Welcome back to Graphic Breakdown!

Well, it’s Thursday so let’s talk comics shall we?

Aquaman #15
Written by Dan Abnett
Illustrated by Phillipe Briones

Aquaman has turned into one of the most rousing comic books out there in recent times, and this issue is pretty fantastic as well.

It’s great to see…he’s deserves a great comic book and this is that…a great comic book.

This is the conclusion of “The Deluge” storyline. It’s all been leading to this: Aquaman and his Atlantean army vs. Black Manta and the forces of N.E.M.O. in a final fight for supremacy over the seven seas.

Whoever wins, one thing is certain: only one man will swim out alive!

Abnett’s been knocking them out of the park and the art by Briones is really great.

Add in that Brad Walker cover and you have one heck of a funny book!

RATING: A-

Batman #15
Written by Tom King
Illustrated by Mitch Gerads

Another okay book in the Tom King Batman world! And it is okay. The art is pretty nice but the story is just fair again.

I wish Tom King had more gas in his motor…it’s just falling flat for me.

This special issue is part 2 of his Batman and Catwoman “art piece.”

I get it. It’s supposed to be a series of issues with the characterization would be at the forefront.

Yet, it just feels incredibly one note and Ho-hum.

The art by Gerads is very good again. He’s come a long way.

If it didn’t have word balloons, it may be perfect.

I say this everytime: let’s hope the next storyline King has in store for us is better!

RATING: C+

Batman 66 Meets Wonder Woman 77 #1
Written by Marc Andreyko and Jeff Parker
Illustrated by David Hahn

This issue seems to be the start of something great!

And it is great.  It’s a joyous occasion having some of the greatest iterations of these two characters together in comic book form.

What mysteries are hidden in the book Ra’s al Ghul hired Catwoman to steal?

And why does this caper lead Batman down memory lane—to his childhood fight against actual Nazis?

Witness the Caped Crusader’s first encounter with one of the greatest heroes the world has ever known: Wonder Woman!

The story is a good time and the art by Hahn is something special. I can’t wait for more issues of this book and I’ll be smiling ear to ear while reading them.

RATING: A

Superman #15
Written by Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason
Illustrated by Ed Benes, Ryan Sook, Jorge Jiminez, and Clay Mann

This book is really excellent storywise. This is another “I wasn’t initially a fan of  this title”, but boy has it taken off.

Tomasi and Gleason are just great on the writing side of it. They really have an idea of what they want to do with this title and it shows in every single panel.

Superman and New Super-Man fight alongside an army of Supermen from across the Multiverse against the threat trying to wipe them all out of existence!

Plus, Jon and his neighbor Kathy investigate a hidden horror that seems to be growing in their town.

The art is pretty spiffy on this title as well. Four different artists and they are all pretty good.

Overall, one of the better titles in the Rebirth relaunch.

RATING: B+

Raven #5
Written by Marc Wolfman
Illustrated by Diogenes Neves

This is another fine, under the radar book.

It just has something to it that makes my heart happy.

Pick it up sometime and you won’t be disappointed.

San Francisco is on the brink of total disaster, with more citizens being sucked into the giant orb by the minute.

Raven can’t possibly overcome such insurmountable odds…unless she gets a little help from her family!

This book is well written by Wolfman. It’s great.

The art by Neves is something great. The art is fluid and cool. The cover is spectacular too.

Just a nicely packaged book.

RATING: B+

He-Man/Thundercats #4
Written by Rob David and Lloyd Goldfine
Illustrated by Freddie Williams III

Underneath one of the coolest covers I have seen in quite awhile, comes another great fun comic book!

It’s mindless but a heck of a good time for sure.

It’s the battle you’ve waited to see!

With the Ancient Spirits of Evil ravaging Eternia, Lion-O rushes to aid the Masters of the Universe in defending their world. The only thing standing in his way is…He-Man?!

The epic battle between the super-heroic 1980s icons breaks loose as the Sword of Power clashes with the Sword of Omens!

This one you do not want to miss!

The story is what you expect but the art by Williams is something to behold.

It’s just a cool comic book. And it has a cover that I want to be a poster.

RATING: B

And the rest…

Green Lanterns #15
Written by Sam Humphries and Illustrated by Tom Derenick
This book is another substandard Green Lantern book…however the art by Derenick is pretty good. They need to revamp this entire line.
RATING: C

Harley Quinn #12
Written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Connor and Illustrated by John Timms and Char Hardin
Another week means another Harley Quinn book. This is another fun issue in the line. John Timms artwork is particularly great and he’s going places. Pick it up for a good read!
RATING: B

Lucifer #12
Written by Richard Kadrey and Illustrated by Lee Garbett
This is a nicely drawn book and the story isn’t half bad either. I need to pick these up from the first issue and see the whole puzzle. Right now?
RATING: B-

Nightwing #13
Written by Tim Seeley and Illustrated by Marcus To
It’s a hell of a week for covers this week. This cover is pretty damn spectacular as well…the best in the series. This issue really picked up the pace too. I enjoyed it very much.
RATING: B

Superpowers # 3
Written and Illustrated by Art Balthazar and Franco
A peaceful day in Metropolis is interrupted when Brimstone comes to clear a path for Darkseid. This looks like a job for…Supergirl!? Yes, because Superman is out of town visiting his new baby brother! But villainous plots are afoot on New Krypton, too. Is anywhere safe for our superheroes?
Very much a good issue!!
RATING: B

Trinity #5
Written and Illustrated by Francis Manapul
This issue is beautifully illustrated. It’s a shame the story is so thin. I wish there was more meat to it. Still it isn’t half bad. Give it a shot. It’s gorgeous to look at.
RATING: B

Produced by Joshua Astrachan, Carter Logan
Written and Directed by Jim Jarmusch
Starring Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani,
Barry Shabaka Henley, Cliff Smith,
Chasten Harmon, William Jackson Harper

 
What is a story without a deep struggle of self?

The battle between inner or outer demons can do much of the heavy lifting when driving a story. It is all built in: passion, temptation, anger, possibly relief.

And yet, we know that life is not the stuff of movies (for most of us, anyways).

The happiness that comes from finding a groove and enjoying where you have landed is not the sexy material of most blockbusters but it can make for a captivating cinematic experience. With Paterson, Jim Jarmusch keeps the story simple, the overtures minimal, and the joy in the regular continuous.

The film follows Paterson (Adam Driver) through a week in his life as a bus driver in the city of Paterson, New Jersey.

His routine is straightforward and does not vary: work, home, walk the dog, and enjoy a beer at the neighborhood bar before returning to his wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani). Perhaps with a stop to write a bit of poetry for himself if the mood strikes. Laura’s life, by contrast, is full of dreams of what could happen and what may come. Together they move through daily life in Paterson with the everyday ease of many of us.

There is little variation from day to day, but the characters are engaging in the way that the viewer instantly identifies with someone similar in their own life or neighborhood.

To provide a bit of fresh air each work day includes Paterson’s overheard conversations on the bus. They act as tiny one act plays in the midst of the film. The short scenes range from two men making general comments about women they have “almost” got with, to teenagers discovering the wonders of anarchism. This, combined with a few chance interactions on his walks, allow us insight into a man of few spoken words without the character having to constantly announce his opinion.

While there are some actors that have difficulty shedding typecasting for the roles that launched them into stardom, Adam Driver is completely believable as a working class bus driver with an appreciation and knack for poetry. He blends in to his surroundings as an observer, the quiet guy at the end of the bar who keeps to himself but never comes off as standoffish. The few times he comes forward to engage are natural and display a kindness that comes from finding balance in one’s life. Driver holds much underneath the surface and the small peeks he gives the audience are always rewarding.

Small details do give insight into the lives of Paterson and Laura. His work area features shelves of heavier fare from David Foster Wallace to William Carlos Williams (his favorite). It is clear that this is not some random savant but a person who has delved into some of the best writers and poets. Though his own poems are wonderful in their straightforward cadence (all written by Ron Padgett), this is treated not as a passion or calling but more of a hobby in the way that someone might collect stamps or build model trains.

Thankfully, Laura lives to dream for both of them.

From believing that ordering a guitar may lead to her being a country western star – well, if her turn selling cupcakes does not make her a maven of the baking world – to her endless desire to paint the house and anything that stays still in her signature black and white, Golshifteh Farahani brings an untethered lightness to her scenes. In a typical plot this may be where drama rears its head, but here their relationship is a straightforward case of yin and yang that shows how two distinctly different personalities can live in sync rather than constant strife.

