Last week, Netflix cancelled it’s original series Sense8. The sci-fier with a large geek following was a critical darling, who considered the drama gripping and innovative, as well as progressive in its many themes of discrimination, pansexuality, transgender and gay rights, just to name a few.

Unfortunately, it was also expensive.

“After 23 episodes, 16 cities and 13 countries, the story of the Sense8 cluster is coming to an end,” VP of Original Content Cindy Holland said in a statement

Created by Lana and Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski, the sci-fier followed a group of eight individuals throughout the globe as the multinational cast discover they can share each other’s thoughts, feelings and lives.

Starring Aml Ameen, Doona Bae, Jamie Clayton, Tina Desai, Tuppence Middleton, Max Riemelt, Miguel Ángel Silvestre and Brian J. Smith, the show managed to last two eye-popping seasons before getting the axe from the streaming service.

However, fanboys being fanboys and with great sci-fi being a rarity, a petition was immediately drawn up and passed around. In addition to the petition, fans attempted to rise a grass roots campaign by using the hashtags #RenewSense8 and #BringBackSense8, but with little luck.

In a statement on Facebook, Netflix reps stated:

“To our Sense8 family . . . We’ve seen the petitions. We’ve read the messages. We know you want to #RenewSense8, and we wish we could #BringBackSense8 for you. The reason we’ve taken so long to get back to you is because we’ve thought long and hard here at Netflix to try to make it work but unfortunately we can’t. Thank you for watching and hope you’ll stay close with your cluster around the world. #SensatesForever.”

The petition, which nailed over half a million signatures, was also killed, but with plenty of remorse, from chief content officer Ted Sarandos.

“They did a beautiful show… the audience was very passionate, but not large enough to support the economics of something that big, even on our platform,” said the exec at the Producers Guild of America conference.

“A big expensive show for a huge audience is great! A big, expensive show for a tiny audience is hard even in our model to make that work very long.”

And alas, expensive it was. At one point, the show was said to carry a $9 million price tag per episode, making the series one of the most expensive in the history of the boob tube. At that price, the show become the streaming services’ biggest flop, rivaling previous “winner” Marco Polo.

Now in the wake of the cancellation, like so many shows caught unprepared for not returning, the series ends on a cliffhanger. It is unknown at this time if the show will ever be resolved.

Will Sense8 pull a Quantum Leap, leaving fans in flux for the decades that follow? Or will it resolve its storylines a year, five years, or in the case of Twin Peaks, 26 years after the fact?

Only time and a streaming service or network with deep pockets can tell for sure.

Prepare for more brainy adventures as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment brings iZOMBIE: The Complete Third Season to DVD on October 3, 2017. From executive producers Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars, 90210, Party Down) and Diane Ruggiero-Wright (Veronica Mars, The Ex List), The CW’s hit series, that nearly two million people are tuning into weekly*, stars Rose McIver (Once Upon A Time, Masters of Sex), Malcolm Goodwin (Breakout Kings), Rahul Kohli (Eastenders), Robert Buckley (One Tree Hill), David Anders (Once Upon A Time, The Vampire Diaries), and Aly Michalka (Hellcats, Easy A). The 3-disc DVD set includes all 13 episodes from the third season, plus deleted scenes and the 2016 Comic-Con Panel.

To accommodate fan requests, iZOMBIE: The Complete Third Season is also available on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Archive Collection. The Blu-ray release includes all bonus features on the DVD, and is also arriving October 3, 2017. Warner Archive Blu-ray releases are found at Amazon.com and all online retailers.

Will Seattle become the capital of a zombie homeland? In season three, Liv has discovered there are more zombies living in Seattle than she previously believed, including a private military contractor employing a zombie army that is preparing for the day humans learn of their existence. Major finds acceptance in this army, and Liv and Clive investigate the murder of a zombie family that may set off an all-out zombie-human war. Ravi’s former boss at the Center for Disease Control shows up in Seattle to investigate the Max Rager massacre. Blaine finds living as a human with no memory of his evil past is more blessing than curse. Peyton pulls at a thread in one of her cases that may lead to the villain that’s pulling all the strings. This action-packed season will follow Liv, as she takes on the traits of a dominatrix, a Jackass-style stunt man, an office gossip, a pre-school teacher, a conspiracy theorist, a dungeon master, and more.

“After three strong seasons, iZombie continues to have ravenous fans who are always hungry for more” said Rosemary Markson, WBHE Senior Vice President, Television Marketing. “We think the loyal fan base will be very pleased with the special features and the 13 visionary episodes from season three.”

BONUS FEATURES

• iZombie: 2016 Comic-Con Panel
• Deleted Scenes

These days, my pop culture life has been filled with wonder.

On the Friday opening night of Wonder Woman, you would have found me in the theater. My wife wore her Wonder Woman shirt, red with the yellow double-W across the chest.

The theater was packed, so we ended up in seats just a little too close to the screen. Close enough that we had to tilt our heads upward at Diana’s looming visage. But it worked out just fine, as this was a movie that deserved some awe.

And wonder we did at this very enjoyable film.

Themyscira itself was a wonder, creating something we haven’t seen before in these modern superhero films,a land of women training, running, sparring, smashing! Look, it was pretty badass, and it served as a preview of Wonder Woman’s fighting style while giving us a glimpse into Diana’s psychology. She fangirls over her fierce general aunt, Antiope, and the tales of the Amazons’ adventures in the outside world.

I wanted so much more time there with the Amazons, and to see them do more than prepare for war. I wanted to see the Amazons sing, dance, love. I wanted to hear the black Amazons speak, not just the nanny. (Really?)

I didn’t need for them to dress one as a deer and the others chase her, truss her up and pretend-eat her like in William Moulton Marston and H.G. Peter’s original vision, but I wouldn’t have minded.

In the DC Comics films, we finally had some vibrant color – those white sands, the blue-gem ocean, the gold, bronze and browns of the Amazonian garb. How about that glowing grotto in which Diana finds Steve Trevor hanging out (heh)? Even in dreary London, full of that gun-metal blue-grey that denotes realism in conventional filmmaking, Etta Candy’s red curls were irrepressible. And that’s before we see that lasso of truth shining in neon yellow.

And while I am not much on slow motion, here it allowed for us to stare in wonder for some fan service done right. Wonder Woman’s run through the No Man’s Land served as the costume reveal and personal transformation that you expect in a superhero origin movie. But it was so much more than that, this time.

Surely, comic book fans love the reveal, of seeing their fantasy made flesh on the big screen. But Wonder Woman carried a special burden and pride. This is a world in which we haven’t had a female superhero headline a film since 1984’s Supergirl. Yet we’ve had nine Batman movies, seven Supermans, six Spider-Mans, three Thors, Blades and Wolverines, while the chief superpowered woman stood on the sideline with bupkis.

That ain’t right.

So when it was time for Wonder Woman to emerge, Patty Jenkins fought to keep in the No Man’s Land scene and give Diana all the glory. In that moment we saw Diana truly transform into Wonder Woman as a peacekeeper drawing the Germans’ fire, as the sparks fly off her bracelets, as she withstands the hail of gunfire on her shield, the soldiers firing in fury and terror. The slow motion also pays off as Diana goes on the offense, showing off Diana’s physical strength with each blow.

This wasn’t sexy waif-fu. It was something else, watching a female hero act through a camera without the male gaze.

The film’s final battle between Wonder Woman and Ares is its weakest part. Even so, we see Diana undergo one more transformation, as she accepts her godhood to defeat the god of war. With Steve dead, Diana’s love invites grief and rage. But by not giving in to the rage, Wonder Woman absorbs Ares’ hate-filled god lightning and redirects it back upon himself.

Wonder Woman’s greatest power is love. Her pursuit of justice is through love. This is key to the character, and they got it.

I looked over at my wife at the end of the film, and she was in tears.

Change the players, change the game.

Sometimes, watching diverse people change that game leaves tears in your eyes. Other times, it leaves them vibrating in your skull with wonder.

Such was I when the first trailer dropped for Black Panther.

It wasn’t enough to see Andy Serkis and Martin Freeman in the same scene – Gollum and Bilbo Baggins sitting across from each other.

As the Marvel Studios title card appeared, we got the drums and chirps of Run The Jewels’ “Legend Has It.”

What!

