Tagged: review
Live A Horror Movie This Summer at The Great Horror Campout!?
I was just turned on to this neat event called The Great Horror Campout-it’s an interactive live event that you can be a part of! It’s a choose you own adventure evening and for one night you basically live a horror movie story! That is if you’re not too scared! Here’s what it is in their own words:
“The Great Horror Campout is a 12-hour, overnight, interactive Horror camping adventure. Campers can choose their level of engagement by their choice of activities and tent zone. It can be an extreme horror adventure or a more mild horror adventure. It’s completely up to the camper.Regardless of how high the camper chooses to turn up the volume on their experience, all content is strictly for entertainment purposes and at no time will campers ever be in real danger.The Great Horror Campout at it’s core is just FUN! Great Horror Campout is frightening and may include total darkness, water spray and splash, uneven surfaces, steps up and down, strobe lighting, latex, narrow tunnels, crouch spaces which require you to bend down while walking, sudden loud noises, live scareactors, fog and scent effects which are all intended to startle and frighten you.”
It’s brought to you by the team that produce the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride and from what I have read is supposed to have some pretty awesome make up and creature effects. The Great Horror Campout is coming on tour this summer from Texas to Northern California, Seattle to Portland and more cities. Yikes! That means that it’s coming to my city! For a mere $223 bucks you can have the shit scared out of you! Check out the official website at http://www.greathorrorcampout.com
This Week’s Comic Book Reviews! Jack Burton Returns….
Here we are with some quick comic book reviews from my haul at the shop this week! If I had a million bucks I’d be reading or testing so many more, but these books add up quickly at 4 bones each! So let’s get started here!
1. Big Trouble in Little China #1, Boom! Studios
I’ve been looking forward to this one for quite a while as we have John Carpenter & Eric “The Goon” Powell writing it together. This one starts off literally right where the movie ends which is a cool thing for die hard fans! Though I enjoyed the issue it’s tone felt a little off from the movie and maybe a little too cartoony for it’s own good. It felt like it was a full on comedy, which isn’t bad but it left me craving a little more adventure and perhaps slightly slower pace to bring us directly back into this sequel. I kinda imagined I was reading the lost story board for the never made second film. The dialogue was pretty fun, I will say I could totally picture Kurt Russell’s voice the entire time I was reading. I’m not a huge fan of the artwork for this issue, it’s not to say Brian Churilla isn’t a great artist, but one thing I enjoyed about the movie so much was the awesome set pieces and most of the time in this issue the backgrounds are simply blank solid colors, which for me feels a bit lazy for something we have waited this long for. This issue is getting a lot of buzz, as I do recommend it I’m not sure yet if this one will keep me on board for the entire ride. I’ll be back for issue #2 though…
Lobster Johnson “Get The Lobster” #4, Dark Horse
What can I really say about Lobster Johnson? If you love movies like Indiana Jones and noir type adventure stories you’ll greatly enjoy this storyline! Issue number 4 is jam packed with more weird ass characters & awesome art by Tonci Zonjic. It even has a cool ass battle that pits the Lobster against a metal armed man & giant Gorilla (who also sports mechanical arms) in a miniature model city. This goes down more like a brawl from a Godzilla movie! Anyway John Arcudi and Mike Mignola keep the bizarre story tightly intact furthering my desire to see Guillermo Del Toro tackle a big screen adaptation of this always excellent title. If you’re not familiar with Lobster Johnson you’re missing out big time!
