Friday, April 10, 2009

So long, and thanks for all the fists!

Well, it was fun while it lasted, but we're gonna have to go ahead and retire from blogging. It's time we got serious about art school, which means A) working more and saving money (I'm about to start a new job, and the schedule is 7 days straight every other week, ten hours a day, in addition to my regular job), and B) focusing on our own stories and art. It feels great to just write something and have people read it every couple days, but every word I type for this blog is a word I'm not typing for the multitude of comics, films, short stories and novels that are swirling around unrealized in my head, y'know?

Thanks to the folks who followed the site, and the fellow bloggers who linked to us. Blogging is a lot more challenging and time consuming than it appears, and the folks who can keep it up on a regular basis deserve many respeck knuckles. Also, props to Spacebooger for hosting the Friday Night Fights, which were a lot of fun.

We're gonna leave the blog up for now, and as our labors start bearing fruit we may use it as a sort of showcase or something. Our various projects will need a web presence, after all.

No, CRY HAVOK!!! is not dead, it merely sleeps, and one day all the whores and politicians will shout "Save us!"...and we'll scratch ourselves and grumble "Show us your boobs." because that's just how we roll.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Lost... In Translation pt. 10

Miles Straume picture Ben Linus lost Michael Emerson Ken LeungHello, everyone. Sad news tonight over here at Cry Havok... This will be the last post on this blog. Nick's ability to write frequently has been destroyed by a doubled work schedule, and my willingness to write (which wasn't very high to start with) has decreased as I attempt to pursue other creative... pursuits.

That being said, it's not ALL bad, because we all have an absolutely awesome episode of Lost to comfort us this week. 'Dead is Dead' might very well be one of the best episodes of this season. It was Ben-centric, which tells you everything you need to know right off the bat. ALSO, Ben is getting judged by the Monster, which automatically sky-rockets this episode into Lost history.

Another thing this episode did very well was something that should be nearly impossible. Making Ben into a decent human being... kind of. He refuses to kill a baby, first off, which is something I thought Ben would relish, and he even decides not to kill Penny because she has a kid she has to take care of, even though that bitch is Widmore's daughter!!

Last but not least, he even feels regret for the death of his daughter, at the hands of the awesome mercenary Keamy.
Martin Keamy Ben Linus Kevin Durand Michael Emerson Lost fight sceneIn other news, Locke is Jesus now. He IS the fucking island.
And Caesar's dead. We barely knew ya'... In fact, we still have no fucking clue who you are. You're not really dead, are you? I mean, Ben DID shoot you in the chest at close range with a sawed-off shotgun.Well, if you're wondering what REALLY happened in this episode, the important part is this. Locke meets up with Sun and Lapidus on the main island, with Ben, and they go off into the woods to let Ben receive his judgement from Cerberus for allowing Alex to die (sans Lapidus, who returns to the secondary island to try to fix the plane.).

In the end, Ben is judged, and apparently found worthy. However, Alex (as an apparition of the smoke monster) tells him that Locke's the man now, and he needs to be a good boy or she/it will fuck him up, hard... Ben appears to listen, however as the master manipulater and liar, I don't necessarily suspect Ben will obey his commands.
The other interesting point of the show popped up when Lapidus arrived back at Hydra Island, and is warned that Alanna has taken over the island, and has the guns to back it up. As he confronts her, she asks 'what's in the shadow of the statue?', and when he tells her he doesn't know, she knocks him out...

The MOST exciting thing however, is next week will be a MILES episode (finally.).

But hey, from here on out, you guys are going to have to remember what happened on Lost by yourselves, because I'm out. Namaste.

Friday, April 3, 2009

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS One Panel o' Pain round 7

Tonight's panel 0' pugilism is from one of the more one-sided fights to ever grace the funnybook pages, as Superman completely PWNS Ven-

Venom Superman Jackson Guice All Access...wait...what?

We don't actually have this issue (we found these scans on 4thletter!, which is well worth checking out), but there's no indication that Superman has kryptonite-cancer or Venom is possessed by an Elder God or anything, which means according to this comic Spider-Man would have a pretty good shot at taking down the man of steel, which is so retarded it just gave me erectile dysfunction.

