Tagged: Classic

VHS Verdict: ‘THE SPIRIT OF ’76’ Wacky 4th of July Sci-fi!

Hey it can be hard to find good things to watch after all of the festivities of the 4th of July right? Let’s face it after drinking a case of beer at the cookout you’re probably ready to watch something stupid and I’ve got a good one for ya! ‘The Spirit of 76’ is an almost entirely forgotten ridiculous scifi comedy from 1990. It features David Cassidy, pop icon, known for hisoh so sweet musical career in the Partridge Family, as he goes way back in time to the 1970s on mission to save planet Earth!

But wait, you also get to see not one but TWO slightly past their prime but still totally dreamy, former teen 70s heart throbs, cuz  this bad boy also features Leif Garrett too! One of my favorite parts of the movie though, it also stars Jeff and Steve McDonald of one of my favorite iconic punk rock power pop bands bands REDD KROSS!  The 2 brothers are channeling some serious “Bill and Ted” vibes and add some serious cred and charm this little wacked out adventure.

 So In the year 2176, determined time travelers including Cassidy and the stunningly beautiful Olivia d’Abo (OMG so crushed!) are sent back in time, in a tin can style space ship to the year 1776 in order to save our planet. However a computer glitch transports them instead to 1976 by mistake!! Things get idiotic real quick as of course they’re being chased by a sinister force trailing not far behind. 

However we get a pretty entertaining “fish out of water” storyline going here where Cassidy (who should be in his natural habitat in the real world) and Co have some serious adjusting to do when they encounter things like platform shoes, polyester suits, mood rings and untamed 1970’s babes galore!

Their guides, Jeff and Steve from Redd Kross help them through this glamorous era and avoid certain danger among the disco era. The whole thing is a riot and also features even more familiar faces, the likes of Tommy Chong, Devo, Moon Zappa, Rob Reiner and Downtown Julie Brown! 

There’s Kung Fu fighting, disco dancing, stupid looking spaceships and the  whole damn thing takes place on the 4th of July folks! Get down!!

There’s a lot of pretty sharp comedy in this and tons of red, white and blue check out this little long forgotten scifi comedy, cult classic down if you want something a bit off the beaten path this 4th!! Here’s Redd Kross with the theme song ‘1976’ for the movie! One of my favorite tracks from their 1990 album ‘Third Eye’!!

Even better here is the entire movie, only 81 minutes long for your 4th of July viewing right on YouTube for free!!

 

Comic Cover of the Week: When Wolverine was still Bad Ass!

I’m not gonna lie, it’s been quite a while since I bought any new comic books from Marvel. Every few years I give it an honest shot, but time after time the same thing happens, They only remind me of what I so desperately miss from the eighties. The unique and edgy storytelling that Marvel actually brought to the table. Yeah and I miss when comic books looked and felt like comic books Rather than glossy computer scans on synthetic paper.Today’s cover is yet another example of an artist on top of his game, John Byrne’s cover for ‘Marvel Comics Presents’ #47: Wolverine! His eye for detail was always incredible and this damn cover shows his skill level at its peak! It also shows Wolverine when he was still a mysterious bad ass! There was nothing quite like Wolverine in the 1980s…

The ‘SHANG CHI’ Trailer From an Old School Fan’s Perspective!

Sometimes I feel like I’m just raining on everyone’s MCU parade! I really don’t want to be THAT guy. However as a fan of the comic book as a kid in the 1980’s I can say if you’d shown me the trailer with no mention of what I was seeing I’d probably wouldn’t have guessed it was Shang Chi “The Master of Kung Fu’ I’d grown up to love!

Comic Cover of the Week: Vintage TMNT!!

I’ve got this new found love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie from 1990 since watching it for the first time in decades! It was sooo much darker in tone than I recalled. When I saw it back in the day I was a fan of the original comic books, my older brother had a bunch of them in the 80’s along with other cool weird indie comics like ‘Radioactive Black Hamsters’ and ‘Cerebus’ so the movie at the time felt purely like kid stuff. The original comics had an even darker, bloodier and grittier tone to them something I think would be quite interesting to see brought to the big screen some day. Well one of the old TMNT covers crossed my mind from back in the day, issue #10 had bad ass one the folded, front and back. This totally tubular classic was drawn by Peter Laird way back in 1987, an era when they kicked a lot more ass and all wore the same color head bands. One of my favorite vintage Turtles comic covers for sure!

Comic Cover of the Week: Vintage VENOM!