Amazing X-Men #8 Marvel
Wow I decided to add a Marvel comic to my small load this week! I was particularly X-cited to pick this one up and give it a try as it features my favorite Canucks The Alpha Flight! The five issue arc is called “World War Wendigo” and you know I love me some good Wendigo storys. This one is off to a fine start too as Wolverine travels up to Canada to visit his friend Heather Hudson (also known as Vindicator) to help her track down Guardian (her husband) who disappeared after they got into a possibly relationship ending lover’s quarrel. The two of them suit up and go looking for him, but what they find ends up being and extremely dangerous situation for them both, especially Wolverine who no longer has his healing factor. This one looks and reads great so far, and i’m usually not a big Ed Mcguinness fan. The issue actually kind of reads like a horror movie which is perfect for a Wendigo storyline. I’m hoping the next issue features the rest of the Alpha Flight and generates some interest in the team again-they deserve their own monthly series again by a writer who can match the feel of the classic John Byrne run in the 1980’s!
The Woods #2 Boom! Studios
Here we are with another from Boom! Studios and it’s a good one. Issue number one was one of my favorite debuts in some time. Issue #2 continues the story of the high school that’s been mysteriously teleported & stranded on what appears to be an alien moon! We get a little more to the story as the teens have decided to take matters into their own hands and while the teachers spend most of their time sitting around a table, frightened discussing what their options are. It sets ups a nice teacher vs. student scenario that will be interesting to see unfold now that the kids feel they don’t need to be listening to the adult anymore now that they’re not on earth! Though this issue is not quite as page turning as the stellar first it’s building the story nicely with even more crisp artwork than the previous. There’s also some nice monster moments that I’m certain will make issue number three one not to miss. This one is becoming a favorite of mine quickly-go check this out!
T’was a good week at the Comic book shop! Let me know if there’s any other titles worthy of the 4 bucks a pop drop!!!
Bob Mould Gets Super Sneaky in his Awesome New Video!
l don’t do a ton of music posts here so when I do you know it’s something special that’s worth checking out! I had to take a minute to mention that a little over a month ago I worked on the latest music video from Bob Mould. I was lucky enough to work on the styling and wardrobe for one of my musical idols, being a fan since his days in Husker Du this obviously meant a great deal to me not to mention this new song “I Don’t Know You Anymore” I consider to be one of the best songs he’s ever written. It calls back to some of his best work from Sugar, his band from the early 90’s.
If you don’t know who Bob is and you love loud punky guitar rock, you may have at least heard him on the last Foo Fighters album where he and Dave Grohl dueted on guitar, vox and songwriting for the albums best track “Dear Rosemary”. Otherwise I highly suggest checking out his his work starting with Husker Du. This latest video was filmed right here in Portland Oregon and directed by Alicia Rose, who we worked with on several other projects together including Corin Tucker’s video for “Neskowin”.
I can tell you the latest Mould video is pretty damn funny too as Bob and his band tries to “get with the times” after releasing a vinyl single for the bands latest track and being schooled by Colin Meloy from The Decemberists. I also got his new album “Beauty and Ruin” which was released on Merge Records yesterday and it’s rock solid with jam packed with amazing guitar driven power pop. This guy just gets better with age- if you have any doubt check out the video already!!!
Vintage Monster Toys: Gre-Gory The Vampire Bat – He’s FUN!
Toys back in the 1970’s were pretty fantastic, they had a particular look & feel to them that the toys of today just can’t match! I’m sure there are some pretty bad ass toys out these days, but back in the 70’s it was pretty random. A toy was created pretty much for the hell of it often times, as just something cool a kid might dig. Thus bringing us to today’s showcased toy- ‘Gre-Gory the Big Bad Vampire Bat”. He wasn’t part of a popular movie franchise, he wasn’t in a cartoon or a comic book-nope he was just a cool ass vampire bat made for the kids!
The cool thing about this bat that made it a must have for all the cool kids was that you could see it’s inner organs through a see through plastic chest piece, but that ain’t all-it had a button you pressed on it’s back that pumped blood through them!
1979-80 was a cool time to be a toy vampire bat-you could use gregory to terrorize your GI Joe’s or attack Ken & barbie on their honeymoon! Gre-Gory is a classic toy monster that should never be forgotten!!
Check out this rad video! Get the scoop on Gre-Gory!
