i love a good movie trailer comp

For me at least with some movies the best thing is the trailer. So I have always loved compilations of various movie trailers. And within the last few years the great company Synapse has released 5 volumes of 42nd Street Forever. 42nd street back before NYC was "cleaned" up,was the street that had piles of what are known as grindhouse theaters. These theaters usually had double or triple bills,cheap prices. And showed a wide genre of films. Sadly nowadays most of these films are forgotten or have become lost. But at least with some the great trailers still survive. Each volume of this must buy series runs about 2 hours. And the trailers are grouped by genre,IE Martial Arts films,then some Horror films,etc. One thing I love about volumes 3-5 is that they now have a group commentary for the collections. This is a good way to not only learn more about the films the trailers are advertising but also lots of interesting trivia about this era of film history. Most of the film trailers used on this series are in decent shape,but you will get a few per volume that have all the speckles and other hints of damage. But when you consider that most of the companies that released these trailers/films were first off very low budget and second went out of business many years ago,it is surprising how good 90% of the trailers look. One thing I have always done when watching each volume is keep a pen and piece of paper nearby cause I always end up seeing a trailer for a film that I feel the urge to track down. Sometimes I get lucky and the film is out on a nice anamorphic digitally remastered DVD. But then with a large percent of these films ,you will either have to find an old vhs release or acquire the film from one of the many "grey market" dealers that are on the Internet. One quick word of warning before I finish this review,I you are easily offended by nudity,violence,gore,or stuff that is just un PC avoid these DVDs at all cost. But if your taste in film runs more to Sonny Chiba and Jim Kelly give one of these great compilations a try. I give the 5 volumes and counting a well earned A+.

Quick update

Thanks to near daily panic attacks,I haven't been posting as much as i should. I just got one of my medications changed and still haven't adjusted to it. So hopefully by the weekend at the latest I will have some new reviews posted.

Wolverine and the X-men Volume 2 Deadly Enemies

Prior to watching this DVD I had seen a few random episodes of this ,the newest cartoon based on the X-men franchise. This DVD contains 5 episodes. The stand outs are the first one on the disc,which has Storm now back in Africa. Back in her role as weather Goddess. She ends up getting possessed by the Shadow King. And starts using her weather control powers to devastate Africa. The X-men team comes in and thanks to Emma Frost manages to get the Shadow King outta Storm's mind. And Storm stops the massive deadly weather she has started. This is also the episode were Storm rejoins the X-men. The next episode is all about how now that mutants are public knowledge and being hunted down by the government, a lot of them are booking passage on various cargo ships to Genosha. Genosha is an island that is ruled by Magneto that is a safe place for all of mutant kind. Nightcrawler stows away on a ship and before they make it to Genosha,the ship is attacked by pirates. Who seem to be lead by Spiral,who has the Reavers as her muscle. It seems they are attacking these ships bound to Genosha,and taking captive the more powerful of the mutants aboard to be used in a kinda of "Gladiator" challenge to the death. After they have attacked and disabled the ship that Nightcrawler is on,and taken the mutants they wanted. Nightcrawler uses the young mutant kids that are left to pursue Spiral's band of pirates.And they manage to take down Spiral and the Reavers and sink their pirate ship. The X-men arrive after the fact and Nightcrawler rejoins the team. Then we get a coda to the story were it is revealed that Spiral is working for Mojo. And I get a strong feeling that this will lead to more story lines either later this season or in the next season. Then you have what I consider one of the best animated things to ever come outta Marvel comics. The episode starts out with Wolverine in the city being chased by the government's special anti-mutant team AKA MRD. Wolvie is heavily out numbered but then a huge helicopter lands and Nick Fury of Shield sends the MRD out,and ask to speak with Wolverine. It seems the Hulk is up in the Canadian Rockies,He is very mad and has already destroyed 3 cities and will soon cross the border over into the USA. Wolverine at first doesn't want to go on this mission,but Fury blackmails him,by telling him the Shield has info on all the X-men that he is more than happy to turn over to the MRD. So Wolvie agrees to go try to stop the Hulk. He is dropped off in the wilderness of Canada. And soon realizes that Fury hasn't given him all the facts. It seems that a hiker up in this area has gotten the curse of the Wendigo. Which turns a normal human into a huge white version of a Sasquatch. Wolvie manages to track down Hulk and by a knockout gas grenade to the mouth,gets the Hulk to turn back into Bruce Banner. While they are regrouping in a cave,Banner reveals that he was working with Shield ,and was gonna use one of the various chemicals that he has used unsuccessfully to cure him from being the Hulk,and Shield thinks this formula will cure the man who has the curse of the wendigo. Banner and Wolverine are on their way to the crashed helicopter that has the cure in it,when they are attacked by about 5 or 6 wendigos. It seems when the first wendigo bites someone he transfers the curse to the victim. After a long battle Wolverine and Banner manage to get some darts that have the cure inside them and turn all the Wendigos back to their human forms. But Wolverine finds a Shield emblem on one of the former Wendigos. So when Fury shows back up to take Wolvie and Banner back to America,Wolverine reveals that he has found out that Nick Fury and Shield are behind the first Shield agent becoming a wendigo. This pisses Wolverine off,so he goes and hits Banner with a massive sucker punch. and leaves. Of course the sucker punch gets Banner angry and Fury and his agents are left with a massively pissed off Hulk to deal with. After watching all the episodes on this DVD I have found that the show is well written and has very good animation. I plan on getting all the other episodes that have gotten a DVD release. And watching the second season when Nicktoons Network finally airs it. Wolverine and the X-men Volume 2 earns a A-.

