New DVD Late Show column now posted

My latest batch of "B" movie DVD reviews are now posted at Quick Stop Entertainment.

Titles covered in this column include: Eat My Dust, Creature from the Hillbilly Lagoon, Bacterium, Space Amoeba, Spider Baby, Next, Cheech & Chong's Up In Smoke, and more.

Check it out!

Weekend Video Recap

The wife and I rented a whole buncha movies this weekend, mostly older stuff that we'd been interested in seeing for a while, with an impulse choice or two.

First, the CGI-animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, TMNT. I was never a huge fan of the property, although I had some of the earliest B&W comics, and Brandi is of an age where she occasionally watched the original TV show. Anyway, this new CGI feature was pretty decent. It required the audience to already know something about the characters, but the story was suitably "big," the voice acting was good, and the animation was really quite nice. One fight scene, pitting two of the turtles against each other on a rooftop in the rain at night, was really quite stunning.

Then, we watched a goofy comedy starring Jamie Kennedy, called Kickin' It Old Skool. Nothing particularly notable, but it was entertaining. A 12-year-old breakdancer hits his head during a school talent show and is comatose for twenty years. Waking up in 2006, he decides to help pay off his family's medical debt be reuniting his dance team and entering a TV contest. Lots of nostalgic "stuck in the 80's" jokes and a great cameo by David Hasslehoff.

Then, because I'd been kinda pumped by the trailer for the next installment, I finally watched the first Alien Vs. Predator movie, AVP. From all the online reviews I'd read, I expected this to be much worse than it was. To be honest, I rather liked it. I thought the story was fine, the effects were good, and the actors basically competent. Sure, it was no Aliens – in either the suspense or characterization departments – but I thought it was fun.

Also watched 300. It was fine. Didn't blow my socks off or anything, but I enjoyed it. Certainly an impressive technical achievement, with some thrills, but ultimately just okay.

Watched the Nicholas Cage flick, Next, another thriller with a time travel or "seeing through time" gimmick (Paycheck, Deja Vu, Heroes, etc.). Next was a solid little film, with a few good twists, based on a Philip k. Dick story, but again, just okay.

Finally, we watched the Korean monster movie, The Host. We'd been looking forward to seeing this for a while, and we weren't disappointed. Like a number of Asian films, the tone shifts in the movie can be a little jarring at times, but the basic story of a dysfunctional family pulling together in a time of crisis was something different for a 'creature feature." The monster itself was rather cool and unique, and its first appearance in the story was shocking and nerve-wracking. Recommended.

And... believe it or not, I also managed to do some work, some reading, and some laundry this weekend, too. ;)

Vintage Sci-Fi on DVD

For the second year in a row, Universal Home Video has released a set of vintage science fiction thrillers in a DVD set that can only be purchased from the Best Buy chain.... assuming you can find them.

Last year's set included Tarantula, The Monolith Monsters, Monster on Campus, The Mole People, and, the gem of the set, the classic The Incredible Shrinking Man – in its proper widescreen ratio. for the first time on home video.

Although a number of fans hoped that Uni would offer the movies to the mass market soon after, they still have not done so.

So, when this year's set – which includes Dr. Cyclops, Cult of the Cobra, The Land Unkown (my favorite of the batch), The Deadly Mantis and The Leech Woman – went on sale last week, I convinced the wife to let me make the 50-mile drive to the closest Best Buy store to pick it up. (They're opening a new Best Buy store closer next year, fortunately.)

Frankly, this year's set is pretty weak. 1940's Dr. Cyclops, by the guys behind the original King Kong, is kinda fun, and is in three-strip Technicolor. And, I've been fond of 1957's The Land Unknown (cheesy dinosaurs and all) ever since seeing it when I was a kid on Channel Six's "Sci-Fi Theater," which, for several years in the Seventies, ran on Saturday afternoons during Summer vacation. But the rest of them – including the admittedly entertaining Mantis – are among the studio's weakest SF efforts. In a way, it's too bad This Island Earth and It Came from Outer Space had already been released seperately... but at least the studio issued It as a nice special edition a few years back.

