Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The King is dead. Long Live the King!

Just got back from a meeting. It is official. The radio show "The Comic Book Novice" is done (I may one day go back to it). Starting a week from today, I will be producing a new radio show called "It Came From The Radio". It will be on each Tuesday night from 11pm-12am on WGBB. Just Like CBN, it will be a live call in show with guests, movie discussions, and the occasional contest. I am bringing in a new fourth co-host Herman Senercha (I think that's how you spell his name). He has work as a movie theatre projectionist for over 25 years. He has a unique insight on the movie industry and just happens to be former WWE Superstar Tazz's brother. We are going to be an hour long and while keeping the core of CBN alive, we will have a few new segments. Next week's show will be us talking about the new Halloween movie. So watch it, and call in!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Yep it just had to wait. . .

I am torn (along with my computer monitor being on the fritz). I really couldn't decide to talk about the Movie District 9 or tell you all about some big news that has been floating around for a while. New developments popped up at the last second, so another movie review it is. . . .




I really have to start off with I didn't really know what I was getting into when I went to see this movie. Best guess was something like Alien Nation. But what I got instead, was...ORIGINAL. This was (for me) a new take on an "alien invasion" story. They really didn't invade as much as being stranded. Because of which, the humans did what they normally try to do, control, and experiment on them. However because there was a huge freaking mother ship just floating in the sky "lifeless" the couldn't cover it up. Once the fascination of the aliens wore off (they weren't "cool" or had "powers" or really even any useful tech, they were just there and taking up space), the humans just wanted them to go away. This movie is about the aliens being moved from the (for lack of a better term) slum, to a nice new spiffy concentration camp.

From what I hear, this was a "low budget" (30 million) movie so it had basically no known actors, and they relied on STORY to make this movie work. At some point, you really feel for the characters, and are rooting for them not really sure of the outcome. While, yes, they did leave it with an ambiguous ending, it was still an enjoyable movie.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

And knowing is half the battle......

With that one phrase (spoken twice!) I knew what kind of movie GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra would be. Yes, this is where I talk all about this movie, so......

This is a free flowing discussion, so spoilers may (and most likely will be) mentioned.



Yes, that is the one and only Rachel Nichols as Scarlett. Some of you may know her from shows such as The Inside or even the last season of Alias. she even starred in her own movie P2, but for some reason, most remember her as the half naked green girl in the new Star Trek movie.

So why am I taking up all this time talking about her? Well, mostly because she was one of the best things about the GI Joe Movie! Yes there was plenty of action, and yes Snake Eyes was pretty cool in it, but if my eyes were not distracted by Rachel, I might have hated this movie.

It tried so hard for me not to like it (plot holes, bad acting, bad writing), yet because Transformers was sooooo much worse, AND the fact that the movie didn't take itself too seriously, it gets a "pass". So yes despite its best efforts, I enjoyed GI Joe.

The best way to explain this is to compare the 2 Street Fighter movies. As mentioned in a previous post, by no stretch of the imagination was the VanDamme version a good movie, yet because the Chun-Li version was such a far inferior product, it actually raises the appreciation level of the VanDamme one. Now (probably because they are from the same "family") alot of people (myself included) are comparing the Transformer movies to GI Joe, and once again, GI Joe is raised by comparison of the sheer sucky-ness of Transformers.

While hanging around the Internet, I came across This guy's play-by-play of the movie. He pretty much nails it on the head.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

"limited run" or "X week engagement"

Now that we are in August, and the best case scenario has passed, I am thinking about how to make sure the radio show come back to the airwaves. It just doesn't makes sense to me to go back to funding the show myself and (despite my best effort) I have been unable to get enough sponsors to carry the show on it's own. Then it occurred to me.

I thought way not do like a 6-8 week limited run? I actually have a few guests lined up and there are plenty of subjects that we haven't covered as of yet (as well as some good movies coming up for us to review). So really, content isn't a problem. I also have thought about what things I can do to fine tune the show slightly, and there may be some minor changes, but the core of the show (which is us talking to the general public about comics, sci-fi, and horror in a light hearted manner) will remain the same. So as promised, we will be back this month on Thursdays 9PM EST (as always). Once we are, I'll post on Thursday with the topic (or guest) of the week and Fridays the show will be archived on my site. I have to talk to a few people before I have an exact number of shows that we will do, so I'll have all that info next week! Stay tuned!