Zangz's Blog of Geekdom

Things That Go Bump In The Night.....

2009-10-31T10:33:00.008-05:00

"From ghoulies and ghosties And long-leggedy beasties And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!"

- Taken from a Traditional Scottish Prayer

I left my bedroom window open a crack last night to freshen up the room a bit. I awoke to a chill slowly funneling through the window opening. This wasn't the usual bitter morning cold that can pinch us on a late autumn day. This was a forewarning. This was communication.

This was Them telling me, "We're here! This is our day! Not yours!"

I looked out my window to see the early morning dark clouds move along the sky as if they had a life of their own. The wind howled between the buildings down my avenue. The leaves flew in circular motions up and off of the ground.

This very day and night truly does belong to Them.

And who are these "Them"? For they are dead things, creepy things, rotting things, things with scales, things with fangs, things that moan, growl and snarl from the shadows. They are disembodied whispers coming from the corners of a dark room. They are the things you can't see, but know are close by.

For the last several weeks the doorway between the worlds of the living and the dead has slowly been creaking open and today is the doors are torn off of their hinges with spirits and creatures from the netherworld running freely amongst the living.

Take heed! Quickly carve that Jack-O-Lantern and put it in the window to ward them off. Or you can dress up as one of them to blend in with the dead.

It will be the witching hour, midnight tonight, when they will be called back to the world of the unknown and the door will be sealed for another year and we living humans will have safety from the dead.

As a special Halloween treat, for those of you who maybe didn't get a chance to visit local Haunted Attractions this year, here are some YouTube links to videos on some of the nation's best Haunted Houses! Each of them are 5 to 8 minutes each, so you have a good hour to peruse some pretty impressive haunts! Enjoy.....

THRILLVANIA
CREEPYWORLD
BATES MOTEL
FIELD OF SCREAMS

NETHERWORLD
GOATMAN HOLLOW
SPOOKYWOODS

That's about it for me today. Please have a very safe and downright spooky Halloween!

Zangz.

A Haunted Concert at a Haunted Venue by a Haunting Band

2009-10-30T11:29:00.010-05:00

Last night my favorite band, Type O Negative rolled on into town. It was one show of a very special 12 city Halloween tour that they occasionally venture on during October of certain years. There's one venue in particular they play every time they tour. It's called The Rave and it's housed in an old building called The Eagles Club.

The big, looming building was constructed in the 1920's as an athletic club that would also have grand functions like ballroom dances and diners. Once the athletic club closed, it became a shelter for men for a short spell. Once the big haired 80's hit the building started to host rock concerts in the ballroom. In fact a few of my first concerts were in this venue including Adam Ant with INXS opening as well as a double headlining show of Metallica & W.A.S.P. with Armored Saint opening the show. It has now opened a few more theaters within the venue. There's a smaller hall called The Rave Hall. This is where Type O always perform. Then there's the big Eagle's Ballroom on the 3rd floor. The lower floor houses a much smaller club hall as well as a vacant and locked up old swimming pool. So a lot can go on in one evening at this one establishment.

But, once the fans have left and the bands have loaded up their gear and there's a small smattering of employees left to do some last minute clean up, that is when very odd and downright spooky things can happen.

Witnesses have reported that there seems to be a group of children who haunt the halls of The Rave. Disembodied voices of children both playing and crying can be heard when the venue is near empty. The entities of the children all playing together have actually been seen by employees. There's also a ghostly little girl who wonders about the basement giving witnesses a cold feeling of dread before she manifests. Creeeeepy. Buahahahahaha!

That's not all! Many other odd occurrences take place when the venue is near empty. Sightings of Shadow People, feelings of cold spots, inexplicable negative feelings and the sounds of foot steps seem to flow through the building.

There's one particular ghost that seems to like to watch bands do their sound checks and rehearse. Band members have spotted a dark figure seem to peer at them from a balcony or side of a stage and then the entity disappears suddenly. There are those that believe that it may be the ghost of the late Buddy Holly who enjoys watching from the shadows. Apparently, Buddy Holly played his last concert at the venue before he died in a plane crash.

When I attended ZombieConX a few weeks back, I went to a panel discussion given by The Wisconsin Paranormal Investigators. One of the subjects that came up was famous Milwaukee haunts. The Rave was one of the first to be mentioned. One of the people in the crowd used to do work there and he said that he'd show up when hardly anybody was there to set up equipment. He then went on to say that there would be a major feeling that he was being watched even though he was the only one in the room.

I've been to this venue for concerts about 12 times in my entire life and sadly the only ghoulish spooks I've ever seen here are Type O Negative.

And that, my friends, just made a great segue to my review of Type O Negative's All Hallows Evil Tour '09 show at The Rave....

Once I entered the spooky old venue I bellied up to the bar where, beerwise, they were sadly only selling $7 domestic swill. It's a Rock Club. What should have I expected? I hopped up on a stool and begrudgingly ordered an MGD. I sat and enjoyed the Goth-Metal band that was playing in the bar lounge area since security weren't opening the Rave hall doors for the main concert yet. I wish I could remember the name of the band that was playing as they weren't too bad and had a pretty mysterious and sultry red head as their singer/keyboardist. Ok, ok. I'll admit it. I'm still a creepy old geeky dude.

Soon after the bar band were done the main doors opened and I got myself a Type O tour shirt (for the remainder of this review Type O Negative will be referred to as either "Type O" or "TON" 'cause I'm a lazy blogger).

Pickings for merchandise were quite slim since this was the second to last show of the tour. With T-shirt in hand I once again got my seat up in the balcony since I'm way too friggin' old to deal with the moshing or body passing that occurs on the floor level of the hall. The balcony area (costing an extra $5) also had it's own bar that in years past had a little more of a variety of beers. But this time around it was the same domestic swill that was at the lower bar. An MGD was once again begrudgingly purchased and sat at my seat awaiting the first act to hit the stage.

After I did some serious Goth kid watching the lights went down and Seventh Void came on. Seventh Void features two of the members of Type O, Kenny Hickey on guitar and lead vocals and Johnny Kelly on drums. This four piece sounds far more energetic live in concert than they do on their CD. Their other guitarist is incredibly lively on stage, bounding and dancing around as he strums away. Seventh Void's real strength is in a live show!

After a very quick set change the second openers for the night came on. Destrophy are a band out of Des Moines, IA that plays a powerful, yet melodic kind of Metal. I liked them a lot and they had one heck of an entertaining drummer who was swinging the sticks all over the place never missing, a beat. I may have to pick up their CD!

Once they finished their set a real cool geeky moment happened to me. I went up to the bar for another beer. I was wearing my old, black leather motorcycle jacket that I've had for over 20 years now. It's pretty worn but, I have a cool patch of the Galactic Empire's symbol form Star Wars on the arm of the jacket. I also have adorned the lapels of the jacket with pins of Boba Fett's Mandalorian symbol and Death's Head (I'm not Wikki-ing all of that. If you don't know Star Wars, you don't know $#!+). The guy who came up next to me as I was ordering the beer looked at the patch and buttons and told the bartender to get me a shot of JD on him. Apparently he was impressed that there was a fellow SW fan there wearing his fandom on his jacket. Way cool!!!

I have to give props to the road crew on this tour. Usually it takes a good 30 to 45 minutes to tear down one band and set up another, but these people were quick! After fifteen minutes the lights went down for the headliners, Type O!

Over the speaker system the into tape was playing the them song to The Munsters as the gruesome foursome took to the stage. The intro stopped, the lights came on and TON slam into one of my faves, "Dead Again"! And then they merged right into another one of my faves, "Hey Bacchus". It was a great start to a show that just kept moving with dark energy. Sometimes when they tour, their set list is heavy with a lot of their older, more plodding songs. But this time around they seemed to focus on their songs that have both a lot of energy and melody. Highlights included, "Halloween in Heaven", "Love you to Death" and of course the concert ending "Black #1". They really seemed to be in the spirit, healthy and pretty energetic on stage this tour. This was one of my top 3 shows of all the times I've seen them live!

Tall and Lurch-like Peter Steele (vocalist/main songwriter/bassist) didn't talk to the crowd too much this time, but when he did he seemed to be in very good spirits.

Kenny Hickey and Johnny Kelly didn't seem slowed down or tired from Seventh Void's earlier set. they were just as up for some headbanging as everybody else.

The stage set was nothing special. Just their banners and flags hanging from speakers and the back drop.

There was a very notable difference in this TON tour than in years past. Keyboardist, Josh Silver, is passing on this tour to continue his EMT schooling. He will return for future albums and tours. In the meantime TON got Scott Warren who's usual gig is with Dio and Heaven and Hell (aka: Ronnie James Dio lead Black Sabbath). Though Josh's flipping off the audience and waving around his big curly locks was missed by all, Warren seemed to more than capable in keeping up with all of the TON songs that evening.

The set list (as best as I can recall... after the shot of JD) was as follows.....

Intro - The Munsters theme.
1. Dead Again
2. Hey Bacchus
3. NIB (Black Sabbath cover)
4. Halloween in Heaven
5. Prophets of Doom
6. Love You to Death
7. Wolf Moon
8. Anesthesia
9. World Coming Down
Encore
10. Black #1.

Ten songs may seem like a short show, but you have to remember Type O songs can last anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes.

Would I have liked to hear a couple more of TON's Halloween themed songs in the show? Heck yeh! After all it was a Halloween tour. It would have been nice to here "Creepy Green Light" or "All Hallows Eve" thrown into the mix. But that's the only minor complaint I have.

This was one of TON's best shows here in Milwaukee yet. It was a tight set that flowed really well and was very energetic. Though I may have to wait another few years for a new CD and tour, it will be worth the wait!

Here's more Halloween happenings!

I did go to another Haunted Attraction last weekend!

Meadowbrook Haunted Cornfield Adventure - I hadn't been to this one in a few years so I was a bit curious on what has changed. I know the price did rise dramatically in the last few years so a lot of my fellow haunt enthusiasts stopped going. Upon traveling through the maze I did notice that a lot of the effects have changed for the better. It used to be mainly actors and paper mache dummies that lined the stalks. But this year they've added some real cool mannequins and some very nice animation effects. There isn't an area of corn maze that isn't themed or adorned with some sort of frightening sight! There are three or for shacks you have to go through in between your venturing through the stalks. One is clown themed that has a goofy maze to traverse. then there's the hillbilly hut where gruesome things lurk. There's also a shack that didn't really work out too well. They herd you into this room and lock you in and keep you there with nothing going on inside it. After about 3 to 4 minutes they open the door to let you out. What's the point of that? The Pirates of the Caribbean finale will have you blown away, sea monster and all! I do have to admit, they've pretty much improved from the last time I've attended. We'll have to see if they keep on improving from year to year. Hopefully they will not keep raising their admission fee and ostracize potential patrons. They've got a great thing going here and it would be a shame for them to out price themselves.

Before I head out, I'd like to post another edition of.....

Zangz's Website of the Moment:
MILWAUKEE AREA PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS

Since we were on the subject of a local haunt earlier in the blog, I thought I'd
post a link that has a few more places in my hometown that are spooked up.
A few of them are a 5 minute walk from my Vault of Geekdom headquarters.
So Take a peek and leave a light on tonight!

Well tomorrow is the big day and the Season of the Dead will sadly come to an end during the witching hour. I've got some errands to run and do today. So I'm calling it here, kido's

Zangz.

More reviews on undead, spooky and Halloweenish stuff...

2009-10-23T19:17:00.007-05:00

Hello there, fellow geeks, goobs and lovers of things dark and creepy. We're certainly full throttle into our time of year. Only one more week to go before the fun is over.

Today I enjoyed the day off from work and had a chance to take a drive into the suburbs. I have to tell you that even thought the weather was dark, murky and wet, the color of the changing trees were all that more brilliant! In an odd way the gray sky backdrop heightened the bright orange leaves the trees were trying not to loose. Very beautiful!

So over the last week or so I've immersed myself in Halloweenish indulgences. I have experienced a few Horror movies and a couple of Haunted Attractions. So let's dive right into the reviews.

Let's start with the movies

Dark Ride - Get a young, hot, name actress coming off of one of the greatest TV mobster serials of all time, then add a creepy setting such as an abandoned Haunted House ride on Cooney Island, try and spice it all up with a group of college kids trapped in the Haunt with a homicidal maniac, then attempt to put a little mystery into the mix and you'll get a so-so B-grade horror flick. Jamie-Lynn Sigler heads the cast as a fed up girlfriend who's dragged along on a road trip with her boyfriend and a few other kids to spend the night in the abandoned dark ride. Once they arrive and break in the slaying then ensues. Far from the worst horror movie out there (The Wickeds), this film does little to give the Horror Genre a boost. Its' pretty common slasher fare up until the very lame mystery "reveal" at the end of the film. There is some good creepiness in the main killer with his mannequin face and slow, hunched over movements, but it's not much that we haven't seen before. (View Trailer HERE).

The Messengers 2: The Scarecrow - The first Messengers movie, staring a pre-Twilight Kristen Stewart was pretty friggn' creepy if not a bit predictable. If you're looking for something similar you'll be sorrowfully disappointed in this name only sequel. Yes, it involves a family trying to make a change in their lives by buying a creepy old farm like the first movie. That's where the relativity stops. Instead of a bunch of way-creepy restless spirits haunting the farm, it's a half-assed, looks like plastic, supposed to be creepy scarecrow that is cursed to whoever uses it. The father of the new family, who looks like he's about 25 years old rather than a fatherly figure, decides to use the "creepy" scarecrow to ward off the crows who are eating up his cornfield and putting him in debt. That's when people start to disappear and the scarecrow starts to take victims. This movie is pretty long winded and predictable. (See Trailer HERE!)

The Hills Have Eyes (2006 remake) - Like the original, this remake (yep, another) features the story of a family making a cross country trek through the vast desert of the west when they run into a psychotic group of inbred, nuclear mutated freaks. Once the trap is set the muties start picking off family members one by one in shocking way after diabolical way. I think that I would have enjoyed this film a lot more if A. It wasn't a remake (can't anyone in Hollywood come up with something original.) and B. there wasn't a rape scene. I know the original had the rape scene as well, but that was released in a time where rape scenes in horror films were more than just there for shock purposes. It was beyond taboo and was in the film for a real jarring reason. This scene is there strictly for the "look how evil these muties are, ohhh are they scary" type of vibe which is NOT COOL!!! I've said it before about certain horror flicks and I'll say it again. Rape should never be used as a trivialized scare tool! And sadly this remake does just that. Sad, since it had sooo much more potential. (See trailer HERE).