From there, the thing just takes off. We hear discussions of hunters and conquerors. Of Wakanda as the true City of Gold, looking akin to Nova Prime and Asgard, but on planet-freaking-Earth. In central Africa. All the colors, all the intricate designs, all the nods to art across sub-Saharan Africa.

Here I am watching a Marvel superhero movie, and other than Serkis and Freeman at the start, there’s not another white soul on screen in this trailer. There’s Danai Gurira, absent Michonne’s dreadlocks, looking fierce and slinging a spear. There’s Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, looking fine as all get-out.

There’s Michael B. Jordan in Eric Killmonger’s horned mask, Forrest Whitaker as Zuri in a face full of tribal paint, Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda with white hair done up in locks as well, Letitia Wright as Shuri with vibranium gauntlet weapons.

And then Chadwick Boseman as King T’Challa, out here with the power of the panther god, is flipping cars in South Korea.

“It’s so black,” I say to myself.

Black Twitter has been jumping in these digital streets since Black Panther was announced, and after seeing proof of the thing, someone out there may be building a time machine to get to the future and see this thing now. It’s no accident that the movie is being released during Black History Month next year. This film may be poised to enter black history as its own event.

If you see folks in the theaters on February 16, 2018, dressed like the king of Zamunda, you’ll know why.

Step into the spotlight, for real.

Woody Harrelson stars as Wilson, a lonely, neurotic and hilariously honest middle-aged misanthrope who reunites with his estranged wife (Laura Dern) when he learns he has a teenage daughter (Isabella Amara) he has never met. In his uniquely outrageous and slightly twisted way, he sets out to connect with her. Based on Daniel Clowes’ iconic graphic novel of the same name, Wilson is a “riotously funny” (Noel Murray, ThePlaylist.net) look at life, love, family…and one man’s wildly ambitious search for happiness.

And we’re giving away two prize packs including the Blu-ray and original Graphic Novel!

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

Wilson is the third feature film adaptation by Daniel Clowes,
based on his work.  What were the other two?           

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 June 25th, 2017.

The wondrous Diana of Themyscira comes face to face with the Cimmerian barbarian Conan in a new miniseries this fall—WONDER WOMAN/CONAN. DC and Dark Horse have teamed up for a crossover of epic proportions, bringing back fan-favorite WONDER WOMAN writer Gail Simone and WONDER WOMAN artist Aaron Lopresti for an adventure unlike anything seen before—a collision of legends.

“I love crossovers, I love Wonder Woman, and being able to bring the undisputed greatest warriors of the DCU and Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age together for the very first time is a dream come true,” says Simone. “A major draw is getting to reunite with the great Aaron Lopresti, whose very favorite things to draw are Wonder Woman and barbarians. Its blades and bracelets, wizards and wonder and I couldn’t be more delighted.”

Our tale begins as Conan the Barbarian arrives on the shores of an unknown land, and soon meets the world’s most fearsome arena fighter—Wonder Woman. Ill-fated circumstances force them both into slavery. As they attempt to free themselves from the grips of the rich and powerful slave-owner Dellos, a dark magic descends upon their land, a presence that wants to destroy them both. But who has the might to stop the most talented gladiators who have ever existed?

Wonder Woman has been a pivotal character in the DC Universe for over 75 years as a member of the Trinity and the Justice League, and as a notable icon around the world. Conan the Barbarian, similarly, has long been an important character since his creation 85 years ago. Dark Horse has been publishing Conan stories since 2003, and new and exciting tales continue to hit shelves.

“Uniting the greatest characters of the DC Universe with some of the most famous and notable characters in pop culture is at the core of the most memorable crossovers we’ve ever done,” said DC Entertainment Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras. “Gail and Aaron’s series will surely create a new legend for fans and readers to talk about for years to come.”

A tale of myths and magic, Simone and Lopresti bring to life a new world for these two heroes—weaving a story of fantasy, mythos and adventure. The six-issue saga begins September 20.

This July, Jack Kirby will be honored for his remarkable creative achievements as a Disney Legend in a ceremony to be held at D23 Expo: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event in Anaheim, California.  Hosted by Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger, the Disney Legends Award ceremony will take place at 10 a.m. on Friday, July 14, in Hall D23 during D23 Expo 2017.

JACK KIRBY first grabbed our attention in the spring of 1941 with Captain America, a character he created with Joe Simon.  Kirby then followed this debut with a prolific output of comic books in the Western, Romance, and Monster genres–all a prelude to his defining work helping to create the foundations of the Marvel Universe.  For the next decade, Kirby and co-creator Stan Lee would introduce a mind-boggling array of new characters and teams — including the Avengers, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Silver Surfer, Ant-Man, Wasp, Black Panther, S.H.I.E.L.D., and the Inhumans.  Kirby was inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame’s 1987 inaugural class and continued creating comics throughout the ’90s before passing away in 1994.

Other honorees of this year’s Legends Award are Carrie Fisher, Clyde “Gerry” Geronimi, Manuel Gonzales, Mark Hamill, Stan Lee, Garry Marshall, Julie Taymor, and Oprah Winfrey.

Please join us as we honor JACK KIRBY as he is inducted as a prestigious Disney Legend at D23 Expo 2017. For more information about the Disney Legends and D23 Expo, visit D23expo.com.

Goldie Vance
Written by Hope Larson
Illustrated by Brittney Williams
Colored by Sara Stern
Lettered by Jim Campbell
Volume 1 (collecting issues #1-4) is available now
Volume 2 (collecting issues #5-8) is available now
All issues available digitally via Comixology
Published by BOOM! Box (BOOM! Entertainment, Inc.)

If you miss Veronica Mars and are itching for a bit of Nancy Drew – without feeling like you’re reading one of your grandma’s dusty old books – grab the first two volumes of Goldie Vance. Each book collects a complete four-issue story and both are worth a look.

At its core, Goldie is a girl detective book. The magical part is that it wonderfully blends mystery, action and sweetness without going overboard. It also harkens back to an earlier era without feeling outdated while maintaining a bit that era’s sweetness.

DISCOVERING GOLD

Marigold “Goldie” Vance lives with her father in Crossed Palms, a resort hotel in St. Pascal, Florida. Why he’s trying to keep his job as the resort’s manager, 16-year-old Goldie believes she can solve any mystery, solving her own mini cases, eventually convincing the local detective to let her help with his case.

While the book is mostly about the namesake, Goldie, she also relies on a few friends: best friend Cheryl, the actual detective Walter, glamour beatnik Diane and Goldie’s mom.

The books are set in the 1960s so there are a few nods to events from the decade and just enough stylized art that you’d expect Gidget to wander through a scene without feeling out of place.

In the first volume, a nerdly resort guest with a thick German accent kicks off the mystery, meeting with Walter to help recover a stolen necklace. Perky Goldie just happens to be in the room, embedding herself to help solve the case.

It takes her into a street race á la Grease (convenient seeing as she is a valet for the resort), at odds with the resort owner’s daughter, jumping out a window and face-to-face with a pair of shady characters. All ’60s movie tropes are here, keeping things comfy:  soda shop, car over a cliff, beatniks hanging out at record shops, foreign bad guys, etc.

The second book picks up the mystery gang on the beach, tying in a few ideas teased in earlier chapters beginning with a girl in what appears to be an astronaut’s suit crashed down or washed up on shore. The story meanders a bit more this time around, but eventually picks up in pace when things start to come into light.

Things get a bit more sci-fi by final chapter, adding a little spin to the typical space race theme.

GET A GLANCE OF VANCE

As you might imagine, with a strong – even if perky – female main character, there is a fair amount of gender bending with Goldie racing a kicking some butt, beating boys at their own game and just playing action detective.

There are also some nudges toward multi-culturalism and a hint of a possible budding lesbian relationship, although neither are pushed it into preachy-town. Instead, it sticks to its windy mystery story, taking some breaks to delve into high schoolish concerns.

The art style is very fluid, swoopy and cute, feeling a bit like  a bubblier Archie (the old version, not the thinner, grittier new age Archie) with some big-eyed Disney-ness mixed in. There are periodic pokes at manga effects and expressions but they are pretty small and usually don’t break the overall theme.

The series is a great read for just about anyone, especially those of us looking for less violent stories for our kids. It also peppers in bits of action to not only help things along but bring back interest before it begins to go on too long with character development.

These books look great, read fairly well and, even when the cases are solved, give you cause to revisit the Crossed Palms resort with Goldie and the gang.