Nonetheless, I still prefer vintage sci-fi and fantasy films over 99% of today's genre flicks, and I'm thrilled to have these in my library. The transfers are gorgeous, and it was great to finally see The Land Unknown in widescreen, which allowed me to even better appreciate the marvelous jungle sets and flawless compositing work of the FX crew.

(Now, I'm planning my trip to BB in late October for the exclusive "classic horror" set.)

Anyway, I was also hoping to pick up a couple of the new wave of MGM/Fox "Midnite Movie" releases – I have my eye on The Witchfinder General and Food of the Gods dics, as well as a few of the double feature sets (Return of Dracula/The Vampire, Yongary/Konga, Tales From The Crypt/Vault of Horror)– but the Best Buy in question didn't have any of them on their poorly-stocked shelves. Neither did our local WallyMart or Circuit City ... looks like Deep Discount DVD will be getting my business again.

Ah... the annual Halloween DVD "surge".... I love it, but if they'd release these things gradually over the year, it would be a lot easier on my limited budget....

New DVD Late Show column posted

New Late Show reviews are now posted at Quick Stop Entertainment, including: The Sergio Leone Anthology, Planetfall, Serenity – The Collector's Edition, The Giant Behemoth, Red Dawn – The Collector's Edition, Pathfinder: Unrated, Heroes: Season 1, Voyagers: The Complete Series, The Bourne Files and more.

Check 'em out!

New FEMME NOIR Cover

Here's the "A" Cover for the first issue of the forthcoming Femme Noir miniseries, pencilled by Joe Staton and digitally painted by Alfredo "Freddy" Lopez. The "B" variant cover is by Brian Bolland.

Isn't it beautiful?

Star Trek Lives!

There's this group of Star Trek fans, see, led by a gentleman named James Cawley, who have recreated the original Trek sets at a secret location in upstate New York, and are actually filming new adventures of the original Enterprise crew, distributed exclusively through this here internet thingy.

These "Season 4" episodes feature scripts by name Trek and sci-fi writers like D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, Michael Reaves, Marc Scott Zicree and Howard Weinstein, and include on-screen appearances by original Trek cast members George Takei, Walter Koenig, Grace Lee Whitney, Denise Crosby, Malachi Throne, William Windom and Majel Barrett Roddenberry as the voice of the ship's computer. Special effects are state-of-the-art CGI, rivalling anything on the later Trek spin-offs, created by computer animation students and donated to the project.

And, believe it or not, Paramount – along with Majel and Eugene Roddenberry – have apparently given Cawley & company their blessing, as long as they don't financially profit from the episodes.

The original characters have been re-cast with amateur actors of varying talent, but the sets, costumes, props, lighting, photography, music and effects are all top-notch... at least in the one episode that I've downloaded and watched so far, Reaves & Zicree's "World Enough and Time," starring George Takei.

Now maybe I'm just a bit overwhelmed by the fact that I've just seen a new Trek episode – especially such a professional-quality one – but I thought it was terrific. Sure, the main cast are clearly not polished professionals, and sometimes the poor performances can be distracting (Cawley, as Kirk, has a tendency to overact with his eyebrows, for example), but Reaves and Zicree's story (considering that it mostly takes place on the ship) was one of the best Trek stories ever, with a solid understanding of the characters and themes of ST:TOS. Additionally, the key performers in the episode – Takei and Christina Moses as "Alana Sulu" – were so good that they more than made up for anyone else's thespic deficiencies.

Frankly, I'm astounded that a fan production can look so good and play out so well. In fact, I'll go so far to say that had this starred the original cast in their prime, this would be considered one of the top five Classic Trek episodes. But even with the mostly sub-pro cast, I was able to enjoy the episode immensely.

I'll be downloading the other New Voyages as soon as I can, and I have to say that this has given me considerably more confidence in J.J. Abrams' feature film Trek plans, as "World Enough and Time" proved to me that I can still enjoy the original Enterprise crew even with different actors in the roles.

You can download "World Enough and Time" in various formats, as well as a couple of earlier episodes here. The producers encourage people to download and burn the episodes to DVD, and even provide downloadable cover art, too.