The Landlord - I came upon this film from attending ZombieConX a few weeks back. In the dealers room there was a booth dedicated to the film. As I walked past it, there was a young man with long hair and glasses standing in the isle who noticed my "Illuminati: Someone You Trust Is One Of Us" T-shirt. He commented on it wondering if I was a fan of the collectible card game. I told him I'd never played but thought the shirt was very clever with the whole hint of how the "mythical" organization is in control of everything. He found that amusing and then went full throttle into trying to sell the horror movie to me. I talked to him a bit and he told me he was a fledgling film maker from Chicago. I told him I'd check back with him later that weekend. Sure enough, the next day I plopped down my $10 for the DVD of his movie, The Landlord. If you're a Horror fan you'll appreciate this movie, if for nothing else, the creative force of very independent film makers who've probably funded their film on a bunch of newly accepted credit cards that were probably maxed out straight away before production even started. There's a good dose of dark humor in this flick about a building land lord who owns a building that has a gateway to hell and is under the control of two ancient demonic spirits that date back to Egyptian times. You'll have a love for this film if you're a fan of independent film makers who focus on the Horror genre and if you have a fond love of dark humor. If you're looking for a big budget Horror spectacular that doesn't use gory props that can be purchased at you local Halloween shop, then you may not be interested. But you gotta love the independent filmaking process that this movie exudes! Kudos to Emil Hyde for putting his financial balls on the line and living his dream of being a Horror film maker and stopping me in the middle of the ZombieConX isle to comment on my Illuminati T-shirt.

The Hills Have E yes 2 - The sequel to the 2006 remake doesn't fare too much better than its predecessor. The exception may be that there isn't a full on rape scene, just a near rape scene (sigh). Instead of a family being terrorized by a group of muties, it's a squadron of army trainees who are investigating the disappearance of a survey team out in the hills and mine tunnels of the desert. So it tries hard to be reminiscent of Aliens with a lot of that machismo military banter that plagues sooooo many Sci-Fi, Action and Horror movies to date since Aliens was released. Outside of the cheesy banter, that's where the comparison with Aliens ends. It's also slightly more predictable as it's first movie. (View Trailer HERE!) Oh when, oh when, Dark Spooky Gods, will there be a Horror movie I have rented where I can get the creeps at the same time be entertained?

Quarantine - Ok. Ok, we're starting to get there. If not in big leaps in bounds, certainly in little steps. This flick has a lot going for it. It's creepy. It's a zombie flick (oh yes it is!). And it has some truly creepy scenes in it. It's shot in documentary form as it follows a news crew covering an evening in a firehouse and what firefighters have to go though in a "day in the life" piece. The TV crew tags along when the station gets a call about some sort of health issue with a woman living in a slightly run down apartment building. Well of course the lady has some sort of zombie like virus and before you can say "Bob's Your Undead Uncle" the whole building is forcefully under quarantine and shut closed with tenants, firefighters and the news crew trapped inside with a zombie plague slowly infecting them all. For the most part I really enjoyed this movie. There was one slight issue I did have with it, however. It was shot in a Bliar Witch type of "lost footage - found" vibe, supposedly from the news team covering it all. This would have been a real cool idea if the movie hadn't been so Hollywoodized. When you shoot a film in that kind of style, you're trying to convey the fact that "this could have really happened!" But, the facts that you have stars from Dexter, Boston Legal and the dude who was married to Christina Applegate staring in the film, kind of takes away from the whole reality feel they were going for. Also, the sets and lighting and effects have a very polished Hollywood feel to them as well, also negating the "true life feel" the film was trying to convey. Despite that flaw, it's still a pretty darned good Horror flick! Worth a good viewing. Especially if you're a zombie film fan who's looking for something a bit different. (View Trailer HERE!)

Drag Me To Hell - Hell yes!!! Now We're getting somewhere! Unlike the plethora of remakes and slasher films that are plaguing the Horror Movie genre as of late, this Sam Raimi flick takes on an original approach to the genre. If psychos and vampires and ghosts and satanic demons have been overly used in current horror movies, where is a brilliant script writer/director to go? How about a movie about a curse? That hasn't been done in quite a while! And Sam takes on the subject matter with great, ghoulish relish! A cute, young yuppie, bank official, who isn't usually opportunistic denies an elderly gypsy woman a 3rd mortgage on her home. Thus, the elderly woman will probably be kicked out of it. The gypsy woman begs on her knees to Allison Lohman's bank official character for just one shot. With the potential of a promotion at the bank, Lohman's character takes the yuppie, capitalist road and denies her the loan. The gypsie woman puts a curse on the young bank executive and that's when things start to go very bad for Lohman's character. If only stuff like that happened to real life bank officials before the whole downturn of the economy, maybe we wouldn't have the mass unemployment that we do now! Getting back on the subject. Allison Lohman's chacter is haunted by a demon throughout the rest of the film and Raimi pulls out every extravagant gross out, fun filled creepy scene he can think of to do it. Allison Lohmon should win an Oscar just for the mass amount of undead-gross out-bodily fluids that she seems to have to ingest in her mouth throughout the movie! There's also a few really creepy scenes that Raimi has seemingly been influenced and pulled from his classic Evil Dead films of past legend! Sadly there was one big gripe I did have with this movie. The big ending was given away 3/4th of the way through the movie. Even a less than astute viewer knew how the movie was going to end when a less than subliminal clue was given out when.... (Highlight to read if you haven't seen the film yet.)

A character trying to help the girl ward off the curse gives her a coin-like object in a white envelope, JUST LIKE the coin that her boyfriend gives her at the beginning of the movie. Can you guess what items will be mixed up and who will still be doomed at the end of the movie, no matter what?

That kind of put a big damper on what was looking to be a really great horror movie! Nobody does gross out, fun horror like Sam Raimi! And this has real potential, if it wasn't for the give away ending. Still worth a viewing if you're a big fan of of Raimi's Evil Dead films!!!! (View trailer HERE!)

Ok, we're now going to take an undead look-see at a couple of good ol' local Haunted Attractions.....

When my good friend and fellow fan of the macabre, Roberto Del Amorte, found some free time in his recently challenging life, he leaped at the chance to join me in an evening of adventuring into the realms of the dark unknown.

Terror on Rural Street - As usual this is our "go to" haunt. It's become a tradition of the Halloween season. Every year they change things up a bit while reinventing some old effects t be more economically conscience. There was certainly a lot of good effects and rooms and scare-actors to go around. The theme this year was a generic creepy old house and the wonderful facade that greets you once you get in line certainly reflected that image. Once inside we were presented with all of the usual Terror on Rural Street fun we have very year. Yet, nothing entirely different or that sticks in our minds.

Hartford JC's Haunted House. - It didn't start well. After buying our ticket we were sent to wait in a couple of small rooms in a barn with a whole slew of Slinger teenagers who were singing songs at the top of their lungs just to piss off and annoy the other patrons. We left he main room and went to a smaller room where they were showing Alien VS. Predator against one of the walls. We sat there for a while enjoying the movie when the cavalcade of singing tweeners decided to move into our room and ruin the movie for us and others there. I had to wonder if I was ever that retarded when I was that age. I don't recall so. It seems to get worse every year. Kids get more and more obnoxious. Luckily their numbers were called far before ours. Once we started to get some peace and quite, we were ushered into the pre-show tent. The wait there didn't last quite as long and before we knew it, we were on our way through he haunted woods that would lead us up into the haunted farm house. The whole haunt gets better and better every year! This year was no exception. The scare-actors are far more theatrical and well into their rolls than other haunts. And if god wasn't my witness, there was some form of corpse popping out at every turn. All the rooms had very detailed props and scenery. Again these guys inch out Terror on Rural Street as a realy great haunt to visit. If they keep up the advancement that they exceed every year, this could become a real name haunt!!!!! Now a quick video game review.....

Dead Space - The Survival Horror genre of video games has a boat-load of competition since Dead Space hit the shelves over a year ago. I had the privilege of first plying it just recently. It's a 3rd person, over the shoulder shooter with a bunch of survival and RPG mechanics thrown in for good measure. Imaging being an engineer on a space vessel in the distant future who is aboard a ship bound for a derelict space station that has lost all communication and is need of a rescue operation. Once aboard the creepy vessel you're ship is destroyed and you find yourself among morphed and scary versions of the former crew of the derelict vessel. As the story pans out, a large portion of rock that this space station has gutted from the lower planet it is hovering over has brought about some form of evil power that has mutated its crew into god-awful creatures that you have to destroy while trying to bring power back to the station in a bunch of different missions you are put on. This game is every bit as addictive as it can be frustrating! One moment you'll be lovin' life as you blow away spooky, creepy crawly remnants of the former crew members as you build up your character's weapon and armor stats, the next you'll be wanting the throw your controller through the nearest window as you try to get through some ridiculousness that includes missions where you have to sweat through silly timing puzzles and awkward trails to accomplish tasks that won't let you progress in the game unless you succeed. So, as every bit as cool as hell as this game is, it stunts its own growth by putting you in some really outlandish and more than difficult situations where you'll find yourself having to re-spawn and start over after a silly death due to very unfair challenges. Definitely worth checking out if you like survival horror, action or even RPG video games. But don't expect to progress too far without cursing the game at least 5 or 25 times. (View some footage of gameplay action HERE!)

And that about ends it for this week. I'll have a couple more movie reviews and perhaps one more local haunt review for you sometime next weekend to cap off this year's Halloween season. Then I'll have the Type O Negative concert to look forward to. Until next time, Stay Vertical, unless you're lucky enough to be undead.

Zangz.

ZombieConX Review

2009-10-16T10:34:00.007-05:00

I spent last weekend getting infected...and it wasn't half bad.

"Infected? You Will Be!" was the promotional motto for last weekend's local Horror Genre convention, ZombieConX. Since it had been eons since I had the opportunity to attend a fun filled fan convention, I wasn't going to miss this con held just a 10 minute drive from my apartment.

I decided to go both Saturday and Sunday to take in all the creepy gory splendor. I got there a little too early as I had to wait in a small line of darkly dressed people for about an hour or so. The only entertaining moment that occurred was when the "Zombie Dolls" (spoke models for the con that were dressed in tight black paramilitary outfits) stormed past the line pulling along a captured zombified girl as they hollered things like, "Keep clear! We have an infected!!!", just prior to opening the doors. Cute. It's nice to know the organizers put a little fun and imagination into it.

Finally they started to herd people into the ticket lines. After a little confusion of what part of the table you actually purchased the tickets at, I got my two day tickets and headed into the main vendor/autograph hall. Apparently getting there early paid off quite well since the first 50 people in line received a free ZombieConX T-shirt. Trey cool, dudes!

Although the vendor section of the con was a little on the sparse side, it still had a whole bunch of cool people to talk to. I met one artist named Billy Tackett who is a painter that takes famous iconic images from the past and present and then adds a zombiesque touch to them. I bought a T-shirt with his Uncle Sam artwork on it. Then I met another artist named Mike Natarelli who was not only a tattoo artist, but also did some incredible genre / pop-culture etchings on glassware that has to be seen to be believed.

I also met a gentleman by the name of T. Glenn Bane who is an author and a Role Playing Game designer. He will have a book coming out soon called "The Gnoming - Haikus from Hell" which will feature a story of a small town infested by an army of demonic garden gnomes. Parts of the tale will be told in Haiku prose. I poop you not! He's going to pull it off.

There were also a cadre of small, independent fill makers either selling or promoting their movies. I ran into one group that just released their movie The Landlord. Apparently the movie has its own built in drinking game. So of course I picked up a copy. I haven't watched it yet. I'll let you now how it is.

I was hoping for more vendors (especially a T-shirt vendor with Horror movie images on them. Maybe next year.), but when you're at smaller con, you make the best out of what you have, and being able to talk and converse with these folks was pretty cool.

Then there were the celebs that showed up for selling autographs and Q & A sessions. All of them were quite gracious and friendly and were having as much fun as the fans coming to the show. Especially Scout Taylor Compton and Dee Wallace. Sid Haig was also there signing for fans.

One of the funny things about Saturday's events was that they held the Q&A sessions on the other side of the convention hall which was having some geriatric wellness seminar. So it was a regular site to see a bunch of people dressed as zombie clowns or zombie clergy walking down the hallway along with older people and their walkers. I guess you had to be there to appreciate the vision.

I went to a number of cool as frell Q&A sessions. There was one with some stars of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre that was more of a comedy improv theater than a Q&A.

There was one called The Great Zombie Debate which I thought would be some authors and fans talking about zombie mythos. But instead it was darn near every celebrity and author going at it on the subject of what was more horrifying, the slow traditional zombie or the newer, much faster zombies from movie like 28 Weeks. Everybody was getting into the quasi-heated discussion. Especially Scout Taylor Compton.

The Halloween: Then and Now seminar was just as good since actors from the original Halloween movies and the newer Rob Zombie redo's were there. Over the course of the half hour the subject matter changed to how Hollywood is made up bean counters and they're the ones who make the decisions on what movies get made and that is reflecting in a lot of these crappy remakes and unoriginal material that is infecting our Horror movie culture right now. All they care about is money and not plot, story or performance. Sad.

One of the last Q&A's I attended was the Wisconsin Paranormal Investigators. It's our own local group of ghost hunters. Though most some of them are skeptics more intent on debunking haunts rather than capturing ghosts, they did have some spooky stories to tell. Check their website!

I'm hoping this will be an annual con and they start to grow more. It has tons of potential of being up there with the likes of Chiller Con or Horrorfind Weekend! Perhaps getting more vendors with collectibles and souvenirs would be a start on expanding the con. I definitely plan on attending next year and spreading the word of the undead that infest Milwaukee's Wyndham Hotel!

I'm off today so I plan on spending much of it playing some Dead Space that I rented for the weekend. So far, it's pretty phenomenal when it comes to sc-fi survival horror! I'll have a review soon. Also watch for some possible Haunt reviews and more Horror movie reviews coming soon. I'm also hoping that my buddy Bruce will have his DragonCon diary up here soon. Perhaps after Halloween.

That's all for today! Until next time, Stay Vertical!

Zangz:

Into the Realms of Shadows.....or my lame movie reviews. Whatever blog title you feel suits this post.

2009-10-09T19:08:00.011-05:00

October is in full swing.

As I drove home from work tonight the light from the setting sun reflected off of the trees changing color quite beautifully. It made my sour mindset that the hellacious work week implanted fade away quite quickly. That is until I witnessed some rich little pr**k in a Porsche (aka: The I HAVE A SMALL PENIS AND HAVE TROUBLE PERFORMING IN BED mobile) that pulled out of a mansion driveway off of opulent Lake Drive, cut off an ambulance as it passed on the right. Die Yuppie Scum!

On to more happy and spooky musings. Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be attending a Horror convention called Zombiecon X. To be perfectly honest, I never knew there was ever a I through IX. It's the first I've ever heard of a halfway decent genre convention here in my hometown after Gen Con left. Some of the stars of the Living Dead movies as well as Rob Zombie films will be in attendance. I'm in it to get some friggin' cool T-shirts, see some gothy babes and enjoy a panel discussion or two. I'll let you all know how it goes.

