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Showing posts from April, 2013

Fake Fighting Weekly

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So this is a fairly momentous occasion.  This past two weeks or so I was unexpectedly coerced back into the fake fighting universe by a somewhat serendipitous confluence of events.  It wasn’t the first time I decided to tune into WrestleMania out of sheer morbid curiosity--Stephen and I convened for last year’s WM as well but mostly because it was a stacked card and also because it was in Miami and because THE ROCK, THAT’S WHY.  This year it was much more about morbid curiosity than genuine interest.   Then, the next night, something happened.  Raw was WAR again, if only for one night.  Apparently, the oodles of European and Northeastern smarks that tend to convene every year at the one wrestling event that seems worth paying money for anymore (if for no other reason than to cross it off your list of things to do before you die) stuck around to make this year’s “Post-Mania Raw” as special as last year’s.  And boy did they outdo themselves.  But we’ll get to that later. The

Saturday Smodcast Share Time: Walt Flanagan Draws pt. 4 A Couple of Dicks

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  Walt's going to draw a couple of Dick's today. Some Dick Grayson's of course. In his two greatest forms as the Boy Wonder Robin, and as Bludhaven's grim disco defender Nightwing.   Walt's preferred Nightwing is the disco collar Nighwing, from his debut. I dig the version of Nightwing's outfit they had in he BTAS . I like the blue symbol over the red one, because the red one reminds me of Chris O'donell as Robin. Though I understand the idea behind the red as oppose to light blue, as his old Robin costume is red. However, I think Nightwing is Dick really redefining his personality, so I like that he is the combination of Batman's black and Superman's blue. Since Nightwing was the original name Superman fight's crime as in the bottle city of Kandor. Dick chose that name to honor his two mentors Superman and Batman. His old school Robin costume is classic and doesn't feel unrealistic to me. I think that Burt Ward maybe res

Burning Bush: CNN had The Lettermania

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Letterman had so much great George W. Bush material even CNN had to show it off. I feel like I 'm in good company now . Enjoy the failure. 

VIDEO GOLD: MASHUP OF STEEL

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I love these video mash-ups. This week we are mashing up the new Zack Snyder Superman film , and the S uperman the Animated Series by Timm and his team. This mashup pulls some great moments form the animated series and makes me wish that this new film had a shot of Superboy jumping across the moon in silhouette. I used to watch the Superman animated series religuiously, and introduced to some of my favorite DC characters like Lobo, Bibbo, Parasite, Aquaman, and the Flash. I love Micheal Shannon 's Zod voice and hope he gets lots of screen time. The mashup shows off how cool and effective the score in this trailer is. Click on after the jump to see the new Man of Steel Trailer with me.

Saturday Smodcast Share Time: 420 NOOTCH

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So this is a special edition of Smodcast Share Time as it lines up with the most appropriate Kevin Smith Holiday 420 Nootch! This year I urge you to go out and support the smodco. Go to Itunes purchase Kevin Smith's Cartoon Lagoon . It's three measly bucks and it's twenty-plus minutes of funny. Emphasis on the fun. There's a puppet Shecky, Jay dressed like Gilligan, and some choice Smodco animated goodness. The type of material I could've stretched out for a month on Smodcast Share Time. It's all here in a perfect morsel.   There's an appearance by Hollywood Babble-on's Ralph Garman reprising his role in spoilers in animated form as Doctor Cartoonius the man who sells Kev his yellow submarine. Ralph also plays an animated shark named Benchley who sounds just like the governator. There's a bit of a Pee-Wee Herman-ish live action/cartoon/puppet segment with Kev and Jay and then they introduce a bunch of sweet Smodco cartoons adapted from

Burning Bush: Conan the Detroyer

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Burning Bush is switching from Fridays to Thursdays so that Derrick can talk about wrestling. This week more great Team CoCo style comedy. Suck it Bush.

