath with its parade of classic beasties (The Minotaur! The Cyclops! Cronus!) and the Hades/Zeus smackdown teamup.  Sure it's probably gonna fade from memory rather quickly but it's fun enough while running.  And The Real Rocknrolla's Toby Kebbell is kinda hilarious with his useless demigod and surprisingly effective pep talks.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy:  A celebration of Cold War espionage and World War nostalgia, director Tomas Alfredson crafts a stylish, devil-in-the-details puzzle thriller that's nearly as cool as its cast. Gary Oldman's top notch spy is a quiet badass in which the film's most exciting action sequences seem to occur behind his thick-rimmed glasses. And he's surrounded by Britain's finest with Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, John Hurt, and Benedict Cumberbatch all delivering the goods. Not the kind of film to just leave on while you iron shirts, it requires your full attention but the invested will be rewarded.

Pusher:  Nicolas Winding Refn's directorial debut is a grungy little monster of a film following two low rent dealers (Kim Bodnia & Mads Mikkelsen) as they naturally self-destruct amongst the real drug lord professionals. The film definitely thumps along to its own rhythm and it takes on a pretty horrific glow, but it failed to capture my full attention.  Not surprisingly, Mikkelsen steals the show with his few scenes and I do look forward to him taking center stage in the later parts of the trilogy.  Still, it's telling that I didn't immediately pop in the next installment after the credits rolled.

The Wild Angels:  "We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man!...And We Wanna Get Loaded!" Peter Fonda & Bruce Dern are Blues & The Loser, the two big toughs that run the San Pedro chapter of the Hell's Angels and they spend their days finding new ways to hassle cops and play their bongos. Roger Corman continues his youth-gone-mad formula battling conformity just cuz; whether its Rock n Roll High Schoolers or swastika fetishizing bikers. Still, I couldn't help but side with Dick Miller's Anzio vet who chides Fonda for wearing the Iron Cross or Frank Maxwell's disgusted, morally(and physically)-assaulted preacher when dealing with these inconsistent psychotics. Yeah, you wanna be free and get loaded but you also don't have qualms with raping Diane Ladd.  This isn't just about rockin' around the clock.

The Beast With 1,000,000 Eyes:  It's got a great title and a really cool poster, but that's about it. Roger Corman has produced hundreds of movies and they're not all going to be winners. Paul Birch and Lorna Thayer run around avoiding twinkling lights while birds, dogs, and milk cows run amuck. But they've got love and they've got a shotgun so it's all gonna be okay.  But it won't be Not Boring...

Machine Gun Kelly:  "When Rabbits Roar It's A Bad Time." A rather young and mustacheless Charles Bronson stars as real-life villain Machine Gun Kelly in this Roger Corman cheapie. Pushed around by his moll, Kelly plays it tough with his Tommy Gun.  But when a kidnapping scheme turns sour and an intense fear of death haunts his nightmares, the big bad discerns the futility of his crimes and the death chair seems imminent. Bronson and Susan Cabot are excellent together as their bickering escalates, and the remaining crippled goons are solid supporters.  Not my favorite Corman gangster picture, this still would make an excellent companion to St Valentine's Day Massacre.

Comic Con Episode IV A Fan's Hope:  Don't expect much depth from Morgan Spurlock's latest documentary, more than anything else, it plays simply as a big commercial for Comic Con. That being said, as a recent attendee, this gets me incredibly pumped for this year's trip to Dork Mecca. Hall H Celebrities! Exclusive Action Figures! The Masquerade! Stan Lee! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Those not in the know will not find understanding here, but for the rest of us lucky dorks, A Fan's Hope provides a nice photo album experience.

Miss Bala:  This is a pretty fantastic bit of brutal chaos in which wannabe beauty queen Stephanie Sigman visits the wrong Tijuana Night Club on the wrong night before competition and witnesses a gangland massacre. But that's just the beginning of her troubles. What works so well about this film is Sigman's (and the audiences) utter confusion surrounding the criminal acts. There's something going on about DEA Agents and a rival gang, but all you can be concerned with is how much hell these outside forces are going to put Sigman and her family through. She wanders in and out of gun battles, news reports, police departments, and she has no control as to where this violence is going to dump her. Scary and thrilling atypical action picture.

Kill List:  "I used to love looking at fires when I was a kid." The less known about this film the better. Don't watch the trailer, don't read reviews. Just see the movie. Kill List begins with some pretty epic domestic squabling and slowly pulls you into a terrifying realm of violence. Parts reminded me of Norwegian comic book artist Jason's I Killed Adolf Hitler (but I see that book everywhere I turn these days) and other bits were straight outta The Wicker Man. It's a beast of a flick with bursting gore not for the timid.  Kill List is easily one of the year's best mood pieces and one of my favorite films of the year so far.  But I might have already said too much.