X-mas comics 01

I was a big fan of the Simpsons TV show for many years,but during the past decade or so I just quit watching it. I felt that the quality of the writing had fallen. Now I have know about the Simpsons monthly comic for many years now but had never bothered to pick it up. But thanks again to cheap random lots of comics on Ebay,this issue came into my possession. The main story is "Worst Christmas Ever!" which is written by Paul Dini,of the DC animated TV shows fan,and has art by Phil Ortiz. The story is a parody of how every few Christmases or so some toy will become mega hot,and all the various parents go wild trying to get one for their children. In this story the "Hot" toy is interactive Itchy and Scratchy toys. It is Christmas eve morning and the only store in Springfield is The Android's Dungeon. And of course Comic Book Guy has a nice selection of all the interactive figures,but they are all also marked up way over retail value. So instead of being the 19 or so bucks they should cost ,they are all now $80 or more. We see Marge,Milhouse's Mom,and Ned Flanders all in the store trying to talk CBG into dropping the prices at least a small amount. He of course refuses and all the parents besides Marge end up buying the toys. Marge goes home upset cause these toys are the only things Bart and Lisa have asked for this holiday season.When Bart finds out he might not get one,cause of the high price,he goes down to the store and tries to trade and barter some of his various toys. But of course he is denied.Homer is pissed and vows to drive around to all the other stores that sell toys so he can get some for his kids.After going to 3 various comic book/collectible stores and finding out that they do have the toys but at a even higher mark up. Homer gives up. On the way home sees a 18 wheeler and it's trailer overturned in the middle of the road. And when he stops to look inside the trailer Bart and him find a huge stash of all the Itchy and scratchy toys.Homer gets the "brilliant" idea to take these toys and go to outside the Android's Dungeon and sell them. Thanks to Ralph Wiggums mishearing Bart,everyone ends up thinking Homer is giving away the toys. And Homer and Bart get mobbed and give away all the toys. This causes CBG to get majorly pissed off. When the last of the toys has been given away,Homer and family head home to enjoy a little holiday cheer. But there is a sudden knock at the door,and it is Fat Tony. It seems his gang has gotten into the collectible toys aftermarket game,and They were in the middle of high jacking the truck when Homer and Bart turned up. Of course Fat Tony wants the money he would have made off selling his ill gotten goods. But since Homer gave the toys away for free he doesn't have it. Then to every one's surprise a fat man in a red suit shows up in the Simpson house.It is Comic Book Guy who gives Fat Tony a "Mega Rare Odds Maker Pete Rose Baseball Card,the Crown Jewel of the Cooperstown Hall of Shame series". And this card is worth as much or more than the toys were.Fat Tony happily accepts the card and leaves. When asked by Marge why he would do such a selfless thing CBG replies with "The Toy give-away this afternoon turned you Simpsons,However briefly into Local Heroes. If it came out that i had aided the gangsters, I would have been further Vilified by the Community and my store Shunned like a Trek Fan at a B5 Convention." Then he starts to leave and mentions that his filking group is going out to sing various Christmas Carols but with parts changed by substituting clever Sci-fi in jokes. The second story has Bart,Lisa,and Grandpa being summoned to the studio that does the Itchy and Scratchy cartoon. It seems the studio head is tired of them showing the same X-mas cartoon for going on 35 years. And since back some time earlier when Itchy and Scratchy had hit a low turn,it was turned around by Grandpa Simpsons,they now want him to write a new Christmas Holiday special cartoon. And so we get "A Springfield Christmas Carol" which is a variant of the Charles Dickens classic with various people from the town of Springfield. The first story is a great tale about all the goings on in the aftermarket toy market. Having been a collector of action figures for almost 25 years now,I can see many things in this story that have happened in real life. Plus I find that Comic Book Guy is one of my favorite secondary character in the shows history. The second story while not bad,isn't as good as the first one. I find it kinda sad that this issue of Simpsons Comics is better than any episode of the show I have seen in the last decade. Simpsons Comics 52 gets a very merry A+.