X-men: Days of Future Past – The Best Comic Book Flick Ever?!
I was beginning to lose hope this year for the summer blockbusters, after two big duds being The Amazing Spider-man 2 & Godzilla I was quite certain things weren’t going to shape up to much of anything memorable for the rest of the season. However, I was proven quite wrong as I’ve come to believe that X-men Days of Future Past is not only the best X-Flick but quite possibly the best superhero movie of all time. Yeah, it was that good! It finally brings things back full circle with the X-men franchise and is a superior sequel to the fine X-men: First Class. It rights many of the wrongs of “The Last Stand” & “X-men Origins: Wolverine” and brings us back to the fresh start that we all wished for. We’ve got an incredible X-movie headed by but not over powered by Wolverine, played excellently once again by Hugh Jackman.
The movie loosely follows the classic 1981 comic book story line of the same name but adds it’s own flare as it keeps up with the continuity of the movie universe that has been set up. What we ultimately get is a incredibly engaging time travel adventure back to the early 1970’s (which alone in itself is a great deal of fun) filled with wonderful set pieces, groovy clothes and ultra impressive cast. It really shows here how important a cast full of great actors, who clearly care about the characters they’re playing can really make a movie. Plus having director Bryan Singer back, despite all of the controversy surrounding him at the moment, turned out to be a great thing. It makes me even more upset though that he flaked on “The Last Stand”, however if this was his way of redeeming himself to all the X-fans then so be it!
Now I feel I have to say something here about one of my favorite moments in the movie that involve….Quicksilver. Yes, I ripped on his movie look and ridiculous clothing here many times. Somehow though, his all too short role in the movie was one of the best sequences I’ve ever seen in a superhero flick! It’s the same feeling I got during the opening Nightcrawler sequence in X2. Yeah, crazy as it is Quicksilver kinda stole the show! Don’t get me wrong, he still desperately needs a full on makeover! He looked incredibly out of place in his lame ass late 1990’s hot topic attire!
Lastly I wanted to state that the movie looked great, the special effects were wonderful. CG was used tastefully here and the outcome made for an incredibly believable adventure visually. It’s final after credits sequence gives us a good glimpse of what’s next to come in Age of Apocalypse which is planned to be set in the 1980’s. I hope the whole crew will somehow be back for it, and Hugh Jackman better be back for at least one more X-men movie! Go check this out if you want to know what a true summer blockbuster should look like!!
Now seems like the perfect time to read this classic story again!
I however still do NOT condone this Carl’s JR Quicksilver bullshit!
New Norwegian Movie “Ragnarok” Gives Indiana Jones a Run for His Money?!
Check out this awesome looking trailer for the upcoming Norwegian adventure flick Ragnarok! This one looks like a ton of fun and has that old Amblin style Goonies type adventure thing going on. I wish there were more movies these days that could pull off this style of film. So far this one seems like it hits on all cylinders and has been described as an adventure that “Indiana Jones in his prime could never quite achieve” by Twitch Film.
There’s no release date yet here in the USA but Magnolia pictures recently acquired the right so we shouldn’t have to wait to long. The plot sound like a great time too: ‘When the archaeologist Sigurd can’t settle on the myth about Ragnarok, the end of the world in Northern mythology, he decides to go on an expedition together with two colleges and his two kids. This adventure leads them to Finnmark in the Northern most part of Norway, and into “No mans land” between Russia and Norway, where no one has been in modern times. Old runes gets new meanings, when they unveil the truth. A truth bigger and more spectacular than you would have dreamed.” Be on the lookout for this one!
Godzilla 2014: Less Boring Humans, More Monster Mayhem Please!
I saw Godzilla last night and my expectations were set quite low, because it’s a Hollywood Blockbuster reboot of yet another classic movie franchise and we all know how well this idea was executed back in 1998! So here we are, Hollywood is ready to take another stab on cashing in our nostalgia and this time I’m ready to bite the hook. So how well did the big lizard fare with Universal Dork?