COMICS OF THE WEEK!

Ragemoor #1:  As much as I've loved Richard Corben's Hellboy minis of late, it's great to see him tackling something original.  And Ragemoor seems to be the perfect fit for the artist and a solid companion to his House on the Borderland adaptation.  Who doesn't love an evil castle fueled on pagan blood?  Especially one that consumes long lost relatives who dare to scoff its monstrous intent?  Hard to tell who or what the focus of this series is going to be, but I'm game.

Fatale #4:  Reading this month to month is proving difficult.  With a plot that follows several characters over different decades, there is a lot to juggle between issues.  However, when you read them back to back Fatale is shaping up to be one of the best genre mashups in recent years.  Four issues into this proposed 15 issue Lovecraft Noir epic, the horror of the saga begins to solidify.  And I can't think of another comic out there I look more forward to each month...until Hellboy in Hell hits the racks.

Winter Soldier #3:  Is it me, or does Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier feel a lot like Brian Michael Bendis early on in New Avengers?  Brubaker's grabbing Doom Bots and jet pack machine gun apes and whatever else he can find under Marvel's rock and forcing the odd onto Bucky & Black Widow.  Maybe there's a little Grant Morrison in there too.  It's seriously fun, but maybe more fanciful than I would like...or, maybe I'm just still bitter about Steve Rodgers' return to Cap.

Jason Conquers America:  Don't bother with this one shot unless you are a die hard Jason fan.  A sampling of his oddball cartoons separated out between a couple of brief interviews.  Nothing here matches the power of his graphic novels but fanboys will get a chuckle outta God's leaf pile and the Grim Reaper's balloon.

--Brad

Brad's Week In Dork! (2/26/12-3/3/12)

Man, this was a crazy Week in Dork.  Started it off at my folks house for their (forced upon by me) 84th Academy Awards party and like usual, I enjoyed that red carpet nonsense much more than I probably should.  The rest of the week was spent mostly cranking out the usual whacky eclectic collection of cinema's oddest and it climaxed with an intense bit of internet nerd warfare for San Diego Comic Con tickets.

And over at cineAWESOME! I completed my first run of Western Reviews.  I've been having a blast with these movies and it's been fun traveling through the genre decade by decade, starting with the 1940s of The Ox-Bow Incident to the 2000s of Seraphim Falls.  This week cineAWESOME! is taking part in the Korean Blogathon and I'll be contributing with my review for The Good The Bad The Weird and maybe The Man From Nowhere.  I'd love to get my hands on some more Manchurian Westerns but that's proving to be rather difficult.


TV OF THE WEEK!

The 84th Academy Awards:  My thoughts on The Oscars...it's bullshit.  And they've been bullshit from the very first show in 1929 when William Wellman's Wings took Best Picture.  Sure, having now seen that film I can say that it's a wonderful movie, but Fritz Lang's Metropolis is a damn masterpiece and it wasn't even nominated.  So, now that we call all agree that the Academy Awards have always been bullshit than we can just get over ourselves and enjoy the silliness of the event.  At it's best, The Oscars provide the opportunity for Film Dorks like myself to talk movies with other folks that usually don't seem to care.  The week leading up to the ceremony was a blast at work as all my coworkers debated the merits of The Artist vs. Hugo vs. The Descendants vs. whathaveyou.  There seems to be a lot of backlash out there these days for the French Silent and whether Harvey Weinstein bought the award or not is irrelevant.  The Artist is a damn good time at the movies, and like last year's Kings' Speech, it might not have been the movie I would have gone with I was certainly happy with its win.  And when was the last time that The Year's Best Film actually took home Oscar anyway?  1993 with Unforgiven, that's when.  And when you consider that awful dreck like Crash, Chicago, and Titanic have taken the award in recent past I think we got off pretty lucky.  As far as the rest of the winners, haven't seen The Iron Lady yet and probably never will so I can't tell you if Streep deserved it or not, but like Alec Baldwin says you can't really hate on that lady for winning anything--she's The Streep.  I do wish Clooney had taken the big boy home, but I guess the Academy was happy enough with his Supporting Win for Syrianna from a few years back.

The Walking Dead "18 Miles Out":  This was probably my favorite episode of The Walking Dead this season.  Rick & Shane have to travel 18 Miles Out from The Farm to dump the captive Randall out into the zombie infested world.  The ep provided for some serious philosophical battle between the two former Best Buds and even though the story certainly didn't resolve their conflict it brought it to a boiling  point that's impossible to cool down from here.  As the show reaches for it's season climax I don't think it will end with them chummy chummy.  One of these guys is gonna die.  And "18 Miles Out" also showed off some pretty fantastic Ernest Dickerson (Tales Form The Crypt: Demon Knight!) direction and lots of KNB gross, gross, gross zombie makeup.

