Category: childhood nostalgia

X-Men Apocalypse: The Origin of The X-Men’s Famous Hairdos!!

I checked out ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ today, a movie I was super excited for as I was a huge fan of ‘Days of Future Past’ and the other Singer X-Men movies. I’m sorry to say that for some reason this latest installment is a big bloated mess that sadly misses the mark by a boatload. I loved that the last movie was set in the 1970’s & was so stoked on the idea of this one taking place in the 1980’s. However, aside from some cool vintage wardrobe and a Ms. Pac-man video game there wasn’t much else in this one that for me really brought me back to that great era of the X-Men comic books.

There was simply just too many damn characters running around, the story was missing heart and the special effects were just too much of a cartoony CG mess to convince me that the Earth was in any serious danger. I had high hopes forthe movies antagonist Apocalypse too and didn’t even mind his look, which most people were in a frenzy about from the start. However, Apocalypse as a villain was just way too hokey to be taken seriously and yeah he really did look a bit ridiculous I must admit.  

And Talk about a villain who takes himself way too seriously, jeez, he seemed more like an overdramatic cartoon version of the legendary villain. We’re really not given that much character development here for anyone, everything that happens happens way too coincidentally including the origin of people’s hairstyles! It seems Apocalypse is not only responsible for huge amounts of global chaos but also for Storm’s white hair & ALSO Professor X’s bald ass head!! Continue reading →

The Best of VHS Box Art: Evilspeak!!

I recently checked out an awesome early 80’s flick called ‘Evilspeak’ starring everybody’s favorite awkward actor Clint Howard who’s the younger brother of superstar director Ron Howard. Evilspeak delivers all the goods besides having Clint Howard in the lead it’s got some gruesome fx, a truly unique story and some pretty cool sets. It’s also got a swarm of possessed pigs that are more than willing to carry out the evil deeds of the devil! So track this one down if you get the chance, it’s totally worth it. Now one last thing obviously this one had got going for was the incredible VHS box cover art! One of my faves…

Well I also realized that this artist C. Winston Taylor is responsible for many of my favorite movie posters and box art of the 1970’s and 80’s in fact it turns out that he did the cover art for one of the other blogs I did recently for the movie Mutant Hunt! Also check out the blog post on with more details on his artwork on another cool ass blog I dig: Camera Viscera!!

New Music & Comic Book Adventures from…..The Monkees?!

I’ve always been a huge fan of The Monkees and now they’ve released a brand new song that will be on their upcoming album “Good Times”. Of course I’m still sad about the passing of Davy Jones, my personal favorite Monkee, but the good news is this new album WILL feature and old unreleased track that Neil Diamond wrote for the band in the 1960’s with Davy Jones on lead Vocals. It’ll feature some new instrumentation and harmonies by Micky Dolenz & Tork. Also the album cover too is a good sign that we’ll be getting some classic vintage style songs from the boys.

The album will also feature a brand new song by Michael Nesmith! So all four of the original Monkees will be present in some way shape or form. In the mean time here’s a cool new track, written by Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, I’m pleased to hear that this new album will recreating their classic 60’s sound. This little video is cool as well as it follows an old classic comic book adventure of the band!   

 

If that’s not good enough they’ve released another song from the album written by Andy Partridge from XTC!!

 

 

Before ‘It Follows’ was ‘The Myth of the American Sleepover’!

I had to take a quick moment here to mention a cool little indie flick back from 2010 that really slipped almost completely under the radar for most everyone. “The Myth of the American Sleepover” was directed by David Robert Mitchell who’s much more well known for his colossal hit  horror flick from last year “It Follows”. Easily one of the best horror major movies of the last five years it got me wondering if the director maybe had anything else under his belt? One quick search on Netflix brought me to his first feature film.