If you're a Trekkie, you should check it out. Can't promise you'll like the shows, but you should definitely appreciate the hard work and salute the epic geekiness necessary to pull these things off.

My Reaction Was Similar...

That Man Marvin

There's no question, that, like Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs, I'm a big Lee Marvin fan.

Not only do I love watching his movies – especially his hardboiled crime flicks like Point Blank, Prime Cut, and The Killers – but Rick Burchett and I have even used the late actor as the model for our crime comic protagonist, "Gravedigger" McCrae. In fact, the art accompanying this post is the from our new, forthcoming Gravedigger graphic novel, The Predators. (See, Craig? We're really doing it!) And although using a character resembling Marvin got us a fair amount of notice, our only real intention was to pay tribute to the man, and express our gratitude for all the entertainment and inspiration he'd given us.

Hell, I'll even forgive him for Paint Your Wagon.

Lee Marvin died 20 years ago today. His last films were The Delta Force, with Chuck Norris, and a TV sequel to The Dirty Dozen – and, yes, I have both of those on DVD. Even at the end of his career was convincingly hardboiled and tough, the kind of action star we no longer have today.

Hollywood – and audiences – are poorer for it.

I think I'll watch one of his movies tonight – maybe The Professionals or Death Hunt or The Dirty Dozen... or maybe, Cat Ballou!

A Day Late...

Jack Kirby was born 90 years ago yesterday.

What an incredible, imaginative mind he had. I so envy the man's endless invention and creativity.

I mean, seriously: Devil Dinosaur? How unbelievably friggin' cool is that?!

Death to the Dealers of Death!

I had a nice surprise this week.

A Spider fan named Jack Maxwell picked up a few extra replica Spider "premium" rings (issued as a promotional item by Baen Books for their new Spider pulp reprints) in San Diego and kindly sent me one. Apparently, he thought I handled the Master of Men with some degree of competence in my short story, "The Spider and the Monster Makers," which appeared in Moonstone Books' Spider Chronicles anthology.

I've had very little feedback on that particular tale, so receiving this neat gift and Jack's gracious letter was very gratifying. I tried very hard to capture the flavor of the original pulps and do justice to the character with that story. It's nice to know that someone thought I succeeded.

Thanks, Jack!

Deadly Beloved

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, Max Allan Collins was kind enough to send me an ARC of Deadly Beloved, the forthcoming Ms. Tree novel from Hard Case Crime.

It's been a busy month, so it took me a while to get around to reading it, but once I did, I breezed right through it. Collins' first-person prose is, as always, honed to a razor sharpness; terse and taut, with a relentless, driving narrative thrust that sweeps you along and makes the book difficult to put down.

The novel essentially retells – and retcons – the first two Ms. Tree comics serials, originally published in the early 80's, which means that for long-time readers like myself, some "surprises," well, aren't all that surprising.

But Collins has wisely re-arranged the particulars, added some previously-untold elements, and changed enough details that the reading experience is still fresh and exciting. All the familiar supporting characters are there – Rafe Valer, Dan Green, Roger Freemont, Dominique Muerta – and all pretty much as we remember them. There are also a few new (and intriguing) characters added to the cast, and I hope Collins gets an opportunity to sequelize this someday, so we can learn more about them.

While I enjoyed the book a great deal, and admire Collins' deftly executed updating of the 80's "origin story" to the present day, I have to confess that I was a bit put-off by the main character's apparent obsession with repeatedly name-dropping famous clothing designers, and her new propensity for foul language. I'm not offended by swearing – I can toss off vulgar expletives with the best of them – but it did seem somewhat jarring coming from Michael Tree. Maybe it's the lingering awereness of her funnybook origins, but it just "sounded" odd.

But those are really minor quibbles. It's great to have Ms. Tree back in any form, and her return is certainly a triumphant one. I highly recommend Deadly Beloved. It's a top-notch mystery thriller, with a formidible female protagonist, and I suggest that every crime fiction fan – whether they're familiar with the original comic books or not – pick up a copy when the regular edition is published in November.