The film flows over the viewer, continuous and gentle in its progress. There are no jolts or major surprises because this film (and life) does not require “gotcha” moments to be enjoyable.

Paterson turns prosaic from a literary slur to a celebration of knowing that you have found the best place for you at this time, and with a little luck you may have the distinct fortune of repeating the process over and over again as long as you can.

Produced by Don Handfield, Karen Lunder,
Jeremy Renner, Aaron Ryder
Written by Robert D. Siegel
Directed by John Lee Hancock
Starring Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman,
John Carroll Lynch, Linda Cardellini,
Patrick Wilson, B. J. Novak, Laura Dern

Is there a sight more associated with America then two golden arches glowing neon yellow by the roadside? I would hazard that there is not.

McDonald’s is a brand that has reached global domination over the years, and is a true American success story of entrepreneurship.

But what of the journey from simple walk-up hamburger stand to multinational corporation?

Well, for every bright idea and dreamer, there is a shrewd and calculating businessman ready to turn their idea into something faster, flashier, and more profitable.

John Lee Hancock’s The Founder not only entertains, but also shows the contentious story of how one of our most familiar meal destinations grew to take over the country.

Rather than the McDonald brothers, the film’s focuses on Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton), the failing Illinois businessman who looked at the burger place and saw the future. While Mac and Dick McDonald (John Caroll Lynch and Nick Offerman) wished to focus on strict control and maintaining their high standards, Kroc was more ambitious and constantly pushed for the innovation and revenue streams that lead to the current McDonald’s model of business. His drive made the company what it is, while leaving behind the original owners of the concept.

The opening scene sets the audience up to understand Kroc right before he met the brothers: the quintessential down on his luck traveling salesman of the 50s. He attempts to sell a multi-milkshake maker to a drive-in owner using a pitch that may have read upbeat but is delivered with more than a tinge of desperation. Dejected and winless, he pours a drink back at the motel and listens to a motivational record about the unstoppable power of positivity and determination.

A call about a large order leads him from Illinois to San Bernardino California in order to see what is so special about this “McDonald’s” place. And here is where the movie briefly lays out the story of Mac and Dick MacDonald and the development of the “Speedee Service System” that allowed for quicker service and higher customer turnover, which the working model of a drive-in could not accomplish.

You may imagine that the story of the automation of fast food prep would be less engaging, but the amount of ingenuity and troubleshooting that went into it is nothing short of remarkable. To see it played out by Nick Offerman drawing and redrawing the most efficient kitchen layouts on a tennis court while choreographing a team of pantomiming fast food employees to find flaws and ways to increase productivity is biopic gold. And so is the hunger that Keaton displays so well in Kroc’s quest for dominance. The interactions between the two are some of the most charged moments of the movie.

Michael Keaton is one of the best actors out there and this film will be chalked in the success column.

He deftly portrays a man that could be on the edge of greatness but carries a bit of that sad sack persona with him. You find yourself both rooting for him to succeed as well as cringing at the ferocity and manner in which he pursues it. The movement from tragically pathetic to calculating charmer completely draws you in.

On the opposite end of his quest are Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch who never waiver from being honest and salt-of-the-earth American small business owners. Offerman plays to his usual strengths of gruff and terse delivery, but seeing him use these in a dramatic role rather than comedic is refreshing and fits well. It provides a great balance to Lynch’s gentle “it’ll all work out in the end” persona. There is no point when the audience would not be enamored with the struggle of the brothers to standup to the steamrolling Kroc without stooping to his level.

The most interesting aspect of the film is not so much the story of franchising and how McDonald’s came about – which is a strong statement as the knowledge imparted is engrossing – as much as it plays out as a cautionary tale of capitalism swallowing the ideals of the small business man and greed masquerading as progress.

Some may leave the theater seeing it as a redemption story, but others will not be able to separate that the same redemption was built on the backs of others’ dreams. The Founder will be on your mind every time you pass one of those ubiquitous glowing beacons of our country, forcing us to think a bit more critically about both the American inventiveness and the equally American deviousness it took to serve those billions of burgers.

Produced by M. Night Shyamalan,
Jason Blum, Marc Bienstock
Written and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Starring James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy,
Betty Buckley,  Haley Lu Richardson,
Jessica Sula, Kim Director

What were they thinking? Is a question I often ask myself while watching films.

Sometimes, the inquiry stems from sheer disbelief at what I’m witnessing on screen—Oh, god, how did they think this was a good idea? What were they thinking? 

Other times, it’s a more reflective process—Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder what they were thinking when they wrote and filmed that. Where are they coming from here?

I experienced a lot of the latter while viewing M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller, Split, about the kidnapping of three teenage girls by a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

Of course, I certainly had my fair share of bewilderment as well. Played by James McAvoy, the villain of Split has 23 different personalities living within him. The sinister personalities have taken over “the light” of Kevin’s consciousness, which leads to him snatching three teenage girls from a parking lot and locking them up in a basement to prepare for a mysterious ritual.

Does this film do much to amend for an all-too-familiar Hollywood horror trope of mentally ill people being dangerous psychopaths? Not at all.

Did Split eventually surprise me, regardless of my reservations about this dangerous stigma? It did.

Split is a deeply flawed but fascinating film, perhaps Shyamalan’s most interesting work to date. It has left me more to dwell on than anything he’s made in over a decade, and despite my many problems with it, the film has me itching to revisit it in order to unravel its many mysteries.

I hate the way certain personalities of Kevin’s DID are played for laughs, and I loathed the way the audience ate this humor up during my screening. I’m torn about the many parallels and links that Shyamalan attempts to illustrate relating mental illness to mental trauma—I could see what he was getting it, but found that these juxtapositions never quite meshed the way I believe was intended.

And yet, I found myself consistently captivated with what the writer/director was attempting to say with his latest film.

And then there’s the twist, which finds Shyamalan pulling the carpet out from underneath us with about ten seconds left in the film. The mixed audience reaction was absolutely wonderful, ranging from stunned to confused to howling with high-pitched laughter (sorry, that was me). It’s a twist for which I could write a whole new piece about, and perhaps I will, because I’ve been thinking about it ever since it was revealed.

The real twist, it seems, is that for the first time in ages, Shyamalan has actually left me wanting more.

Gold is the epic tale of one man’s pursuit of the American dream, to discover gold. Starring Matthew McConaughey as Kenny Wells, a prospector desperate for a lucky break, he teams up with a similarly eager geologist and sets off on an journey to find gold in the uncharted jungle of Indonesia. Getting the gold was hard, but keeping it would be even harder, sparking an adventure through the most powerful boardrooms of Wall Street. The film is inspired by a true story.

For your chance to see an advance screening of Gold on Monday, January 23rd at 7:00pm at the AMC Boston Common, click HERE

The Trump Inauguration looks to be a star-studded affair…if you consider Branson, MO the holy land of star-studded entertainment.

After battling it out with A-listers, top performers and 97% of Hollywood, the Trump has thus far been able to procure the Rockettes (who were forced to be there against their will under threat of being fired), country star Toby Keith, America’s Got Talent’s Jackie Evancho, the Piano Guys, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and 2002’s 3 Doors Down.

While nobody is denying the talent of Miss Evancho or Sir Keith, this isn’t exactly a celebrated list of performers that would sell-out an arena. This is a crowd that is probably available because there are currently no state fairs at the moment.

Also, they said yes.

A Visual Comparison of The Crowds at Trump’s Inaugural Concert Versus Obama’s

In the past, it was an honor to play the Presidential Inauguration.

Be it Republican or Democrat, Hollywood heavy hitters and spotlight stealers would line up for the chance to support their political pals with like-minded views. In turn, the talent was booked in hopes that their optimism and legions of fans will lead to more support.

In this case, it appears as many folks are trying to distance themselves as far as possible from the Trump Administration, as the new regime scurries to find anyone who will say yes.

Here is a look at a few past performers to see how Trump’s Inauguration compares to years’ past:

1961: Nat King Cole for John F. Kennedy

The King of Camelot was serenaded by the golden vocals of another King back in 1961. Before Marilyn gave her husky rendition of “Happy Birthday,” Cole performed the light-hearted Rogers & Hammerstein classic “Surrey With the Fringe on Top.”

Added Note: The crooner was introduced by “It” couple at the time, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh

1965: Harry Belafonte, Ann Margret and Barbra Streisand for Lyndon B. Johnson

After the tragic death of JFK, Johnson look the reigns as President. After his two-year period, LBJ then ran for the office and won, fair and square. The gala for his win was an epic affair, with celebrities and bigwigs looking to the future with the optimism of the swingin’ ‘60s.