And it just gets worse from there, as this extra-special(needs) bonus page demonstrates :

 venom=We'd like to tell you that the next page is a big shot of the real (non-mulleted) Superman grabbing Venom and saying " You've ruined your last costume party, creature!" before throwing him through the sun. But it isn't. In fact, this is the end of the fight, as Venom gets teleported back to the marvel universe. So there you go.

All Access #1 is by Ron Marz and Jackson Guice, may god have mercy on their souls.

Now go over to Spacebooger's and vote on your favorite panel. We're really banking on the all-important 'Venom Lovers' demographic this week, so, y'know, feeling pretty good about that decision.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Lost... In Translation pt. 9

Alrighty folks, sorry for the wait, but after two long weeks it's time for part 9 of Lost... In Translation. As Nick mentioned in his last post, the Lost bits are, indeed, going to be sleeker and sexier in the future, due mostly to my new working schedule for the summer... Because teenagers on spring break fucking need ice cream daily. I'm going to be working later on Wednesday nights, and earlier on Thursday mornings, which means less time for writing my posts... And if you're wondering why last week never even got a post... Well, I had something very important to do. Namely, wiping that smug look off of this bastard's face.
Wesker Resident EvilSo from now on, the Lost posts are going to be brief summaries, mainly just highlighting the important things that happened, rather than everything that happened.

Also, if you're worried about last week's episode, stop it. I'm going to do TWO episodes in this post... yeah. So here we go.

He's Our You

Sayid Kama Sutra Naveen Andrews Funny LostNamaste, indeed, Sayid. As you probably know by now, having watched the episode, this was a Sayid-centric episode, and marked a return to form for Lost, re-adopting the single character flashback template from the older episodes.

This episode began strong, with a message, and a sweet scene of Sayid murdering a hen as a small child. The message obviously being that Sayid's a killer through and through, even when it's not necessarily clean or pretty... And when you see him looking through the bars of his cell at a child Ben, his intentions become pretty clear. Even witnessing the boys abuse at the hands of his father later in the episode does not seem to sway Sayid from his mission, nor do Ben's offers to actually help Sayid escape.

Through flashbacks, we learn several things about the period between Sayid's departure and his eventual return, most noteably that according to Ben, Sayid is done killing everyone who had anything to do with Nadia's death. However, once Sayid goes about his life (the relief work in Santo Domingo) Ben shows up once again, asking Sayid to kill someone. This time, he's asking Sayid to kill the man who's following them, and watching Hurley. However, Ben leaves peaceably once Sayid refuses.

The other important flashback shows us that Alanna, the girl who had Sayid 'arrested' was a bounty hunter hired by the family of someone he killed, and that she seduced him before capturing him at gunpoint, with the intention of taking him to Guam.

On the island, however, as we already know, Sayid has escaped from Alanna, but is now being held by the Dharma Initiative, and they intend to find out who he is. The bad part though is Sayid is dedicated, and will not budge, even when Sawyer offers him the chance to be part of Dharma by headbutting him really hard.
Sayid Sawyer Lost Naveen Andrews James Ford Josh Holloway Kate Austen Jarrah Evangeline LillyEventually, Horace makes the decision that Sayid has to be brought out into the woods, to a very creepy fellow named Oldham, who is the guy Dharma uses to make outsider's talk, hence the name of the episode. Oldham, however, is not a torturer in Sayid's sense. He has a truth serum, which he administers to Sayid after tying him to a tree... But as it turns out, Dharma can't handle the truth. Once he starts spouting off about the future, they decide that the dosage was too high, and that Sayid's delirious... The next step is obviously to kill him. Or, at least, that's what Dharma decides to do.

However, Sayid is not an easy man to kill. Before the execution order can be carried out, Sayid tells young Ben that he has been sent to bring Ben to Alpert, and luckily that precocious little Ben has already set a van on fire and crashed it into Dharmaville to cover their escape. Sayid and li'l Ben set out into the woods to find the Hostiles, but happen to run into Jin first. Sayid knocks him out pretty quickly, and steals Jin's gun.