After Scott (Will Ferrell) and Kate (Amy Poehler) Johansen lose their daughter Alex’s college fund, they become desperate to earn it back so she can pursue her dream of attending a university. With the help of their neighbor Frank (Jason Mantzoukas), they decide to start an illegal casino in his house.

Boston
For your chance to download passes to see THE HOUSE at the advance screening on Wed, June 28 at 7:30pm at AMC Assembly Row, click here: http://www.wbtickets.com/RdDKd48896

Hartford
For your chance to download passes to see THE HOUSE at the advance screening on Wed, June 28 at 7:30pm at Bow Tie Palace in Hartford, click here: http://www.wbtickets.com/XdgZp50655

Remember seating is first come, first served and not guaranteed. Arrive early!

TheHouseMovie.com

The recent release of Logan on Blu-ray offers a unique bonus “extra” that any conscientious film buff will want to watch again and again: an alternate black-and-white version of the otherwise unedited film—aptly titled Logan Noir.

Rather than merely bleeding all color from the image, the alternate black-and-white edition has been remastered from the ground up, with subtle tweaks to contrast and light/shadow textures that go far beyond what we can achieve through some minor MENU screen adjustments. The stunning B&W remaster accentuates the lovely widescreen cinematography and strengthens the film’s iconic western and film noir roots. It also brings to the forefront director James Mangold’s classical and decidedly unglamorous approach to moviemaking.

In stark black-and-white, Logan looks and feels like all the most important and indelible classic films of the 1940s and ’50s. Were it not for Hugh Jackman’s worldwide celebrity and the film’s unflinching depiction of grizzly violence and salty dialogue, any virgin viewer might be forgiven for thinking the movie was filmed sixty odd years ago.

Celebrated as the alternate monochromatic edition is, Logan Noir is not the first time a movie has been issued on home video in a separate black-and-white version.

A decade ago, the Stephen King adaptation The Mist was issued on home video in a dual edition that contains director Frank Darabont’s preferred B&W version on its own disc. The monochrome edition heightens the otherworldliness of the inter-dimensional alien invasion and is significantly creepier than the theatrical version, more in the spirit of its meager B-sci-fi genre roots, but because one of the R-rated film’s main selling points is its unabashed gore, the anemic B&W version never properly satisfies our bloodlust.

More recently, Mad Max: Fury Road was issued in an alternate “Black & Chrome Edition,” and was even treated to a brief B&W theatrical engagement. Other than the obvious diminishment of shock value of splatter effects, the bleeding out of the color takes away one of the Fury Road’s most distinctive signature elements: its over-the-top extra-saturated orange/teal color palette.

The “Black and Chrome” version will help you focus more intently on George Miller’s masterful compositions, and in turn keep a sharper eye on the way every shot is spliced together, how the tempo is maintained, and how it all marries up with the propulsive music and enveloping audio flourishes.

You know, master class film school stuff that directors such as George Miller earn a legion of life-long fans for because he makes movies the old-school way, using actual stunt people, life-sized rigs, constructed models, and real live practical effects, with only minor digital trickery to enhance the backdrops and erase the stunt wires.

I don’t know how it escaped my notice for nearly three years, but in late 2014 Steven Soderbergh doctored a unique B&W version of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark and, for education purposes so he cannot get sued, made it available online for all to marvel over.

This phantom monochromatic edition—substituting the lurid Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross scores for The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for the film’s original dialogue and music tracks—offers a fascinating look at Spielberg’s indelible compositions and his skill for conveying information purely visually, signature Spielbergian elements that harken back to the great cinema classics of the Silent Era and, especially here, all those brisk Saturday morning matinee cliffhanger serials that Raiders so splendidly honors and reinvents.

Soderbergh’s introduction is wonderfully written, and he doesn’t understate his case when he beams how wonderful the film looks in black-and-white. Several shots take on a renewed impression: Indy stepping out of the shadows for his first close-up; the tower of illuminated liquor bottles behind Marion Ravenwood’s Nepalese bar glowing like moon-lit jewels, along with trays of shiny shot glasses scattered around the room reflecting the practical fire; later, the first vista over the rooftops of Cairo is breathtaking; the architecture inside the Well of Souls looks brand new even though we’ve seen the film dozens of times; even the face-melting bits take on a documentary realism that overcomes the inherent reduction of bloodlust.

Thankfully, you can perform your own version of this “experiment” at home and try it on your favorite movies. Though the results will not be as impressive as when a filmmaker digitally or chemically remasters a picture, anybody can desaturate their monitor’s color levels to “zero” and further tweak contrast and brightness levels to the point where the darkest parts of the black-and-white film image bleed into and match the black “letterboxing” borders above and below a widescreen image.

You’ll quickly notice that not every movie translates as comfortably into black-and-white, but you may soon be surprised to discover just how many films works extremely well—and perhaps even better—when their colors are desaturated. Movies that emulate the film noir style and feature stark lighting and long shadows tend to work best for the translation to monochrome.

I’ll likely have a few more things to say about this topic after experimenting with a few of my favorite films, especially since a few of those favorite movies currently on my “Black & White” playlist include:

• Chinatown (1974)
• Batman Returns (992)
• The Shining (1980), specifically the 1.33:1 ‘Academy Aspect Ratio’ version available only on DVD
• Se7en (1995)
• Dark City (1998)
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
• Angel Heart (1987)
• L.A. Confidential (1997)
• Dune (1984)
• The Godfather (1972)
• The Road Warrior (1981)
• Dracula (1979)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
• Halloween (1978)
• Heat (1995)

Spectacular Optical Book One: KID POWER!
Co-editors/writers: Kier-La Janisse, Paul Corupe
Conributors: Bret Berg, Zack Carlson, Cheryl Singleton, Chris Alexander, Robin Bougie, Briony Kidd, Owen Williams, Robert Dayton, Rick Trembles, Jesse Ficks, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Craig Martin
Published by Spectacular Optical
Purchase it HERE

Child actors are normally the bane of any film.

You cringe at the terrible line delivery or the annoying antics of the kid in just about any movie, especially when it’s a kids movie.

For some reason kids movies are made with the intention not of connecting with children of the same age but for the express purpose of showing how little the adults making the picture know about children.

This is a book about child actors… but not child actors in that Diff’rent Strokes kind of way, but rather an examination of a time when children in film and television were asked to carry the weight normally of their elders.

There was a time when movies and television made for kids did not talk down to those very same children; When an After School Special was not a joke.

There was a time when a child in a film could be the linchpin to it working; When films aimed at children did not exemplify the worst aspects of children for a cheap laugh or groan.

KID POWER! (Spectacular Optical Book One) is a collection of essays about a number of these children’s films which highlight rather than exploit the fact that a child is the main focus of the story. These range from creepy kids to whiz kids to normal kids stuck in abnormal situations. The point is kids in films were once used properly and that seems to be a lost art.

This being a collection the authors all bring a personal and varied perspective to the proceedings.

Kier-La Janisse, Paul Corupe, Zack Carlson, Robin Bougie, Chris Alexander, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Briony Kidd, Owen Williams, Bret Berg and Robert Dayton all write detailed and evocative pieces on the films that affected them the most.

Films the likes of Chocky, The Little Vampire, Hawk Jones, Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, Kes, Seven Little Australians, The Children of Times Square, The Ugly Little Boy, Celia, The Peanut Butter Solution, Night Child, Watcher in the Woods and a large section on the famous After School Special series of TV movies.

The list of future stars to get their first job on the ABC After School Special is staggering. I won’t list them here because it boggles the mind how many modern superstars started their careers with what in the internet age are considered preachy jokes of television films.

The book herein also features a few interviews and insights from some of the people responsible for the works so cherished by the authors. These interviews shed some real light on pieces of pop culture history that may otherwise remain footnotes if not for the love this book pushes forth.

If you grew up in the 70’s or 80’s and remember a time when hearing the term “kids movie” was not a negative then you will enjoy this book.

This fall Dark Horse Books is publishing bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk’s novella, Legacy: An Off-Color Novella for You to Color, which features colorable illustrations by Steve Morris and Mike Norton. The novella is a dark but colorful fable with aspiring immortals, an amoral banker and his despicable family, a stalker and the kind of extreme storytelling and biting social satire that the readers of Fight Club, Choke and Survivor have come to expect. The new book follows Dark Horse’s release of Palahniuk’s first ever coloring book for adults and most recent short story collection, Bait: Off-Color Stories for You to Color, and the hardcover release of the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel Fight Club 2 graphic novel last year. Legacy is Palahniuk’s first long form prose publication since the release of his novel Beautiful You in 2014.