Harry Belafonte and Barbra Streisand performed that night for the likes of Bobby Darin, Woody Allen, Julie Andrews and Alfred Hitchcock while Ann Margret danced for the masses.

1969: James Brown for Richard Nixon

Read that again and soak it all in.

Even though Brown supported another candidate, when Nixon’s people gave the soul singer a chance to perform at the inauguration, the Godfather of Soul jumped at the opportunity.

Why? Because it was still an honor.

Brown sang “Say It Loud,” “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” and “Please, Please, Please.”

1989: Babs and Frank Sinatra for George Bush

Seems very unlikely, but indeed, Ms. Streisand performed for George Bush (senior, not W) when he was elected to office.

Also on hand was Old Blue Eyes, who sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the movie “Carousel.”

1993: Michael Jackson and Diana Ross for Bill Clinton

After 12 years of Republicans, every Democrat in Hollywood wanted to celebrate the winds of change and Bubba. A choir featuring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, along with Aretha Franklin, Melissa Etheridge and Boys II Men, just  to name a few, gathered together to sing “We Are The World.”

2001: Van Morrison, Ricky Martin, 98 Degrees and Jessica Simpson for George W. Bush

The pages of Tiger Beat came alive for the Inauguration Concerts, of which many of the artists made an appearance after much begging from the Bush daughters.

2008: U2 and Beyonce for Barack Obama

All of Billboard and Hollywood turned out the inauguration of the first black president. But while the bill featured countless stars wanted to honor Obama, the true topliners of the night were saved for the final acts as the Irish rockers sang “Pride (In the Name of Love)” while The Queen Bey herself gave the final performance of the night with “America the Beautiful.”

Also featured that day were Queen Latifah, will.i.am, Stevie Wonder, Mary J. Blige, Herbie Hancock, Usher and Bruce Springsteen.

When a mysterious virus breaks out across the country, the infected turn into the murderous undead. A few terrified travelers find themselves trapped on a bullet train from hell, fighting for their lives as hordes of the living dead crash towards them, crawling closer with every stop. Suspicion is rife and tensions run high as some will do anything to survive and make it to the safe zone.

And we’re giving away 3 copies!

To enter, please send an email with the subject header “BUSAN” to geekcontest @ gmail dot com and answer the following:

What makes Train to Busan unique to the filmography of writer/director Yeon Sang-ho?

Please include your name and address (U.S. Residents only. You must be 18 years old).

Only one entry per person and a winner will be chosen at random.

Contest ends at 11:59 PM EST on January 30th, 2016.

Did you know the closest living ancestor of the T-Rex is a chicken? Yeah, turns out chickens are pretty badass… sort of.

I guess with dinosaur ancestry we should be thankful that the T-Rex’s of today are much less intimidating, smaller and taste delicious when fried (to be fair to other fried foods, I feel it’s important to state that most things are delicious when fried).

In video games however, chickens have a long and varied history, they’ve become something of a joke and have also been treated pretty badly so it’s no surprise that in some games they are straight up evil.

Remember in Chun-Li’s level in Street Fighter II there was a background character literally choking a chicken? Perhaps you paid it little attention. But he’s there. A man in a green cap and overalls (no, not Luigi) who is wringing a chickens neck. Cue the 26 years of unoriginal masturbation jokes that followed.

Chicken abuse has been a constant and re-occurring theme in gaming. For some reason, we enjoy attacking them, mocking them and using their limited ability of short range flight for our own means.

Take Cuccos in The Legend of Zelda series. The first game they appeared in was A Link To The Past. I don’t care what anyone says, everyone who has played that game decided to attack one, maybe out of curiosity to see what happens? Maybe to see if it could be murdered for food? Or because chickens are your mortal enemy? Whatever your reason, or lack of reason, I guarantee you’ve attacked a Cucco.

And yes, while I’m very aware they have a different name, it is explicitly obvious that they are chickens. Naturally, after you viciously attack them they retaliate (fair play to them) however when attacking you they call for back up and flocks of chickens descend upon you reminiscent of a scene in Hitchcock’s The Birds.

In Ocarina Of Time you can pick up chickens and use their limited flight to help you glide to hard to reach areas, so you can hardly blame them for attacking you. Imagine trying that with a bird of prey or even a seagull. Gulls in British seaside towns are pure evil. In fact, some of us Brits call them “Sky Bastards”.

We take advantage of chickens because they are seemingly unthreatening. In many games such as Red Dead Redemption, we hunt them and they are easy target practice. However, a word of warning to anyone who has ever played Skyrim. Do NOT fire an arrow at one.

My first play through of the game, very early on, I came across the pleasant settlement of Riverwood. I had recently acquired a new bow and decided to test it out on a chicken. This led to multiple bounties being placed on my head and the entire townsfolk turning on me, I couldn’t complete my objective because they were so furious. I had to load a pre-existing save and haven’t fired an arrow at a chicken since.

Clearly being the Dragonborn means nothing to these NPCs who would lay down their lives for a chicken…well, I suppose they are descendants of dinosaurs so maybe that grants them some privilege?

Not all chickens in games have an entire settlement to defend them. In fact some of them can be quite intimidating and make genuinely challenging foes. For instance, the giant, gold, fire breathing chicken in Gears of War 3 – if you’re not familiar with it, believe me I’m not making this up.

At the start of the game, you leave the helicopter to search an area, there just so happens to be a chicken pecking at the floor, minding its own business and if you shoot at it, it transforms into the giant, gold monstrosity which really shouldn’t shock you given the many weird creatures in the franchise, yet somehow it does.

Also in the series is a weapon called the ‘Cluckshot Gun’ which shoots…you guessed it… Ducks. Jokes aside, obviously it does not shoot ducks, it shoots chickens. I’m hilarious. Get over it.

In Gauntlet, if you obtain an item called ‘Pojo’s Egg’ which you can use to temporarily turn into Pojo the fire breathing chicken to burn your enemies to the ground. I never indulged in cheat codes in my youth (unless it was The Sims and I wanted that sweet, Simoleon cash money) but there was a cheat code in Gauntlet enabling players to play as Pojo permanently.

The Wii games, Chicken Blaster and Chicken Shoot have the sole purpose of shooting chickens for points à la Duck Hunt. Except, chickens can’t really fly away like ducks can so don’t really have a chance of escape and I didn’t think chickens were a bird we hunted as a species, we breed them for food. So these games are essentially target practice with living targets. Makes you glad not to be a chicken, huh?

I wouldn’t like to be a chicken in the Fable games either, sure they’re slaughtered for food, raced and they often get underfoot, causing you to kick them out of the way in annoyance but there’s an entire mini-game where the heroine must try to kick one a chicken the furthest distance.

I guess it’s the closest experience to flying that a chicken will ever get so in a way, perhaps we’re doing them a favour by providing a life changing, exhilarating activity for those adrenaline seeking chickens. After all, there are numerous humans who inexplicably enjoy such things as bungee jumping and free falling.

There’s one chicken-centric game that has baffled me for years, it was released in 1993 and is called Alfred Chicken (I can imagine the creator chuckling at their clever play on ‘Chicken Alfredo’ while people looked on aghast, shaking their heads in disapproval at such a poor joke but maybe they kept quiet because they didn’t want to ruffle any feathers…huh? HUH?). The point is, this game is weird and doesn’t make sense, though that seems to be a running theme of late 80s and early 90s games, I mean a blue hedgehog who can run fast?

Digression aside, in Alfred Chicken, you play as a chicken (called Alfred, no less) who must peck balloons to complete a level while avoiding bizarre objects. You also answer secret calls for a giant flower who eventually gifts you jam, which somehow turns Alfred into a weapon, granting him use of a bomb. Because, reasons.

Maybe that’s when our relationship with gaming chickens changed, they became a weird in-joke for gamers and so now we have giant gold chickens, weird chicken costumes/skins and uninspired, obvious ‘cock’ jokes in games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Then again, some of the chickens in games are so formidable I wonder if it’s a commentary on their treatment in the real world, what would chickens like to do to us humans as recompense for our treatment of them? I mean, the Evil Chicken in Runescape dishes out some serious damage and has become somewhat of a legendary creature who is hard to defeat without having a level of at least 110. There’s an entire wiki-page dedicated to it where it’s described as cannibalistic and megalomaniacal.

Speaking of which, there’s an add-on for The Sims 3 called Fowl and Feathers Chicken Coup which features an evil chicken called Charles. You have the option to feed and tend to your chickens of course, but there’s another option ‘Fight With Charles The Evil Chicken’. Choosing it leads to Charles the chicken with his beady, glowing eyes to viciously attack your Sim.