I had a decent enough time with this one when it first kicked in, but around mid point my mind started wandering, thinking about other stuff like D&D the night before and that I was going to run out of licorice candy at any moment. Yeah the human plot line of this movie was pretty flat and boring. Which in a sense keeps in tradition with most classic Godzilla flicks. You have the boring human plot that somehow drives the movie and then you get a bunch of ass kicking monster battles. This time though I think Hollywood could have really improved on the boring human plot, a soldier trying to get back home to his perfect family while giant monsters awaken and threaten the planet. Yeah, it’s a touching hallmark-esque story that’s boring as fuck. So you really gotta appreciate it when some giant CGI monsters finally get on screen and break up this shitty monotony.
The only real problem was there wasn’t enough monster mayhem. In fact until maybe the last maybe 5-10 minutes, they tease you constantly and show you a beginning of a monster fight, like Godzilla getting ready to throw a punch and then switch to some shitty boring human drama. Seriously this gets old real quick and its actually quite irritating. The movie had some fairly decent special effects especially if you’re into giant CGI creatures smashing CG buildings into oblivion.
This is clearly much different than classic man in suit Godzilla and I’m not sure honestly that it’s that big of an improvement on the old movies effects wise. Don’t get me wrong the old Godzilla flicks have some crappy ass special effects, they however improved immensely over the years. It to me always felt a bit like monster WWF wrestling when I was a kid and I loved it. This however was real slick and much of the fun that the old movies had is almost entirely lost here in 2014. By this time I’m already feeling my attention span waning for glittery, bloated, CG infested, often heartless Hollywood Blockbusters and it’s really not even summer yet! Ughh!
I’d say if you really want the best CG monster battle movie skip Godzilla and just watch Pacific Rim. It’s a heck of a better time and about ten times more interesting. It’s looking like we’ll most definitely be getting a sequel here so perhaps next movie we’ll get some better monster battles? Maybe they can insert some human characters that aren’t quite so stale? Until then this has inspired me to check out some of newer Godzilla films I may have missed through the years. And for the record Gareth Edwards first flick “Monsters” was a far more superior movie…..let’s hope Godzilla 2014 doesn’t get the treatment that Zilla did in Final Wars!!
The Woods #1: One of the Best Debut Comic Books of Recent Times!
As far as debut issues of comic books go these days I’d say the Boom! Studios debut issue of ‘The Woods” is one of the best! It’s a great little sci-fi/horror story that involves an entire High School (yes the building and all of the students and faculty) being transported to a strange forest seemingly on another planet. That’s the least of their worries though as they soon find out they are not alone there. With no idea how or why this happened students and faculty go head to head with each other trying to figure out the best plan of survival. This is a great start to hopefully a great series, the first issue has a little bit of a “LOST” which I adore, being a giant fan of that tv series. It also reminds me a bit of the tv show because of the mysterious situation, which for the time being there is no explanation for that they have found themselves having to deal with. It leaves me wondering what’s next and longing to read the next issue. It’s a lot of fun, with fair parts of horror, gore and comedy mixed in at just the right amounts.
The artwork done by Michael Dialynas is also alot of fun here and adds to the strength of this debut. It’s a really great to find a good solid first issue and a new series to look forward too. I’m finding it harder and harder to find books I want to stick with by Marvel or DC. I actually realized that at the moment I am not reading ANY tltles by the big two. Now that could easily change at any moment, but it’s a bit shocking that I’m not absorbed into any title right now that they are offering and at four or even five bucks a pop now a comic book better be good!I am open to suggestions also because at that price it’s not exactly easy to sample the platter, as comic books can easily add up every week at these prices. So here’s a little comic I think is a safe bet, The Woods was a damn fine fun ride-check it out!
Universal Dork Weighs in on “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”!