My buddy Bruce is almost ready with his review of this year's DragonCon. Hold tight. He wants it to be just right. I'll be posting it very soon. Now on to the main meat of this blog.

I promised you fair readers some Horror film reviews and I have them here. So lets buckle down, turn off the lights, fire up some Jack-O-Lanterns and read on... if you dare.

Friday the 13th (2009) - Not nearly a horrible remake as I was expecting. The original F13 was one of the many Horror movies of the late 70's that heralded in the "slasher flick". It is hard to capture that same sense of dread in this decade. When you want to make a re-boot film you have to be very careful not to crap all over the original. If you're not going to bring in a feeling of a homage to the source material, you might as well throw in the towel. This Michael Bay produced recharge isn't exactly a homage as it is just another Friday the 13th flick that tries to restart it from a new millennium perspective. There are slight hints to homage of the original. But it's mostly a teen slasher flick that happens to have Jason Voohees as the killer. I will give it this, the first 20 minutes are quite cleaver as we are introduced to a group of teens going to camp out near Camp Crystal Lake and within 20 minutes they are all slaughtered. End of the film? Not quite. that's just the introduction before the title screen. Then we go into the meat of the story line that involves annoyingly rich, beautiful kids spending a drug filled, boozed up, oversexed weekend at some snotty rich kid's parent's vacation home. Of course violence soon ensues. Not bad at all, but not the rebirth of the Friday the 13th movies as Casino Royale was for the James Bond movies or the recent Star Trek is for the Trekkie franchise. Worth checking out if you're a horror fan. If for nothing else, for curiosity's sake. Speaking of Trekkie's, they might get a laugh at who plays Jason's psychotic mother at the beginning of the film.

The Haunting of Molly Hartley - In a nutshell it's sort of a modern day, teen Rosemary's Baby without the pregnancy. A dark "chosen one" has to get herself through puberty at the same time as coming to terms there's a lot more to her than just teen angst. Apparently she's some form of dark, evil entity. Once she turns 18 she will attain great evil powers. It's never really revealed what her position in evil will be. Is she the daughter of the devil, the Anti-Christ, some big spooky chick. Even at the very end of this film you're asking yourself, "So just what the hell was she supposed to be?" I found it pretty boring and the ending was not at all as revealing as it should have been. Slight twist, but, by the end no one cares.

Feast 2 - This was almost as cool as the first one! Uber-gory and darkly funny. This hidden diamond is worth if for fans of plain out crazy horror debauchery. Odd creature terrorize a small hick, western township, going after an all girl biker gang, a used car salesman, a couple of small people wrestlers and a few other slimy characters. I give this puppy two thumbs up for a horror movie that never takes itself too seriously.

The Strangers - I found this movie to more of a disturbing quasi-slasher flick than anything else. Outside of the creepy masks the killers wear there's little else to give you the creeps. It's more about how a small band of psychos terrorize and victimize a couple who are renting a small ranch home as they're in town for a wedding. It has it's pop-out-scare moments, but that's about it. Another horror movie that just makes you mad rather than creeps you out and gives you nightmares.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon - This started out as a brilliant, dark, mocumentary / comedy that satirizes the slasher horror genre. A grad school documentary crew follows an up and coming serial killer, Leslie Vernon. The first part of the film is quite humorously engaging as Leslie goes through the rules and processes of becoming the cliche slasher homicidal maniac. But, as the film progresses the pacing starts to go back and forth from dark comedy to oddball psychological thriller that takes itself too seriously and then finally on to actual slasher flick. Definitely worth checking out if you a big horror fan, even though it doesn't know what type of movie it really wants to be.

My Bloody Valentine (2009) - Another remake of a classic slasher film. I can't say that a guy dressed as a miner in an old mining town is quite as creepy or scary as a guy in a hockey mask or a guy wearing a busted ass William Shatner mask. But this film isn't quite all that bad. It pulls away from it's slasher roots towards the end and becomes a bit of a psychological thriller at the very end. It's ok. Rent it. Don't buy it.

Fido - A fun take on the zombie film. Not in the same vein as Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland, though. This takes place in an alternate history of the 1950's where there was a great zombie outbreak that the humans thwarted. A huge corporation found a way to harness the zombies and make them humankind's slaves cursed to do menial tasks for the living. One young boy befriends his zombie servant and that's when things start to go bad. A resurgence of the zombie plague is at hand due to the friendship of a boy and his zombie. A fun film for us zombie fans to check out!

The Wickeds - SH*T SANDWICH. 'Nuf said. I could poop a better zombie/vampire/ghost story movie than this flick that was made in probably somebody's back yard.

My Name Is Bruce - If you're going to make a movie in somebody's back yard, THIS is the way to do it. Mostly filmed on the Oregon property of Man-God and star Bruce Campbell, this fun filled comedy horror flick excels at it's own wackiness. Let's pretend actor Bruce Campbell was a complete jerk. A divorced, drunken, womanizing, egotistical nard, who's popularity was slowly declining into a world of uber-cheap B-SciFi flicks. He suddenly finds possible redemption in being "hired on" as a potential town hero who is assigned to take on an ancient, undead Asian god. You can't take this movie seriously at all, and that's the fun of it. Campbell makes major fun at himself with some cheap effects, lame jokes and goofball storyline. If you're a Bruce Campbell fan, this is the must see Bruce movie....outside of the Evil Dead movies.

Ok, that's a wrap for tonight. Watch for more ghoulish fun here in my Blog of Geekdom to come soon. Until next time, "Stay Vertical". Zangz.

I LOVE ZOMBIES!!! And they love me back..... but only for my brain.

2009-10-02T21:13:00.004-05:00

Happy October...Halloween Season.....Season of the dead. Call it what you will, it is what is usually my favorite time of year. Though I'm still quite aroused by the chill in the air, color in the change of leaves and the Halloween decorations that are slowly starting to pop up all around the countryside, my thoughts are still with friends dealing with some rough times.

Though I won't be celebrating in the mad, obsessive, immersive way I usually do. I'll still celebrate it here in my Blog of Geekdom.

And what better way to ring in the season than with Zombies!

I've been on a real zombie kick as of late. It started when I bought "World War Z" by Max Brooks. Then I purchased books I and II of the "The Walking Dead" comic book compilations. I don't know why, but lately the whole Zombigeddon mythos has me quite intrigued. Perhaps its the intense evaluation of human nature it brings out. Or perhaps it's just a good dose of creepy, brain eating gore that always seems to spew forth from it.

For whatever the reason, I'm pretty full blown into the whole zombie thing right now.

That's why I treated myself to a viewing of Zombieland earlier this evening. So here's my first Halloween movie review of the season...

Zombieland - There's been a hell of a lot of hype over this Zombie movie within the last week. Many fan boy web sites are touting this to be one of the greatest zombie movies of all time. Now, when I started to get into zombie movies, the first one that I truly loved to death was Return of the Living Dead. A great horror comedy for the mid '80's. I held many a zombie movie up to that filme for a very long time. Then came Shawn of the Dead. That blew me away in every way a zombie movie could. So then I held every zombie movie up to Shawn of the Dead.

Tonight I saw the much touted Zombieland. After reading a lot of the online reviews, I was expecting the second coming of the zombie film. So, does it hold up to Shawn of the Dead as a zombie / comedy movie? It's pretty darn close, that's for sure! Zombieland does not disappoint in any way shape of form when it comes to grisly, gore infested, head shooting fun. But, for some odd reason, my heart is still with Shawn. I'm not sure why and may have to see both movies again to figure that out

On it's own, Zombieland is everything you'd want a zombie / comedy film to be. If for nothing else, Woody Harrelson's character of Tallahassee kicks ass! Much in the same way that Big Trouble in Little China's Jack Burton does. Both are machismo, action induced, adventurous ass kickers. The only difference in the two are that Tallahassee actually succeeds in his ass-kickery.

Harrelson really runs away with this movie as a vengeful zombie killing machine. He is one of 3 other survivors that team up together to travel through the zombie infested world that was once modern day earth. At first the team is not a match made in heaven. You have the geek, the ass kicker, the babe and her little sister who are actually two female con artists. Jessie Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin round out this incredible ensemble cast that work quite wonderfully together.

Then there is a 5th cast member who's cameo role, albeit brief, will go down in history as one of the funniest cameos in a horror movie ever. I will not give it away.

The only real problem I had with the movie was it was only 80 minutes long. I wanted to see more zombie killing!!!

In the end, I did really love Zombieland and it will go down as one of the best zombie movies out there. I do feel the on-line, fan boy hype was a little overdone. Perhaps just bit. It's not quite Shawn of the Dead, but it can certainly sit right next to Shawn with great glee and pride as a darn near, equally as good zombie flick.

Try and see this jem before the Halloween season is over.

One more zombie story.

Not long ago I had this weird dream I'd like to share with all of you. In the dream, the friends I usually go to haunted attractions with came with me on a trip to a small, quaint little berg that was sort of a resort / vacation / tourist spot. It had more of a Door County vibe rather than a Wisconsin Dells flavor to it. There was a nice, quaint little main street filled with antique and gift shops. Down the street was a larger warehouse looking building that was all boarded up.

Myself with my friends Iris and Roberto decided to investigate it. It had "KEEP OUT" spray painted all over it in big red letters. There just so happened to be an old timer sitting outside of the building.

We asked him what the building was used for. He told us a story of how a few years prior there was some sort of nuclear power plant not far from town that had a leak and many of the residents had turned into the undead. The local sheriff and his crew were lucky enough to herd them into the building were they have been sealed up ever since.

Now most normal people would view this dream as a nightmare. But let's see where this dream heads in my sick, twisted little brain.

At that point my friends and I start discussing the situation. Instead of seeing this a horrible place, we view it as a financial opportunity!

We decide to buy the building and turn it into one of the premiere haunted attractions of all time. Instead of using animatronic props and scare-actors, we decide have patrons really run for their lives using real life zombies.

My friends and I learn to herd the zombies around without getting bitten while at the same time reworking the warehouse to look like a haunted house.

It is at this point that I woke up unfortunately.

I don't know what that dream tells about me, but I may be headed to the asylum soon.

That's it for me tonight. Watch for more Halloween hi-jinx and horror movie reviews coming soon.

And remember that rustling outside of your window isn't the wind. It's an undead zombie coming to eat your brain. Sweet dreams!

Zangz.

IT'S OFFICIAL: THE UNIVERSE IS SERIOUSLY F**KED UP!!!!

2009-09-29T19:58:00.001-05:00

I've been a bit vacant on this here blog lately. I know that it is especially strange since the Halloween season is starting to rev up and I'm usually blogging like a fiend during this time.

The truth of the matter is that our Halloween season has run into a bit of a snag. Actually one big, huge frackin' snag! To put it in a nutshell without divulging too much personal info, some people I care deeply about and who help celebrate the holiday with me every year are going through an unexpected, quite harrowing time in their lives. The news of the situation had us all decrying "THE UNIVERSE IS SERIOUSLY F**KED UP" (origin of quote goes to my friend Iris Von Beaverhousen). Though I'm more than confident they will be more than capable taking on this challenge that life and the f**ked up universe has put in front of them, I still feel a little silly celebrating Halloween when they're dealing with their life altering situation.

Originally I was all out going to not celebrate the holiday at all. No pumpkins in my windows, no local haunts visited, no pumpkin carving, no decorations, hardly anything at all except for a few horror movie rentals (since I already had them in my on-line movie club queue (pronounced queef for those of you not in the know.)

I wasn't quite sure how to approach Halloween this year and not much in the mood to do anything at all, when a wise sage told me, "John, you're Mr. Halloween! I'm pretty sure your friends would want you to celebrate Halloween, still."

I thought about this for a while and came to the decision that Zangz's Blog of Geekdom will still celebrate Halloween here! It might be somewhat more subdued compared to years past, but I'm still going to throw up some Horror movie reviews, perhaps a spooky tale or two and maybe, just maybe, at least one local haunt review if luck should shine my way. One thing I do plan on doing is attending the Type O Negative concert in late October!!!!! They're making a special Halloween tour of 10 cities and Milwaukee is one of them!!!

At the end of the day it all comes down to my friends kickin' ass and taking no prisoners in their great challenge. I'm not sure that by my sitting on my ass in a state of depression and Halloween deprevity will make things any better. Hopefully they'll be checking out the blog and get a good dose of the Halloween spirit (pun lame, but still intended) here. I'm still not completley sure that this is exactally what they'd want, but a geek has got to get his undead love on durring this season.

Hope it's all good.

In other news, I've been told that my buddy Bruce is putting his finishing touches on his review of this year's DragonCon and could be posted here within days. So keep a heads up for it. God, I've got to go one of these years. Anyone have any extra lottery money lying around?

Also, I've finally finished the main quest of Fallout 3. I've also finished the extra content of Operation Anchorage, The Pit, Point Lookout and am currently starting up on Broken Steel. I'm hoping that they come out with a disc for Mothership Zeta. 'Cause that would complete the whole game for me.

That's all for now, kids. I know it's short, but I wanted to fill you in on the situation here in the blog.

Before I go I want to ask one quick question to you all. Is it wrong for an adult, heteralsexual male geek who usually listens to the likes of Iron Maiden, Dream Theater and Type O Negative to pick up a copy of Lady GaGa' "The Fame"? It's not like I have, or anything. Honest! It's a...er...a freind of mine who has. Your thoughts?

Zangz.

A Meeting of Legends!

2009-09-08T10:23:00.006-05:00

There are certain points in history that have remarkable power that last well into the future of mankind.

One such moment took place this weekend at an event that many of us geeks refer to as a incarnation of Geek Valhalla. DragonCon ran from this past Wednesday night through Monday evening in Atlanta, Georgia.

To call it a Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror or pop culture convention would not be doing it justice. To say the least it is a grand explosion of the imaginatively blessed who converge on the city of Atlanta and let their geek flag fly high and mighty! It is a cornucopia of fantastical delights!!! Not only do the fans of the genres gather to become one there, many of the celebs, actors and actresses of the genre TV shows and movies also take part in panel discussions and meet and greets while rubbing elbows with the fans.

One such panel discussion was an event that will live in wonderment for time to come. I'm am speaking of the William Shatner / Leonard Nimoy panel discussion that took place.

Sadly, there was no possible way either financially or logistically that I could attend (and besides, there's no way I was going to miss Robahin). And I'm pretty sure thousands of other geeks were in my same situation this weekend.

That is why I was thrilled when I was cruising YouTube yesterday and came across the Shatner / Nimoy panel discussion that a very wonderful person called WhatJaneSays posted for those of us that missed out on the event of a lifetime.