Then he shoots a very surprised little Ben in the chest before fleeing into the woods...

Whatever Happened Happened
Kate Lost Evangeline Lilly handcuffs
...A little disappointed in this episode to be honest, guys. Maybe it's just because I'm not a woman or a parent, so I don't feel that kind of crazy parental attachment to kids that a lot of people do, but Aaron briefly disappearing in a supermarket isn't really enough to get my blood running. This one here is a Kate-centric episode, and to be honest, not a whole lot really happened in it. The big reveal is that Kate gave Aaron to Ms. Littleton, and told her that she was coming back to the island for Claire. The rest of the flashbacks reveal the promise she made to Sawyer, which was apparently finding Cassidy and Clementine and taking care of them. We also find out that Kate drops the ball on the whole 'we're keeping the island a secret!' thing A LOT, as just in this episode she tells her new girlfriend Cassidy, and Ms. Littleton.

In the current timeline, things are a tad bit more exciting. Juliet struggles to save Ben's life, as the Dharma doctor is at The Looking Glass for the next few days. As it turns out, Ben's bullet wound will apparently be fatal, and guess who refuses to help? Jack the hero, who was until rather recently my favorite character before he apparently got castrated and his balls shriveled up and fell off... I mean, I know he has to have low-points, but I thought Jack would be back to his old self by now, and this was a poor showing... tsk tsk. He even admits that he has a 'fate', and for an atheist like me, that's just depressing. I really hope Jack gets his shit back together and starts resolutely defying destiny again, or I'm gonna need a new favorite character... And it's going to be Miles. I'm telling you, the dude's underused.
Miles Straume Ken Leung LostDid I ever mention how much I like Miles? I mean, he's an antisocial, sarcastic asshole who can talk to ghosts, and he gets just enough play to be remembered as the guy who came to the island with Daniel and Charlotte, and proceeded to do nothing. I mean, why can't we have a Miles-centric episode instead of a boring old Kate-centric? There's no justice. At least he's still alive. More than we can say for Charlotte, I guess.

By the way, I also have a new theory that Charlotte was the little girl who supposedly drowned and came back to life in one of Mr. Eko's episodes in season two, where he was investigating this 'miracle' for the church. The girl's name was Charlotte, and she had red hair... Hrm. What do you guys think?

Anywho, after Jack refused to do surgery (like a junkie refusing heroin), Kate and Sawyer took Ben to the Hostiles, in hopes that they could save him. Turning him over to Alpert, Richard warns that he will forget the entire event, and will forever be one of them. Kate agrees, and Richard treks off into the woods, carrying the dying child...

Now back to Miles. He was, with the help of Hurley, the highlight of this episode. The writers did a really good job here, by deciding to have the two most entertaining characters have a long-lasting back and forth on time travel, and how it works. Unlike Daniel's nerdy explanations, Miles speaks english that makes sense, and Hurley counter-points with seemingly dumb, but usually correct assumptions of how time travel would work. As Miles explains it, time travel in Lost works basically like this: All time travel that will ever take place in history has already been accounted for in determining the future. i.e. because Miles and Hurley have ALREADY experienced the future, it is possible for them to die in 1977 and be fully dead, BUT Ben will survive, because since this is Ben's PAST, he will still grow up to be adult Ben, so there's no way he'll die... Hurley retorts that he's expecting to disappear like in Back To The Future, and also makes a solid point about Ben not knowing Sayid ever shot him as an adult, which does stump Miles. Luckily, Richard 'explained' this in his scene, by saying Ben would lose his memory.

The episode ends well, too, with Ben waking up in the makeshift hospital on the Hydra island, with Locke staring at him...

The next episode looks to be pretty epic too, and it's going to be Ben-Centric, so I'm obviously very excited.Ben Linus Lost Michael Emerson

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Ok, so...

Here's a quick list of things we haven't done this week because of A.) work and B.)