Clearly Mitchell has got some serious talent and his first film is equally impressive but in very different and oddly familiar ways. Yeah The Myth of the American Sleepover actually kinda feels like It Follows minus the dismal horror. It’s a great coming of age flick with a full heart but equally oddly awkward teenage characters. It’s really a story about four teenagers again in Detroit looking for romance and action on the last weekend of summer.

You’re not going to find any cookie cutter characters here either, these kids act just like real teens and much like in It Follows the time period in the whole thing takes place is nearly impossible to peg down. Something i really dig. The movie brought back the feel of many of my own personal experiences as a teenager, I could almost picture myself running around town the same night as the kids in the movie. Another aspect the movie shared with It Follows was the odd almost dreamlike quality to it all. It’s hard to explain but this one has that same trance like feel which made It Follows such a gem.It also shares a couple of the same actors. And lastly the director must love the big indoor school swimming pools at night setting because I think these teens were at the same one in the finale of It Follows….hmm…. 

“Myth” feels like it’s somehow set in the same universe as it’s creepy younger brother. If you’re a fan of stuff like Freaks and Geeks, Richard Linklater flicks and are looking for something a little different most definitely check out The Myth of the American Sleepover. I’m really curious what David Robert Mitchell has up his sleeve next!

Best of VHS Box Art: Mutant Hunt!!

Hey here we are again for the second installment of The Best of the Box where I’m listing some of the best VHS box cover art of all time! Well this time I’m showcasing Mutant Hunt, which is a pretty fucking hilariously awful movie from 1987. However they really did the right thing when hired the artist for this one. As a kid I’d alway dug this one, but it wasn’t until more recently that I actually saw the movie. Cyborgs were the shit in the 1980’s and with the success of The Terminator it seemed that everyone and their uncle was trying to cash in on  the man machine phenomena! Track this one down and watch with a rowdy group you really can’t judge a book by it’s cover in this case! 

 

Best of VHS Box Art: A Company of Wolves!!

Have you noticed the overload of retro style throwback movies that have been coming out over the last ten years or so? You surely seen all those retro style movie posters that seem to to borrow so heavily from those cult flicks of yesteryear. Well here I’m going to start a weekly post where I’m going to give you some of my personal favorite VHS box covers of all time. Most of these are ones as a kid in the 80’s I’d see when visiting the video store, some of those incredible covers will oddly always bring back great memories of being a kid. So for the first installment I picked one of the coolest from a bizarre werewolf movie from 1984 called “A Company of Wolves”. Seeing this one at Bricco’s Video Vault (I think that’s what it was called) back in Neenah Wisconsin back in the 80’s kinda freaked the shit out of me! It makes me wanna revisit this movie as it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. But here it is in all of it’s crazy glory….    

 

 

Comic Book Cover of the Week: The HULK Goes Berserk?!

I can’t begin to tell you just how much I love this particular comic book cover and how much as a child I loved this particular issue of ‘What If?’!! It really make sense as we get one of the greatest comic book artists ever responsible for this masterpiece, Bill Sienkiewicz doing an unforgettable rendition of the jade giant on issue #45. ‘What If?’ was an incredibly fun comic book back in the classic Marvel days and this issue from 1984 was one as a kid I carried with me everywhere. This one retells the classic origin story but in this reality Banner fails to save Rick Jones from the gamma blast and while Rick doesn’t die the Army ends up killing him-Sending the Hulk into a crazy rage. The Hulk freaks out and takes down the Fantastic Four and Iron Man killing several them in the process. It’s a great, surprisingly violent issue and in the end The Hulk’s rage costs him his own life. Anyway this cover will always remain one of my faves, Sienkiewicz never fails when doing comic book covers, with the pencil and ink in his hands you always knew you were going to get something truly special!

Battle of the Insults: Skeletor vs. Donald Trump vs. Cobra Commander!!

When it comes to insulting & ridiculing people no one can do it better than Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and Masters of the Universe’s own ultimate asshole Skeletor!