“Imagine if Joseph Campbell produced a coloring book,” said Palahniuk. “Legacy will be one part Art Bell, one part Carl Jung, part George Noory, and right brain from cover to cover.  All cultures have their myths about attaining immortality, but Dark Horse, Mike, Steve and I are the first to slap such high culture anthropology into the low culture world of coloring.”

Legacy: An Off-Color Novella for You to Color is a 8.5 x 11 inch hardcover album, with uncoated and white interior paper stock, accompanied by a cover illustrated and colored by Duncan Fegredo and designed by Nate Piekos. Fegredo is arguably best known for his art on several acclaimed Hellboy graphic novels, including Hellboy: Darkness Calls (the first storyline to not feature art by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola) and Hellboy: The Wild Hunt, featuring the fan favorite Blood Queen storyline.

Two acclaimed artists provides colorable illustrations throughout the book: Mike Norton, the creator of the Eisner and Harvey Award-winning webcomic Battlepug, and Steve Morris, who’s best known for his art for Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic books. Legacy: An Off-Color Novella for You to Color goes on sale from Dark Horse Books in both comic book stores and bookstores on November 7, 2017.

“Each reader will bring his or her final details to the story,” said Palahniuk. “When colored, each book will be a one-of piece of collaborative art worth keeping for the ages!”

A typical modern millennial college student hurrying through life gets into a near-fatal bus accident, but instead of dying, she is reborn through hybrid technology by her biotech father and his advanced lab and turned into a modern day Frankenstein…

From director Andrew Finnigan,  Simple Creature opens in limited release on 7/126/17 in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Phoenix and Seattle  before arriving on DVD and VOD on Phoenix and Seattle

And without adieu, we’re proud to present the premiere of the trailer!

Celebrating a decade of DC Universe Original Movie world premieres in San Diego, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) will once again give fans their first look at an all-new animated feature with the presentation of Batman and Harley Quinn on the Friday night (July 21, 2017) of Comic-Con International.

Since the debut of the DC Universe Original Movies in 2007 with Superman: Doomsday, WBHE has premiered its next-to-be-released film (when available) before 4,250 ardent fans in the San Diego Convention Center’s massive Ballroom 20.

In Batman and Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy and Jason Woodrue (a.k.a. The Floronic Man) embark on an ecological quest to save the planet – and, unfortunately, eliminate most of humankind along the way. To save humanity, Batman and Nightwing are forced to enlist Harley Quinn to catch Poison Ivy, Harley’s BFF and frequent partner-in-crime. But Batman’s patience is put to the test by the unpredictable and untrustworthy Harley during the twists and turns the reluctant companions face during their bumpy road trip. The result is a thrill ride of action, adventure and comedy no Batman fan has seen before.

The world premiere of Batman and Harley Quinn will include a post-screening panel discussion among available members of the core cast and filmmaking team. The latest DC animated film features a stellar voice cast led by Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series) reprising his role as the Dark Knight, alongside Melissa Rauch (The Big Bang Theory) making her debut as the irrepressible Harley Quinn. Loren Lester, the voice of Robin in Batman: The Animated Series, returns as Nightwing. Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds) and Kevin Michael Richardson (The Cleveland Show) provide the voices of the villainous duo Poison Ivy & Jason Woodrue, respectively.

Produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment, Batman and Harley Quinn is directed by Sam Liu (Batman: The Killing Joke) from an original story by Bruce Timm (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) with a teleplay written by Timm & Jim Krieg (Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox). Co-Producer is Alan Burnett (The Batman). Executive Producers are Sam Register and Bruce Timm. Benjamin Melniker and Michael Uslan are Executive Producers.

Spawned from an original story by animation icon Bruce Timm, Batman and Harley Quinn arrives August 29, 2017 as the first Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack ($44.98 SRP) release of a DC Universe Original Movie; Blu-ray Deluxe Giftset ($39.99 SRP), featuring an exclusive Harley Quinn figurine; Blu-ray Combo Pack ($24.98 SRP); and DVD ($19.98 SRP). The Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack features an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc in 4K with HDR and a Blu-ray disc featuring the film; the Blu-ray Combo Pack features the film in hi-definition; and the DVD features the movie in standard definition. The Ultra HD Blu-ray and Blu-ray Combo Pack include a digital version of the film. Batman and Harley Quinn comes to Digital ($19.99 HD, $14.99 SD) on August 15, 2017.

Licensed in over 100 countries, with more than 300 versions and printed in at least 37 languages, Monopoly is a board game that many of us remember fondly from childhood (or not so fondly, by those of us who sucked at it). The game has been around since 1903 and sold commercially since 1935. Although originally created to promote the economic theories of American political economist Henry George, Monopoly has evolved to inspire a wide range of local versions and spin-offs, some of them highly successful, others not so much.

Here are five of the most intriguing.

Express Monopoly

Credit: Pixabay

While the name implies that this would be a fast-paced version of the original board game, Express Monopoly was actually a rummy-style game using a deck of 42 cards. The game was released in the mid-1990s and saw players racing to complete color group sections of the game board (a miniature version of the original board, which fitted together like a puzzle) in order to score points.

Monopoly Millionaires’ Club

The have been various electronic versions of Monopoly over the years but Monopoly Millionaires’ Club took the game to the next level in 2015, turning it into a game show for US TV. The audience was split into five sections, named after some of the original playing pieces: battleship, boot, cat, dog, and wheelbarrow. Contestants from different sections of the audience competed to win a series of games, with a top prize of $100,000. The show culminated with one audience member having the chance to win $1,000,000 in the ‘Go for a Million’ round.

Monopoly Millionaires’ Club was hosted by comedian/actor Billy Gardell and ran for two seasons in the US before being cancelled. It was rated just 6.1 out of 10 by IMDb.

Monopoly Bingo

Credit: Pixabay

One of the most successful and entertaining Monopoly spin-offs is Monopoly Bingo. EA and Hasbro worked in partnership to announce the launch of the first Monopoly Bingo game in 2013. Since then, Monopoly Bingo has been embraced by a wide range of online bingo sites and mobile apps in response to its popularity with players. There are even websites out there dedicated to reviewing the newest games on the market.

Classic Monopoly rules are blended with bingo boards in order to create a hybrid of the two games. Players can use multiple cards for even faster-paced action. Prizes range from cash on online bingo sites to in-game credits and rewards for those playing through gaming apps.

Anti-Monopoly

Anti-Monopoly is one of the most controversial spin-offs of the original Monopoly game, having inspired a ten-year trademark lawsuit between Parker Brothers (owners of the Monopoly trademark) and Anti-Monopoly’s creator, Professor Ralph Anspach.

Anspach was inspired to produce Anti-Monopoly as he felt that the original Monopoly game taught players that monopolies were a good thing and to be desired. Anspach’s economic theories focused around a free-enterprise system, to which monopolies are inherently harmful. Anti-Monopoly players have to break up business monopolies by acting as federal case workers and bringing indictments that serve to bring about the return of the free market.

The game has been in print since 1973 and remains available to this day. It even inspired two further spin-offs in Germany, with squatters taking over the town in one and the other focusing on ridding the town of polluters.

Monopoly Junior

Essentially a simplified version of the original game, Monopoly Junior was designed in order to enable younger players (aged five to eight) to take part. The game uses the same dynamic as Monopoly, but with a smaller game board and simpler rules. Instead of streets, players buy a range of amusements, from a skate park to a video game arcade.

Released in 1990, Monopoly Junior has been responsible for inspiring a whole new generation of young Monopoly fans, who are now able to start off playing the Junior edition before progressing on to the original game.

Latest Monopoly Updates

Credit: Pixabay

The original version of Monopoly remains, at its core, much the same as the edition first sold by Parker Brothers in 1935. However, the game has undergone a number of modernizations since then, mostly aimed at making the board, cards and money more durable. Most recently, electronic banking has been added, providing a calculator-style piece of kit along with a ‘bank card’ that is used to pay rent, accept your salary when passing ‘GO’ and gift funds to your fellow players.

While it’s an innovative new addition, we can’t help but think that, sometimes, the old ways are the best.