Trek Talk: Star Trek Into this Trailer

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Woah! I'm really not meaning to write a blog every time they show a new trailer . I just get so excited I can't help but geek out all over them. Watch the trailer. The trailer kicks off great with a Bruce Greenwood speech. I hope this becomes a corner stone of Abrams Trek. Bruce Greenwood is so talented (Gotta hear him play Batman in Batman:Under the Red Hood) theirs nothing better than hearing him fire up our hero. Cumberbatch follows Greenwood saying "I believe in you" with his thick rich voice saying "Darkness IS Coming." The sexual innuendo as a glass explodes form what I'm assuming is a phaser blast. Then Kirk says "This could be the Beginning" and then I think Robocop says "Beginning of what?" Then Kirk says "All out war" SCHWING We don't have to wait for Abrams Star Wars they've begun right here. OH YEAH! The city starts exploding. Kirk asks for permission to go after Cumberbatch. Spock

SCARY PARTS: The Lords of Salem

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Rob Zombie 's latest feature film The Lords of Salem seems to be his foray into the world of witchcraft and Satan worship. This film is being produced by the man who became the subject of my last Scary Parts Jason Blum. Here's a bunch of trailers, my favorite being #2. The wall paper in the trailer has a Kubrick-ian vibe and is reminiscent of the Shining to me on first glance. This film seems like a 70's movie made with modern actors. Zombie has a love for the 70's setting House of 1000 Corpses , The Devil's Rejects , and Halloween part 1 & 2 in that time period. It's a great period to set a horror movie in cause theirs a good mix of having technology and pop culture to draw from, with out having to worry about cutting off your main character's cell phone signals. Zombie has a bevy of arresting visuals in this trailer like a neon red cross, a spooky hallway, satanic texts, big guys in scary masks, a person trapped in some sort of personal

OBAMA TO RAISE TAXES AND KILL GRANDMA --or-- Why Obama's Budget Proposal is Pure Genius

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Am I the only person I know who thinks what Obama is doing with his budget proposal right now is utterly brilliant? Let's take a look at this logically for a minute.  It seems pretty obvious to me that this is a purely political move (more of Obama's famous three-dimensional chess) geared at positioning his party for political gains next year.  Think about it: do you really think he honestly believes even for a second that this budget (or, really, ANY budget he produces) is going to pass?  Republicans want deep cuts to spending and entitlements--non-starters for Democrats--and Democrats want modest spending cuts to be accompanied by new revenue and some modest new investments--non-starters for Republicans.  It would be nearly impossible to create a budget that pleases 60 Senators and 218 House members.  And the president knows this better than anyone.  And so he's chosen to use his budget proposal not as a policy document or even a statement of values but as a politica

Saturday Smodcast Share Time: Walt Flanagan Draws pt. 3 World's Finest

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This week Walt's going to tell us all about the World's Finest superheroes. Perfect and iconic designs ther very bread and butter of the DC universe.   Superman is the corner stone of the DC universe. He puts the super in everyones super-powers. His trademark spit curl as Walt points out is as important a trademark as the S on his chest. I love Superman his bright colors in some way embody the cosmic strength of his character. I like my Supes in the red undies, the new 52 one piece blue uniform doesn't seem that cool to me. As you can see this altered Chris Reeve , photo. Next up is the man who puts the Detective in Detective Comics. The Dark Knight Detective, the Batman. Walt draws a strong Batman who feels totally like James Bond brooding in a cape. The long ears are also reminiscent of the Justice League version of the DCAU's Batman.  Love the Aparo Batman style and I think Walt does a great job emulating it. Over on Fatman on Batman you can

Burning Bush: Sword of Conan

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After our recent rundown of great Letterman bush moments. I thought it's time to give a lat night host I actually enjoy some spotlight. I love Conan O'brien I always try to keep an eye out for what he's saying and doing so let's take a look at some of his best Bush derived humor . 

COMICBOOK REVIEW: Wolverine and the X-men #17

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One man's art is responsible for me getting into comics. That man is Mike Allred . Mike Allred is an amazing artist. I've tried to share his art with others before but they couldn't quite understand the magic of Allred's art. Allred draws the comics and his wife Laura adds the color which is such a vital element to his style. It is timeless he makes every character seem like their most classical interpretation. I can't get enough of seeing him draw my favorite characters. I was in a used bookstore and the year was 2003 or 2004 maybe even 2005 it's hard to say. This used bookstore had some old comics on the wall. Three of those comics were X-statix #1, 2, and 3 written by Pete Milligan and drawn by the master Mike Allred. This comic sung to me from the rack. I was always a big fan of the X-men and religiously followed the 90's X-men the Animated series . In Elementary and Middle School I collected cards based on DC and Marvel comics. My favorite cards