Resident Evil 5 Chris Redfield1. Justin's Lost post. He's gonna cover the last episode along with this week's on Thursday. It sucks because the Lost reviews are some of our most popular posts (like half of our Google Search traffic comes through them.,,the other half seems to be picture searches for 'rocknrolla buttshot'), but they take him a long time to do, I can't help with them since I'm just starting season 3, and now he's working most Wednesdays, so they're hard to keep up with. Expect them to be a bit smallerrrrruhhhhmore streamlined and compact from here on out. Also, I hope, more oiled up.

Lost tv show Jack Kate AnnaLucia
2. We didn't get around to watching two new movies that we've been looking forward to : the Spanish bloody-bandaged-Darkman-looking-time-traveling-rapist movie Timecrimes...

Timecrimes movie



And Special, the superhero satire starring Michael Rapaport.

Special movie Michael rapaport


3. And we also missed our chance to participate in Final Girl's film club by writing about The Beyond, despite having like two months to get around to it, and the fact that we freaking love The Beyond. We wanted to re-watch it (since it's been a couple years), which we put off till the last minute, then our adventures in Africa began and the deadline blew right past us. Oh, well. Here's our too-little-too-late review of The Beyond : it's awesome, watch the hell out of it.

Lucio Fulci The Beyond movie film
So, what did we think of Resident Evil 5? It was awesome, play the hell out of it.

Ok, well, it's a great and terribly addictive action game. The 'survival horror' aspect of the series has certainly suffered, though. There was a time when RE games were about running down dark hallways, desperately praying to a god who's abandoned you that you'll stumble across a box of handgun bullets before something you can't run by chews off one bite more than you can live without. Gamers, remember the feeling of almost sexual bliss when you'd open a new door and find a nice safe storeroom instead of a giant spider?

The older games really were about surviving a totally out of control situation, whereas RE5 (and to a lesser extent 4) are about killing waves of enemies until you get enough loot that you can upgrade your machine guns another notch. Being able to replay missions, earn money, and buy/upgrade your gear really pushes this game well over the line into shoot-em-up action, with only a couple scenes (the crocodile pond, the buildup to the lickers) actually going for the scary effect. Sure, fighting a horde of shovel-wielding psychos should be more intense than a couple of shuffling zombies in a hallway, but each and every one of those zombies were deadly. You can take out like three RE5 guys at once with only your knife and melee attacks. Remember how much fun it was taking down Re1 zombies with just your knife?

Resident Evil first Zombie Chris RedfieldResident Evil zombie attack Chris Redfield
But that's just my pet peeve, the game is great for what it is. We despaired a little to learn that you'd be paired with an AI teammate throughout the story, but Sheva is actually more of a help than a hindrance, which is pretty much a first in any game we've ever played. Not only do I not have to heal her every two minutes, she heals me!? This is new. Now, Justin and I are gonna see if we can't find an extra PS3 at a decent price so we can play together online, which should be epic.

Story wise, if you're a fan of the series, you'll be glad to hear that this is the installment where that smarmy bastard Wesker finally gets what's coming to him. After two games (this one and Code : Veronica) of getting beaten like a redheaded stepchild and laughed at by that Duke Nukem looking douche, we finally get our licks in. Also, Wesker's superhuman matrix-y fighting moves in this may be impressive in real life, but they look pretty weak if you've played Metal Gear Solid 3 and 4 or the Devil May Cry games. It's nice, while watching your character get slapped around by his old boss for ten minutes, to think "Whatever, dude, Dante could flip, like, way higher and a bunch more times than you can flip". In MGS4, Ninja Cyborg Raiden had to stop this huge freighter that was crashing into shore, but his feet were sliding, so he stabbed his sword through his own foot to brace himself. Then his arms fell off and he killed like fifty dudes with the sword between his teeth. So, yeah, whatever, Wesker. Whatever.

Resident Evil 5 Albert WeskerResident Evil 5 poster Chris Redfield

Thursday, March 26, 2009

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS One Panel o' Pain round 6

Saturday night's alright for fighting, Saturday night's alright...but Friday night, that's when the real action happens! Like so...