Produced by Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto,
Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Ian Bryce
Screenplay by Art Marcum,
Matt Holloway, Ken Nolan
Story by Akiva Goldsman, Art Marcum,
Matt Holloway, Ken Nolan
Based on Transformers by Hasbro
Directed by Michael Bay
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel,
Stanley Tucci, Anthony Hopkins,
Isabela Moner, Laura Haddock, John Turturro, Santiago Cabrera, Liam Garrigan,
Jerrod Carmichael, Mitch Pileggi

Transformers: The Last Knight’s story centers around the question of how can Optimus Prime, missing for some time now, bring his dead planet of Cybertron, back to life and make it a place the Transformers can once again live on?

When he finally rediscovers his home world he also discovers that HE is the reason for its destruction.

The secret to its revival lies in an ancient artifact that has been lost since the times of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. With the help of some new allies he now must enlist the assistance of old allies, along with some old adversaries as well, to complete his mission. But at what cost!?!?

At it’s best is a beautiful action-packed car commercial. At it’s worst is what I imagine it is like to be on LSD, ecstasy and cocaine while participating in a demolition derby.

I love the Transformers films at their core. I played with the toys as a kid. I watched the cartoon every day after school. However this entire franchise has been a study in how to take a very simple concept and make it into an impossibly convoluted explosion filled child’s nightmare filled with supermodels, academy award winning and nominated actors and actresses, and crazy former child actors and former white rappers, with a smattering of cool, if not, overly complicated giant transforming robots punching each other. And The Last Knight suffers as its four predecessors have.

The original cartoon, on which the series is based, is good robots and bad robots that turn into vehicles and other objects, fighting for control over a planet’s wealth of energy to save their race. The good robots are assisted by a boy and his dad. The bad ones DGAF.

Simple. Yet somehow the screenwriters, and there are eight total for the franchise so far, feel the need to make these overly complicated plots and weird pseudo-complex stories that end up being entirely more confusing than they need to be while making the Transformers almost an afterthought in their own film.

Even the giant plot twist reveal comes across a “OH yeah, and that thing is kind of a thing but whatever, we’ll get to that in the next movie…”. Like it was an afterthought when it should have been a “HOLY F*CK, WHAAAAT!?!?!” moment. They, and in turn I didn’t care.

Look. I didn’t come into this Transformers film, or any of the other films in the franchise, for that matter, even remotely comparing them to even the most mediocre of cinema. I AM, however coming into them thinking of other similar films in this action genre. And I find them lacking.

That sounds like an amazing movie. And some of it was but I really shouldn’t be saying only “some of it was” when a film like this should basically write itself and be awesome.

Michael Bay gets so caught up in wanting to show us to show that a Transformers film can be “more than meets the eye” that he loses sight of what would make a Transformers film awesome in the first place. So much time is wasted in trying to create these strange subplots and weird character moments for the humans that at best, stall the film a bit and at worst completely derail the film completely.

Awkward humor, forced character empathy and terrible, kind of offensive stereotyping is often very off putting. It comes off as a strange time capsule of late 90’s early aughts sensibilities and aesthetics that just don’t work now. Many times throughout the film I was struck at how dated this film seems and how a lot of the humor didn’t land with me.

I just wanted to get back to the actual interesting plot of Cybertron coming to Earth to suck it dry as to rebuild itself.

I get it. Bay wants to show the conflict of two species vying for existence on a planet that may or may not be able to sustain their simultaneous existence. He also wants to show how the Transformers Civil wWar is ruining the Earth and our lives. Not to mention he wants to show us how different people forge out an existence in this war torn land from kids who have lost everything, to heroes who have to live with the life they choose, to the military and their fight against the machines as well. I get that, but making your punching, shooting robot films a two and half hours plus mess is not the solution.

I am a self proclaimed Michael Bay whore. I have loved his movies and commercials since his music video days. I know he is not Orson Welles. What he is a fun action film director, who, as I have discussed with many friends, is a much better cinematographer or second unit director than he is a director. His ability to coordinate and shoot an action sequence is the pinnacle of his craft.

Transformers: The Last Knight is a confusing, chaotic mess of a movie. Way too long and so strangely edited as to abandon entire story arcs only to return to them haphazardly, almost as an afterthought so much later on that you almost forgot that they were even there originally. It is as good as any of the other films in the soon to be eight movie franchise.

Though that isn’t saying much.

It definitely plays like a 2+ hour prelude to the next film, Transformers: What Fans Actually Wanted ‘The Last Knight’ To Be About.

He may be the latest-born writer on a regular G.I.Joe property, but Aubrey Sitterson has distilled his interpretation of the team into a military sci-fi property that earns the title “The Crown Jewel of the Hasbro Universe”. With a Transformer on the team and an awesome new headquarters, Aubrey joined us today to talk G.I. Joe, The Hasbro Universe and what we can expect after the latest Hasbro event First Strike!

*  *  *  *  *

FOG!: Yo, Joe! Thanks for taking the time to talk Joe with us! What brings you to the IDW Joe Universe? How did you end up taking over for this season?

Aubrey Sitterson: Last year I wrote the fan-favorite Street Fighter x G.I. Joe, which was not only beloved by readers, but by Hasbro themselves. They dug the high-energy take on the Joes, one where they all felt like unique characters, so when it came time to launch a brand-new G.I. Joe series, IDW knew exactly who to call!

Following Revolution, we’re seeing a brand new take on IDW’s Joe properties, certainly different than the ongoing Larry Hama G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero continuity. For one, it is integrated into the other Hasbro titles, as “The Crown Jewel of the Hasbro Universe”. Tell us what it is like to write a Transformer, Skywarp, on to the team.

What kind of question is that? How is it to write a big, mean, surly transforming robot that happens to be on a team with people he could literally crush beneath his foot? It’s AMAZING, Clay.

This was one of the things I was most excited about coming in, as not only does it make for great visuals, but it gives me a chance to explore one of my favorite fiction tropes.

Skywarp is our Vegeta, which, if you’re not DBZ literate, first of all, shame on you, second of all, it basically means that he’s a barely reformed villain who has maintained all of his crusty irritability.

Plus, I’d be lying if I said that scenes between Skywarp and Rock ‘n Roll weren’t some of the absolute most fun to the write.

For those not reading along or caught up, we’ve also got ROM The Space Knight’s enemies Dire Wraiths making an appearance. Are they going to play more of a threat than Cobra?

Well, as seen in the instant classic G.I. Joe #3, the Dire Wraiths are actually using Cobra symbolism, so the division between “ROM villains” and “G.I. Joe villains” is a little more of a grey area that folks might think at first glance. Plus, with the events of Revolution barely in the rear view mirror, as well as another shocking revelation in issue #3…the Dire Wraiths are very much on the radar of Scarlett and her team.

After the first issue, I thought I wouldn’t see Snake-Eyes, thankfully I was wrong. Are you taking more of a shift away from the Arashikage ninja action, or like my favorite Joe stories, are you going to sneak some of that in over the course of time?

The first issue features not only Snake Eyes, but a bunch of Red Shadow ninjas in the very first scene!

If you’re thinking about the Revolution one-shot though…you’re right. No ninjas of any kind in that one. Reason being is that the G.I. Joe has an unspeakably massive roster and generally speaking, every fan has a different favorite. I’m trying to walk the difficult balance of making sure everyone gets a chance to shine, choosing the characters whose specialties make sense for each individual mission while also keeping an eye on the larger character arcs we’re fleshing out.

It wouldn’t be G.I. Joe without Snake Eyes, plain and simple. But there’s a lot more to the team than just one ninja commando, so I’ve made a conscious effort to avoid getting too Snake Eyes or Arashikage-centric.

Forgive me, first of all I am embarrassed to ask, but secondly you must get asked this question a lot. Where does this “Season 5” fit in? Have the previous season’s events existed in your timeline, or this this a hard reboot. Or is it just fun and doesn’t matter? As someone committed to Joe comics and an Arashikage tattoo on my arm, I need to know!

Season 5 happened. Just like everything else in the IDW Joe continuity (separate from Hama’s ARAH continuity) happened. That said, in an effort to make these books accessible to folks who haven’t read 8,000 pages of Joe comics over the past decade, we aren’t leaning too heavily on the backstories contained in there. Additionally, while there hasn’t been an ongoing IDW-continuity Joe book in a few years, that doesn’t mean that their world has been held in stasis, so there’s definitely been some changes since then.

