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AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: House of Hammer magazine #13 (1977)

Posted in Genres, horror, magazine, movies, nostalgia with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Halloween, Hammer Studios, holiday, magazines, monsters, zombies on October 22, 2013 by Paxton

Comic editor Dez Skinn had conceived of a horror fan magazine called Chiller. He worked right next to the production offices of Hammer Studios, and after walking past the front door one day he decided to talk to Hammer about licensing their name to use on the magazine. In the 70s, Hammer Studios was a giant in the horror movie industry. Their Frankenstein and Dracula franchises were huge hits. They thought this new Hammer fan magazine was a great idea. They changed the name from Chiller to The House of Hammer. The magazine covered new releases as well as old. Originally it was only going to cover Hammer movies, but it became clear that there would not be enough content so they opened it up a little bit to cover new genre pictures currently in release. Sort of a prototype Fangoria. The first issue was published in 1976.

Personally, I’m a big fan of Hammer Studios. Their gothic horror films are classics. Especially, like I said, their classic Dracula series with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

In October 1977, The House of Hammer #13 was released. As you can see, the cover story was Hammer’s 1966 zombie flick, Plague of the Zombies. There was also a preview of Star Wars as it wouldn’t premier in Britain until Dec 1977. One of the cool things this magazine did was to feature comic adaptations of some of Hammer’s classic movies. In this issue they adapt Plague of the Zombies. It’s actually really well done. The adaptation was written by Steve Moore with artwork by Trevor Goring and the awesome Brian Bolland of Killing Joke and Watchmen fame. Below are the first four pages. The entire adaptation is about 13 pages, so you’ll have to click through to my Flickr set to see the entire thing. If you click the first page below (with the movie title), you can read it full size on Flickr then just click the right arrow to move to page two.

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Nerd Lunch Episode 98: Nerdy Romance

Posted in Genres, podcast, pop culture, romance with tags Nerd Lunch Podcast, podcasts, pop culture on August 13, 2013 by Paxton

Welcome to episode 98 of the Nerd Lunch podcast. This week we are joined by author Sue London. Sue is the author of Trials of Artemis (The Haberdashers Book One).

We brought Sue in as our resident expert on all things romance so that CT, Jeeg and I could be “cultured up” a bit and broadly discuss the romance genre. We talk about our individual thoughts on romance, do we like it, do we feel it needs to be a part of our media?

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We also discuss some of our favorite nerdy romances; Buffy/Angel, Superman/Lois Lane, etc, etc. It’s a fun discussion I think you’ll enjoy. Plus, we are 1 step closer to our 100th episode.

Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner.

Or listen to it online right here.

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Movie Manathon: Kaiju, Wing Chun and Tai Chi

Posted in Genres, martial arts, movies with tags martial arts, Movie Manathon, movies on August 9, 2013 by Paxton

The wife took the kids to visit her parents this past week, so I took the opportunity to watch a few things that she had no desire to watch. AND IT WAS GLORIOUS.

Let’s take a look at what I watched.

Pacific Rim (2013) – I was able to get out to see one movie in the theater this week. I chose Pacific Rim. And I was not disappointed. This robots vs monsters actioneer was amazing in its scale. Huge, epic battles with huge, epic monsters. And the SFX for the giant robots are AMAZING. These things look so awesome. The actual story is a little thin, but that matters little because HOLY SH*T GIANT ROBOTS ARE BATTLING GIANT MONSTERS!!!!