This is the scene from Marvel Zombies #3 where zombie Wolverine tries to cut the (still alive) Silver Surfer and instead the claws rip right out of his flesh, bringing the bones with them, and his whole forearm just kind of falls to pieces. Zombies don't feel, but this panel makes our souls hurt, so it's our Panel o' Pain! Go check out the everybody else's at Spacebooger's and vote for your fave.

Written by Robert Kirkman, art by Sean Phillips.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Man, we haven't had much to say lately, largely because we're broke (so we haven't been buying many books) and this has been a really slow month for movies, both in theater and on DVD. I did watch I Love You, Man last night, which was pretty good but not as funny as I expected from a Paul Rudd and Jason Segal teamup. It was very likeable and easy to watch, but rarely laugh-out-loud funny.

awesome Dolphin tattoo smoking bong
I wanted to see Rec. before I saw the American remake Quarantine, but we never got it at the Flick-Pit and yeah, no money, so I finally gave in and watched the remake. And it was better than I expected! Nothing to really set it apart from all the other 'fast-zombie' movies of the last few years, but it was well done and even a little scary in parts. Worth watching.

Oh, and a while ago we watched Let The Right One In, the Swedish film about a bullied boy who befriends a little girl who happens to be a vampire. The critics all went into spasms of ecstacy when this movie came out, so our expectations were admittedly pretty high...but man, it really wasn't all that great. The few and far-between scary vampire bits were really well done, but most of the movie is a fairly by the numbers coming of age story. Don't get us wrong, there's definitely some weird bits, but nothing that's gonna shock you too much. A lot of people apparently found the movie really touching and emotional (the boy is picked on by bullies and ignored by his parents, like every other boy in every other movie of this type), but it just didn't do much for us. Reading up on the film, however, we discovered that the book it's based on goes a lot deeper into the freaky parts and sounds much more interesting, so we'll be keeping an eye out for that when we get some spending cash.

Thanks to the folks at Daily Scans, I've discovered a great horror manga by Masaaki Nakamura called Fuan no Tane, which you can read all three volumes of for free here (just scroll down and you'll see them listed). It's just a bunch of short (sometimes only two pages) stories based on Japanese ghost stories and urban legends. Some of them are funny or sad, but most are just creepy. Here's a sample...as always, click the image to see it full-size:

Fuan no Tane baby monster manga
Fuan no Tane baby monster manga
Fuan no Tane baby monster manga So, yeah, you're gonna want to check that out.

Friday, March 20, 2009

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS One Panel o' Pain round 5

Spacebooger is a big fan of pain, and tonight we're bringing pain of a whole new kind to the ring...

Wolverine First Class 2 Sabretooth wasabiThat's wasabi, by the way, not uh, terraboogers.

Asian cuisine is used inappropriately in Wolverine : First Class #2, written by Fred Van Lent and drawn by Andrea Di Vito.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Lost... In Translation pt.8

Namaste. If you wanna know what the hell that means, please click here. Ok, now that we got our polite greetings out of the way, let's move on. Namaste was one of the cooler episodes of Lost lately. It wasn't very mystery oriented, but it was just a good solid chapter in the series, and had plenty of interesting and entertaining little scenes.

The episode began in modern day, as the Ajira 316 plane began experiencing turbulence and was preparing to crash. Jack, Hurley, and Kate disappear in the flash, as we know, but the plane does not immediately crash. Frank Lapidus, pilot extraordinaire, manages to bring it down safely (albeit roughly) on the secondary, Hydra island, on a small runway. When he wakes up, his co-pilot is dead, but Lapidus himself is more or less uninjured, though covered in blood.

As Frank goes to check on the crew, Caesar wakes up Alanna, who thinks he's 'Sarah'. He quickly reminds her, however, he is 'Caesar'. Ben shows up, (decidedly uninjured in the plane crash) being cryptic and creepy as usual and then we go back in time thirty years.

Now we pick up where the last episode left off, with Sawyer reuniting with the Oceanic 3. Jack shocks Sawyer by telling him Locke's dead, so Sawyer returns the favor with the whole 'It's 1977 LOL'. Jack tells Sawyer that Sayid and Sun were with them, and of course, Jin flips out and drives away.