It’s not our fault chickens have become an icon of unnecessary evil in gaming, whether they are ported as evil or we’re just evil towards them. There are Trophies and Achievements that actively encourage us to kill poultry. Modern Warfare 2 has an achievement for example called ‘Colonel Sanderson’ because why use up your ammo on enemies when you could be killing defenceless caged chickens instead?

Clucking clucks. We should probably feel sorry for you, with your pointless wings that cannot sustain actual flight but taste so, so good and your continued oppression by human kind. But you could at least show some damn respect by not getting aggressive when we feel like throwing you or firing an arrow at you! I jest, I jest… and definitely not in fear of an evil chicken uprising one day.

Hey, anything can happen these days, just look the current political climate. Yeah… suddenly veganism is looking a whole lot more appealing.

Its time for the Super team-up you’ve all been waiting for: the sons of Batman and Superman have graduated to their own monthly comic! Writer Peter J. Tomasi and artist Jorge Jimenez introduce you to the adventures of Robin and Superboy, exploring their destiny to follow in their fathers’ footsteps.

SUPER SONS #1, hits shelves 2/15.
FOC is Monday, 1/23.

Lost In London is a live movie that was streamed to 550 theaters in the US and Britain.

Yes, a live movie, not a play, but a movie shot live and streamed live. No retakes… one camera in one continuous 2 hour take.

This was rife with the possibility of catastrophic failure and yet it happened more or less the way it was meant to. Harrelson puts it “No one has ever shot a movie and live broadcast it into cinema’s before… no one has ever been that stupid… until now.”

The idea of shooting a movie live is a daunting one to say the least but streaming it live is adding an almost unrealistic element of danger to the proceedings. If you have ever worked on a movie set you know ALL the things that can go wrong… now imagine that with the world watching you and no second take.

What is Lost In London though? This is a (somewhat) fictionalized account of the night in 2002 that Woody Harrelson had the worst night of his life. He refuses to say just how much of the film really happened that night but does say “More of the film happened than didn’t”.

Harrelson (who also scripted and directed) plays himself in an escalating series of events snowballing out of a single dumb mistake resulting in a police chase, losing his family (almost), beating up his best friend, alienating all of London and finding out that fame is indeed fleeting.

As stated before this is mostly based in reality from a time when Harrelson’s drinking was out of control. Some embellishments are added for comic effect and others for practical ones (for instance Owen Wilson plays himself in this movie but in reality it was Leonardo DiCaprio who was the one Harrelson got into a fist fight with… Leo was unavailable to shoot the movie so it was re-written for Wilson).

Other parts of the movies OBVIOUSLY didn’t happen but are there for thematic effect (Willie Nelson didn’t really appear to Harrelson in his jail cell to help him set his life straight). Bono appearing on a cell phone as himself being so high he is thinking that he is Jamaican probably didn’t happen either.

The film is also a way for Harrelson to work out some demons. Some biting satire on Hollywood stardom and the ghost of being famous and more directly on Harrelson’s own career. Numerous references to his… less than stellar choices of the 1990’s.

This being a live event problems were bound to come about but surprisingly they were mostly minor. A few times you can see little things didn’t happen as planned (Harrelson throwing a newspaper into a fire and missing for example) but the biggest was something that is not even noticeable until it’s pointed out. There is a scene with two police officers attempting to get Harrelson his phone call and one of them leaves… the actor had more lines but forgot he had those lines. Harrelson and the other cop vamp and make the scene work.

Until the Q&A after the movie I had no idea that was not meant to play out that way. Another issue is that the Waterloo Bridge is a key moment to the ending of the film and they almost lost access to the bridge. It turned out that WWII ordnance was found under the bridge FOUR HOURS before the live broadcast and the Royal Navy shut down all access. With no backup bridge this nearly scuttled the production. 2 hours before air time it was cleared.

With this being a single take for 2 straight hours and it being (mostly) in real time Harrelson is in EVERY scene of the film and if he was not engaging this entire thing would not work. Luckily he gives the damn performance of his life here. He owns the screen for (literally) the entire movie. The film is not quite real time as there is one time jump as Harrelson is sleeping off a high in a jail cell but still the camera does not cut away, simply pans to a clock, pans away and pans back to the new time. Simple and yet effective.

This being a Fathom event there was a Q&A with the cast and crew which shed some great light on the production. Prior to the film many famous people shot (on their phones) little messages to Harrelson about how nuts this whole thing was.

Lost In London kind of needed to be seen live though, I wager the DVD release will be awkward. You will know it was shot live but without the live broadcast feel it kind of loses something.

One of the world’s most popular franchises in the history of horror, the Phantasm film series has terrified fans for generations. Well Go USA Entertainment answers the prayers of those fans with the highly anticipated release of THE PHANTASM COLLECTION, a six-disc Blu-ray^™ box set debuting on March 28.  The collection features all five frightening films in the series – PHANTASM: REMASTERED (1979), PHANTASM II (1988), PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD (1994), PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION (1998) and the most recent installment PHANTASM: RAVAGER (2016). In all five films in Don Coscarelli’s iconic series, Mike (Michael Baldwin) faces off against a mysterious grave robber known only as the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) and his lethal arsenal of terrible weapons.

The sixth disc of THE PHANTASM COLLECTION features vintage special features, including “Phantasmagoria” a documentary containing new and archival interviews with cast and crew.  In addition, an announcement on new, never-before-seen bonus materials will be coming soon.

THE PHANTASM COLLECTION includes:

Disc 1: PHANTASM: REMASTERED

Bonus Materials Include:

• Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Don Coscarelli and Stars Michael Baldwin, Angus Scrimm and Bill Thornbury
• Graveyard Carz
• Interviews with Don Coscarelli and Angus Scrimm
• Deleted Scenes
• Cast interviews – Phantasm: Actors Having a Ball
• Phantasm Behind-the-Scenes Home Movies with commentary by Don Coscarelli and Reggie Bannister
• TV Spots
• Radio Spots
• Angus Scrimm Introduction
• Fangoria TV Spot
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery

PHANTASM: REMASTERED Synopsis:
At a funeral, Mike (Michael Baldwin), watches as a tall mortician clad in black (Angus Scrimm) tosses the unburied coffin into a waiting hearse as if it were nothing. Seeking the truth behind this unusual sight, Mike breaks into the mortuary, where he comes face-to-face with the sinister Tall Man. After barely managing to escape with his life, Mike enlists the help of his brother, Jody (Bill Thornbury), and their friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister). Together they set out to uncover the secrets of the Tall Man and those who dwell in his hellish world. PHANTASM: REMASTERED has a runtime of approximately 98 minutes and is rated R for nudity, violence and intense scenes.

Disc 2: PHANTASM II

Bonus Materials Include:

• Audio Commentary with Don Coscarelli, actors Angus Scrimm and Reggie Banister
• The Ball is Back – documentary on the making of Phantasm II
• The Gory Days – an interview with Special Make-up Effects Artist Greg Nicotero
• Deleted Scenes
• Workprint Scenes
• TV Spots
• Theatrical Trailers
• Behind the Scenes
• Still Galleries

PHANTASM II Synopsis:
Released after seven years in a mental hospital, Mike convinces his old pal Reggie to join forces with him to hunt down and destroy the Tall Man once and for all. Mike’s visions lead the two to a quiet little town where a horde of flying killer balls aim to slice and dice their gruesome way through everyone. Exploding with special effects, unparalleled thrills, horror and suspense, PHANTASM II climaxes with a blood-curdling conclusion that you have to see to believe. PHANTASM II has a runtime of approximately 97 minutes and is rated R.

Disc 3: PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD

• Audio Commentary with Stars A. Michael Baldwin and Angus Scrimm
• Phantasm III: Behind-the-Scenes
• Deleted Scene
• Radio Spot
• Still Gallery
• Trailer

PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD Synopsis:
The mutant dwarf creatures are attacking, the silver spheres are flying, and the Tall Man is back with a vengeance! Fifteen years after the original horror classic, writer/producer/director Don Coscarelli reunites brothers Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) and Jody (Bill Thornbury) to help their friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister) destroy the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) once and for all.  PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD has a runtime of approximately 91 minutes and is rated R for violence and gore, and for language and sexuality.

Disc 4: PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION

Bonus Materials Include:

• Audio Commentary with Director Don Coscarelli and Actors Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm
• Phantasm IV: Behind-The-Scenes
• Trailer

PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION Synopsis:
13 years after the original nightmare began, Mike must cross dark dimensions of time and space to discover his origins and those of his nemesis, the evil Tall Man. With only his loyal friend Reggie at hisside, and the spirit of his dead brother to guide him, Mike must finally confront this malevolent embodiment of death. Prepare to be scared witless as the fine line between the living and the dead snaps with a vengeance! PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION has a runtime of approximately 90 minutes and is rated R for horror violence/gore and some strong language.