Since the second trailer for the Venom movie dropped today, which actually looks pretty damn cool in my opinion, I figured I’d post a cool old skool comic cover of everyone’s fave wicked symbiote way back from 1994. It’s a rad cover and also features Morbius, The Living Vampire teaming up with Venom to kick the weirdo Demogoblin’s ass. Bob Mcleod did the art for this one and as far as old Venom covers it’s one of the best. I’m guessing there’s a big possibility as well that in the movies we may see Jared Leto who’s going to portray Morbius eventually meet up with Venom. Whoopee!

 

P.S. here’s a cool fan made Venom Trailer from the 90’s cartoon to go along with my totally 90’s Venom post!! CHECK IT!

Comic Book Cover of the Week: Old School Buscema Immortal Hulk #1!

So for the time being I’ve taken a break from buying comic books weekly as they are pretty damn pricey these days and honestly there really weren’t too many titles that really grabbed and made it worth the weekly cash drop. As a huge fan of The Incredible Hulk ever since I was a little kid, I’ve got to admit I do miss reading about the adventures of the “Jade Giant” and really couldn’t get into the whole “Totally Awesome Hulk” stuff. The Banner Hulk was killed off a couple years back and it seemed perhaps that the original green goliath was gone for good (or at least for the time being as no one is ever really dead in Marvel Universe). Well now there’s a new HULK book out called The Immortal Hulk and my curiosity has been sparked as the first issue dropped in June and it’s been referred to as a return to form for the Banner Hulk. I’ll probably wait for the trade but I’ve gotta say this Variant cover by Sal Buscema sure does give me the goosebumps longing for a nostalgic old school Hulk adventure!!!

 

Comic Book Cover of the Week: The Madness of Mysterio!!

Easily one of the coolest and oddball (no pun intended) Marvel villains has got to be Mysterio. The guy has a shiny hypnotic crystal ball for a head for cryin’ out loud and uses his superpowers to create elaborate illusions to pull of his habitual habits of committing crimes whenever he gets the damn urge. Appearing way back for the first time in Amazing Spider-man #13 waaaay back in 1964 the character still remains one of the webslinger’s deadliest, most unusual foes. Supposedly Jake Gyllenhaal is set to portray the dome headed super foe in the next Spider-Man movie, yeah, don’t worry as epic as the latest Avengers movie was you don’t have to feel any sadness for the “death” of Peter Parker, he won’t stay dead for long! Anyway Amazing Spider-man #66 is the cover of the week and makes me excited to see the legendary villain arrive on the big screen sometime in the near future..  

Creepy Comic Cover of the Week: Frankenstein’s Monster vs Iron Man?!!

Here’s another installment of ‘Creepy Comic Book Covers’! This week as we grow closer to Halloween it’s only obvious we’d check out a odd battle that took place way back in 1977 between Iron Man and yeah…Frankenstein’s Monster!! As it states on the cover he’s “the most unexpected foe of the year” and I always loved it when Marvel would pit it’s classic superheroes up against classic monsters. This is an excellent cover that features Tony Stark in some deep shit as Frankenstein’s Monster just got done serving him his ass on a platter! What I really love are Frankenstein’s Monster’s weird ass little minions crowding around Iron Man armed with wooden clubs and out for blood! A great halloween flashback from comic book art legends Val Mayerick & Dave Cockrum!

Creepy Comic Cover of the Week: The Sinister Scarecrow!

It’s October and we’re getting closer every day to Halloween 2017! That means “all things creepy” are totally on the table! Today I thought I’d post one of my favorite creepy comic covers from waaay back in my childhood (1983 to be exact), another awesome cover from the master Mike Zeck! I always loved this cover as it really resembles something straight out of an 80’s horror flick. Captain America is seen here totally defenseless, broken, chained up & being ravaged by angry crows while the legendary villain ‘The Scarecrow’ approaches!  Not to mention being chained in some sort of “Freddy Kruger” type boiler room. This is such a great era of Cap, Zeck never lets down with his stunning classic cover artwork and interior penciling. This one is a great blast from the past and a perfect addition to October’s Creepy Comic Book Cover of the week! They just don’t make em’ like this anymore…

R.I.P. Comic Book Legend, Len Wein….

Today we got the sad news that comic book legend Len Wein passed away at the age of 69. Len was most well know for co-creating The Swamp Thing, X-Men’s Colossus, Storm, Night Crawler oh and another character you might know… yeah, just a guy called ‘Wolverine’.

Those are some serious heavyweights. He worked closely with the likes of Berni Wrightson & Alan Moore as well on The Watchmen. He made an incredible footprint in the world of comics, thanks Len for all of the amazing adventures you’ve taken us all on…RIP