Back at the barracks, Miles and Juliet are worrying about Sawyer, and where he went. They don't have to worry for long, though, because Sawyer drives up and starts collecting clothes for the others so they can fit in. Juliet runs home, and asks him what's going on, so he breaks it down for her. Juliet suggests that the recruitment sub is coming later.

Jin drives up to The Flame station, and when I saw this, I got a little excited. Mainly because last time Jin and The Flame crossed paths, it ended like this:

Jin rushes into The Flame, trying to check the recent data for signs of a plane crash. Some nerd named Radzinsky starts getting all over his shit, and making fun of him. Jin gives him just a small taste of what he gave Mikhail, and Radzinsky gets on the horn with all the other stations asking if they've seen any planes.

Back on the Hydra island, Lapidus is trying to rally the group and keep their motivation up with a big speech, a few minutes before he leaves, because Sun follows Ben into the woods. Caesar takes over the role of leader at this point, and completely disregards all of Frank's advice. As Sun is walking through the woods, suddenly Ben appears behind her and offers to take her back to 'their' island, so she can find Jin.

Back in the barracks, Juliet steals the new recruit manifest, and we also learn that Amy's baby born last episode is going to grow up to be evil.
Soon after, Sawyer picks up the Oceanic 3 and takes them to get recruited into Dharma. His plan is to try to pass them off as new recruits coming off the sub, so they head off to Dharmaville.

Meanwhile, at The Flame, Radzinsky tells Jin that there aren't any planes, but as he says it, there is a report of something else. A hostile in Dharma territory! Jin runs outside to try to find the person, comes to see it is none other than Sayid. They have just enough time to recognize each other, before Radzinsky comes rushing in, and suddenly Jin has to take Sayid hostage. Him and Radzinsky lock him up in the closet (the homosexual subtexts of someone in the closet of The Flame do not elude me.).

Meanwhile, Sawyer is telling the group that he can't stop the purge, and that Daniel is gone now. Once they arrive at the barracks, Miles shows up, finding out for the first time that the others are back, and almost blowing their cover. As the two are talking, Sawyer receives a call from Jin with the news they caught Sayid in the woods.

As Sawyer heads to meet up with Jin, Ben, Sun, and Frank are heading towards the boats so they can get to the other island. Lapidus is trying to convince Sun not to go, but Sun tells Frank that she has to trust Ben. My favorite line in the episode is when Frank tells Sun that he had an entire boat full of commandoes who's sole mission was to capture Ben, to which Ben responds by laughing, and asking 'How did that work out for everyone?' Soon after, however, Sun knocks Ben out with a paddle, and her and Lapidus elope to the island just the two of them.

Meanwhile, back at the barracks, The new 'recruits' are being processed. Jack meets Candle/Cheng, and has to answer a few tricky questions to avoid being caught, and he's rewarded for his skill and quick-thinking by being assigned the job of 'Workman'. We can only assume this foul injustice is Sawyer's doing. Kate is also in a pretty sticky situation, as her name is not on the right lists, but luckily Juliet comes to the rescue and covers for her. Is anyone else thinking Juliet and Kate should be together? They make a much better couple than either of them do with Jack or Sawyer.
At The Flame Sawyer takes Sayid into his custody, against Radzinsky's wishes (Radzinsky thinks Sayid's a spy, and wants to shoot him), but BuzzSaw just tells nerdface to beat it and takes him anyways, forcing Sayid to say he's a hostile to receive protection.

Meanwhile on the real island, and in current time, Sun and Lapidus come across the decrepit ruins of the barracks as they are now, accompanied by the sounds of Cerberus. While they are going past one of the abandoned buildings, however, a light flicks on, and a door opens. Christian emerges and invites Sun and Lapidus in. He decides to confuse the hell out of Sun, by showing her a photo from 1977, in which she sees the entire group. She comes to realize that to find Jin, she'll have to go Back... To The Future!! Or past. Whatever.