There seems to be a big shift stylistically with the art as well. Some costume designs have changed of course but also it seems a bit more fun, in the style of the cartoon series, both Sunbow and Resolute. Is that the direction you are giving your artists, or is the art team coming from IDW?

The best Giannis Milonogiannis and I can tell, we’re the latest-born writer/artist team to ever work on an ongoing G.I. Joe book. This is important because for the first time, you’ve got a team that, while we have the utmost respect for Hama’s ARAH comics, are actually more influenced by the Sunbow cartoon series. That was our Joe, and we didn’t discover the Hama books until we were adults.

Since that’s the Joe we love, that’s the Joe we’re leaning into, which has informed Giannis’ amazing redesigns, Lovern Kindzierski’s eye-searing colors and my own efforts to pack as much plot, as many big set pieces, as much soap opera personal drama and as many jokes and one-liners into the book as possible. The intent really was to replicate the feel of the Sunbow cartoons but for a contemporary audience that is…somewhat older than the original demographic.

What are some advantages you see to approaching this book from a non-traditional, non-military strategy standpoint that was taken in previous seasons of the book?

First off, it’s something new, something that hasn’t been seen before. The previous IDW continuity books are quite often rooted in a kind of real world aesthetic – lots of talk about call signs and gun models, everyone in fatigues and, most notably, lots of death. We’re spinning in an entirely different direction, giving you a Joe like none you’ve ever seen before.

Also, I take umbrage at the categorization of our book as “non-traditional.” If you watch the original Sunbow series, which is how a wide swath of Joe fans came to the property, it’s a bright, aspirational, fun and funny series with lots of wacky villains and threats and monsters and robots. For millions of fans, that approach defines what G.I. Joe is. We’re tapping into that.

Another thing I love about our approach is that it allows us to steer clear of what Larry is doing on ARAH. I don’t want to compete with Larry because I can’t compete with Larry. The man is a legend and G.I. Joe wouldn’t exist in its current state without him, and furthermore, there’s no way that I could do justice to a more military-focused Joe book.

Finally: We get to play around with lasers and monsters and giant robots which are three of the things that comics do best.

Shipwreck is back..along with some other deep cuts on the roster in issue #6, revealing more of the team than first starting in the series. Are there other characters expected to make an appearance? I know we haven’t seen much of Cobra besides the Dreadnoks and Road Pig. More please!

Other characters will absolutely be showing up, but I don’t really believe in just shoving characters into a story to check off boxes. One of the great things about the Joe property is that there are so many preexisting characters that whatever I might need for a given story, there’s likely already someone to fill that spot. While we’re going to keep a focus on our core cast, you can expect other Joes to show up as the story requires.

And as for Cobra…if you’re going to ask me “wait and see” questions, I’m going to have to give you “wait and see” answers.

Bonus question: will the team return to The Pit or are they stationed on Lemuria to be an international fighting organization wherever there’s trouble? Thanks again for joining us, and I for one am enjoying being along for the ride! Yo Joe!

G.I. Joe is no loner just an American organization – they’re now responsible for protecting the whole world – which is why a base like Lemuria, at the bottom of the sea, in international waters, freed from political machinations, is so crucial. Plus, it’s a converted Decepticon spaceship so, it’s also pretty much the coolest base ever. Officially.

Yo Joe!

G.I. Joe #6 by Aubrey Sitterson and Giannis Milonogiannis
is available now in comic book stores and via digital

Maybe its pure media snobbery but video games always seem to me to be increasingly coming under attack. Attack that is, I believe, unwarranted. And I have heard the arguments. Video games rot your brain and effect concentration levels. They’ll render you boring and rickets is returning! Well, no, it is perfectly acceptable to enjoy video games in moderation and to leave the house to catch the sun, drink with friends and go on dates, etc. In fact, I would – and will – argue that they are good for you too.

How? Let me show you.

Video games are relaxing and improve your mood by defeating anxiety

Although there are conflicting views on the calming effects gaming can have on you, there have been cases where video games have delivered positive results. Not only do games take your focus away from your troubles, they can also settle your nerves. Say, for example, you are waiting for a job interview and are extremely nervous about the upcoming interrogation. Whip out your mobile and play a game of Angry Birds, pop a few pigs and clear a few levels and your mindset will be far more relaxed leaving you to nail the interview, land the job and build a better future. Nice.

Video games boost the growth of new neurons

The growth of new neurons in the brain is known as neurogenesis and is very rarely achieved. That is, unless you’re a gamer in which you’re quite possibly producing new neurons on a fairly regular basis. Don’t take my word for it however, a study showed that gamer brains showed increased grey matter meaning you are building brain muscle by while you play. Shoot some zombies, feed your brain.

Video games help you make fast decisions and think quicker while recognising patterns

As anyone who has ever played a video game will tell you, response time is key. Reflexes and how you react in general make all the difference, even in simple original games such as Tetris and Space Invaders. Fortunately, games with many levels have repeating patterns and, just by playing, you will learn pattern recognition even without knowing it.

Video games help develop problem-solving skills and make you persevere

How frustrating are hard bosses? I can remember the very worst of them. Fortunately, modern day games auto-save allowing us re-start and go again immediately. But, in the end perseverance is key and the more you fail, the more you develop (or at least try to) new ways and strategies to take down the near-impossible enemy. Far Cry 4 comes to mind.

Video games help you become social

It is very easy to slam all gamers as bedroom dwelling no-mates, but in fact, most players these days play in the company of others, either in person or online. Once again, studies have shown that video games actually help you become more social with 70% of all gamers playing with someone else, and making friends too.

Video games lead to better hand-eye coordination

For kids that lack motor skills, games can with help with that. As your brain and your hands send signals and instructions to each other throughout the day, a development and improvement is established and before long your hand-eye coordination has improved. In fact, most gamers don’t even realise that they are doing it where as non-gamers use a higher amount of brain power to coordinate between eye movement and hand movement. Think about the last time to played a Beat’em up. That awesome combo move that destroyed your opponent was more than just button mashing, wasn’t it?

Video games improve risk taking decisions

Although there have been studies where pro-risk may perpetuate other behaviours that are undesirable, they can also certainly promote helpful traits, too. Almost all games are pro-risk which are programmed to reward risk-takers, consequently, they help in making you pro-risk too. This is known as the risk-reward correlation which means the more the risk, the better the reward. In poker, this is referred to as ROI (return on investment) which basically means the maths between your buy-in (entry fee) and your profit, should you make any. This determines how poker players, online and real life, play at the table. Do they play aggressive and take risks, shoving and hustling their opponents, or do they back off so as to hold on to what they have? Well, if they want to win, they had better learn to take risks. The very nature of gambling on sites like OnlineRoulette.org is one of the reasons behind the rise is power of the online casino, something which most certainly rewards risk takers.

Video games help improve teamwork and encourage better cooperation

One of the most popular games in memory has been any one of the Call of Duty titles that have landed in the public domain over recent years. These war games promote cooperation encourage players to play together to take down the enemy, talking tactics over their mics and working together to achieve their shared goals. Working together to achieve a common goal to the point that you will sacrifice yourself, comes quite naturally to gamers who have learnt to survive in the virtual world by striking up alliances.

These are just some of the many ways in which video games can be beneficial to gamers.

Produced Megan Ellison, Danny Gabai, Sina Sayyah
Written and Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour
Starring: Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa,
Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves, Yolonda Ross,
Jayda Fink, Diego Luna,Cory Roberts

Ana Lily Amirpour follows up her arthouse vampire film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night with this off-putting and deeply unsatisfying mash-up of Mad Max, The Hills Have Eyes, and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

The film is troubling on many levels, including its depiction of its lead character Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) and its failure to make her the feminist hero we want her to be.

If you viciously victimize your female lead to the extent Amirpour does, then the audience expects an equal amount of empowerment.

That never happens.

The decisions Arlen makes go from odd to infuriating and by the film’s end, this character we’ve been trying to root for is just a dumb, ditzy blond in a world where that kind of person wouldn’t survive long.

In a dystopian (possibly apocalyptic) future, unworthy members of society are designated as “Bad Batch” and sentenced to life in the fenced-in wasteland prison of the Texas desert. We first see it through the eyes of new Bad Batch member, Arlen, who is dumped off at the border fence and left to fend for herself.