Supernatural "Repo Man":  Aw man.  When are we getting back to the Leviathans?!?!  And how about Castiel!?!?  We know he's not dead, get on with it!  Instead, this episode decided to reintroduce the crazy Sam storyline with Mark Pellegrino's Lucifer still putzing about his frustrated melon.  I love Pellegrino and I'm all for more appearances but this just feels like an arc we should have been done with seasons back.  Let's get focused on the war with Dick Roman's evil turduckens!

Justified "The Man Behind The Curtain":  After last week's extremely mediocre turn, this episode was definitely a bit of a step up but not much.  I love you Justified, but you're better than this filler stuff.  Yes, it's nice to see the Neal McDonough's Quarles character expanded upon and I love that last bit with him and Gary at the bar.  And it's cool to see Supernatural's Jim Beaver starting to find a home in Boyd Crowder's plan for Harlan County Survival.  But will this season be able to bring all these dispirit elements together for an explosive climax of badassery?  Probably.  This is Justified, after all.

MOVIES OF THE WEEK!

Seraphim Falls:  ‎"He ain't going nowhere. We let him bleed." Liam Neeson pursues Pierce Brosnan from the snowy death of the Ruby Mountains to the barren deserts of the Wild West below; this is an excellent Revenge Chaser backed up by a couple of vicious performances from its two leads, and if it didn't falter with an annoying flashback explanation and the unnecessary weird western appearances of Wes Studi & Angelica Huston than Seraphim Falls would rank as one of the Westerns recent Bests. As is, this is a solid genre entry that can probably be credited as the beginning of Neeson's recent trend of badassery.  Again, to read further thoughts on this rage filled Western, check out cineAWESOME!

Take Shelter:  As a longtime fan of Michael Shannon's particular brand of insanity, Take Shelter is a tremendous treat in which we witness Shannon's possibly delusional family man fight himself, his wife, and the entire town in preparation for the Great Weather Apocalypse. A tremendously uncomfortable film to watch, you should be in the right/prepared mind before consumption. And yeah, I'm still mulling over those last couple of seconds--if you've seen it and want to chat it out with a fellow Shannon-o-phile, let me know. And yeah, Shea Whigham is still all kinds of awesome even in the disposable best bud role here.  "Whoa."

Dream House:  Gah. Such a waste of talent. Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, and Elias Koteas come together for the most rudimentary of ghost/crazy guy/murder mysteries/whatever. All put in solid work...except for the screenwriter who pulls out his Connect-The-Dots DIY guide to spooky shenanigans and delivers a film barely worth the time of this mini-review. Shame. Yawn.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen:  When the narrative is not muddled with unnecessary third party love interests and anti-fish terrorist attacks, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a sweet little romance between Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt hooked on an enjoyably cutie British high concept.  And I found great pleasure in Amr Waked's visionary sheik and his happily hopeful outlook on humanity. Lasse Hallstrom definitely scores some big smiles, but again, what's with the assassination attempts and the soldier boy heartstring manipulations?  Eye roll.

Rampart:  Director Oren Moverman teams up with the hateful scripting of James Ellroy for a furious look into the life of the "most corrupt cop you've seen on screen" (so claims the trailer, and they're not far off the mark but I'd like to point out Street Trash's Bill the Cop). Rampart is a hard film to watch. Harrelson continues a streak of undeniably powerful performances, but as his life spirals out of control and into horrid techno club burrito feasting and Ben Foster beatings I also found myself failing to connect on an emotional level. The man is scum, and no one writes scum better than Ellroy but it misses the spark found in the heinous characters of his novels.  Still, that burrito...gross.

Coriolanus:  "Make You A Sword of Me!" Ralph Fiennes stars and directs in this lesser known Shakespeare adaptation (I certainly had never read or seen the play before this viewing) and delivers a fine bit of Hate Cinema. Fiennes is a beast, and when he rages upon the citizens or beats upon a blood soaked Gerard Butler I found myself crawling up into my seat; the savagery of the words is more violent than any of the ferocious attacks. Brian Cox is plenty fun as the consigliere, but it's Vanessa Redgrave's conniving mother that steals most scenes when Fiennes is not present.  But look at that poster stare above--f'ing terrifying.

Fit To Kill:  "How Can I Kill Such A Beautiful Creature?" "Just Think Of The Money." Dona Speir passes the Lethal Lady torch to Julie Strain in her final Andy Sidaris outing and its typically wonderful in that special Malibu Express kinda way. In this T&A Adventure that ties into WWII's Valkyrie assassination plot to kill Adolf Hitler, Agents Donna and Roberta Vasquez must team up with Roger Moore's son RJ to fend of Strain's hitwoman and the Red Chinese. Yes, it's more of the same but that's a great plus, not a negative.