In the chronology of the characters' lives, interestingly enough, the photo is just now being taken, and as it's snapped, Sawyer and Jin arrive with their prisoner, and put him in jail.

That night, Jack seeks out Sawyer's house to ask him what's going on. However, when he knocks on the door, he's a little surprised to find Juliet answering it... Awkwaaaaaaaard. Jack comes to realize the two are a couple now as he comes in to find Sawyer reading. Jack begins to question him, mainly about Sayid, and Sawyer basically tells him that he's got it covered, and that people died under Jack's leadership, so it's time for Sawyer to take care of things. He tells Jack that he'll take care of them and Sayid. Suprisingly enough, Jack takes this pretty well, as opposed to what I expected:

It is at this point that Jack comes to realize Sawyer's the big damn hero now, and if anything he seems relieved. He leaves the house, and returns to his quarters. Sawyer steps outside, and happens to catch Kate's eye as she paces back and forth on her porch. They idly wave at each other, and that's pretty much it, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that old sparks might end up flying... Now that Sawyer has slept with BOTH of Jack's crushes before him, he's willing to commit to his true love, I guess.

The show exits with a scene of a young boy bringing the imprisoned Sayid a sandwich. As the young boy delivers the food, we discover that it is young Ben... meaning that they don't have long before The Purge.

Well, that pretty much sums up the episode. Until next time, Namaste.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Check it out...Neil Gaiman on The Colbert Report...



You can tell Colbert actually knows and respects Gaiman's work, and it's cool to see the guy getting some mainstream acknowledgment. As usual, the rest of the world finally recognizes the genius that us geeks have been raving about since the late 80's.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Fantasy Casting : The Warriors Three

Y'know, there's a lot of rumors and speculation swirling about when it comes to the cast of the upcoming Thor movie (update : Natalie Portman is supposedly being considered for Sif, Thor's Asgardian love interest), but so far no news on who might be playing the most important characters in the whole mythos...

Warriors Three Thor Fandral Volstagg Hogun marvel comicThe Warriors Three are a trio of Asgardian adventurers, and are awesome.

This is Fandral The Dashing...

Warriors Three Thor Fandral Volstagg Hogun marvel comicAnd the thing about Fandral The Dashing is that he is so totally Cary Elwes.

Princess Bride Cary Elwes movieThis is one of those perfect, obvious casting choices (like Patrick Stewart as Professor X or Corey Haim as Shaft) that most everbody can agree upon. Heck, even Wizard : The Guide To Titties got this one right ten or so years ago.

Princess Bride Cary Elwes fantasy movieExcept, yeah, that was like ten or so years ago. Don't get me wrong, Elwes still looks pretty darn good for a man his age, but that age may be just a bit too advanced to pull off such a dashing, rogue-ish role today. So, who could fill those thigh-high green boots?

Gerard Butler sexy hot
Not sure how good Gerard Butler would look as a blond, so maybe he might not be the spitting image of his comic counterpart, but go watch RocknRolla and tell me he couldn't pull it off.

Next up is Hogun The Grim, the handlebar-mustachioed tough guy of the group.

Warriors Three Thor Fandral Volstagg Hogun marvel comicHogun needs to exude badassery, the kind of guy who can make you soil yourself whether he's letting loose a savage battle cry as he lunges at you with his big mace, or just staring at you...

Warriors Three Thor Fandral Volstagg Hogun marvel comic
Enter Josh Brolin, who pretty much played a modern-day version of the character in No Country for Old Men, and even made George W. Bush seem kind of cool.

Finally, we have Volstagg the Voluminous, The Lion of Asgard!

Warriors Three Thor Fandral Volstagg Hogun marvel comic
Volstagg is the burly, hard drinking (maybe just a little past his prime) heart of the team. He's a family man, a legend in his own mind, and just a really big ol' fat dude who's awesome.

John Goodman Big Lebowski Warriors Three Thor Fandral Volstagg Hogun marvel comicThrow a big orange beard on John Goodman and BOOM, Volstagg! Go watch Speed Racer and imagine 'Pops' in a good mood, and we think you'll agree.