I highly suggest that if you have about an hour, you'll want to check out the links of the panel discussion below. It is not only very humorous, you're also given a glimpse of Shatner and Nimoy's friendship and how well they bounce things off one another. It's pretty hilarious! So if you need some cheering up (and I know a few people who do right now!) have a gander at these......

William Shatner & Leonard Nimoy Panel Discussion at DragonCon 2009
Brought to you by WhatJaneSays @ YouTube.

PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
PART V
PART VI
PART VII

In a DragonCon side note, I'm hoping to get a report out of my buddy Bruce who got to attend this weekend. Hopefully he'll have some pretty cool stories that I will post here soon. We'll have to give him time to settle down a bit upon his return home. DragonCon is a 24 hour, 5 day party for geeks and I'm sure it took a bit of the piss out of him.

On another subject, we celebrated the birthday of my good friend Roberto with the annual Robhain festivities (see last post) were we always joke that someone will eventually end up in the hospital. Again it involved construction and destruction contests as well as trivia contests. And there was the ever plentiful amount of wondrous food and beverages. A good time was had by all.... until someone actually did have to go to the hospital. It's nothing that will involve any litigation concerning Robhain, however, I would ask all readers of the blog (2.5 of you) to send good vibes out my friend Iris' way. It is much appreciated.

I'm heading out to run some errands before I return to work tomorrow. So take care and remember those good vibes!

Zangz.

Time Travel to the Fantastical

2009-08-30T08:39:00.004-05:00

Last weekend I had a bit of a fun adventure. I traveled back in time to a place where the history of the Renaissance was meshed together with Medieval Fantasy. A place where one minute I was avoiding an armor clad Klingon heading right in my direction and the next I was scoping out a beautiful young harpist playing by the side of the road. Another minute I would be watching a cute little Wood Nymph play with a young, visiting child.

This place of great mystery, oddities and magic can only be one location. I speak of course of the local Renaissance Fair.

Last Sunday some of my family and friends hit the road, out of the city, and out into the Southern farm lands. Once we traversed the traffic and mass amount of needless construction we found ourselves on a quaint back road that led us to the wonderful little township of Bristol, a berg that time forgot.

As soon as we got out of the car we noticed the many folks dressed in Renaissance, Medieval and Fantasy clothing. All the while I was thinking, "Now these are my kind of people!" As you may have guessed, I have a very soft spot for people who really get into the Fantastical.

And this would be the place that they would be able to let their hair down and feel welcome and comfortable, far away from the mundane, judgmental and yuppie-esque "real" world.

As soon as we made our way through the main gates we found ourselves immediately plunked, smack dab into a magical little township. The yells of storekeepers selling their goods, the smell of delicious foods and the music of a time thought long gone attacked our senses.

A jester entertaining a small band of royals and wealthy was the first introduction into our immersion into the fantasy world that these imaginative people who run, work at and attend the Ren Fair had for us.

We finally reached our initial destination of the jousting field. The knights, both good and evil, put on a great show where one of the evil knights won the contest. Huzzah for the dark ones!

As we made our way further into the heavily wooded township we saw a bevy of young wenches selling pickles, mushrooms and cheese fritters. Of course my eyes were glued to those tasty cheese fritters the whole time......... honest.

There were many leather good shops and blacksmith stores selling all manner of battle tool. My Bro-In-Law played around with one a bit. It was a wonderfully nasty instrument that was a staff that had an axe at its head with what looked like a pronged meat tenderizer on the opposite side of the axe. Not being a weapons historian, I have no clue as to what it was called, but I'm sure quite a few knight in shining armor got sliced and diced by one of them back in the day.

There were a few shops I enjoyed quite a bit. There was the little occult shop where I picked up a book on Zombies for my Halloween reading. There was also a shop dedicated to walking sticks and staffs. I have to admit, I was eyeing up one particular large, black staff that had a twist design going up it. At it's head was a Samuel Adams Black Larger tap. It was a bit out of my price range for this month's budget. So Sadly I missed out on my "Staff of Everlasting Grog" It would have given me a +50 against weak, skunky domestic beers.

"PBR Me? I think not! Get me a good micro-brew or import you silly lackey!"

Which reminds me of another good thing about the Ren Fair! They have five or six pubs throughout the township that not only sell the usual domestic swill, they also have a few lager and stout imports on hand.

The best part of it all were the people who come to these things dressed in full fantasy regalia! These aren't the people who work or run the fair though. These are the incredibly imaginative and talented folks who come in their own armor, with swords and magic staffs in hand. They're always ready to do battle with whatever invading army or dragon that may come to threaten the fair. Actually the only threat are the foul-minded yuppies who show up and shake their heads in disbelief. Sadly, they just don't get it. But, this isn't their world. There are no stock portfolios to plot and plan over, no golf courses, no business suits, no trophy wife / husband and no greed or boredom. Only the magic of imagination.

My only regret is that I never get a chance to hang with these Ren Fair people. Rumor has it, they throw real good parties after the fair shuts down for the day. And what self respecting geek wouldn't want to party with a bevy of wenches?

In other geekified news....

I've gone back to playing Fallout 3 since I have a couple of add on packs that I've installed. I finished up on both "The Pitt" and "Operation: Anchorage" and now I'm working on "Point Lookout" and "Broken Steel". All the bloodshed and character development a gamer could ask for in the post apocalyptic world of Washington D.C. and Maryland. Point Lookout looks particularly creepy as it takes place in some swampland and involves fighting off inbreds.

The Festival of Robahain (my friend Roberto's B-Day party) is coming up next weekend. There's sure to be bloodshed and fun. You can read about past Robhain's HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. I'll report back, if I make it out alive.

Concerning reporting back, Zangz's Blog of Geekdom is sending a special agent to the geek festival of DragonCon, a five day Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror and gaming convention held every year in Atlanta. Since Gen Con has become pretty lame since it left Milwaukee, DragonCon has become the "go to" con for Role Players and fanboys alike.

My buddy Bruce is heading down there and I'm trying to get him to prep a report on his findings. So watch for that soon!

You do know what is also coming up, don't you? C'mon! All the signs are there. The slight change in temperature, the ever so change in the color of the leaves in trees, the Octoberfests and Pumpkin ales are already starting to hit the store shelves and the fact that a bunch of Halloween Express' are already popping up around town! The Season of the Dead is coming quicker than you may think. I've already bought a pumpkin scented candle. Is it too early to get into the Halloween vibe. Perhaps......... NAW!!!! It's never too early to get into the Halloween season!!!!

And with that, I close this blog. Until next time, as a wise man once told me, Stay Vertical!

Zangz.

Back from the "Big T" in Time to Remember John Hughes

2009-08-08T10:39:00.005-05:00

I can't say that I was an uber-John Hughes geek like many other fans of filmdom are. But, like hundreds of thousands of people within my age range, I was saddened to hear of his untimely and sudden passing this past week.

The Breakfast Club, Uncle Buck, Weird Science, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink, and my personal Hughes fave Ferris Bueller's Day Off were great comedies aimed at teens that spoke to them, not at them. The movies didn't portray teens as sex hungry knuckleheads , like many of the teen romp movies did during the '80's (well...Weird Science kind of did.....but who wouldn't be sex hungry after taking a shower with Kelly LaBrock?).

John Hughes' young characters were people we all could easily relate to. They all could have very easily existed at that time and place that was known as the mid eighties. These movies were something special for those of us going through our young high school lives at the same time these movies were being released.

Rather than continuing to pathetically attempt to eulogize him here, I came across a personal blog via Ain't It Cool News. It's by an outstanding woman who, as a teen, had a pen pal relationship with the late producer-director. It's pretty phenomenal reading whether you're a John Hughes fan or not.

Click HERE to take a gander.

RIP John Hughes.

In other tid bits....

I got back from the family road trip to Houston, Texas relatively unscathed. There were a couple of tense moments once we drove into Houston and got a bit off track due to some faulty directions from AAA. But, it all came together in the end.

Highlights included seeing the George Lucas exhibit at Houston's NASA center. It was quite small, but there were some cool props displayed. Perhaps I'll post some photos for all to see someday.

There was also a visit to the Kemah Boardwalk on Galveston Bay. Avery fun place, but it was waaaaaayyyyy too hot and muggy that day. We didn't stay too long. There was a visit to the USS Texas. They let you climb up into the gun emplacements and operate the side to side and up and down movements!! My Bro-In-Law regressed to ten years old each and pretended we were shootin' down zero's. We also saw the nearby battlefield at San Jacinto.

There was much eating done on that trip. I believe I ate my own weight in BBQ, pancakes, Fajitas, pizza and Korean cuisine. The bathroom breaks were plenty but well worth it to make more room for the next meal.

All in all, it was great seeing dad and my step family again. My sister got to take her "little side trip" to Dallas and myself and Bro-In-Law made great time driving back.

I hope to go back and see more of Texas. I definitely want to check out Austin someday.

What am I listening to right now? We'll I just picked up Dream Theater's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings". It's an incredible piece of music about personal pain and how it's dealt with. If the song "Wither" doesn't bring a lump in your throat, you have no soul.

We'll folks, I have a baby shower to go to this afternoon, so I gotta get movin'.

Later.

Zangz.

The Chocolate Luv Scent of Zangz.

2009-07-25T11:24:00.007-05:00

Though I'm venturing into middle age, I still like to present a good appearance....and scent. I'm a single guy who doesn't like to be plagued with body order. And you never know who you're going to bump into.

I went grocery shopping a few weeks back and realized I was running low on body soap for when I shower. I decided I'd try something different. Perhaps something a little more manly than the usual bland body soap. As I went down the isle filled with bodily care creams, rinses and other smellerific stuff, I came to the body soap section.

Tons upon tons to choose from. I went to a brand that may be aimed for younger guys and started going through the sniffing process with each of its scents. They all of course had cheesy names like the name of Greek gods, names of U-Boats, names of automatic weaponry. Stuff that would bring the machismo out of lame, unsuspecting, lonely men (ehem...).

I sniffed on down the line until they all started to smell the same. Then I came across one that was named something like Darkest Passion. I opened the top of the manly, dark brown container and took a whiff. The cent made me reminisce of a time when I loved to wear musky colognes, like Drakkar. I was sold and pulled it from the shelf dropping it into my cart.

The next morning I decided to give it a try. While showering I squeezed out a plentiful amount of what appeared to be dark brown goo onto my body sponge. I then start sudsing up all over. The musky smell wasn't as prevalent as it seemed when I was taking the whiff in the grocery store. I guessed that wasn't a bad thing since I didn't want to be too overpowering. But, it did seem to have a different kind of smell that I couldn't put my finger on.

I got out of the shower, dried off and got dressed for the day. I had to run out and do a few errands that day, but relaxed in front of the TV for a bit before heading out the door. As I sat there I could distinctively smell someone in the apartment building, on my floor, baking brownies. My stomach started to gurgle with hunger and I made myself a bowl of cereal. I then went out and did some errands going to a local mall to pick up a few things. The smell of the brownies seemed trapped in my nose the entire time.

I came home a few hours later and could still smell chocolate brownies all over the place. As the day progressed into a video game marathon, the brownie scent continued.

As I rattled through some Fallout 3 on the '360, I raised my arm to itch my nose. As my hand came up to my nose, the scent of the brownies overpowered me. "Holy Crap!" I made a realization. "I SMELL LIKE FRACKIN' BROWNIES!" I ran into the bathroom and grabbed the dark brown container of what I mistook for the scent of "musk" and gave it a pure whiff, not an altered whiff after sniffing several different scents beforehand as I had done in the grocery store.

Sure enough. The smell of musk was gone. Instead the smell of Mom's chocolaty home cooking came from the DARK BROWN container named something silly like DARKEST PASSION.

Here's what I instantly envisioned at the board meeting of the manly body soap company where the idea for the sweet scent was introduced.....

CEO of Corporate Advertising Firm Filled with D-Bags: "We need a new scent for our manly-man body soap line. Something different.

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #1: "Hey guys, I've been brainstorming in my office for a while and came up with what will be quite a doosey!"

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #2: "Really, do tell."

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #1: "Well, women really like to cook, right?"

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #2: "Yup. They sure do."

Corporate Advertising D-Bag#3: "Of course!"

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #1: "And they like chocolate, right"

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #2: "Yup. They sure do."

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #3: "Of course!"

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #1: "Well, THAT'S our new scent! Chocolate Bakery Products!!!! We'll call it Dark Passions or something equally as silly! I'm just sure there's at least some tool who'll think that it smells like just another musk."

CEO of Corporate Advertising Firm Filled with D-Bags: "Excellent! Let's have that out on the shelves by next week!"

And that is why I spent the better part of the day smelling like Betty Crocker's finest. And I didn't even get mugged in an elevator by a brood of visually stunning women like on the body soap's commercials....sigh.

In other stuff....

Since I have other travel plans this weekend, I decided to do a virtual visit to Geek Valhalla, the San Diego Comic Con. I did this by visiting several postings on YouTube. From what I can tell the whole Twilight / New Moon franchise has taken over a good portion of the show this year. Thus mixed in with a lot of middle aged men with lots of facial hair, Spider-Man T-Shirts and a lack of body soap (hey, at least I have that chocolate gunk) will be young, screaming, female tweeners. Not a great mix.

Maybe opting to go take a road trip with family members to go visit my dad in Houston was a better idea than trying to drum up the major moola it would have cost to even attempt to visit the con. The San Diego Comic Con is sadly just a pipe dream for me right now.

I do plan to have a great time in Houston, though. We'll be visiting NASA. They currently have an exhibit of the works of George Lucas! So that should fill up a bit of my geek appetite.

I have to get packing, folks. Enjoy your week and I'll report back.

Zangz.

Blow Stuff Up!!!!

2009-07-03T08:32:00.005-05:00

The Independence Day three day weekend couldn't have come any sooner! After another grueling week at work I have arrived at a weekend that will hopefully be filled with fun, explosives, beer, explosives, cigars, explosives, good friends, good laughs, good eats and explosives. Is it any wonder that the 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. I hope all of you have a great holiday weekend and get to see some good explosives going off.....hopefully within a safe distance of you.

Ya know, I've been looking at my past posts of this year (if I don't do it, who will) and have noticed that they are far less in quantity than in years past. It's not that I don't enjoy visiting here or am getting bored with it. I think this year I've become far busier and when I get home from work I'm so beat, the last thing I want to do is try and do some creative free writing. Especially when it's free writing that 2.5 people read regularly. So if you're truly bothered by my less frequent blogs. I apologize. I can always try to be a little more attentive to my silly little spot on the world wide web.