Enemy Gold:  "This Is All We Dreamed Of As Kids! Yes!" From the crazed Valkyrie Diamond Heist plot of the last film to the crazy Quantrill's Lost Treasure Plot of Enemy Gold, Andy Sidaris seems to enjoy butchering history along with his heaps of random T & A. Donna Speir & her regular cohorts are gone, replaced by Julie Strain's Bad Girl and Suzi Simpson's bear-phobic agent--Becky Midnight! Bruce Penhall is still around, but I miss the old gang. Still, Enemy Gold has all the awkward dialog and even awkwarder sex scenes to pass time in front of the late night boob tube.

Hannie Caulder:  Wildly uneven in tone, Hannie Caulder goes from horrific rape sequence to goofy sexualized Raquel Welch bathing...but I gotta admit, that's part of the film's cheesy charm. Robert Culp rocks a wicked beard as the bounty hunter who schools Welch in the ways of shoot 'em up vengeance and Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, & Strother Martin are The Three Stoogeiest batch of comical violators you've ever encountered. Hannie Caulder does contain one very cool bandit showdown involving (again, beaded) Christopher Lee and a mysterious, unknowable stranger. But at the end of the day the collision of comedy & rape keeps Hannie Caulder from being anything more than an oddity.

Frankenstein Conquers The World:  Question: "Does He Really Eat Dogs and Cats?" Answer: Yes. After the Hiroshima bomb turns a halfbreed child into a giant Frankenstein Monster that smashes all over Japan until the army wakes up Baragon, a Godzilla like Unicorn tunnel rat that loves to squash puppet horses when he's not breathing fiery radiation. Definitely one of the better Kaiju movies, Frankenstein Conquers The World seems to have been written by a five year old me--and then a boar attacks and then the forrest is on fire and then a volcano erupts and then this happened and that happened. So much silly fun.

Justice League Doom:  The animation looks nice and it's a solid voice cast, but Doom takes Mark Waid's cool concept from the Tower of Babel comic and delivers a basic punch 'em up actioner. The whole idea that Batman is the reason for all of the Justice League's super villain problems is barely glanced over and I left the film with about as much enthusiasm as I had for the weak Batman/Superman outings and craving the New Frontier and Wonder Woman good stuff. Come on, DC Animated, you're better than this.

War of the Gargantuas:  "You still want to wet nurse that monster?" This sequel (if you say so) to Frankenstein Conquers The World opens with a green gargantuan man battling it out with a giant octopus to the catastrophe of an innocent Japanese sailing vessel. From there the green Gargantua heads for land and proceeds to battle it out with a brown Gargantua as Russ Tamblyn's scientist tries to figure out what it all means: brother vs borther...it's a lot like countries vs countries...yeah, sure Russ. If yer in the mood to watch two dudes in rubber suits wrestle each other over model cities than War of the Gargantuas will fit the bill just fine, but if you're looking for something a bit more wacky/zany than stick with Frankenstein. VF.

COMIC OF THE WEEK!

The Last Musketeer by Jason:  After devouring Jason's I Killed Adolf Hitler I was recommended The Last Musketeer by the fine folks over at Big Planet Comics and it far exceeded my expectations. Athos of the The Three Musketeers is still puttering around a modern France; no one wants to share a drink with him and his buddy Aramis has a few dollars of pity for him but not the the time to spare on his adventures. But then Ming the Merciless invades France and it's up to Athos to do battle for the King and introduce cigarettes to the Martians. The Last Musketeer is an odd trip for sure, but if you're a fan of Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neal's literary riffing than you should also enjoy this kooky bit of mondo. And it has gobs of charm bursting from its pages. I definitely need more Jason in my life.


WARFARE OF THE WEEK!

San Diego Comic Con 2012 Tickets:  Yep, last year's battle for Comic Con tickets was definitely more frustrating than this year, what with all the multiple days of website crashes and the like, but at least last year I was able to score Badges for all four days.  This year, Comic Con smoothed things out a little better with Member IDs and email links--but that damn link didn't work and I was floundering around for a couple minutes before Facebook friendlies pointed me in the direction of the proper working link on Comic Con's actual website.  In those few moments of floundering I lost my opportunity to snag all four days and came away after an hour of internet line waiting with just Thursday and Sunday badges.  Lame.  But I'm still more than happy.  Having now been to Comic Con just once, I want to go every year for the rest of my life.  It's Dork Mecca, and during those four days there's no happier place on Earth than San Diego.  So I'll take part in the quieter days this year.  And I'll travel across the country to do so.  Madness?  You're damn right.

--Brad