Alright so there are a bout a billion reviews up online everywhere about the Amazing Spider-man 2, so I’m not going to spend a whole lot of energy here on this one. The movie really doesn’t need another review or any more hype at this point, but what the hell it’s my blog and I shelled out a Fandango gift card on it! Ok, so first let me state that my expectations weren’t very high for this one as I wasn’t a real big fan of the first flick. As I always do though, I try my best to go into a movie with an open mind. Besides this is Spidey we’re talking here, a guy I’ve loved dearly since being a lil’ whipper snapper!
I’m thinking now, that maybe if I’d seen this one as a little kid maybe my mind would have been blown. The Amazing Spider-man 2 is a huge ass movie. Two hundred million dollar budget. It’s close to two and a half hours long. It’s loud, flashy and jam packed with intertwining story lines. That’s my first problem with it, there’s too much going on. There’s too many subplots. The movie goes on a few too many tangents and then decides to go on a few more after that. Sony is clearly trying set up more movies (ala The Avengers syndrome) from this one and honestly it didn’t have a smooth flow to what should have been a nice tight knit compelling story.
Which leads me to my second problem, the writing. Spider-man 2 suffers from some seriously terd-tastic writing. Everything from Peter Parker’s stale on again off again relationship, to Paul Giamatti’s corny ass Rhino, to the awful Jamie Foxx Electro to Harry Osborn’s overnight meltdown. They’ve really managed to create some paper thin excuses for people to turn into supervillains these days. Foxx did his best with what he was given, but his dialogue was painful to watch and his reasoning for going evil was just plain uninspired. There was nothing believable about his character, I felt absolutely nothing for him nor cared of his motivations. His entire existence in the movie was rather idiotic to say the least.
Then we have The new Green Goblin, played by Dane Dehaan. He did quite a fine job in the role and clearly he’s got the acting chops. However his character’s motivations were also pretty flimsy. His all too quick transformation from good guy into an evil raving lunatic was a bit ridiculous. The prison scene where he recruits Electro to help him break into Oscorp was one of the worst team up moments I’ve ever seen on screen or in the comics. “You need ME? You need ME?!” Also I might note that once again I wasn’t a fan of the Goblin’s look onscreen. Sorry I just can’t get behind that robotic body armor schtick. It just well…sucks!
Lastly the action scenes, which there actually really weren’t that many of, were decently executed, but really took me out of the movie. It’s like watching a live action movie suddenly turn into Toy Story 2. The CGI in this flick was great, if the whole movie had been done that way (which they maybe should consider doing) and the last final Electro battle looked straight out of an Xbox game with not a real human actor in sight for at least over five minutes. No thank you. If I wanna watch a video game I’ll go play one at home.
On a good note I have grown to kinda like Garfield as Spidey. He’s a good actor and really did put his heart and soul into what he was given to work with. He’s a more convincing Spider-man, who’s really grown into the part. If someone could get a good script for a Spider-man film it’d be golden with him as Peter Parker. However what we get once again is an even more bloated, glittery, mindless mess of a summer blockbuster. That’s not to say I hated it, but I wouldn’t want to see it again. I like seeing images of Spider-man on a screen in front of me, but at best that’s about as far as this movie appeals to me. Oh yeah and what the fuck was that lame ass mid credit X-men advertisement?! The movie was called “The Amazing Spider-man 2” not “X-men: Days of Future Past” last time I checked….that was a low blow. Don’t do that again. Can we just hurry up on that Avengers sequel already?!!
The Most Awesome Remote Controlled Robot Spider Ever!
Wow, talk about cool shit, check out this incredible little video featuring the Robugtix remote controlled Spider! This thing is beyond cool and it better be for $2950.00! Think about how much fun you could have with this thing at night time on a side walk – seriously creeping out any passerby.
Someday when I’m rich blogger I’ll get one of my own, in the meantime I’ll have to just watch the videos- check it out!!
Universal Dork 