Showcasing the Essentials 07

Harvey Comics Classics Volume 3-Hot Stuff the lil devil

As far back as I can remember I have been a fan of Hot Stuff. I believe this is because my father has a tattoo of this cute little devil on his left forearm. Sadly besides a short lived relaunch in the early 90's,Hot Stuff hasn't been published in many years. So when I heard about Dark Horses series reprinting various Harvey characters in the "essential/showcase" format I had to get it. We get 110 stories in this volume. Most are in black and white but in the middle of the volume we get 7 stories in full color. These were printed from the original art,so they look even better than they did when first printed. Hot Stuff was kinda an oddity in the Harvey universe. He was the only major character that didn't cross over with any of the others. He is a young devil ,who wears an asbestos diaper. He loves all thing hot,and hates the cold. His stories were usually very short,and as far as I know he had no multi-part stories in his entire history. He is also the only one of the major Harvey comic characters that never had an animated appearance. I believe this is cause of concerns of how he would be perceived in the bible belt. Even though Hot Stuff is a devil ,there is nothing at all Satanic about him or his stories. In his 3 decade publishing history he ended up building up a small supporting cast which was mainly his aunts and other relatives. Hot Stuff was also the only Harvey character to get his own title without a tryout in another title. Most of his adventures were drawn by Warren Kremer,for his first few years. Then Howard Post took over the artistic chores. And finally the very underrated Ernie Colon drew most of his stories up until the title ended in 1982. This Lil devil was one of the many "bad boys" in the comic scene. And stood out in sharp contrast to the other Harvey creations. Going back and reading the stories reprinted in this volume,which reprints various selections from the years 1957-1966,one can see how He had the same basic plot line in most of the issues. This is one of those trades that you don't really want to sit down and read all at once,it works better if you read a few at a time. I am hoping this series of reprints sold well enough for Dark Horse to come back with a second volume of Lil Devil adventures. Harvey Comics Classics volume 3 Hot Stuff gets a B.

My love/hate relationship with Grant Morrison 01

The first thing I ever read from Mr Morrison was his Arkham Asylum story. And I enjoyed it very much. But since then I have found that with any work from Morrison I either love it or hate it,no middle ground at all. So when he started "Invisibles" I didn't bother with it. But just recently I got the above issue in a random lot I won off EBAY. Now I had read the first 5 or so issues of the first volume of Invisibles. And had heard that the later volumes get even weirder. So with this info I sat down to read the 5th issue of the the 3rd volume of Invisibles. And I loved it,sure it was very strange and IIRC Grant has mentioned in many interviews about how while he was writing most of the three volumes that make up the Invisible oeuvre he was on either LSD or magic mushrooms. And while it shows in the writing it is still well written enough for anyone willing to take the time to actually think while reading to understand it. First off the cover by Brian Bolland is just stunning,and I would love to have it reproduced as a poster. The interior artwork by Sean Philips is a perfect choice for this very trippy story. The inks by Jay Stephens help add to the lushness that is the art. The only minor drawback to this comic is now I have a strong urge to go out and either buy all the floppies of all 3 volumes or get the trades. Now I wouldn't recommend this to anyone that doesn't like having to "work" to understand their entertainment,but if you like something that challenges you while you are reading it Invisibles by Grant Morrison and the various artists has to be one of the best. Invisibles Volume 3 issue 5 gets a A-.

Strange find at the local redneck auction-Jonah Hex 76

A few months back I went to the local monthly auction. I rarely buy anything there,mainly cause I have no use for various tools,and household nicknack's. But one seller had a small stack of various comics. Ended up bidding $5 for the lot and won. This issue starts off with our "hero" Jonah out hunting. He manages to kill a nice sized buck and takes it back to were he has made camp. He gets back and some young blond lady is there. She offers to skin and dress the buck. But before she can start Jonah sees a muzzle flash off in the distance. He manages to take cover right before the bullets start flying. Jonah sneaks around and gets behind the people that were shooting at him. Turns out there is 3 of them. He shoots and kills all three,and starts to wonder why they were trying to kill him. Then we jump ahead 10 days,to a mansion in Virgina. There we meet Mr Turnbull. It seems he hired out the three men to kill Jonah. But back to Jonah,him and the girl ride into a town and get lodgings for the night. Jonah is knocked in the back of the head and falls to the ground. When he comes to he is face to face with Governor Phelps. It seems Phelps needs Jonah's help. He wants Jonah to get sentenced to a long term in the state penitentiary. This is so Jonah can be the Governor's eyes and ears on the inside. Phelps assures Jonah that he will get out in about a month and will be paid very well for his time. Jonah agrees,and goes off and robs a train. Oh course he gets caught and is sent straight to jail. We cut to a scene with Mei Ling,who if I recall correctly is Jonah's wife. Her brother shows her in the newspaper the story about Jonah robbing the train. And this causes Mei to wonder if she should have ever settled down with Mr Hex. But meanwhile Jonah is in jail,and he gets to see how the warden is cutting corners. The food that is served to the various prisoner is one small step above pigslop. And all the men seem to be in bad shape. Jonah gets upset about how one of the guards is treating a elderly man,and attacks the guard. This just causes the other guards to attack and overwhelm Jonah. And they brutally beat up Jonah. The issue closes out with Jonah thrown into the hole. The story is by Michael Fleisher with art by Dick Ayers and Tony Dezuniga. I enjoyed the book,but wished it had been a one and done story. Jonah Hex 76 earns a B.