Both are highly amusing yet incredibly idiotic, pop culture villains who will take any given chance to hurl an insult at their naysayers! So let’s pit these two jackasses against each other in a battle of insults to see just who’s got the most ridiculous cheap shots. Both of these guys have a lot in common in especially in the way they take pride in ridiculing anyone and everyone who gets in their way!

Check this out as first up we have Skeletor!

…..and of course Mr. Big Mouth himself The Donald!!

This is just Part 1 so if you want some more Trump at his finest check out part two!

Oh and I think Cobra Commander could join these two for the fun as well! If only Trump could pick one of these guys as his running mate now that’d be entertainment!! 

 

 

80’s Indie Comic Book Icon ‘Badger’ is Back!

I just read the first issue of the latest reboot of 80’s indie superhero Badger recently released by Devil’s Due and the formerly defunct First Comics. Seeing it and it’s retro looking cover on the shelf brought back some great days of hanging out in weirdo dingy comic book shops in the 1980’s with my brother in Wisconsin. Badger took place in Wisconsin and back in the day I used to collect this series, admittedly a bit confused by it’s incredibly offbeat characters and story arcs at times back then. Still the character was always unique, a mentally ill crime fighter with multiple personalities who lived in a castle in Wisconsin with a wizard named Ham. I mean what’s not to love right?

Well Mike Baron the original creator is back with a current retelling of the character’s origin in a pretty neat-o first issue. Issue one starts off with Norbert Sykes (our protagonist) as he signs up for the military and heads off to Afghanistan where he quickly begins to go crazy. He’s paired up with dog named Otis, who he clearly relates to more than any of the soldiers and heads off into the battlefield. It’s not long before his animal companion becomes a casualty of war and Norbert’s taken captive by enemy forces. While held prisoner he’s visited by a spirit animal, in the form of you guessed it a Badger! He agrees to devote his life fighting for the rights of the animals of earth and then embarks on a crazy killing spree against the enemy. He’s soon detained, shipped back to the good ol’ USA and institutionalized. It’s here where we first start to see again this is by no means your average origin story.

The issue was a good debut, however I think they could have really spread this one story over two issues to really build his origin in an even more powerful way. It felt a bit rushed at times and I hope they slow the pace down just a bit and really let us get to know just what makes this dude tick. The story was also a darker more serious tone than what I was originally expecting which honestly ended up being quite a pleasant surprise as this character has proven before he can lead a compelling tale if that’s the type of one Baron wants to tell at the moment.

The art by Jim Fern was pretty solid too, if maybe a bit stiff at times or that could just be in contrast to the incredible cover art by Paul Pope. I’m gonna be back for issue two to see exactly where this one goes. I’m quite curious to see if the elements of the 80’s Badger come into play and how they approach some of the more offbeat characters and settings from the original series. I’m also curious about this Badger/Putin fight rumored to happen soon. Either way it’s comforting to see a familiar face back on the shelves in 2016 with a solid debut I felt a bit like it was 1986 all over again… 

Rowdy Roddy Piper’s Mini H.P. Lovecraft Adventure!

I’m sure a ton of people out there have already seen this neat little trailer for the short film ‘Portal to Hell’ featuring the late great Roddy Piper but just in case you missed it check it out here. I really can’t wait to see the whole thing! This little trailer puts Rowdy front and center and gives him a role he should have had years ago like he did in movies like ‘They Live’ and ‘Hell Comes to Frogtown’.

The plan was for this short film to eventually lead to a feature length movie but it was never to be as Roddy sadly passed last year. Even though ‘Portal to Hell’ is only eleven minutes long I still can’t wait to see it. Piper has a few more full features scheduled to be released in supporting roles but this here looks as it really was set up to be a sort of tribute to Piper’s legacy. Putting Roddy into an almost ‘Evil Dead Ash’ type of role. It’s shown at festivals but hasn’t seen a proper release thus far. Check out the trailer and hopefully this short film will be available for us all to see soon!