Disc 5: PHANTASM V: RAVAGER

Bonus Materials Include:

• Audio Commentary with co-writer/director David Hartman and co-writer/producer Don Coscarelli
• Behind the Scenes
• Deleted Scenes
• Phuntasm: Bloopers and Outtakes
• Theatrical Trailer

PHANTASM: RAVAGER Synopsis:
After battling with the Tall Man in Phantasm: Oblivion, a battered Reggie wanders through the desert in search of his missing friend, Mike. After recovering his 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda, Reggie is targeted by two of the Tall Man’s Sentinel Spheres and destroys them. He awakens suddenly to find himself sitting in a wheelchair pushed by none other than the elusive Mike! Although overjoyed by their reunion, Reggie is in this alternate dimension an aged and weary old patient in a psychiatric ward. And only he remembers their battled and bloodied past with the Tall Man. Reggie must travel between dimensions and discern what is reality in order to confront the mysteries at the heart of a decades-long struggle against evil. He is met with new and familiar faces along the way, and an epic showdown on the Tall Man’s home world awaits! PHANTASM V: RAVAGER has a runtime of approximately 86 minutes and is not rated.

Disc 6: BONUS DISC

Bonus Materials Include:

• Phantasmagoria: a documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew
• Phantasmagorical Mystery Tour with your host, Reggie Bannister
• Phantasm Genesis
• Phandom
• Fangoria TV Commercial with Angus Scrimm
• Angus Scrimm 1989 Convention Appearance

For more information, please visit www.wellgousa.com.

Doubleday Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, has acquired a never-before-published Mark Twain children’s story, it was announced today by Mallory Loehr, Senior Vice President & Publisher of the Random House/Golden Books, Doubleday, and Crown Books for Young Readers Group. The story, a fairy tale left unfinished by Twain, will be brought to life by author Philip Stead and illustrator Erin Stead, the creators of the Caldecott Medal–winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee. The book, THE PURLOINING OF PRINCE OLEOMARGARINE, was acquired and edited by Frances Gilbert, Associate Publishing Director, Random House Books for Young Readers, from Tina Wexler at ICM, representing the Mark Twain House & Museum, and Emily van Beek at Folio Jr., representing the author/illustrator team.

THE PURLOINING OF PRINCE OLEOMARGARINE, an eleven-chapter, 152-page illustrated storybook for all ages, will be published on September 26, 2017, with a first printing of 250,000 copies.

The basis of this new work is sixteen pages of Twain’s handwritten notes after telling his young daughters a fairy tale one night in 1879 while the family was staying in Paris, an event he documented in his journal. In 2011, a visiting scholar at the Mark Twain Papers & Project at the University of California at Berkeley spotted the notes in the archives while conducting his own research and recognized their significance. Although Twain told his young daughters countless bedtime stories, made up on the spot as they requested them, these notes are believed to be the only ones he ever jotted down from those sessions.

“Dr. John Bird, noted Twain scholar and author of Mark Twain and Metaphor, brought the text to our attention,” explained Cindy Lovell, executive director at the Mark Twain House & Museum. “He’d been researching another project when he came across this partial story written by Twain for his daughters. We are thrilled to have the Steads joining us to further bring this treasure to life.”

“To publish a new Twain story is an incredible literary event,” says Gilbert. “When I first got the chance to read this unpublished Twain story, I couldn’t believe what I was holding. I’ve admired Erin and Philip Stead’s work since their first book and couldn’t think of a more ideal match for this project. It’s an American dream team.”

THE PURLOINING OF PRINCE OLEOMARGARINE follows a young boy who eats the flower sprouted by a magical seed and gains the ability to talk to animals. From there, the boy and his new animal friends go off on a wild adventure to rescue a kidnapped prince. Though the story was left in fragments and never completed by Twain, it bears many of the hallmarks of his beloved style, in the humor and playfulness and in the quest of a young boy off on his own navigating the adult world.

Philip and Erin Stead, two of today’s most notable names in children’s literature, have completed the text and illustrated the book, framing the narrative as a story “told to me by my friend, Mr. Mark Twain,” and even including occasional interruptions by an imagined meeting over tea between Philip and Twain.

Said Erin of taking on the project, “As an illustrator, not a writer, I can often use the excuse that I can’t find the right words to describe how I am feeling (stunned and honored being the closest and most generic). Luckily I can now turn to Twain, who is quite quotable, to provide a little context and inspiration: ‘I’m not the declining sort. I would take charge of the constellations if I were asked to do it. All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence: then success is sure.’”

Added Philip: “Of course any person in their right mind would be terrified of this project. But having the support of the Twain house allayed some fears…and then I had a good long walk-and-talk with my dog about it, and she assured me I had her full support, and that I was the right man for the job—provided it did not cut into our twice-daily ambles through the neighborhood, mealtimes, or the hours set aside each day for lying on our backs with our bellies in the air.”

Exploring themes of charity, kindness, and bravery in the face of tyranny, with sharply drawn satire and tear-inducing pathos, this extraordinary combination of talent both classic and contemporary reaches its full potential as an old-fashioned—yet thoroughly modern—fully illustrated storybook that readers of every age will treasure. A monumental event not only in the world of children’s literature, but for literature overall, the publication of THE PURLOINING OF PRINCE OLEOMARGARINE will take place during the 150th anniversary of Mark Twain’s very first book, a collection of twenty-seven previously published stories titled The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches.

For more details visit rhcbooks.com

Legendary filmmaking icon, Roger Corman, is back with his most outrageous film yet in this sensational, action-packed and darkly humorous reboot of the original Death Race 2000! It’s the year 2050 and America is controlled by an all-powerful corporate government ruled by The Chairman (Malcolm McDowell). The masses have been brainwashed with violent virtual-reality entertainment. The event of the year is the Death Race, in which a motley crew of violent drivers compete in a cross-country road race, scoring points for shamelessly running people over and driving each other off the road. The reigning champion and fan favorite, Frankenstein (Manu Bennett), who’s half-man half-machine, wants to take the crown, but his rebel spy co-pilot threatens his legacy.

And we’re giving away 5 copies!

To enter, please send an email with the subject header “DEATH RACE” to geekcontest @ gmail dot com and answer the following:

In the original Death Race 2000, what actor played Frankenstein?

Please include your name and address (U.S. Residents only. You must be 18 years old).

Only one entry per person and a winner will be chosen at random.

Contest ends at 11:59 PM EST on January 30th, 2016.

Welcome back to Graphic Breakdown the Friday Edition!

Here are some great titles to get you going for your weekend!

Time Share
Written by Patrick Keller
Illustrated by Dan McDaid
Published by Oni Press

Well, this was a delight. A nice, clean read from start to finish, this book is wonderful.; a good book that may slip under some people’s radar.

After a time bending adventure, Ollie Finch was set to go home in his uncle’s rocket car time machine when everything went sideways.

He’s at the center of a maelstrom of paradoxes that threatens to destroy the multiverse.

Fortunately, Ollie’s fellow time traveling friends might just help straighten things out: Teddy, the brain-damaged cyborg assassin; Bax, the soldier from the post-apocalyptic future sent to stop Teddy’s mission; Preston, the 19th-century inventor; Curtis, self-proclaimed Time Master; and Roxy, Ollie’s scorned ex-girlfriend.

Can this band of losers stop Phil, the world-conquering artificial intelligence… in time?

This book is well written by Keller. Likewise, the drawings are really nice and are very smooth. I have to say pick this up! It’s very enjoyable, and a nice book that is rather unexpected.

RATING: A-

The Dregs #1
Written by Lonnie Nadler and Zac Thompson
Illustrated by Eric Zawadzki
Published by Black Mask Comics

Well, this is a fairly disturbing title. And I loved it.

This is another rare book in the comic book landscape and I suggest picking it up!

A gentrified city. Its homeless population restricted to six square blocks called The Dregs.

When people start disappearing, a drug-addled homeless man obsessed with detective fiction becomes addicted to solving the mystery.

Equal parts Raymond Chandler and Don Quixote set in a thriving metropolis that literally cannibalizes the homeless, The Dregs is the first homeless meta noir ever made.

It’s a cool comic that could take off. The writing is fairly sharp and the art is very accomplished.

Black Mask had been pumping out some good titles. This is another one on their repertoire.