It certainly is summer in the Brew City. The sounds of the huge, local music party, Summerfest, can be heard off the lakefront, bouncing off the buildings where Zangz's Blog of Geekdom's headquarters are located. I was hoping to get down there last night to catch Judas Priest, but after getting out of work later than I had hoped, the last thing I wanted to do was go down and pay $15 to get into the fest only to end up buying overpriced beer, marked up cigars and trying to get a glimpse of Priest amongst of throngs of people who probably got the day off to stake out a spot earlier in the day.

Instead I opted to hit a local Irish Pub near work where a co-worker won an "office party" (15 free pitchers of beer) Oddly enough only six others from work showed up. I believe we could only polish away 10 of them between us before we gave in. I decided to stay for dinner to sop up the some of the free beer. An excellent pub burger was ingested very quickly.

Later in the evening I found myself out back in my parking lot enjoying the nice weather and a cigar. A perfect start to a very well deserved three day weekend.

In geek related topics, I recently picked up the add on supplement to one of my favorite video games of the past year, Fallout 3. The add on allows character generation to go beyond just a measly 20 levels as well as adding more game content including scenarios called "The Pitt" as well as "Operation Anchorage". Originally this content was only given to those with an Xbox 360 Live Internet connection as downloadable content. But the wonderful people at Bethesda have provided in on a update disc for those of us not hooked up. Rumore has it there's even more new scenarios and adventures planned for Fallout 3 in the near future and I'm hoping they'll be provided on a disc also!

The sad thing is even though I bought this a month ago, I still haven't played any of it because I'm still traipsing through Two Worlds. The game is getting a little frustrating as I'm finding that it has quite a few glitches that actually don't allow you to complete quests. I'm glad I got that game for real cheap.

Music wise, what have I been listening to latley? I've found Shiny Toy Guns to be a pleasent little electronica diversion from my usual much louder and aggressive interests. Check them out, won't you?

What else can I tell you? Not much. That's about it for today.

Again have a fun and safe 4th of July!

Zangz.

And the Grim Reaper laughs heartily...

2009-06-26T18:50:00.003-05:00

In modern day entertainment and pop culture the character of the Grim Reaper has been pretty humanized. In the Neil Gaiman graphic novella, "The Sandman" Death was a cute Goth chick that would appear right after one's spirit would leave their body. She would then usher you into the afterlife, but not follow you there. After all she had more work to do here on earth.

On the TV show Dead Like Me, Reapers are deceased people who still walk the earth in different bodies and are given names on post-its as to who they need to "visit". They also usher the recently deceased into the next life.

But, I've always preferred the old tried and true blade carrying, skull headed, hood wearin' mo fo. He's the one full of menace and downright nastiness. And recently this S-O-B has a hearty appetite for big name celebs of the 70's and 80's.

The first to go under the scythe was Kung Fu star David Carradine a few weeks back. Apparently,the Grim Reaper has a pretty sick and twisted sense of humor.

Second, he narrowed in on Ed McMahon earlier this week, giving Ed the old "complications to many different health problems" routine. I grew up watching Ed on the Tonight Show and was slightly bummed out at the news.

Then Reaps took a few days off, got caught up on some things, perhaps took in a movie or just hung out and relaxed before his really friggin' big day.

The 26th of June started like any other work day for us all. I wonder how it started for the Grim Reaper. Was he all excited rubbing his boney hands together and licking his chops in anticipation? Or was he completely stressed out at the prospect of the grand double whammy stunt he was going to pull off that day?

In any case, yesterday ended in an incredibly surreal way for most of us. As for me, I was sitting at a local Irish pub enjoying a pint with other patrons. Up on the HD widescreen was some sports channel going through big stories of the day both related and not related to sports. At the time the sound was off and I looked up to see that poster, THAT poster, of Farrah Fawcett. Underneath it were the dates 1947-2009. We all knew that Farrah was very sick. She boldly and bravely showed us her sickness in a two hour documentary that was televised earlier this year. But, even though it was no surprise that she had passed, it still took a bit of the wind out of me. After all, Charlie's Angels hit the TV when I was going through puberty. I will not go into extreme details of a young boy being introduced to the detective talents of one Jill Monroe or that poster, THAT poster. Suffice it to say, she made an impact.

But the Reaper was far from done. Very far indeed. He still had his magnum opus to perform. Farrah was only the opening act. The headliner had yet to take the stage. I sat at the bar talking to the bartendress about how much of a bummer it was that Farrah was gone when someone at the other end of the bar said, "Turn on CNN!" The bartendress took the remote and pointed it at one of the screens. The big headline across the screen read: MICHAEL JACKSON IN CARDIAC ARREST.

At first I though, "What kind of wacked out publicity stunt is he up to this time?" Not being a big MJ fan, I could of cared less. Though, the pop culture lover inside of me wanted to see what was going to happen next. I really thought that this was going to be another hair-on-fire incident where in the end he'd be in the hospital for a while then get out and go on being Michael Jackson. Then the headline changed.... MICHAEL JACKSON IN COMA.

Things went downhill from there as not 20 minutes later the headline confirmed, MICHAEL JACKSON PRONOUNCED DEAD! The sound came on and they were referring to him in the past tense.

As I said, I'm pretty unaffected by Michael Jackson. At first no one in the bar really noticed how the headline changed. The bartendress passed by me and I pointed it out to her asking, "Are they for real?" I think there may have been a , "oh my god" out of her mouth, but I was too stunned to remember. I wasn't stunned in the way of "Oh dear lord, a god has left us!" as I will be when Connery or Harrison Ford or Ozzy Osbourne kick the bucket. But, when a massive pop culture icon/character buys the farm unexpectedly, you can't help but be a little gob-smacked.

The bartendress went over to the computer that controls the TVs and audio system, booted up i-Tunes and clicked on a Michael Jackson mix. The people in the bar were starting to catch on to the big story. My friend Spanky, who always calls me when a big celeb has died rung up my cell phone within minutes of the announcement. I'm sure he made some sort of pedophilia joke, but I can't recall it at this time.

Though I'm no MJ fan, i did feel that it was a pretty surreal event. And for the rest of the day I was in a state of, not shock, but a weird feeling that it wasn't real. I wasn't depressed or saddened by the event. It was just weird to no longer have the wild and crazy world of Michael jackson to hear about anymore.

That night, the Grim Reaper went to bed tired and beat down. It had been a full couple of weeks with a boatload of special projects that had to be dealt with. He cracked open a six pack of Blatz that he picked up at the Pump-And-Go and ended up on the couch in front of his TV which had Seacrest on expounding all his MJ knowledge to the world.

Then GR would pass out in front of the tube after a ballz-out busy day.

Speaking of passing out, I myself have to get up early to work tomorrow morning. Much like the Grim Reaper, there's always some work to do.

Zangz.

UPDATE: Since this was posted, two more celebs have bowed before the reaper. TV Pitchman, Billy Mays and veteran actor Karl Malden have passed. A note to any celebrity reading this: HIDE. The Reaper is on a celeb hackin' rampage!

"Ok, let's say we clear out this warehouse and had an enormous cage match...

2009-06-19T20:48:00.004-05:00

.....and in it we had Darth Vader fighting against Superman, who would win?"

This is a question that was posed to a few of us at work today by a fellow employee. Though it was one of the many insanely busy days that have cursed / blessed us of late, we still had a brief moment of levity sneak in.

Of course I went with my man, Vader. The reaction was one of disgust and disappointment from the Superman supporters. I defended my answer with the obvious reason. Sure, Supes is the "Man of Steel" but Vader has crushed steel with a flick of his Dark Force enhanced wrists. As soon as Supes would land and do his patented, big chested boyscout pose, Vader would twist him up in a gruesome pile of flesh and bone with nary a thought......

Dear Jebus, it was stupid conversation. Yet, it was still very welcomed to have that slight geeky break in the middle of a very monotonous day. Work has been wearing me down lately and I am very happy it is the weekend.

I'll be finding myself dog, cat and house sitting this weekend. And you can bet I'll be fully equipped with the ol' '360, some beer and some nice cigars to enjoy out on the patio that is at the home. They're anticipating some very nice weather after these thunderstorms that have been lingering for the last day pass.

I really love thunderstorms. As a child a nighttime thunderstorm was terrifying. These days they seem to lull me to sleep.

Ok, this post is getting a bit ADD. On to some geekyness...

I recently picked up the action RPG Two Worlds and find myself already deeply entrenched in it.

It's not a great game by a long shot. The graphics are sub par for the current generation of game system. A lot of the visuals are repetitive. The map / quest log system can be downright frustrating. The voice acting is on the same level as Kevin Costner as Robin Hood. When it was first released it was promoted as being the "Oblivion Killer" and missed that mark by a long, long shot!

But, for some reason, I find myself playing it for blocks of several hours. Perhaps it's because the game system takes me back to the days of discovering the first Diablo. It's that quest-hack-pillage-upgrade game play that makes it work. The storyline involving your character's missing sister is quite compelling also. The world itself is quite vast and does have some changes in scenery. When your character heads into to Southern lands beyond the great river you'll find yourself in marshes, bogs and swamps. Venture even farther south and the sky turns blood red. A little Oblivion influenced me thinks. Silly as the game may be, it's still addictive as nicotine!

I'm calling it here. It's been quite the week and Old Man Zangz is going to catch a little shut eye.

G'night folks!

Zangz.

"BILL "has left us....

2009-06-04T19:49:00.002-05:00

Got some really crappy fan-boy news today....

David Carradine has passed.

His role as Bill in Kill Bi l l really set him apart from the rest. He was one cool, laid back dude, and it sucks that he decided to leave us well before his time.

I hope he's somewhere he wants to be.

Zangz.

Gaze Upon The Oddity That is... THE CULLITAR!

2009-05-29T19:53:00.008-05:00

Ummmmm...... yep. I don't quite have the words for this either. This could be so many levels of wrongness that you couldn't even concieve. But, it could also be a grand homage to a new fandom that is growing and still taking shape

So here's how I understand it all came to be. A couple of blogs ago I posted about my sister, Dizzy Lizzy, being a pretty huge Twilight fan. I myself, am not swept up into all the hoopla surrounding this vampire romance novel and movie series aimed solely at gothy tweener girls. But, my sister's best friend, Holly, really takes fandom to whole new levels. Evidently she's pretty over the top when it comes to young vampire Edward Cullen. She also happens to be a huge player of the interactive video game Guitar Hero. She had a graphic designer friend of hers get creative and put together this brooding piece of pop culture magic.....or monstrosity. Whichever way you lean on the whole Twilight phenomenon. She has named it The Cullitar!

Apparently, this picture is making it's rounds amongst the Twilight legions on the Internet and message boards. Like this one here.

Not long ago my sister had me view the movie based on the book, Twilight. And I was surprised at how it wasn't nearly as horrible as I thought it would be. After all, way back in the day when I first started gaming with my good GM, Mad Mario, it was Vampire: The Masquerade we played. That RPG seemed to have a very good grasp on vampire lore, taking a bit from Bram Stoker to Anne Rice. I'm not fully sure that if the game were to be completely revamped they would allow a lot of the sometimes silly Stephenie Meyer's version of vampire mythos into the pantheon of vampiric history, facts and traits (as god is my witness, vampires DO NOT simply twinkle when exposed to sunlight. They BURN THE FRACK UP like screaming beeotches!).

I had to see what all the hub-bub was about. I watched the film and found it ... simply ok. The performances were all pretty darn good. The story was typical romantic dren. Though, it was nothing to write home about (no all out vampire gore or real spooky atmosphere that a real good vampire flick/story should have) it wasn't a complete loss for me. After all, how would one complain if a vampire looking like Rachell Lefevre, Nikki Reed or Ashley Greene would latch on to you and suck the life outta ya? A good way to go out, huh? Ok, enough with the creepy old man syndrome.

I guess everybody has to find their fandom. I'm glad that my sister and her Guitar Hero playin', Edward Cullin lovin' friend, Holly, have found theirs.

Have a good weekend and enjoy a well deserved brew or two on me.

Zangz.

Oh, on a personal notation to Mrs. Meyer.... vampires don't produce bodily fliuds since they are undead. No boogers, no poop, no whizz, no spit, no vomit and.... none of the baby makin' stuff! So there's no way Edward would be able to impregnate Bella in the last of the books and upcoming movies. Read up on your vampire lore, would ya honey!

Movie reviews are like @$$%)ls, everyone has one!

2009-05-22T17:45:00.008-05:00

Remember those geekified, genre movie reviews I've been promising for quite some time now. Well, get ready kiddo's. Here comes a poop-load of 'em.

Before I start I feel the need to relay the fact that I'm absolutely no movie critic by any stretch of the imagination. However, I am a fan of the geek genres (Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Action , Horror, Pulp, etc, etc.) and I like to fill my blog with thoughts and observations about movies I've seen.

Recently I saw a critique by a performer about all sorts of different kind of criticism and how it's gotten out of control with the advent of blogs and message boards and how anybody living in their mom and dad's basement can wax poetic on how much a movie rocked or sucked, giving the author a small sense of power that he or she doesn't have in their own pathetic life.

Now let me assure all of you, I don't live in my parent's basement.....at this time. And it doesn't give me sadistic pleasure to have to say that I did not enjoy a movie. I don't like to have to waste my time viewing something that should be better than it is. For me it's not about what "rocked or sucked". Here in my Blog of Geekdom it's simply about, "Here's what I think you should check out!" and "Here's what you might want to avoid". Simple as that.

With that being said, lets dig in.....

Southland Tales -A futuristic tale of a Los Angeles gone wrong with political corruption and doomsday looming, this movie tries very, very, very hard to be this generation's Dr. Strangelove. But, it falls slightly short as it does get a bit preachy and loses some of it's power by trying to be more politically biased than trying to tell a cool Sci-Fi story. I'm not a fan of how the Bush administration treated the nation a year or so after 9/11. But, I do know propaganda when I see it. And despite some very interesting performances from an odd all-star cast (The Rock, Sarah Michelle Geller, Justin Timberlake and a darn near unrecognizable Kevin Smith amongst others) it kind of turns into a bit of a mind blowing, slightly confusing mess. However, I do think that it should definitely be checked out, if for nothing else, just for the wackiness of it and the oddball cast. Not a complete disaster, but if you're an uber-right wing, Fox News lovin' person, you will not like the message.

Rambo - If you thought Stallone's first three adventures in the role of the Viet Nam veteran killing machine were big assed explosions and uber-violence, you haven't seen anything yet! Not only is this flick a non stop action packed, gore fest, it also brings light to the real life atrocities that are happening in Burma and actually justifies the horrific deaths that Rambo inflicts upon many of the bad guys. Instead of closing your eyes, you'll be cheering when Rambo blows the head off of some scumbag Tatmadaw. I have to admit, I was never a big Rambo fan, but this movie really satisfied the action fan in me as well as making a slight social commentary...with oodles of blood and explosions.