The Legend Is Born: Ip Man (2010) – This is the third movie in the Ip Man series with Donnie Yen. Back in 2011 I watched the first two Ip Man movies. The first one remains one of my favorite martial arts movies of all time. The second is good, but not as good as the original. Even with the addition of Sammo Hung. This third movie is Donnie Yen-free, unfortunately, as it’s a prequel to the first two movies. It features Ip Man as he’s growing up and first learning Wing Chun Kung Fu. This movie, as martial arts movies love to do, contains several actors in the previous movies but not in their original roles. Sammo Hung, for instance, returns in essentially a cameo, but playing a completely different character. As does Siu-Wong Fan, who originally played Jin in the first two movies. The movie certainly feels like a part of the franchise started by Donnie Yen and Wilson Yip. It helped that the fight director and choreographers were mostly the same across the board. I really enjoyed it. Yu-Hang To, who plays a younger Ip Man, really does feel like a younger Donnie Yen. Lots of good stuff in this movie. If you liked the first two, give it a shot. Just go in knowing it’s not as good as that first, classic Ip Man movie.

Tai Chi Zero (2012) – I had several people recommend this movie to me. I really knew nothing about it going in so I’m not sure what my expectations were. This was definitely different than I was thinking (whatever that was). It’s quirky and weird, but in a fun way. The action scenes are off the charts cool, but that doesn’t surprise me as Sammo Hung was involved (he also did the Ip Man movies above). The story is a bit wacky, but endearingly so. I enjoyed it. I look forward to seeing the sequel, Tai Chi Hero, someday.

Hell On Wheels – The Complete First Season – I’m a pretty big fan of westerns. I read Wild West fiction and watch western movies and I love Deadwood (I’m in the middle of Season 1). So I’ve been curious to check this AMC show out for quite some time. I finally watched the Pilot and was mostly disappointed. The main character, Cullen, as played by Anson Mount is an uninteresting imitation of Clint Eastwood’s Josey Wales. You also have the obligatory creepy looking preacher and rotted teeth prostitute and a-hole railroad tycoon. And actually, the saving grace of the show is the a-hole railroad tycoon as played by Colm Meany. He chews up scenery like a Quick and the Dead-era Gene Hackman. He’s truly awesome in this. Everyone else is bland and boring. I’m not even sure where the story is going. There seems to be no coherent overarching story. At least in the first episode. And Mount’s Cullen character is, I think, supposed to be a bad ass but he does nothing to show that to us. I just can’t help to compare this to the first episode of Deadwood (which can’t help matters). What Deadwood did in 1 hour hooked me in to watching more and more. I literally was ready to turn off this show about 40 minutes in. I just didn’t care. Except when Colm Meany was tearing up the goddam scenery. Maybe I should watch a few more episodes, but I know that I’m not.

Continuum: Season One – I’ve been interested in this Syfy series for a bit, but Christian from the Atomic Geeks has talked favorably about it on a few of their shows so I decided to give it a chance. And it’s pretty good. I’m surprised. Cool premise and I like Rachel Nichols and Erik Knudsen. Cool sci-fi cop show involving time travel. It’s not perfect, there are a few characters I don’t like, but the stories are interesting and I want to see where it leads. So I plan on continuing to watch.

I also watched one more movie, but I’m not putting it here because I’ll be talking about that on episode 10 of the Cult Film Club Podcast.

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Reading Forrest Carter’s Josey Wales novels

Posted in books, Genres, movies, Western with tags Book Report, books, gunfighters, gunfighters and lawmen, movies, westerns on May 31, 2013 by Paxton

I have been a fan of Clint Eastwood’s 1976 western The Outlaw Josey Wales since I first saw it with my dad back in the 80s. I actually saw and know Clint Eastwood more for Josey Wales than I do “The Man with No Name” because I saw it first and it led me to Leone’s “Dollars Trilogy”. So, being a fan of it for so long I was surprised a few years ago when I discovered the movie was actually based on a 1973 book by Forrest Carter called Josey Wales: The Rebel Outlaw. The story would subsequently be retitled Gone to Texas.

Being such a huge fan of Eastwood’s take on the character I felt I needed to read the source material. So I got the above book from Paperbackswap.com and set about reading about one of my favorite gunslingers.