RATING: A-

When Life Hands You Lemons, Check For Lymes
Written and Illustrated by Phil Gerigscott
Purchase HERE.

Since Jeffery Brown went to draw Star Wars comics, there is a void that has been left to fill on the bio comic market, however small it is. Gerigscott fills that gap in pretty well here with this comic, available through Esty.

This comic is something special from Gerigscott.

In it, He explores almost in journal like form, about his bout with Lyme disease. It’s funny. It’s sweet. It’s roughly drawn and semi-sad. I loved it from start to finish and I applaud Gerigscott for really going the distance here.

The book stems from a crowdfunding campaign that was successful. And it deserved to be. Smart from start to finish. Pick this book up. It’s pretty damn good.

RATING: A

Johnny Appleseed, Green Dreamer of the American Frontier  
Written by Paul Buhle
Illustrated by Noah Van Sciver
Published by Alternative Comics

I love the work of Noah Van Sciver. He’s a great artist doing some great work. This is no exception. Here, he hands the writing duties to Buhle. Buhle is a fantastic writer and we are in good hands. Let’s go!

The first scholarly comic art biography of the legendary John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, who made himself famous by spreading the seeds of apple trees from Pennsylvania to Indiana.  He was also an early follower of theologian Emanuel Swedenborg. Along with apple trees, he offered the seeds of nonviolence and vegetarianism, good relations with Indians, and peace among the settlers themselves.

The story of John Chapman operates as a kind of counter-narrative to the glorification of violence, conquest, and the “winning of the West” in the story of the Westward movement, and clears up many of the half-myths of Johnny Appleseed’s own life and work.

His apples, for instance, were prized for many reasons, but mainly for the making of hard cider, portable alcohol. His method of operation was a form of land speculation, purchasing potentially fertile acres on contract (such as “bottom land”), planting saplings, reselling the land, and then moving onward. He had less interest in becoming prosperous than in spreading his own gospel, based on visions of peace and love.

The art is amongst Van Sciver’s best. I loved this book so much. It’s intelligent and well done. Pick it up. It’s something else.

RATING: A

It’s a new week, and that means new toys from Diamond Select Toys! Already at your local comic shop, DST has shipped their latest Marvel Select action figure, Odin the Destroyer, as well as the first two Mallrats Select action figures! Plus a new DC Gallery PVC figure of Black Canary, and our first Beetlejuice product, a cool pint glass! Find a shop at comicshoplocator.com, and reserve yours today!

Beetlejuice Movie Reelware Pint Glass

A Diamond Select Toys release! Troubled by the living? Is death a problem, and not the solution? Unhappy with eternity? Then pour yourself a drink in this movie-inspired pint glass, kick back and call Beetlejuice! This pint glass features the original advertisement that prompted Barbara and Adam Maitland to call the revered bio-exorcist in an attempt to reclaim their home, and kicks off a new line of merchandise based on the classic Tim Burton film Beetlejuice. Packaged in a full-color window box. (Item #AUG162571, SRP: $10.99)

DC Gallery Justice League Black Canary PVC Figure

A Diamond Select Toys release! The heroines of the DC Animated Universe are expanding their roster! As seen on Justice League Unlimited, this 9-inch scale PVC figure of the Black Canary depicts Dinah Lance unleashing a sonic scream at her opponent, wearing her classic, comic-inspired leather jacket and tights. Figure is in scale to all Gallery and Femme Fatales PVC figures, and comes packaged in a full-color window box. Sculpted by Varner Studios! (Item #AUG162555, SRP: $45.00)

Mallrats Select Action Figures Series 1 Asst.

A Diamond Select Toys release! They’re not here to shop, they’re not here to work, they’re just here! Finally, after 22 years, fully poseable action figures of the cast of Kevin Smith’s sophomore(ic) masterpiece Mallrats have arrived! Jay and Brodie are the first two in the series, each with character-specific accessories – sock full of quarters and baseball bat for Jay; chocolate pretzel and giant cookie for Brodie – as well as diorama bases depicting different stores in the mall! Each figure features approximately 16 points of articulation and the actor’s likeness. Packaged in display-ready Select packaging, with spine artwork for shelf reference. Sculpted by Patrick Piggott! (Item #JUN162385, SRP: $149.94/case)

Jay Figure (Item #JUN162386, SRP: $24.99)

Brodie Figure (Item #JUN162387, SRP: $24.99)

Marvel Select Odin the Destroyer Action Figure

A Diamond Select Toys Release! Prepare to be destroyed! The next 7-inch-scale Marvel Select action figure is the Destroyer, the massive Asgardian automaton that regularly menaces the Mighty Thor! Measuring approximately 9 inches tall with 16 points of articulation, this spiked powerhouse comes with the powerful Odinsword, as well as an interchangeable head, revealing the one-eyed face of the All-Father, Odin, from the times he has worn the armor in battle! Whether you choose to display him as the Destroyer or as Odin, he’s more than a match for your Marvel Select Thor, or Hulk, or even Juggernaut! Packaged in the display-ready Select packaging, with spine artwork for shelf reference. Sculpted by Jean St. Jean!

(Item #JUL162624, SRP: $24.99)

Find your nearest comic shop at comicshoplocator.com!

From Nick Cutter, the author whose horror novels Stephen King has praised as “old school horror at its best” and “scary as hell, and well written, to boot” comes his latest, Little Heaven.

Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and Stephen King’s It, Little Heaven is a haunting novel in which a trio of mismatched mercenaries is hired by a young woman for a deceptively simple task: check in on her nephew, who may have been takin against his will to a remote New Mexico backwoods settlement—what some may call a cult—named Little Heaven.

Shortly after they arrive, things begin to turn ominous. There are stirrings in the woods and over the treetops—and above all else, the brooding shape of a monolith known as the Black Rock casts its terrible pall.

Paranoia and distrust soon grip the settlement. Escape routes are gradually cut off as events spiral towards madness. Hell—or the closest thing to it – invades Little Heaven. All present here are now forced to take a stand and fight back, but whatever has set its dark eye on Little Heaven is marshaling its powers – and it wants them all.

A literary horror novel Little Heaven delivers a dark, frightening story that horror fans crave—but Cutter also digs deeper, examining the very core of the human condition, what defines good or evil, and the lengths humans will go for a chance at redemption.

And we’re proud to be able to share an excerpt from the book, below.

An excerpt from

LITTLE HEAVEN

by Nick Cutter

 

THERE IS A SAYING that goes: Evil never dies; it merely sleeps. And when that evil awakes, it can do so soundlessly—or almost so.

Even insects can scream.

The little aphid did, though at a register too high for any human ear to perceive. It toiled in the root system of a cactus plant growing on the edge of the New Mexico desert. An insect so small that it was practically invisible to the naked eye.

This was how it would begin again. The wheel coming around.

While the aphid fed on sugars deposited in the cactus roots, something curled up from the blackest recesses of the earth. It slipped inside the aphid’s body. If there was any pain—and yes, there would be—the insect was unable to articulate its agony beyond that thin scream.

The aphid trundled up the root stem, through the loose-packed sand, up onto one of the cactus’s fleshy leaves. There it encountered a honey ant, which fed on the honeydew that aphids produce.

Their antennae touched briefly. Whatever had stolen inside the aphid slipped soundlessly into the ant—something as inessential as the smoke billowing from the chimney of a charnel house.

The aphid erupted with a tiny pressurized hiss.

The ant returned to its hill, skittering through a fall of lemony afternoon sunlight. It disappeared down the hole. Shortly afterward, the hill emptied, ants pouring forth in furious multitudes.

The ants organized themselves in a skirmish line like soldiers on the march, and proceeded determinedly until they came to the burrow of a meadow mouse. They filed down the burrow, thousand upon thousand. There came an agonized squeal.

Presently the mouse emerged. It hopped and shook, its skin squirming. The mouse spun a few agitated circles before righting itself and dashing into the dry grass. It paused here and there to gnaw at its flesh, drawing blood. In time, it crossed paths with a desert shrew. Moments later there arose a high, mindless shriek.

The shrew encountered an opossum, which in turn encountered a black-tailed jackrabbit, which hurled itself screechingly into the jaws of a kit fox, which thrashed and gibbered and scurried into a den that housed a family of jaguarundis. More shrieks cresting across the arid expanse of sand.

Night fell over the desert. In the darkness, something shambled from the den. The moon touched upon its strange extrusions, its flesh shining wetly in the pale moonlight. It breathed through many mouths and gazed through a cluster of eyes lodged in a knot of fatted, bloodstreaked fur. It locomoted on many legs, each of them foreshortened, compressed like the bellows of an accordion; the creature, whatever it was, scuttled in the manner of a crab. This abomination carried itself across the sands, moving stealthily, its quartet of snouts dilated to the breeze.