10,000 BC - This prehistoric adventure/fantasy tale has a plot that has been used a few times before. An ancient tribe gets attacked and captured by a superior and evil group. Those that are left behind are to give chase and save their loved ones. One "chosen one" rises up and defeats the evil empire. If you want to see far better versions of this story go check out Mel Gibson's Apocalypto or the viking tale, Pathfinder. Not a horrible movie, but pretty predictable.

The Last Winter - This odd, but interesting, paranormal thriller finds a group of oil seekers planted in a very remote area of the arctic. Soon they find themselves haunted by "Mother Nature" who brings her wrath in the form of cursed accidents and odd, moose-like apparitions. Ron Pearlman heads the cast as a blow hard, machismo leader who wants to dive head first into getting an oil rig built out in the frozen tundra. But his plans are thwarted when each member of his team end up either dead or going nuts. Though I loved Pearlman's performance in this flick, I found the movie a very average horror thriller. I was very interested in the mystery of what was going on at first, I sadly lost interest once it became less of a mystery and more of a environmental warning with little explanation of the "evil" force behind the destruction and madness. Pearlman fans can check it out, but otherwise, it becomes a bit of a yawner and downer by the end.

The Spirit - I so very much wanted to love this movie. It had everything going for it to win over my fan-boy sensibilities. It was written and directed by the genius comic book icon, Frank Miller! It was shot in the shot by panel comic-straight-to-film way that its iconic predecessors, 300 and Sin City, had been! It was strongly based on the original pulp vigilante detective comic strip by the late Will Eisner! And it had a very high babe factor (Scarlette Johansson, Sarah Paulson, Eva Mendes, Jamie King and Stana Katic). But, as visually impressive as this dark, pulp film noire movie is, it kind of turns into shambles as a little too much goofy humor is thrown into the mix. I didn't know if I was watching something cool ,dark and broody or silly, goofy and slapstick. I felt it was way too over the top to be taken seriously. Perhaps I was expecting another Sin City or perhaps I'm not very familiar with Will Eisner's Spirit to appreciate the movie. This movie tries to be too many things and dilutes itself into a scatterbrained mess. Is it a comedy? Is it making fun of the pulp of the '40's? I wasn't sure. In the end I found it very interesting and something all fan boys should check out, but not the knock out of the park "I've got to have this in my DVD collection" movie I wanted it to be. I think Fran Miller has many great ideas that are waiting to break out of him. I'm not totally convinced that this was one of them.

The Punisher: War Zone - Marvel Comic's gun toting vigilante finds his way to the big screen once again. This is his third outing, this time with Ray Stevenson in the lead role. Now Stevenson certainly looks the part with his straight out of the modern day Punsher comics looks and quite honestly gives a darn good performance as the psychotic Frank Castle. The opening scene where the Punisher crashes in on a private mafia diner party is worth the price of admission alone. I just wish the rest of the movie had that kind of momentum. Much like the Rambo movie I just bragged about, the first action sequence in War Zone is uber-cool and wildly violent! If you're a fan of the comic, you'll love this scene. It's the rest of movie that I found a little disappointing. Mostly in the fact that they touted this as comic writer, Garth Ennis' vision of The Punisher. Well, if that was the fact, they should have had Garth Ennis write the script. It struggles to reach that Garth Ennis type of pulp action and characterization that he can create so wonderfully. Rumor has it that director, Lexi Alexander, had a far better version of this movie in mind that was befuddled by movie execs. Another issue I had was that the villain, Jigsaw, was a little too over the top. It hearkened back to Tommy Lee Jones' version of Two Face, and no one wants that. I do have to admit that if I can find this as a used DVD for cheap, I may just have to pick it up if for nothing else, just that opening scene.

Highlander: The Source - This movie is made strictly for the hardcore fans of the whole Highlander mythos and few else. I was a HUGE fan of the first Highlander movie that was made in the early '80's. The idea of sword wielding immortals in modern day times dueling it out for supremacy was pretty friggin' cool. Add the hard edged music of Queen into the mix and you had cult fandom gold! But after 4 films and a TV series, you gotta wonder if this franchise has run its course. After viewing The Source I have to sort of hope it has. Sure, the Highlander fan boy/girl will really get into this movie. Yet the casual fan-boy/girl will not. Taking place in a futuristic war ridden world (at least that's what I took it to be since it never really revealed) the Highlander from the TV series, Duncan McCloud, joins a band of his immortal co-horts in vanquishing the evil, sometimes creepy/sometimes just plain goofy "Guardian" and finding The Source, a generic power.... thingy-something-thing-a-ma-bob-thingy. Actually, I have no clue as to what the hell it is. In short, this movie takes everything that has become cliche from the Highlander series of movies, books and TV series and has spat it all back out in a film with little purpose. Instead of viewing this schlock, go back and watch the original Highlander film with Lambert and Connery. Even though it has severe visual effect limitations compared to The Source, its storytelling far outweighs The Source by leaps and bounds.

The Forbidden Kingdom - Not exactly an original idea here, I did find this Wizard of Oz meets Feudal Kung Fu fantasy flick a very fun little diversion. A young adult boy who's living in the tough streets of modern day South Boston finds himself transported to a fantasy version of Feudal Japan where he is trained for battle amongst the likes of Jackie Chan and Jet Li. The young man is the possessor of a magic staff that an evil war lord and the war lord's henchmen (and woman) are after. A very simple plot it is. However if I were a young 12 year old Kung Fu fan, I would love for my mom and dad to have taken me to see this in the theater. Sure there's a little violence and ever so slight bloodshed in the movie, but it totally plays upon the younger crowd. I would actually say that this could be a real fun family action/fantasy movie... that is if the parent's are a little tolerant of a little violence.

Angels and Demons - If you're a fan of the thriller books that feature Dan Brown's symbyologist and quasi-detective, Robert Langdon, you'll probably appreciate this film. The question is, will people who are not familiar with Brown's mystery thrillers enjoy the flick? In fact they may enjoy it slightly more. Since being a fan of the book, I had a pretty good idea of what was going to go down throughout the film. So a slight edge was taken off for me. Had I not read the book, it may have been a bit more edge of your seat fun for me. In any case, the subject matter is quite riveting. How does an ancient organization of alchemists known as The Illuminati infiltrate and threaten the modern day Vatican? That's the mystery that Tom Hanks' Langdon has to find out in a mere matter of hours before a catastrophe threatens to destroy the Vatican and a good portion of the public which have surrounded the holy place to usher in the voting of a new pope. Of course ancient puzzles help Langdon follow a path that will lead him to the main answer. Though, I enjoyed the film, I'm not sure that it be something that I could watch over and over again. It's a good thriller, but like most thrillers, once you've seen it, that's about all there is. It's something to take mom to and enjoy it for what it's worth. But that's about it.

And, no, I don't feel anymore power hungary or more improtant now that I've somewhat sqewered a few flicks.

Ok, let me end on a couple of notes here....

First of all, do you realize that this past week marked the 10th anniversary of Star Wars, Ep I: The Phantom Menace being released! Not the most popular SW movie, agreed. But it blows my mind that it has already been 10 years since we all stood in line and got our first spoonful of Star Wars geek lovin' big screen film extravaganza in over 16 years prior. Time flies.

Also, take time this weekend to honor those that have served in the millitary and given their lives for our freedom and our country throughout history. It shouldn't matter how you lean politically. You need to cherish the fact that you are allowed to have the political beliefs you do in part to the men and women who payed the ultimate sacrifice so we can have our freedoms.

Enjoy the three day weekend! I'm cigar bound!

Zangz.

My sister has just joined the ranks of Geekdom!

2009-05-08T15:40:00.008-05:00

So, if you did not catch my review of Star Trek from earlier this week, you can either scroll below or click HERE for it. Again, I give it 3 thumbs up. My third thumb grows in a funny place and I don't talk about it that much. So let's rapidly move on!

Currently, I am a very proud big brother.

Throughout the years my little sister, Dizzy Lizzy, has always had a hard time understanding my fond love of the genres of the fantastical. She's lived a far more straight laced life with only slight glimmers of any interest in something a bit counter culturally special. She's married and has a decent job that gives here some pretty heavy responsibility at times.

When it came to any interests, there was a passing fancy of The Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies. So I got her the books for X-Mas one year, she only read through Fellowship and let the others collect dust. She seems to pretend to have an interest in the Harry Potter films, but I'm not fully convinced. She shows mild interest in the TV series LOST and will occasionally say something to the effect, "What did you think of the last episode?" Once I start expounding on it, I usually get cut off by my Mom butting into the conversation about something completely different. I try not to blame Mom since she's usually got one or two martini's in her at that time.

My sister never really got it when I'd be excited about going to GenCon (when it was in Milwaukee, not the cheap imitation they have in Indiana now) or about the opening of a Star Wars movie. She was oblivious to the joy my geeky heart felt.

Well, suddenly along comes something she can finally sink her teeth into (pun, quite lame, but still intended) when a bunch of books and films start coming out featuring a brooding young high school vampire named Edward and his betrothed equally brooding and confused love interest, Bella.

I have to admit, when I first heard about this new phenomenon known as Twilight, I was slightly repulsed. I had a good feeling it was overglorified, cheap tweener romance crap for the young females. I was turned off immediately. When the movie opened and became a huge hit garnering it an immense following, I tried hard to pay no attention.

But, somehow, my sister and some of her friends, got immersed in it. My guess is that they have some serious crushes on actor, Robert Pattinson. But that's just a theory.

In any case, my sister has found new and creative ways to celebrate her love for the Twilight series. She attended the DVD release party at midnight at some Borders store and that same day she threw a Twilight themed diner party. She's really lost into this whole phenomenon.

Well, now she's dragged me and her husband, my Bro-In-Law (aka: cigar partner in crime), into the whole frey.

This all came about as I suddenly got a call on our way home from Minneapolis (Roberto, Iris and I visited some friends there last weekend where we gamed, playing Champions of the Emerald Empire). We stopped in Madison to get some Chinese food and that's when I get the call on my cell. My sister informs me that I'm invited to take a road trip in late July with her and my Bo-In-Law down to Houston to visit my dad.

Imeadiatly I'm a bit suspicious as my sister and dad do love each other, but are like vinegar and water when they start talking about certain subjects. Then the truth comes out. She reveals that after we visit Houston and Austin, my Bro-In-Law and I will drive her to Dallas so she and her friend can attend..... TwiCon! Of course we'll head on home while they party it up at the convention.

Now, I could be an elitist geek about it all and point out that vampires actually burn up in the sun and not" thsparkle" (Yes, I spelled it that way on purpose). I could also point out that there were never any actual FANGS or blood sucking or sirring done in the movie. I didn't even tell my sister that the creator of this whole craziness, Stephanie Meyer, needs to be sat down at a gaming table and play several hours of Vampire: The Masquerade to understand how vampire mythology really works. Nope, I didn't.

Know why?

Because I saw this as a new way my sister could actually GET HER GEEK ON!

It's about time she got into something full throttle enough to want to travel cross-country with her brother and husband to find enjoyment in something fantastical.

Now she will understand my love for the genres. Next time she rolls her eyes at some mention of a video game I'm playing or a Sci-Fi movie I'm going to see, she may ease off and thinks before she passes judgement

I may agree to go if there are a couple of stipulations.

1) Dizzy Lizzy gets me the autograph of one of cute actresses from the film. The dirty old man in me is just waiting to break out!

2) Dizzy Lizzy doesn't complain once about feeling car sick/uncomfortable/irritated the WHOLE trip!

3) Myself, my Bro-In-Law and my dad partake in some serious cigar smoking!

I'm hoping this will help us bond! It should be all very interesting and I'll let you all know how it plays out.

In other news....

I finished off the fantasy game Fable II on the good ol' Xbox 360. Those familiar with the first Fable game will know that there was a lot of criticism around it as it was heralded as a huge, epic, RPG that encompassed the entire life of your main character, from childhood to old age. Unfortunately it didn't take that long to play and compared to other huge RPGs out there, there wasn't a lot of areas to discover and travel around in.

The producers of Fable II try hard to correct this with mixed results. Sure, the world is far more lush and much larger, and there's a heck of a lot more quests to go on. But, like the first one, after you've discovered all of the world and played through the main quest, there's not a lot more to be offered.

It took me a while to get into the game, but once I was, I was quite hooked. But, then I completed everything I could, there wasn't much else. And I was quite disappointed in the "final confrontation" with the main villain. There's no challenge. All you have to do is push one button when prompted and that's the end of him. Kind of a waste after you went through all this character build up only to push one button to defeat your main nemesis.

What does Fable II do right? The whole atmosphere is quite beautiful in a Disneyesque way. And again there's far more to do and explore than there was in the first game. I have to admit that it did get quite addictive once your character gets built up enough to get rolling. But, once you get through the game, there's little more to do. There's still more to do after the main battle of this game as compared to its predecessor, but still a bit lacking.

Look. After they've come out with RPG games like Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3, you really need to step up to the plate if you truely want to be an EPIC RPG VIDEO GAME!

Fable II is indeed a great game, but if it wants to compete with the big boys, it should have been even bigger. It's a lot to ask for, but if competing with the rest, it needs to get cooking.

A great RPG game, but lacking when brought up against its competitors.

That's going to be it for this weekend. Please go out and have a cigar on me. And Happy Frackin' Danny Gokey Day! I can hear the press helicopters fly overhead as his little, "I'm in the top three" parade trots around the downtown area.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

Zangz.

The Rebirth of Star Trek.....

2009-05-06T18:12:00.007-05:00

...But, only if the hard core Trekkie geeks are smart enough to embrace it!

I was very lucky enough in the fact that my "very good buddy", Spanky was more than kind enough to pick up a few tix for an advanced screening of J.J. Abrams' reboot to the Star Trek movie franchise last night.

The night started with us gorging out on huge gyros at the local Greek restaurant that was not too far from the classic movie theater the preview was shown at. The same one that I met Bruce Campbell at a few years back.

We walked over to the theater and got in a small line of about 10 people. After all, it was only an hour and ten minutes before we would be let into the theater. The line got pretty heavy with in the next 45 minutes. Apparently only 500 free preview tix were handed out for the special showing and many Trekkie's who got their hands on these magical tix showed up.

I was quite a bit disappointed that I didn't see anyone dressed in Federation uniforms or any Klingon's roaming about. I guess that will be for the official opening this weekend. We did meet up with our mutual geek bud, Coreboy and some of his entourage.

It took a while for the "security" (a couple of old dudes and one guy who was way too overweight to chase anybody down) to get their act together and let people into the theater. Once all was under control ('cause, God knows, Trekkie's can be one dangerous bunch of S.O.B's) they let us in, telling us to turn off our cell phones.