Life there is rough, as Arlen quickly discovers: She’s abducted by cannibals who knock her out, chain her up and saw off first one arm, and then a leg. She’s kept, like the other prisoners we see, in chains until her captors decide they want another arm or leg for dinner. It’s a grim fate indeed, but Arlen shows exceptional cunning and manages to escape despite being down one leg and one arm.

By pure luck, she manages to find her way to a kind of desert oasis, a town called Comfort, where the locals don’t eat each other (noodles are plenty) or just hang out and take drugs if they want.

But Arlen isn’t happy there. With her newly acquired prosthetic, she can walk, slowly, and likes to stroll out into the desert. It’s a strange choice for someone who was nearly eaten out there — and who is even more vulnerable now — but Arlen is wholly unconcerned with her own safety.

She ends up crossing paths with Miami Man (Jason Momoa, sporting a heavy faux Cuban accent) and despite the obvious enmity between them, she’s drawn to him. He is Jason Momoa after all, and incredibly handsome, but she accurately intuits that he’s a cannibal too. The audience has already seen him brutally butcher a young woman who could easily be Arlen, so we’re hardly rooting for these two to get together.

[Note: To really discuss the film, I’ve got to get into some spoilers.]

In an earlier desert jaunt, a gun-toting Arlen is aimlessly looking for someone to shoot, or so it seems. She comes across a woman (Yolonda Ross) and her daughter (whom the audience knows is Miami Man’s family) and kills the mother, whom she rightly determined was also a cannibal.

With little choice of what to do now, the little girl follows Arlen back to Comfort. If Arlen wants to atone for killing the girl’s mother, is looking for a companion, or is trying to give the girl a better life is left up to the audience. The girl, Honey, who’s about 7, adapts surprisingly well to her new guardian. Arlen buys the little girl a rabbit for a pet and if you think it doesn’t end will for the rabbit, you are 100 percent correct.

Honey also catches the eye of Comfort’s leader, a mustachioed, disturbingly puffy Keanu Reeves, who occasionally comes out of his palatial estate to address the townspeople, accompanied by his many pregnant, gun-toting wives.

The Dream does show a possibly unhealthy interest in Honey, but all we see him do is take her into his house and feed her spaghetti. If more is going on, that’s not established clearly enough to be the motivating factor for Arlen that it is. We’re also not convinced she’s really that attached to the girl, whom she knows by now is Miami Man’s daughter.

Arlen gains entry to The Dream’s palatial estate to rescue Honey. The Dream welcomes her and offers her the chance to be one of her consorts, but she appears to have the choice to simply turn him down. Plenty of other residents, whom The Dream proudly keeps supplied with drugs and DJ music, seem to go about their lives without any interference. Compared to the horrors of the desert and the cannibals, life in Comfort seems like a pretty great existence, the best one could possibly hope for under the circumstances, vaguely creepy dictator dude and all.

If Arlen’s choice came down to being forced (á la The Handmaid’s Tale) to bear The Dream’s children, that would be a compelling reason to leave the luxuries of the town. Or if we were certain Honey was really in danger, we’d be rooting for her to rescue the girl. But Arlen’s bold move seems wholly unnecessary, especially considering her options. Your interpretation of the situation may be very different, but the rousing hero moment that Amirpour seems to be striving for here falls completely flat.

And any heroics on Arlen’s part are completely negated by her decision to be with Miami Man. If he were willing to give up his cannibal ways, that would make her attraction to him at least somewhat palatable. Her decision is, at the very least, impulsive and, at the very worst, suicidal. Especially since, at some point, Miami Man is going to find out she killed his wife! Hardly a minor detail.

It’s a sad state of affairs when the ’60s exploitation film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is more empowering for women than a movie made today by a female filmmaker.

There are some fascinating visuals, particularly when Arlen drops acid and (again) wanders out into the desert, and the movie does boast a great soundtrack. (That’s Diego Luna seen briefly as the DJ. An unrecognizable Jim Carrey also makes an appearance as a silent desert bum.)

Despite glimpses of something great here and there, Amirpour fails to make this movie work. And if you were hoping for a showdown between Miami Man and The Dream, sadly, that never happens. The two characters never meet.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

The anniversary issues had some definite shocking scenes but were not as epic as I had hoped.

Cave Carson continues to surprise as did Teen Titans Go, for very different reasons. Batwoman sets the stage for an interesting future and the odd Odyssey ends with a whimper. And two titles offer two very different takes on Harley Quinn while the DC Bombshells finally meet a Superman.

For me the best title was Cave Carson but please let me know which you preferred!

BATWOMAN #4
‘The Many Arms Of Death Finale’: Blackstar
Written by Marguerite Bennett & James Tynion IV
Art by Steve Epting
Cover by Steve Epting
Variant by Frank Cho

Kate Kane has been hot on the trail of the biological weapon Monster Venom, and it took her back to Coryana. The beginnings of Batwoman were on that island and years ago her lover, Safiyah, was lost to her there too.

A race to stop deadly explosives means Kate has to distract Tahani in combat while Adelaide tries to diffuse the bombs.
Winning the day is secondary to catching the Many Arms and when true villain is revealed, what does this mean for the future of Kate and her crime fighting career?

I must admit that I wasn’t really enjoying Batwoman.

The flashbacks felt tacked on and added nothing to the story, or so I thought.

When The Many Arms Of Death was revealed I was blown away. It wasn’t Many Arms’ identity, but how once the story had ended everything made sense. What felt random was now well rounded and I am keen to see how the series will progress now the initial ‘introduction’ has finished.

CAVE CARSON HAS A CYBERNETIC EYE #9
‘I’m Glad I Spent It With You’
Written by Gerard Way & Jon Rivera
Art by Michael Avon Oeming
Cover by Michael Avon Oeming & Nick Filardi
Variant by Michael Cho

Team Carson is traveling through space and time witnessing the horrors unleashed by Whisperer and EBX. When they do catch up, it’s a case of the two crews of the Mighty Moles in a stand off, and if not for Wild Dog they might well have lost.

Whisperer realising the net is closing in races away before Team Carson can put a stop to his plan.

Cave is determined to succeed and surprisingly someone, or something is in hot pursuit of them both.

What a cracking comic this is.

Every time you think the series is settling on a direction they throw a curve ball that completely changes the direction.

One of the best books DC has put out in years. The only thing I’d change is – MORE WILD DOG!

DC BOMBSHELLS #29
‘Superweapon’
Written by Marguerite Bennett
Art by Laura Graga & Aneke
Cover by Ant Lucia

Seeking Dr October, Lois Lane and the Reaper join Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy’s travelling circus of mythical Russian creatures in the hopes of forging an alliance against Victor Strange.

The Bombshells are sent to find out about Strange’s superweapon and instead find Supergirl in a fight to the death with Power Girl in hopes of rescuing her sister but the team are shocked to discover a Superman instead!

Beyond the images and merchandise I must admit I never gave to book a chance.

Am I convert now?

Not yet, the story is compelling, the visuals are stylistically vibrant and appealing, but the story, I felt it needed more too it.

Granted I am reviewing a story mid way so I should perhaps give some back issues a try but I didn’t feel connected to the characters beyond the visuals. Perhaps in a few issues time once the story breathes a little more I can judge the depth.

GREEN ARROW #25
‘Broken Arrow’
Written by Benjamin Percy
Art by Otto Schmidt
Cover by Juan Ferreyra
Variant by Mike Grell & Lovern Kindzierski

As Ollie faces the authorities and the scrutiny of the press under the watchful eye of his lawyer Kate Spencer, Black Canary starts a resistance movement in the former Seattle underground.

Ollie’s allies struggle to understand his actions, especially his sister, Emi. While the remains of the Tenth Circle plots the next step in their vendetta against Green Arrow Henry discovers he may have sided with the enemy when their nefarious plan is put into action.

As Ollie and Dinah end their relationship someone long thought dead reveals themselves to be the leader of the Tenth…

I am still reeling from last issue!

This issue didn’t really progress the story much to be honest and where it did it was in the most minimal way. It mostly retread many of the story points, but as an anniversary issue I guess this was written as a jumping on point for new readers. The story rambles along and then the finale reveals Star City has a new Queen and perhaps the foe Oliver will find unbeatable, but not in the traditional sense.

GREEN LANTERNS #25
‘The Return Of The First Lantern’
Written by Sam Humphries
Art by Robson Rocha
Inks by Daniel Henriques
Cover by Brad Walker, Sam Hennessey & Jason Wright
Variant by Brandon Peterson

Isolated and on a quest to help an elderly Guardian, Simon and Jessica realise too late that is a trap.