I have to say, I’m really surprised how close to the story the movie was. Carter writes a very good, gritty, action-y western. The feel on the page is the same as watching the movie. It helped that I had Eastwood’s visage burned into my brain whenever I hear the name Josey Wales. The mannerisms, the speech. It’s obvious Eastwood was very respectful of the original stories and strayed little from not only the character but the overall storyline. The only thing I think the book does better is the character of Laura Lee is a much better character in the book. But, honestly, I’m not a big fan of Sondra Locke, so that may have been a factor.

But the book, I can honestly recommend it for both fans of Eastwood’s movies and fans of good, western action in general. The book is a fast paced read, clocking in at around 200 pages and offers a lot of gunfights and good dialogue. It actually got me excited to read Old West fiction again, something I haven’t really done since high school.

In 1980, Carter followed up Gone to Texas with a sequel called The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales. This sequel was also included in my book copy. Needless to say, I was pretty eager to read this sequel and see what could have also been a sequel to Eastwood’s Josey Wales (Eastwood did consider doing it but it never developed).

The story picks up a short time after the original book. A terrible tragedy befalls Josey Wales’ bride and his newborn child. Honestly, the tragedy is told in detail and it’s pretty horrific to read, especially as a father. And the rest of the book is also incredibly violent, even more so than the first novel which is not as much as you’d expect. However, I was pulled in again by Carter’s writing style and the way he tells a story. It’s another excellent Josey Wales novel and I liked it as much if not MORE than the original.

It’s sad that Carter never wrote anymore Wales novels. I know Eastwood had the book and I think he was considering, but by 1980 I think he wanted to do other movies and leave the Western behind. When he did his final Western, Unforgiven, I was surprised that the main character wasn’t Josey Wales, however, there may have been rights issues.

So if you enjoy good action, you can’t go wrong with these Josey Wales books. They are excellent examples of fast paced Old West fiction that I personally enjoy reading. Do yourself a favor and give it a chance.

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Movie Reviews: Cool Heist Movies!!

Posted in heists, movies, pop culture, reviews with tags movie reviews, movies on March 11, 2006 by Paxton

I just watched The Thomas Crown Affair this morning (Saturday) for the second time. I hadn’t seen it since it was in theaters. I forgot how awesome that movie is. Got me thinking about heists, dude. How freakin’ cool would it be to be a part of a heist? What part would you play? Would you be the guy who obtains all the gear? No matter how sophisiticated or experimental the equipment needs to be, that guy has not only heard of it, he can get it ASAP. Would you be the brains? No matter how complicated or completely insane a security set up is, this guy has seen it, and will know a way around it. I usually dream about being the tech guy. No matter what computer system or software setup is in play, this guy can hack it and make it do whatever he wants. Awesome. In honor of this, I want to talk about a few of my favorite heist movies.

I’ll start with the one I just watched, The Thomas Crown Affair. Brosnan plays cool as a cucumber Thomas Crown and Rene Russo plays sultry Catherine Banning. Sexy and cool movie with a couple very smart art heists. Brosnan was in a movie recently called After the Sunset that could have been a sequel to Thomas Crown Affair. Replace Salma Hayek with Rene Russo and you’re rollin’. Check them both out.

My next heist movie is the one I’d have to say is at the top of the list for me. It’s the remake to Ocean’s 11 with Clooney, Pitt and Damon. Very suave, action packed and it takes place in Vegas. Gotta love it. The sequel was just as good.

Another great heist flick is, suprisingly, The Heist with Gene Hackman and Danny Devito. It’s got a lot of twists, but is pretty dark. Sam Rockwell also puts in a great performance in a very clever script.

Another one I like is called Foolproof. This movie stars Ryan Reynolds and is about a group of young kids that plan perfect robberies, but never perform them, that is, until a gangster forces them to do it. Ryan Reynolds is the man and this movie is very entertaining.

There are many others I enjoy also. Heat with Bobby DeNiro, The Saint with Val Kilmer and Mission: Impossible (the first one and not technically a heist movie but they pull one off). This is a sub-category of movie that I thoroughly enjoy and I hope you do to.

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