A solitary gray wolf sat on a rocky outcropping, scanning the mesa.

An old wolf, much scarred, an ear torn off in some long-ago territorial battle. The wolf spotted movement. A shape shambled into view. This thing moved as though wounded, and yet the wolf ’s predatory instincts said, No, no, no—this thing was not hurt. It was . . . something else.

The wolf loped off to investigate. It was wary but unafraid. If this other creature could bleed, the wolf would bleed it. It had no fear. The wolf was apex. It had never encountered a creature that was its equal, not once in its long life.

 

 

HOURS LATER, the thing, now substantially larger, shuffled to a patch of sand. A patch dramatically darker than the surrounding earth. The trees sprouting from its black and oily surface were gnarled and stooped, yet grimly alive in a way that indicated suffering.

Diligently, the thing began to dig. The hole widened and grew deeper. The sand became darker until it was obsidian, as if it had been soaked in tar.

The creature encountered something buried in that unnatural blackness. Its many snouts snaffled, its mouths groaning and squealing.

Then: that something moved. A great shuddering exhale. The creature backpedaled madly, scrambling out of the pit.

From someplace in the vaulted sky came the screech of a bird of prey.

 

Petty Shughrue awoke in the still hours of night with her skin rashed in gooseflesh.

Pet. My sweet Pet.

She sat up. The wind hissed through chinks in the farmhouse walls, between the joists her father had imprecisely hammered home.

Come, my Pet. Come see, come see, come see . . .

The voice was inviting, honeyed. Yet something lurked behind its sweetness. Corrupted and lewd, like a dead man’s face staring up from the bottom of a shallow pool.

She swung her legs off the bed; the pine boards were cool on her bare feet. She wore the nightdress her mother had sewn for her before she was even big enough to wear it. Her mother had always been two steps ahead—it was in her nature to make Petty a new nightdress before she had outgrown the old one. Her mother wasn’t like that anymore, but Petty preferred to remember her that way.

Her throat itched with thirst. She walked into the kitchen, passing the support post where her father recorded her height every birthday, notching it with a Magic Marker. Petty’s feet whispered on the floor—odd, as usually the creaking timbers woke her father, who was such a light sleeper that the sound of a sparrow settling on a windowsill was enough to stir him.

From somewhere far away—like a musical voice from the edge of a dream—she heard the trilling notes of a flute.

She stepped outside. The night was cool, the grass silky under her bare feet. The moon was slit by a thin night cloud. She walked to the water pump and set the bucket under its spout. The pump squealed as she worked its handle. Water sloshed out, silvered by the moonlight as it splashed into the bucket . . . except it didn’t look like water. Too thick, with a coppery undernote.

My Pet, oh, my Pet, sweet as sun-warmed honey . . .

She dipped a ladle into the bucket and raised it to her lips, although something buried deep inside her fought the instinct. Heavy, salty, metallic, the way she imagined molten iron might taste. She drank more. It was good, though it did not slake her. If anything, her thirst intensified.

Scuttling movement to her left. She swung toward it, alarmed.

Something was standing there. Standing? No, it slumped. Huge and shapeless, like a heap of quarry stones covered in burlap. Its parts appeared to move independently of one another, the whole mass hissing and emitting thin squeals and murmurs. The head of a wolf hung off its flanks—it looked as if it had been killed and decapitated and slung on its side . . . but Petty sensed the wolf ’s head was somehow a part of this thing, of a piece with the rest of its lunatic assembly.

This living nightmare shambled closer. Petty’s skin went cold all over.

Something else was standing behind that awful mass. A long weedy shape, more human than not, a twist of living smoke. It looked a little like a man’s body that had been melted and elongated like taffy.

This figure did not speak, but Petty could feel it. The thing gave off a brooding wickedness—yet it also struck her as somehow bored, as if it had grown weary of all the horrible things it had seen and done. Petty was filled with the sense that this thing was utterly, fundamentally malevolent—shot through to the core with it—and so, weary or not, it could only continue to be and to do what it had always been and done.

“My Pet,” it said. “Ooooh, my sweet morsel . . .”

It lifted something to its lips. A serrate-bone flute.

When it began to play, Petty had no choice but to follow it.

 

 

MICAH HENRY SHUGHRUE awoke into a darkness so thick it was like all nights folded together.

He sat up in bed with an unspeakable fear crazing through his vitals—a stark wash of terror, bubonic rats scuttling through his veins. He reached for his wife. Ellen’s breaths came unrushed, the bones of her wrist frail and birdlike under the thin stretching of skin.

He plucked his eye from the bowl on the nightstand. He never slept with it in. But he didn’t like Petty to see him without it in—the flesh inside the socket cured like pig leather. He thumbed it into place and said, “I will look in on Pet.”

Ellen would not answer. She never did. Her eyes were open—they almost always were nowadays—but invisible under the two moisturized pads wedged beneath her eyelids.

Micah stood in his sleeping flannels. Their daughter, Petty, slept in a room off the kitchen. The house was silent as he made his way through it. He eased his daughter’s door open. Instantly he felt it. An absence. That clotted, stinging darkness holding nothing at all.

Micah’s breath rasped as his remaining eye adjusted. The blankets had been folded back at one corner, as if his daughter had slid out for a drink of water—she did this sometimes in the summer when the heat lay leaden inside the walls. One evening he’d found her at the pump, the hem of her nightdress wet with water. He had chastised her, not wanting her to make a habit of being out of doors at night. But the water was cooler from the pump, she’d said, so much better than the tepid stuff that ran from the kitchen tap.

“Pet?” he said, sure that he would get no reply. His mind was quickly turning to the solidity of her disappearance.

He had been dreading this moment since the day she was born.

He moved swiftly through the house. She was nowhere inside. The back door was ajar. He stepped outside. The fields rolled away under the moon, flat and endless. The Black Mountain range tilted against the horizon.

“Pet?” he called.

The wind curled around his ankles. He went back inside. He stepped into his boots and donned his duster, then went back out.

He gazed across the moon-silvered field. Beyond it, miles off, rose knuckled hillsides that, come summer, would be clad in flaming pokeweed. The barn door was open—had he forgotten to shut it? He crossed the field and stepped into the barn. He felt his way through the shuddering horseflesh and climbed a ladder to the hayloft.

The trunk was where he’d left it, covered in a horsehair blanket. He had not gazed upon it in years. It held his old life. That was a time best left shut.

The trunk’s innards smelled of gun oil and old blood. He retrieved one pistol, then the next. They felt good in his hands. Like brothers, like sisters, like homecoming.

Both guns were highly modified. Russian Tokarevs bored out to chamber .45 rounds. Their barrels had been filed to four inches. Micah had also ground off the sights—sights were useless at close range, and anyway, they might snag when clearing concealment. One gun had a mother-of pearl grip; the other, sandalwood. He loaded them and slid them into the pockets of his duster.

Outside, the fields lay spectral in the witching hours. Ground fog ribboned along the earth. Micah marched toward a forest of piñon and ponderosa pines at the edge of his property—past the tree line, the land was still wild.

I should not have closed my eye, he thought. Should not have let my guard down.

Fifteen years. A long time to keep one’s guard up. Hellishly long for even the hardest of men. That man can try to sleep with one eye open, keeping watch over those he loves and fosters . . . but every man has to sleep sometime.

And he’d felt it coming, hadn’t he? Something gathering toward his family—a feeling not unlike the thunder of hooves as a stampede approaches. He might as well have tried to outrun his own skin. You cannot outfox the devil. You may be able to stay his approach if you’re lucky and a little crazy, but in the end, his black eye will ferret you out.

A tatter of cloth hung from a piñon branch. A pattern of cabbage flowers, faded from washing. Petty’s nightdress.

Micah stepped into the trees, treading on a carpet of brown needles. His body ached. His knees were about cooked and his arms felt heavy. Age makes fools of us all. There was nothing to track—no blood, thank Christ, and his daughter’s bare feet would leave no impression. His heart thumped ponderously in his chest, but he walked with care, his working eye half lidded as though he might fall back asleep. The fear he had felt upon waking, the fear that had spiked when he discovered his daughter’s bed empty, was now gone. He cursed his own inner coolness—the very trait that had distinguished him in his past life.

Do I not care enough for my daughter to feel true panic? What other father would react this way, under these same circumstances?