When the Guardian transforms into Volthoom the First Lantern and long thought dead, the two freshly graduated Lanterns must prevent him from stealing Jessica’s ring.

Volthoom shatters Simon’s ring and if it were not for Jessica’s strength of will he would have stolen her ring, originally his own, and rule the universe.

Jessica isn’t going down without a fight but despite stopping his reign a conflict in loyalties sends Jessica and Simon warped in space with no hope of getting back.

Much like Green Arrow this issue does little to progress any real story compared to past issues with the boot camp and the trickle down storyline of a disguised Volthoom.

It was still enjoyable and did throw in a few shocks, but by far the shining moment was Jessica finally dropping the damsel in distress mantle she’d been victim of, and stand up for herself.

With Simon now without a ring and Jessica’s revealed to have been the first Green Lantern ring, this duo are proving to be more than the gimmick they once were.

HARLEY QUINN #22
‘The Family Circles’
Written by Jimmy Palmiotti & Amanda Conner, Paul Dini
Art by John Timms & Brett Blevins
Cover by Amanda Conner & Alex Sinclair
Variant by Frank Cho & Sabine Rich

Harley regresses to Harleen when her parents stop by for a visit and the lines blur in her psyche.

Though it is a rare moment for Harley to to remove her makeup and just be like everyone else for a change, nothing stays quite so normal for long as Harley comes face to face with her doppelganger, Harley Sinn!

Over in Harley Loves Joker, Harley reunites with several female criminals and of course things get out of hand as they plan to refurbish and remodel Jake’s Joke Shop. Meanwhile Bruce Wayne seeks out the Commissioner bringing a robbery to his attention.

This book has a certain charm and a certain readership for sure. The book teeters on the brink of insanity, comedy and violence in a similar fashion to Cave Carson but where Cave has a certain style to it, Harley seems to be missing that in all but the back up feature – but that might be old age talking. Conner and Palmiotti really know the character inside out and their stories are always off the wall.

INJUSTICE 2 #4
‘The Person In Charge’
Written by Tom Taylor
Art by Daniel Sampere
Inks by Juan Albarran
Cover by Bruno Redondo & Alejandro Sanchez

Ra’s tries to use the life of Harley’s child to ensure her alliance but he underestimates her to the point where she breaks his nose. Ivy steps in to calm the situation and Ra’s reaches out to Harley. After a heart to heart, Harley reveals that she had always hoped Superman would save the day.

Has Ra’s Al Ghul talked her round?

Meanwhile Bruce and Alfred are looking after a young Connor in the Batcave and his mind wanders back to Damian’s early days and a night of training that tested their family ties.

What a difference between Harley in Injustice and Harley in her own book. They couldn’t be any more different.

Harleen here is less childlike, but no less broken. The scene where she headbutts Ra’s was unexpected and brilliant. The scene I found that let the issue down was the Batman & Robin storyline, it was interesting but just felt like its been done hundreds of times before. I would much rather have seen Harley a bit more.

ODYSSEY OF THE AMAZONS #6
‘Odyssey Of The Amazons’ – Finale
Written by Kevin Grevioux
Art by Ryan Benjamin
Inks by Richard Friend & Don Ho
Cover by Ryan Benjamin

Queen Groa, her Jotuns and her new hybrid soldier versus the Valkyries and Amazons, it could only end in one way – a battle royale.

However when our heroines succeed and Groa’s army falls, they are faced with a demon to battle and Hessia must lead them to victory.

Surprises galore as the fates reveal themselves and a link between the warrior women they had never suspected.

The chain of events that this odyssey set in motion will see a Wonder Woman rise one day…

It’s over! Finally.  So to examine it as a whole, was it worth the readers time? No, to be frank.

I read it, followed the ups and downs, for what was actually an enjoyable story – when not linked to Wonder Woman. The hints that it could someone influence Diana in the modern day was something that hung over this title like a spectre. Regardless of links to mainstream titles the story ultimately wasn’t powerful enough in the long run.

TEEN TITANS GO! #22
‘Smells Like Teen Titans Spirit’ & ‘Bored Of The Dance’
Written by Heather Muhfer, P.C Morrissey & Sholly Fisch
Art by Marcello Dichiara & Jeremy Lawson
Cover by Dario Brizuela & Franco Riesco

A double bill of stories here the first sees the Titans take part in a battle of the bands to defeat the villain, Punk Rocket.

Their individual musical talents are revealed as they attempt to usurp Rocket’s control over the public and some of those skills prove… enlightening.

Then in the second story a particularly boring day in Titans Tower spurs the team into holding a formal dance, could this be Robin’s chance to win Starfire’s heart? Could be, if not for the arrival of the handsome chancer known as Speedy! Can Robin outfox his rival?

The same creative team to write Scooby-Doo are on top form here adapting the bizarre Teen Titans Go! series.

Happily the book is just as ‘out there’ as the series and perfectly encapsulated what some children love about the source material. It isn’t as strong as Scooby but it will certainly keep the young ones entertained. The battle with Punk Rocket was particularly entertaining.

“Futurama cannot be killed.”

Truer words have not been spoken. Considering the original run was from 1999 until 2003, when it was cancelled, to which many thought it was was the end. But then it returned as a series of straight-to-video movies until it made a triumphant return in 2008 on Comedy Central to which it ran until 2013.

Now, the legacy continues in the Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow mobile game, launching June 29 for for iPhone and iPad in the app store.

At the Hollywood shindig from Jam City and TinyCo, Nerdist’s Chris Hardwick was sure to note the zombie-esque qualities of the animated program.

“You shouldn’t say that,” said show mastermind David X. Cohen. “Because every time I truly give up hope, that’s when the show comes back.”

“This is because of No. 1: our extreme, hardcore fans our show has always had, that when our show goes off the air, refuse to stop watching on streaming, or cable, or on video games…hopefully. And number two: writing about the future, the show doesn’t age as much as other shows as shows written ten years ago.”

And if more Bender, more Amy Wong, more Nibbler weren’t enough, the more game will also contain completely new episodes of the show. This includes pie-eyed 1920s animation, sexy gender-bending Scruffy, Zoidberg in love, tributes to John Carpenter’s The Thing and more shiny asses you can shake a wrench at.

And the game is jam packed with all sorts of the type of guests that make science freaks and Marvel lovers go squee.

“It’s a pretty nerdy list,” said Cohen. “Like CHRIS HARDWICK! And George Takei, Stephen Hawking, Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson.”

“I totally don’t belong in there,” cried Hardwick.

The event also included a live read of by the cast of the episode of “Proposition Infinity,” in which Amy and Bender fall in love and begin a taboo relationship. The cast on hand included Billy West (Fry), John Dimaggio (Bender), Lauren Tom (Amy), Maurice LaMarche (Kif), Phil Lamarr (Hermes), Tress MacNeille (Inez Wong, Leela for the sake of this episode as Katey Segal was unavailable) and David Herman (Scruffy). And to introduce the group, show creator, Matt Groening.

At the event, the cast chatted about the working together for many years, including the sheer amount of brainpower in the group, which included many mathematicians on the writing staff. In fact, writer Ken Keeler created a theorem for use in the body-swapping episode “The Prisoner of Benda” so that applied mathematics could be used to solve the issues of the brain-trading episode that involved the Harlem Globetrotters. Because cartoon.

“We wanted to science up the episode a little bit, so we made it a little more complicated, so we said if two people ever switched brain, they could not switch back, so they had to get another it back using a series of other people,” said Cohen. “Once we started talking, we were like, ‘Oh, wait a sec, maybe we can’t even get your own brain back.’ So we got to the end of the day and we didn’t even know the answer to the question. We came in the next morning and Ken was like, ‘I PROVED THE THEOREM!”

Take that, Scooby Doo.

Futurama is known for appealing to the science lovers out there. Not only with its guest stars and math, but for inside jokes that require a good chunk of left brain power to figure out.

“We had an alien language in the show that was just simple code. We just substituted A for this, B for this. We just gave them five letter. Then we lurked on the internet to see how long they would get it. And of course, 45 minutes later, they got it.”

“For you game players out there who are also math nerds, the game has an incredibly hard alien language that’s not even part of the game really. Just a side puzzle for you really, if you have an extra month.”

The math jokes continue with Futurama: Worlds Of Tomorrow, on June 29.