SCARY PARTS: The Purge

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So this is a new section, I'm starting devoted to exciting news, reviews, and trailers for horror films. I loved Sinister it was an effective engaging horror film, with plenty of style and substance. The Purge is another Ethan Hawke driven horror film, produced by Jason Blum who also produced Sinister .   Jason Blum is the type of producer who can sell me on a movie if the concept is enticing. His most important credit is arguably producing the Paranormal Activity movies, which I'm not a fan of. However, I loved The Bay which he had a hand in, and I'd consider Sinister one of the best horror movies of this decade so far. Insidious is another homerun on his batting average, which is anchored by a high concept and amazing acting. The Trailer for this new film, shows some interesting concepts at work. In a more crime free future, there is one night a year with out law where people kill with out repercussion. The film has a Funny Games / The Strangers sort of vibe with h

Saturday Smodcast Share Time: Walt Flanagan Draws pt. 2

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Let's go over some more episodes of the SIT sensation Walt Flanagan Draws . Walt has a deep appreciation of George Perez and Marv Wolfman' s Teen Titans. Which is why he starts drawing the demon's of the DC universe. I'd love to see Walt draw Trigon in a battle against John Constantine and Swamp Thing and all the dark and magical DC characters. Kevin has talked to Tara Strong who voiced Trigon's daughter Raven on the Teen Titan's animated series. A great comics and animation themed episode of Fatman on Batman . Keeping with the demonic theme, here is Blue Devil. I can dig the old design, but I like his design from his Shadowpact days. The t-shirt and jeans is much cooler, even if it does feel like he's ripping off Hellboy a bit. The new 52 design I don't find so engaging, cause it keeps him small and looking a little bit like he's in a fetish club. I like the way they treat his origin and mythology. The movie studio that gave

Burning Bush: Lettermania PT. 4

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  Letterman's Bush catalog still has some good gaffes. I think this will be the last Lettermania Burning Bush edition for a while, maybe next week it'll be Leno, or Conan's turn.

Breaking Down the 2013 State of the Union

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So it's been over a month since the State of the Union Address; I know I'm a little tardy to the party on this one but I worked hard on it and with all the other things I've got going on, it tends to take quite a bit of time to do an analysis this extensive of an hour-long speech.  It was Obama's first State of the Union (SotU) since winning re-election, which is a huge moment for any president.  You no longer have to worry about being re-elected and you have four years ahead of you to do all the difficult things you really came here to do.  That being said, it comes as no surprise that if I could choose only one word to describe the 2013 State of the Union, it would be "ambitious."  There was a lot of stuff we had all heard many times before--stuff that was straight out of campaign speeches such as the themes of growing the middle class and income inequality.  But there was also a lot of stuff we hadn't heard before, at least not from Obama.  Let'

Tuesday Tunes--Deftones Live @ The Fillmore 3/19/13

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It was certainly a happy birthday for me.  That's right, as luck would have it, one of my all time top 10 favorite bands was playing in my city on the day of my birth. This was my fourth time seeing Deftones and the first time I've seen them in ten years and I gotta say they're as good as they've ever been.  Chino Moreno is really one of the best frontman of this generation and his voice has only gotten better over the years.  He was his usual self, venturing into the crowd numerous times, flailing himself all over the stage, and even taking a few opportunities to do a little dance to some of the more groove-laden moments.  The band was tight as ever (even without Chi Cheng, who has been sidelined for several years after a car accident that left him paralyzed).

Trek Talk: Cumberbatch Star Trek Theory

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So as you may know, if you follow this blog, I am very excited for the new Star Trek film, Star Trek Into Darkness. I have been working on this blog post for a couple of weeks, and now it may be totally irrelevant due to the latest trailer.: As you can see they call him a top agent, so he's some sort of ex-Starfleet member. Now I had a different theory as to who he was and here it is, for purely speculative purposes.  The mystery swirling about the internet is around the character of the film's villain, played by break out star of the BBC's Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch. I have not been particularly interested traditionally in speculating on who he could be. However, with the film not coming out till May the wait is killing me and I must do something to pass the time. First off. Why? Why should we care and speculate at who Mr. Cumberbatch will be playing in this film?