John Goodman Death Sentence
Now...who's gonna play Beta Ray Bill?

Beta Ray Bill Warriors Three Thor Fandral Volstagg Hogun marvel comic
BTW, Justin's Lost post will probably be postponed till Thursday, cause we work for a living, dammit.

Friday, March 13, 2009

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS One Panel o' Pain round 4

Ahhh, another Friday, another FIGHT!!! And we actually won the last round, so we're really feeling the pressure to bring it this time. But what could possibly top a hooker kicking a dude so hard in the crotch that his legs fall off?

Batman Shrinking Violet Legion of Superheroes George Perez Brave BoldConsider it brr-ought.

Batman embarrasses the entire Legion of Superheroes (all 274 of them) in The Brave and the Bold (current series) #5, written by Mark Waid and drawn by George Perez. Shrinking Violet up there is fine, by the way. She kinda looks like all her bones would be shattered from that hit, but it doesn't even knock her out. Batman's just that good, I suppose.

Now, go check out everyone else's panels over at Spacebooger's and vote for your favorite!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Odds and Ends

Thor lame cosplay convention guy costume
So, the Thor movie seems to be coming together nicely. If you don't know, it's being directed by Kenneth Branagh, who people seem to think is a good choice. I don't know, the only thing I've seen that he directed was his version of Frankenstein where he played Frankenstein and De Niro played the monster. I remember liking it, but that was many years ago. Anyway, he also directed and starred in a Hamlet movie that's supposed to be really good, which sounds pretty promising for a Thor movie. The cast hasn't been announced yet, so take this with a grain of salt, but apparently the frontrunner for the thunder god himself is Alexander SkarsgÄrd. I haven't seen him in anything (well, apparently he was in Zoolander, but I don't remember him from anything) , but he sure looks the part. The people on the message boards who know his work seem pretty psyched about the idea, so that bodes well. More exciting (at least for Justin) is that it's looking like Loki might be played by none other than Josh Hartnett! Hey, Lucky Number Slevin was great...I think he can pull it off, even if he does look like he just woke up through the whole movie. Now, to bring this paragraph around to a full Shakespearian circle...the movie that first gave Justin his hetero mancrush on Josh Hartnett was O, a modern retelling of Othello (in which he played Iago, a Loki-like manipulative villain, so there you go.)

Wizard casting call Thor Fabio
We're also pretty excited about Wolverine : Origins, even though they appear to have completely altered Deadpool. Now he's some tatted up freak with a bunch of other mutants' powers (check him out shooting Cyclops' optic blasts in the trailer). The thing that upset me, though, was that his mouth looks like it's sealed up. How can you make a movie featuring the 'merc with a mouth', and take away his mouth?! But then I remembered that we've also seen a cameo of the telepath Emma Frost, so maybe he'll get that power as well? That could be cool, Deadpool ranting away in Logan's head the whole fight. Or maybe that's how they'll incorporate 'Pool's tendency to break the fourth wall, by having him talk to the audience telepathically without any of the other characters knowing? That could be epic.



Anyway, having Deadpool, young Cyclops, etc. handled well would be a nice bonus, but we're not really expecting anything but a big, dumb, action-packed popcorn movie, and that's why we're looking forward to it. No big Watchmen-esque shoes to fill here, so we can't be (too) disappointed. Heck, we've already had three X-Men movies full of Wolverine fighting people, I have faith they can give us a Wolverine movie full of the same.

In comic book news, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely are going to be working on a Batman series together! I probably shouldn't be as psyched about this as I am considering that I've only read about half of Morrison's last Batman run (I was getting them for free because my store used to carry a few comics, but they would skip entire issues and quit carrying comics entirely halfway through R.I.P., so I have to scrounge up some random issues), and it was fairly uneven. BUT, with a few notable exceptions, my favorite Morrison stories have been the ones drawn by Quitely. Their styles just seem to click together for me, in the same way Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon do. Anyway, I'm looking forward to it, maybe even enough to pay $4 an issue.



Frank Quitely Morrison Batman Robin new comic series