City of Violence

I just got a press release about an upcoming 2-disc DVD of a recent Korean martial arts/crime flick, City of Violence. I don't know much about this, but the trailer looks great:


Hopefully, I'll be getting a review copy of this soon.

The New Kid

As you poor, regular readers of this self-indulgent tripe I call a blog already know, my wife and I recently had to put our beloved cat, Audrey, to sleep. Her cancer was terminal, and we wanted to spare her pain.

It left a very large hole in our life.

Over the last few weeks, Brandi had been looking into possibly adopting another cat. As it turned out, the local shelter was having free cat adoptions this month, so Saturday we drove over to see if there was some abandoned feline that we could provide a new home for. Well, right inside the door was a cage with a beautifully charismatic brown & white kitty named Snickers.

Well, we looked at another cat, but came back to Snickers, and thought we could live with her. Our only concern was whether she could get along with our dog, China. So we brought her home.

She spent a while exploring our old farmhouse and ignoring the dog – which hurt China's feelings – but quickly settled in, and was soon even giving the dog friendly head-butts. The name "Snickers" had to go, though – especially since she hadn't had it long – and she was soon rechristened "Zoe."

She's only been around for a day and a half, and she's still a bit aloof, but she seems to be coming around. I think she's going to be a very important part of our family.

Also brought home a few DVD rentals this weekend, including Children of Men, Hollywoodland and The Darwin Awards.

Children of Men was a terrifyingly believable hellride, with strong performances from the entire cast and brilliant direction by Alfonso Cuarón, (who also directed the best Harry Potter film to date, Prisoner of Azkaban).

Hollywoodland was okay. Diane Lane was gorgeous, Bob Hoskins was great, I still don't think much of Adrien Brody, and Ben Affleck never convinced me he was George Reeves. Too bad the studio wouldn't let the filmmakers go with Kyle McLachan.

The Darwin Awards was a decent indie dark comedy, with a great premise that I thought they didn't quite do justice to. I also thought Joseph Fiennes was miscast, but Wynona Ryder looked great and turned in a truly decent performance.

Of course, I also watched Steel Dawn. In fact, I bought Steel Dawn. I'm pathetic.

CROOK BOOKS: The Action Man

Jay Flynn was a writer of paperback originals in the Sixties and Seventies. He was, basically, what people think of as a "hack," usually managing to string together a reasonably coherent narrative that met a predetermined word count for undemanding editors at second-string houses.

But that's not to say that he didn't have some talent, or that his books weren't entertaining. Some of them are delightfully unpolished examples of low-rent pulp, and a lot of fun to read, like his "McHugh" spy series. He was also a man struggling with a lot of inner demons, and an eccentric of the first order. His friend, mystery writer Bill Pronzini, has written quite eloquently of Flynn's colorful life and the trials and tribulations that filled it.

His 1961 novel, The Action Man, is a great little heist thriller, which Pronzini calls Flynn's magnum opus, and based on the few Flynn books I've managed to track down and read, I tend to agree. It is the story of Denton Farr, a fairly unlikable bastard and bar owner who cheats on his wife, treats his girlfriend like dirt, and one morning decides to lift an Army payroll from the local bank.

The pacing is brisk and suspenseful, as Farr methodically plans and executes the caper. As a protagonist, Farr is well-developed and psychologically complex, his actions logical and believable. Like most good crook books, the ending is violent, unpredictable and ironic. It's fun stuff.

Flynn's books aren't easy to track down, and most of them literally aren't worth the effort, unless you're a freak like me who can get an occasional charge out of really bad writing. But The Action Man, while by no means a classic in the genre, is certainly worth a little web surfing and maybe spending a buck or two on.

Digger's on MySpace

Another of my fictional characters now has his own MySpace page.

That's right, "Digger" McCrae, the protagonist of the acclaimed crime comic, GRAVEDIGGER: THE SCAVENGERS, now has his own MySpace Page!

It may seem out of character for someone like McCrae – what with all the warrants out on him and all – to participate in something like MySpace, but what can I say? The old bastard's got balls. Check it out.

Oh – and by the way, there will be some exciting news about the future of McCrae's criminal career coming soon....