Once we found our seats we had to wait some more as local promoters had to organize their little shtick before the movie. Their little Schick was trying to shout over the crowd and name all of the sponsors who helped bring this special preview showing together. The sad thing is that most of us couldn't hear a frellin' thing they said.

Once they were done and out of the way the lights went down and they went right into the movie. There may be some spoilers here folks read on at your own risk, I'll try to black out the spoilers but, I'm not promising anything (highlight to read spoilers). Then the magic started!

First and foremost, this is a really fun Sci-Fi action and adventure movie. Forget that this is Star Trek for a minute. There are some really cool action sequences thrown into this thing that we've never seen in the entirety of the Star Trek motion picture series. There are some cool battleship sequences that doen't involve star ships moving as slow as molasses as we've seen in Wrath of Khan or any of the other Star Trek vehicles in media. The ship battles in this movie are balls out fast paced! There are shoot outs, fist fights and chase scenes that might be new to the the long lasting Star Trek fan. Trust me. This is a good thing.

Now let's get into why this movie truly rocks! Much like the movie Watchmen, the actors really, really care about the core material and those that were before them. It really shows. Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yeclhon and Bruce Geenwood all not only recreate the original Star Trek characters, they pay major homage to them. They really capture their essence and fully deliver without becoming an imitation or parody.

The main villian in this film is not overplayed as in past Trek vehicles. He's a real person with a bit of a legitimate gripe.

There's also a lot of humor in the film that is born from a lot of what we know form the series. Good references!

I have to admit that I was really trepitatious on the casting of Chris Pine as a young Captain James Tiberious Kirk. It seemed that Hollywood decided to cast what more looked like a J. Crew model rather than an actor. But, Chris Pine nailed it out of the park! He got the whole essence of Capt. Kirk without being a cheap imitation. He plays the cockiness and bravado of Kirk excellently. Never once does he become a goofy copy of the original. He gives it life with his own twist on it. I hope Paramount has locked him in to a few sequels!

And Quinto does a great young Spock. Nothing a lot of Heroes fan wouldn't have told you beforehand.

Lets face it, after the last few Star Trek movies, the franchise had died. They were shatting out what were basically made for TV movies of Next Generation. It became a joke and a dead genre.

When J.J. Abrams picked up the torch he really ran for it. Not only has he rekindled the spark, he reignited a whole forest fire. Let that forest burn the frack down, Madre Frellers!

Yes, J.J. does frack with the Star Trek mythose. But, at least he gives an honest explanation of it - highlight to read - (time travel story involving the original Spock), unlike the reboot of the James Bond series which tells fans to forget everything that has happened before, this reboot doesn't do that. J.J. had the respect to give Trekkie's a chance to view this reboot in the original pantheon of stories. He doesn't erase everything that's come before. He gives credit that it happened, but also gives an alternate reality within the historic reality to accept. The question is will fans accept it, or be an elitist bunch of turds to get all cheesed off and offended and dislike it.

Let's face facts. The Star Trek franchise was dying a very slow and painful death. If it weren't for this movie it would have been another 25 years before we saw any original Star Trek media, especially on the big screen!

This is the best thing to happen to this franchise in a long, long time. And if hard core Trekkie's don't have the brains to see what a blessing it is, they will threaten to destroy their very own kingdom. They need to let go of everything they know from the shows and novels and accept the grand gift that is being given to them.

J.J. and the screenwriters went well out of their way to keep the Star Trek story flowing without forgetting everything that has happened since. There is some really clever writing here. Trekkie's need to embrace it rather than be offended.

There are some issues that frack with the original continuity of the series and films, but it's for the good of the whole. There was even one issue that I (a non-Trekkie) had issues with. (Spock and Uhura hook up). I didn't like it. But, I was able to put it aside and accept it. They also really frack up a bit of the Federation and it's planets. (Romulus and Vulcan are destroyed). Though, I'm not convinced that this is a good thing when it comes to die-hard Trekkie's and their feelings, I accept it as I was entertained like I haven't been from a movie in a long, long time. And that's what the Star Trek movies needed!

Spanky is a die hard Trekkie and he loved it to no end. But, when I talked to other Trekkie's as I was leaving the theater, they weren't as enthusiastic. Perhaps they were offended by some of the lush changes that were presented in the movie from the mythos they were used to.

To that I say, grow up! Move out of your parents' basements and accept the love and warmth that is the new Star Trek. It is the only way your kind will survive and I've always believed that you should never look a wonderful gift horse in the mouth!

I say take your family and friends to go see it. It's a hell of a lot of fun. Kudos to the cast, crew and writers for giving Star Trek a good chance to survive.

Embrace it or fall. This is a very entertaining genre film, Trekkie or not!

Live long and prosper..... cliche, but who gives a FRACK:?

Zangz's!

Lost Written Relics of Star Wars Geekiness Unearthed

2009-04-24T22:35:00.006-05:00

It's been a month and a half since I wrote jack-spit here on my Blog of Geekdom. There's just nothing that's really been hapnin' since I saw Watchmen.

Let's see. I finished Fable II (review pending). I completed watching every episode of Robin of Sherwood on DVD. The winter is ever so slowly letting go of it's evil grip (It was actually 80 degrees here today, making it a 2 cigar day!). We celebrated a very good friend's 40th B-Day (Iris!). I'm VERY much looking forward to the big Star Trek reboot film from J.J. Abrams. That's about it. Not much else at all.

So feeling uninspired to blog about any current hapenings, I found myself trolling around in some very old files here on my computer. I came across an article I wrote for a very small, very short lived, local independent paper I wrote for about 5 years ago. The subject matter was about waiting in line for Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Since the springtime hearkens back memories of waiting in line to see the prequels and springtime is trying to break through, I thought I'd post the article here. I don't think it ever got published. And if it was, the owner/publisher A. wont care and B. won't find out since he never checks out this blog.

So without much further adieu, here it is in it's original form and entirety.....

The Last of the Lines

Where plastic light sabers blaze, Jedi and Sith lords rule and that gallon cup of soda shoots right through me, all while in line for “Star Wars, Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith”.

The final puzzle piece of the George Lucas created movie series juggernaut known as Star Wars was finally laid into place with “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” earlier this spring. You can bet your strap-on Yoda ears that myself and many other geeks were there en force at the Ultrascreen’s midnight showing to reign in the end of the uber-space opera era.

Come with me now and let’s travel back in time to help me relive the experience that is… waiting in line for a Star Wars movie.

First we must designate a time to meet up at the theater. A good eight hours before showtime seems pretty reasonable. We’ll feel sorry for the idiots who will show up only a mere four hours before the doors open. They’ll miss out on the previous 6 hours of getting to stare at people dressed as Jedi and Sith lords.

Next we’re going to converge and meet up with our group at the Ultrascreen and hope to get a good enough place in line so we can weasel ourselves a nice seat in the theater. As we all meet in the parking lot we make our way to the side of the theater where the employees have designated a roped off area for those of us with tickets to the midnight showing. We already see a good gathering of fellow Star Wars fans, some of which have popped tents that they’ve spent the previous night. I’ll bet they’re laughing at us idiots who showed up a mere eight hours before the show and missed the previous 18 hours of… staring at each other in a tent.

After we get our tickets redeemed for wristbands, we get ourselves situated in line sitting in our fold-out chairs. We then notice a five year old girl having a plastic light saber battle with her father. How cute. We also notice two thirty year old men dressed in Jedi robes wacking at each other with similar toys. Not as cute, but still amusing. It makes me feel better about myself in the fact that I have an Aalya Secura (cute, blue, female Jedi knight) action figure tucked away in my coat pocket. She will love me someday… SHE WILL LOVE ME!!! .…ahem.

Now we start to get hungry and decide to break from the pack to go on a recon mission and obtain some food. The nearby McDonald’s will suffice and we return with edibles for the group and 2 quarter pounders that will hopefully sit nicely in my stomach for the duration of the evening. I‘ll wash them down with a big-ass soda from a cup with Obi-Wan Kenobi’s likeness on it while hoping that Ewan McGreggor got a real good deal by marketing his likeness to the Lucasfilm folks in the “Episode III” merchandising onslaught.

As the evening grows on and the anticipation rises, we notice more and more people crowd into the line creating even more plastic light saber battles, more Jedi and storm troopers join the fray and more news reporters and news trucks start appearing at an alarming rate. Things are getting exciting, but slightly dampened for me as I must get up out of line about once an hour and make a pilgrimage over to the nearby Target store’s men’s room as the previous mentioned Tub of Kenobi soda starts to take effect upon my bladder.

We’re closing in at the point of the Ultrasceen opening its doors and allowing the stampede of us dorks to invade the theater. People in line are cleaning up their messes, folding up their tables and chairs, taking down their tents and whipping out their lap tops to watch a few episodes of the animated Star Wars shorts “Clone Wars” or to view the trailer to “Episode III” for the thirty billionth time.

Suddenly we notice that there is movement at the head of the line! People start rustling through the roped off line toward the doors! The time is finally here! We wave our wristbands in front of the face of the theater usher and move as quickly as we can to decent enough area of the theater and plop our junk food filled, Jedi lovin’ asses in our seat.

The rest of the evening is pure magic as we guess this will probably be the last time we’ll be able to join together and enjoy a film that is Star Wars Valhalla. Now it’s only four and a half months until “Star Wars, Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith” is out on DVD. When do you think we should start to line up for that?

That's all I got for today. Perhaps more old relics will be posted soon. Until next time, stay vertical!

Zangz.

The WATCHMEN has been WATCHED!

2009-03-13T18:41:00.011-05:00

I remember reading the graphic novel in the early 90's. A good 5 years after it's initial release. The Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons comic changed all of comicdom forever and upon it's first reading I could tell why. A grand, epic and dark story of an alternate history of 1985 where Nixon is still president, we're seeped deep into the Cold War and costumed heroes actually exist and and run amongst the city "protecting" it people. That is until they are abolished and are forced to loose the capes and masks and try and live real lives. Part murder mystery, part commentary on society's ills and part pulp action comic, Watchman proved that comics weren't just for kids anymore and that not all costumed heroes had all of society's best interests in mind. It forced comic companies and writers to look at new aspects of the medium that were quite a bit more dark, sad and gritty.

Since last weekend was filled with 40th B-day festivities for my good friend Iris Von Beaverhousen, I sadly did not get to go out and see the movie. But, I made time after work on Tuesday night to shuffle over to a local megaplix and sit down for the good 3 hours and view the movie.

I have to admit that when I first heard that Hollywood was going to adapt the piece of literary art into a movie, I was really worried. I knew how epic the story of the comic was and I thought there was no frellin' way they were going to do any type of tasteful homage to the comic. How the frack were they going to fit that big of a story and plot into a film. A miniseries, maybe. But, a film? Could anyone really capture the full extent of the graphic novel in a movie???? Then I heard that Terry Gillaim's name was bandied about as a potential director. This peaked my interest as hope that perhaps someone with the right tools could bring the story to the big screen. Then after a while, for whatever reason, Gilliam's involvement with the film dissolved and we fans of the comic were left wondering, "Well, what's next?"

After a few years news on the potential movie didn't surface. In the meantime a phenomenally awesome flick based on the Frank Miller comic, "300" was turned into a movie and directed by Zack Snyder. It was beautifully done and one of my personal faves.

Then I heard that Zach was going to take the rains of the Watchmen film. I started to get a little excited again. I loved 300 and wondered what Snyder could bring to the immense story of Watchmen. I, again, got the hope that someone had the capable hands to translate this dense, yet incredible story to the big screen.

I wasn't disappointed. Upon my viewing I found that the flavor of the comic was consistent and I was pleased with the outcome, overall. I can't say there were any major complaints about the film. Perhaps some very small quibbles.

I still feel that perhaps two movies would have covered the epic saga a bit better. There were some important parts of the comic that were understandably omitted, yet still important to the original story. The comic's chapters are separated by verse. The verse can be considered short stories that link the main story together. A lot of these are completely omitted or are converted to the opening credits. Not a horrible mistake, by any means. Especially since they were tasked with turning the epic into a motion picture. But, some of the real story is cut out. The mini-story of The Tales of the Black Freighter is nowhere to be seen. I feel that this is one of the key story points. They're going to release it as an animated DVD later this month, but I felt it should have been part of the main story of the movie. I do understand how they only had so much room for the points they wanted to convey in the movie. But, I was still saddened to see that it didn't make it into the film.

The film is almost 3 hours long. I really worry that people not familiar with the comic might be turned off by the running time. If you're a fan of the comic, you'll have a vast appreciation of the film. If you're some lame schmo off the street who is not at all familiar with the subject matter, you may be looking at your watch two hours into the movie. (At which point you deserve to be slapped upside the back of your feeble head.)

What does make this movie rock? The actors are a major factor in turning this literary piece of wonderment into a motion picture! Milan Akerman, Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earl Haley, Billy Crudup (even if he was dumb enough to leave Mary Louis Parker), Mathew Gooode, Jeffery Dean Morgan, Carla Giugino, Matt Frewer (Max Headroom), and even bit player like the beautiful Apollonia Vanova,( who has no speaking part and is only featured in the credits), are what make this film a triumph and all deserve golden statues!! Rorschach and The Comedian are the psychoes we feared and loved from the books! Silk Spectre I and II are both as desirable and tragic as they were in the comic. And Night Owl is the geek you cheer for who gets the hot cheerleader in the end. They all seem to devour what the comic's characters are. They really bring them to life. They all have full understanding of who they play and make them a real entity for the screen! As a fan of the comic I found this to be the film's biggest asset! They all seemed to really care for Moore and Gibbon's superheroes.... and villains.

The effects are frackin' good and the action / fight sequences are darn brutal! Perhaps even more so than the comic. There is some great fight choreography and some intensely violent action sequences in this film. Fine by me.

The ending to the film is changed slightly from the book. This may erk some hard core fans. It also ends on a slightly more upbeat feeling than the book did (Hollywood does have to whore itself a bit, doesn't it?). But that's minimal when you look at the big picture.

So, if you're a big fan of the orignal comic, you really need to take a look at it. If you're not, you may have a hard time dealing with the 3 hour storyline. But. please, sit through it! If you have a soul and a brain you'll really get it. If you're a geek, like me, you'll want to see it in the theater and then buy it on DVD! The acting really brings these charters and movie to full life. 'Cause Snyder really tries as hard as he can to bring the whole monster to the big screen and succeeds quite well! You can tell he is a fan of the core material, and it really shows. Though, it's not quite up there with The Dark Knight or Iron Man, this puppy has a special little place in the comics to film genre. You'd be less of a person or geek to not go see Watchmen!

I'm going to go have some dinner, so please, until next time, Stay vertical! And God bless the likes of Milan Akerman, Carla Giugino, and Apollonia Vanova! What can I say. I'm a goofy fan-boy.