He came upon a clearing. A shape stood in the fall of moonlight. It was black, as if its body had been carved from the surrounding night. It was unmoving, but Micah could tell that its eyes, so many of them, were focused on him with a commingling of baleful mockery and something that smacked of pity: the flat stare of a cottonmouth as it gazed upon a field mouse.

“Give her back,” Micah said.

The thing shuffled forward. Its body rippled as if in delight. It gave off an odor that reminded Micah of the night, years ago, when he had awoken to hear scratching inside the walls at a hotel in Carson City. There was a hole the size of a thumbnail where two walls met; carpenter ants—the most enormous he’d ever seen—spilled through the hole, numberless in their multitudes, sheeting down the plaster like bristling dark molasses. They carried with them the same dry, festering stink he smelled now—metallic, vinegary, somehow vulgar.

The thing issued a gargling hack. Was it trying to speak? It capered and sloshed; its body teemed with quarrelsome movements. The sense of déjà vu was overwhelming; he was nauseated by it. This had happened before, all of it. Yet it had the feel of a dream, something that had once occurred in a fantasyland—someplace far away and long, long ago.

“Give her back,” he said again.

The thing made a clotted rattle that might have been its attempt at laughter. Its head, or one of its heads, cocked to one side—too far, as if its neck had been snapped and had surrendered to the bulbous weight of its skull . . .

But Micah knew it wasn’t a head he was looking at—heads were appendages gracing men and beasts, and this thing was neither of those. Micah had not dealt with such creatures in so, so long. Staring at its shuddering shape filled him with exhaustion so dreadful that it was as if the hollows of his bones had been flooded with lead.

The thing shook with what could be mistaken for mirth, the ribbed and fatty texture of its body jiggling. Why was he speaking to it? He knew where Petty was—or would soon be, anyway. He spat on the browned pine needles and reached for his smoke wagons.

“What in hell do I need you for?”

His hands lit up with thunder. Bullets tore into the thing. Parts of its body ripped free and spun into the dark. The creature slumped to the ground and attempted to crawl or flop toward Micah, heaving itself forward in torturous paroxysms. Micah paused, the gunpowder stinging his nose, and took careful aim. He plugged the final four rounds into what he felt to be its skull, or skulls. The thing jerked and bucked. Then it stopped, all told.

Micah slammed fresh clips into his pistols. He holstered one and approached the thing with the other one drawn.

The creature lay prone, its body issuing a queer hum. Putrid fumes carried off it. Meat from many species of animal all crushed together, the bones jutting slantwise and the exposed fatty tissues shining butter-yellow in the moonlight. He spied the crumpled head of a jaguarundi that had been stitched through some horrific process to the shell of an armadillo. There were elements of birds, of fish, of serpents—and a swath of tawny flesh that might have once draped the skull of a luckless hiker. The corrugated canvas of flesh and fur was maggot-ridden and pocked with ichor-filled boils.

The head of a wolf hung off one side; its eyes had been sucked out and added to the muscat bunch that stared woodenly from the middle of the thing’s chest.

Micah had no inkling how these atrocities came to be. He knew them only as the handmaidens of his old nemesis. He couldn’t guess at the wicked animus filling their bodies. The hum intensified. The heap of corrupted meat convulsed. Micah stepped back. One of the thing’s skulls—eyeless, featureless, nothing but a bloated bladder of mismatched organ

meats and pelts—swelled and threatened to burst . . .

And then it did. It ripped raggedly apart. Insects poured out. Weevils and bark beetles and deer ticks, millipedes and sightless moths, ladybugs with blackly diseased wings. The thing deflated as the bugs deserted it in a scuttle of legs and carapaces and wriggling antennae—

From somewhere in the night, distant and dimming:

The trill of a flute.

Little Heaven is available from Gallery Books

Emily Blunt (Sicario, Edge of Tomorrow) delivers a riveting performance as Rachel, a woman devastated by divorce, who spends her daily commute fantasizing about the seemingly perfect couple who live in a house that her train passes every day.  The mystery unfolds as she becomes increasingly un-hinged and serves as the unreliable sole witness to a tragic disappearance in Director Tate Taylor’s (The Help, 
Get on Up) suspenseful film adaption that Entertainment Weekly has hailed “the darkest, sexiest, most daring thriller of the year.” The Girl on the Train Blu-ray and DVD includes never-before-seen deleted and extended scenes and exclusive bonus features allowing audiences to go behind the scenes with the cast for the ultimate in-home movie experience.

Blunt heads up the talented all-star cast that includes Rebecca Ferguson (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation), Haley Bennett (The Magnificent Seven), Justin Theroux (“The Leftovers”), Luke Evans (Dracula Untold), Edgar Ramirez (Joy), Allison Janney (The Help, Spy), Laura Prepon (“Orange is the New Black”) and Lisa Kudrow (“The Comeback”).

“ALL THINGS END…”

Dynamite proudly provides the first teaser for a spectacular new comics event slated for April 2017

Hailed as “gripping, powerful, and epic ” (Scott Mantz, “Access Hollywood”) Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis’ (Forrest Gump, Cast Away) seductive thriller ALLIED makes its home entertainment debut on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand February 28, 2017 from Paramount Home Media Distribution.  The film arrives two weeks early on Digital HD February 14.

Oscar winners Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard star as Max Vatan and Marianne Beauséjour, two of the world’s deadliest spies, who fall in love while undercover on a top-secret mission and marry during World War II.  But when Max learns his wife may be secretly conspiring with the enemy, he has only 72 hours to prove her innocence and save his family before he must do the unthinkable.  The film features an outstanding supporting cast  including Lizzy Caplan (“Masters of Sex”), Jared Harris (“The Crown”), August Diehl (Inglourious Basterds) and Matthew Goode (“Downton Abbey”).

The ALLIED 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray Combo Packs include over an hour of behind-the-scenes special features, with in-depth looks at the film’s production design, costumes, cast, visual effects, vehicles, music and more.

ALLIED Blu-ray Combo Pack

The ALLIED Blu-ray is presented in 1080p high definition with English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Portuguese 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.  The combo pack includes access to a Digital HD copy of the film as well as the following:

Blu-ray

• Feature film in high definition
• Bonus Content:
  • Story of Allied
  • From Stages to the Sahara: The Production Design of Allied
  • Through the Lens: Directing with Robert Zemeckis
  • A Stitch in Time: The Costumes of Allied
  • ‘Til Death Do Us Part: Max and Marianne
  • Guys and Gals: The Ensemble Cast
  • Lights, Pixels, ACTION! The Visual Effects of Allied
  • Behind the Wheel: The Vehicles of Allied
  • Locked and Loaded: The Weapons of Allied
  • That Swingin’ Sound: The Music of Allied

ALLIED 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack

Fans can enjoy the ultimate viewing experience with the 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack, which includes the Blu-ray detailed above, as well as an Ultra HD Disc presented in 4K Ultra HD with English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Portuguese 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description with English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. The Combo Pack also includes access to a Digital HD copy of the film.

The Blu-ray Combo Pack and 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack available for purchase include a Digital HD Version of the film that can be accessed through UltraViolet, a way to collect, access and enjoy movies.  With UltraViolet, consumers can add movies to their digital collection in the cloud, and then stream or download them—reliably and securely—to a variety of devices.

ALLIED Single-Disc DVD

The single-disc DVD is presented in widescreen enhanced for 16:9 TVs with English 5.1 Dolby Digital, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.  The disc includes the feature film in standard definition.

AlliedMovie.com

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In this interplanetary adventure, a space shuttle embarks on the first mission to colonize Mars, only to discover after takeoff that one of the astronauts is pregnant. Shortly after landing, she dies from complications while giving birth to the first human born on the red planet – never revealing who the father is. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Gardner Elliot – an inquisitive, highly intelligent boy who reaches the age of 16 having only met 14 people in his very unconventional upbringing. While searching for clues about his father, and the home planet he’s never known, Gardner begins an online friendship with a street smart girl in Colorado named Tulsa. When he finally gets a chance to go to Earth, he’s eager to experience all of the wonders he could only read about on Mars – from the most simple to the extraordinary. But once his explorations begin, scientists discover that Gardner’s organs can’t withstand Earth’s atmosphere.  Eager to find his father, Gardner escapes the team of scientists and joins with Tulsa on a race against time to unravel the mysteries of how he came to be, and where he belongs in the universe.

For your chance to attend an advance screening of the STX Entertainment film The Space Between Us on Tuesday, January 31^st at 7:00PM at AMC Boston Common, click HERE.

From director Peter Chelsom and starring Gary Oldman, Asa Butterfield, Carla Gugino and Britt Robertson, The Space Between Us arrives in theaters February 3rd.

#thespacebetweenus