Zangz!

Saints Row 2 vs. Grand Theft Auto 4: Compare and Contrast.

2009-03-07T09:27:00.007-06:00

I know it's been a month since I last posted here, but February really sucked the life out of me. The cold, the snow and the destruction of our national economy as a lasting remnant of the previous administration was a real bummer. On top of that, February isn't really that great of a month. It's just a lot of snow and cold and nothingness.

Right now Spring is trying so very hard to peek its head out from Winter's gloom. The last couple of days have been sunny and "warm" (high 40's to low 60's). It's pouring rain right now which is sucha vast improvement from that god awful snow that I can live with it!

I spent much of the month of February doing exactly what a self respecting geek would do. Playing video games on the good ol' '360! Right now I'm between several different games.

I still haven't finished Fallout 3 which I took a break from for a while. I also find myself popping back in and out of Grand Theft Auto 4 (GTA4) which also is far from being completed. Then there's Fable II which I haven't quite gotten to far in as of yet. The little gem I find myself going back to again and again and again is Saint's Row 2 (SR2)

Saint's Row 2 can be described as GTA4's bastard, unruly son. Both are open world, crime simulation games with big cities to race around in, chase around in and create as much destruction and bedlam as possible. However, I'm currently finding SR2 far more entertaining than GTA4. SR2's controls are 100% better, the freedom is far more reaching and the amount of customization is just crazy! Add to that the mini-games within the city are far more addictive than any of the actual missions in GTA4.

When I recently went back to GTA4 and drove around the city a bit, I found steering the car a monumental task. Try and take a curb at a fast speed and you'll find yourself in an uncontrollable power-slide that is hard to recover from. In SR2 you can take curbs and do a very controlled power-slide AND get extra points for doing so.

Your character in SR2 (that you create from the get go - we'll get into this in a bit) can pretty much run rampant throughout the imaginary city of Stillwater all they want. Sure the cops will chase you, but that's half the fun. You can pretty much do the same in GTA4, but I find the IA police a bit more relentless in their pursuit. Sure, this is more challenging, but is it more fun? You also have to constantly manage relationships with many of the side characters in GTA4. Imagine you're out exploring what Liberty City has to offer and suddenly your cousin, your girlfriend or your drug supplier calls up on your cell and wants to go do something with you. If you don't they wont help you out later in the game. And they call ALL THE TIME! It's great to get immersed in a virtual world, but this ain't The Sims!

The customization of your character in SR2 is far and vastly superior in every way shape and form when compared to GTA4! In GTA4 you get the male, Russian character of Niko Belik. A lovable rogue if there ever was one. But, outside of his limited amount of clothing, you're stuck with the designer's' character they have created for you. In SR2 it's a whole other monster. A monster you can create from the ground up! At the beginning stage of the game you choose if you want your character to be male or female, athletic or fat, have a big or small nose, have beady or large eyes. I don't even want to go into the hair options 'cause you'd be here reading it for next few hours. Needless to say, my character is a male with jet black, mulletized hair with bright purple dye in it's back who has a King Diamond goatee, Alice Cooper eye makeup and wears tight black jeans with skull and crossbones t-shirt. He speaks in an East Ender English accent and occasionally sports cop sunglasses. For a nominal fee of money you obtain in the game, you can go to many of Stillwater's plastic surgeons and change the look, swager and attitude of you character as well as darn near anything else you want. That way you're not stuck with the same look for the entire game.

Not only is your character uber-customizable, so are the many autos you can obtain the game. There are a few special designed cars you can't change, but they are far and few between when compared to the insane amount of vehicles that can be taken to a Stillwater mechanic to have paint jobs, upgrades and awesome stylization. In GTA4 you can take a car to a mechanic who will fix it up and give it a paint job of the game's choosing. Not your own. You can also customize your own radio station or just listen to the many that Stillwater has.

Now, am I saying that SR2 is far superior than GTA4? Not at all. Let's look at the overall quality of the games. GTA4 wins hands down. The story and game are far more epic. The details are incredibly more in depth. Just look at how Liberty City mirrors many of the aspects of the actual Big Apple. It's darn right spooky at times! Also GTA4 is a far longer game than SR2. SR2 has a heck of a lot of missions to get through before you complete the main storyline, but I finished it in less than a month. I bought GTA4 nearly a year ago and my Niko is still being sent out on missions. And GTA4's graphics are several grades up the color ramp than SR2's. SR2's are a bit cartoony where GTA4's are quite in-depth and gritty.

Here's what it feels like. The guys at Volition played through many of Rock Star's GTA games and said, "Let's make a mirror copy of this kind of game, but let's make it less restrictive and concentrate on giving it a more playground feel to it rather than overly challenging and dark and gritty."

This is why I found myself playing through SR2 one entire time with my English King Diamond Alice cooper character and then starting it all over again with a newly created character (a cute but deadly Goth chick!). I rarely do that. Once I play through an entire game I go onto something else. Like I said, I have a couple I need to get back to, fer crissakes!

Sure, I hope to pop into Liberty City again and complete the game at some point. But, right now I'm having a blast in Stillwater! GTA4 might be the better all around game, but SR2 is fun as hell!!!!

'Nuff said there.

You know, I'm finding myself quite the Anglophile as of late when it comes to renting DVDs. I just completed seasons 1 and 2 of The Tudors and now I'm starting on the 25 year old Britsh series, Robin of Sherwood. There's something about English history and legends that has gotten a hold of me recently (and, NO! It's not Natalie Dormer or a young Judi Trott you pervs! Well...not totally).

I found the fate of Anne Boleyn, of The Tudors, both tragic and slightly self deserved. Sure, it's weaselly to sleep your way into monarchy for your kaniving family. It's a whole other thing to be falsely accused of things you never did and sentenced to public death just because King Henry's ego has been bruised. Karma can be one brutal sledgehammer of payback.

So, I'm watching Robin of Sherwood this morning and I'm looking at the bloke who plays Jack Scarlet. I'm lookin' at him and lookin' at him and going,"God, I know that guy". I get my answer in the end credits. Scarlet is played by Ray Winstone who was Mac in Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! He also voiced Beowulf in the GD animated movie of the same name (useless Zangz's pop culture item #556).

I remember watching the sword and sorcery show in the late 80's on Sunday afternoon where they aired on the local public television station. I forgot how piss poor the sound quality was. The music was this soft Enya-esque keyboard slop that they must have recorded in someone's basement. Then instead of using quality sound effects, they used what was recorded on set live. So instead of Clank, Clank Clank during a sword duel you hear, tink, tink, tink. When someone gets punched you hear, pat, pat, pat, instead of SMACK, SMACK, SMACK! I find the poor quality of sound in this show really disturbing. Perhaps I'm spoiled with what we have now on today's TV show sound. I still enjoy the storytelling the show has to offer.

Anyway, I can see I'm rambling on endlessly and will call it a day here soon. I do need to start to prepare for some covert hi-jinx involving a very good friend turning 40. Welcome to the club, Honey.

That's it. I'm outta here.

Zangz.

Viva Pacte des loups!

2009-02-07T11:16:00.004-06:00

I know it's quite rare for me to post two blogs in under 24 hours, but after viewing a movie that I just have to ramble on about for a little while, I felt inspired. So here's an impromptu movie review you can add to the ones I posted last night.

Brotherhood of the Wolf - It was at 4:30 in the morning while I was tucked away nicely under the covers that a car alarm went off in my building's back parking lot. Thinking the owner would have half the brain to eventually get out of bed and turn the thing off, I found myself disappointed with the realization that the owner was probably a complete tool since and hour later it was still going in 10 minute intervals. I finally gave up and got out of bed, went to the living room and turned on the tube. I was very glad I didn't have to go into work today. After flicking through a sea of infomercials (What the hell is Peter Fonda doing in one of those????) I decided I would pop one of the movies I got from my rental club. It was one I had heard rumors of for the last couple years and kept my eyes open for. But, I couldn't find it for the longest time. When I joined my online movie rental club I put a search out for it. It had the title in its library, but it was marked as unavailable. I put it in my queue anyway.

Then, this past week I receive the title in the mail. A pleasant surprise, indeed, in every way shape and form. I'm no fan of French movies that have subtitles, let alone ones that are period pieces! Usually the idea of having to sit through a 2 hour plus movie of the like would get me quite nauseated. Well, I have to tell you, the experience was quite the opposite.

This 2001 movie blends a whole bunch of genres into one sweet experience while at the same time still retaining a tight cohesiveness. Sure it's part drama and period piece, but it also has a lot of goodies mixed in.... A good dose of martial arts, some horror, a little fantasy, some political intrigue, a dash of swashbuckling, suspense, mystery and a slight teaspoon of fairy tale.

Based on actual French folklore of the 1700's, the dreaded Beast of Gevaudan is running about the French countryside attacking and slaughtering fair maidens. The creature is believed to be some sort of monster wolf. The king sends two men into the area to seek out and hunt down the creature. No sooner do Grégoire de Fronsac, a knight of the king, and his cohort, Mani, an American Indian arrive that trouble rues it's ugly head. They find themselves defending a woman who's being accused of witchcraft by a bunch of barbaric townspeople. The two get off their horses as dole out a nasty can of Prime Grade-A Whoopass! It is here that I realized this wasn't going to be your usual dry, dull, boring, subtitled French film (actually, one thing that helped was that I turned off the subtitles and activated the English dialouge).

Being a French film there are of course bouts of the movie that drag a bit, but all of the goodies this film offers make up for them. The cinematography is top notch, beautiful, bright and lush. The set designs were fantastic and gave a slight dark fairy tale feel to the fim. The costuming was phenomenal!! I'd love to get my hands on one of the trench coat outfits that the two heros are wearing when we first see them for a Halloween costume.

There are a few twists and turns in the plot, keeping it fresh. The story itself has all sorts of elements that keep in moving. Some of the characters are right out cool pulp stories. Advenurous hero, spiritual sidekick, dastardly villians and of course buxom, exotic women (Monica Bellucci, anybody?).

I have to say that I was quite blown away at how epic this folklore story ended up being. It left me wanting to know more about the hero and his other possible adventures. There a comic book, role playing game or new series of books out there just waiting to be created out of this.

In the end I was pretty blown away with it and would like to find out where I can find it to put it into my collection!

Oh, and here's #225 of Zangz's Completley Useless Pop Culture Trivia: The actor who plays Mani in the film is none other than Iron Cheff host Mark Dacascos. he also played the part of The Crow on the quasi comic book related, syndicated TV series.

I hope you all try and seek this big treat out. You can always set the language to spoken English and avoid the subtitles. You will NOT be dissapointed!

I now have to go and take out the trash, enjoy the nice weather with a cigar and then some Fable II.

We'll talk with you later. Stay vertical!

Zangz.

Finally! A blog of "substance" is posted......

2009-02-06T18:26:00.003-06:00

I know it's been a while since I posted a good, meaty, lengthy, substance-filled ("substance" being loosely coined) blog here, but the bitter winter and crappy economy have gotten the better of me. I became lazy and lethargic and let the blog slightly decay into lameness. Not the usual lameness that it retains, but an even deeper lameness. For that I apologize. So let's roll right into it!

First and foremost, many of my favorite genre TV shows have come back on for new seasons. Both "24" and LOST have really nailed it this year! "24" was going downhill the last couple of seasons, but seems to be redeeming itself this season. LOST is still the crazy "What the frack is going on?" fun-fest that it always has been. Even some of the answers to all of the questions are finally being revealed. Perhaps not as quickly as some would like, but at a good enough pace to still make you wanting more.

I've been playing both Saints Row 2 and Fable II as I procured some nice X-Mas/B-Day money. Saints Row 2 is far better than the first with more customization and freedom. However It's a little short when compared to it's richer-man's GTA4. I've just started Fable II. The first Fable game was very good, but quite limited when compared to other epic, action RPG's. This one seems to be a little more epic and open for gamers to traverse and explore.

My sister recently got me into The Tudors. I've blown through the first season on DVD. It's no Deadwood, but how can you not get a little crush on Anne Boleyn?

I've been promising movie reviews for a while now so I'm going to bless you with a few. There will be more coming in the not too distant future. Now, here's how I'm going to do these from now on. I'm going to stick with strictly Sci-Fi, Horror, Action and Thriller movies. The type of movies we geeks enjoy. I may do a "Honorable Mention" review that is either Drama, Comedy or some other form of movie that I find worthy of our geek time.

Hitman - Based on the popular stealth/assassination video game, this movie isn't half bad. Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood) plays the bald, programmed assassin that is double crossed. There's some pretty decent action sequences as well as current Bond girl, Olga Kurylenko. You get to see a lot of Olga.... a lot. She's a lot darker and troubled than she is in the current Bond movie. There is a lot of cheese factor to this slightly cliched action flick. But, it's still worth the viewing!

The Spiderwick Chronicles - I'm very jealous of the kids today and the movies and literature they get to experience. In my day, all I had was Disney's Mary Poppins. Today kids get to see some really fun films based on some really fantastical books. Based on the series of Spiderwick books, I found this family friendly flick a load a fun. Sure, there's some scary stuff here, but parents should drop their wimp factor and let their youngins enjoy this movie that deals with magical beasts involving themselves with the new home of a single mother and her three children.

Doomsday - Here's another post apocalyptic action piece, not that much better or different than any of the others out there. The Road Warrior did it best, but this one is worth a looksey. Perhaps rent it. Don't bother buying it. If you've seen one mo-hawked villain, you've seen them all.

And now for the Honorable Mention Portion of the reviews...

Run, Fat Boy, Run - This is a real sweet and fun comedy about how far a common Englishman will go to win back the love and affection of a woman from the arms of a greedy, shallow yuppie. The comedic presence of Simon Pegg and Hank Azaria doesn't hurt a t all.

I've added a couple new blogs to my blog list here. Please check them out.

First there's Seth Is LOST. If you're a fan of LOST you will want to check this out 'cause this will help put things into perspective. It's run by a local guy who shows up on a local radio morning show to explain what's all going on in the Lost world. One of the better LOST blogs you will find anywhere.

Then something for you game masters. Gnome Stew. This has boatloads of great ideas for running some real cool Role Playing Games. Take a gander if you will. Thanks to Wil Wheaton's blog for bringing my attention to it!

Ya know, tomorrow is supposed to be a nice and warm winter day. Something we've been badly needing for the last 3 months. I think I'll go out and enjoy a nice cigar tomorrow.

On that note, I'll leave you to your relaxing weekend.

Zangz is outta here!

Zangz.

Zombies Attack!!!!

2009-01-29T16:54:00.002-06:00

It's true!!!!! See the link below! "Tis the end of the world.

Zombies!!!!!!!

Here ya go, Mr. Salty. You asked me to blog about the end of the world. So there you go!

Zangz.