Strange find in the cheap bins-Giant Size Conan 4

Last trip I took to Biloxi,I found a really nice antique mall. Noticed 2 short boxes of comics. Lots of 90's Marvel and DC,but also found this gem. Now I started a few years ago really getting into Conan. And at the price of $1.50 I couldn't pass this up. The first story is "Swords of the South" which is part of the continuing adaptation of Robert E. Howards "The Hour of the Dragon". We have Roy Thomas writing and Gil Kane on the art chores. This 30 page story has all the classic elements of any good Conan story. Lots of backstabbing and swordplay. And it ends on a great cliffhanger. This story takes place after Conan has become King,and it seems that most people think he has died recently. The Gil Kane art is as always amazing. I would love to see this storyline reprinted by Dark Horse in B/W. After this tale we get a reprint of Conan 7. Which has Roy Thomas again as the writer and Barry Windsor Smith handling the art. It is a pretty good one and done Conan tale. And the only drawback is the paper stock that was used does show Smith art as good as it could. One of the major highlights of this issue to me,is all the old ads for various products. Like the ad for Grit. In all my years of fandom I have never seen an issue of Grit or met anyone that either sold it or bought an issue. The only negative to this issue is now I will have to hunt down the other 4 issues in the Giant Size Conan run. But overall this was worth way more than I paid. Giant size Conan 4 gets a B+.

Strange find in the cheap bins-Jughead 's Soul Food

I got this recently in a box of comics from one of my cousins. It is from the short lived line of Archie comics published by Spire. Spire was a company that published Christian comics. The Archie titles they put out seem to be the most remembered and the easiest to find. The first story "A La Carte" is all about Jughead trying to bring in what seems to be a hot dog vendor's cart into the Riverdale high school cafeteria. Mr Weathersbee tells Jughead he can't bring the cart inside. And so Jughead takes it out side,and this not so good story ends with Mr Weathersbee getting a hot dog with lots of mustard from ole Juggy and praying. The second story doesn't seem to have a title,but it begins with Big Ethel and Betty Cooper outside Jughead's house. Ethel freaks out when she sees Jughead and what looks to be a girl sitting on his couch. She gets really pissed cause "He says he can't STAND girls!!!". So she goes and knocks on his door and confronts him. Jughead seems to be very confused by this. And in the final panel we see why. Turns out Jughead was sitting on the couch watching tv with his dog Hotdog. Next one get a one page gag story,in which Jughead is eating and sharing his food with Hotdog,and so in the last panel Hotdog brings over his bone to share with Jughead. Ok so far this comic has been bad,but hasn't had much Christian propaganda. "Calorie Gallery" is the next story. Jughead is excited to see a help wanted sign in the window of a local bakery. He gets the job,but in typical Jughead fashion fucks it all up by "taste testing" all the food. A really lame story with a lame gag to end it. There are a couple of more stories but truthfully they are all uniformly shitty. Then towards the end of the comic,we are "treated" to a Big Moose story. The Archie gang notices that both Big Moose and Jughead both have trays full of huge piles of food. Juggie ask Moose if they should pray for their food. Moose mentions that he never does that. And Jughead compares Moose to his dog,who also never prays for his food. Jughead goes on a long tirade about how God creates the food. And how Moose should be thankfull for having food. LAME LAME LAME. Next up we get "Jughead Prayer Page" which has various Archie charecters praying for various things. Finally this steaming pile of feces is wrapped up with a short story were Prof. Flutesnoot is educating the Archie gang on how to eat properly. But Betty and Archie have to interupt him to go into a two page speach about how God created our bodies and other such shit. OK I have read about 10 or so of these Spire Archie comics,and I consider myself to be agnostic/atheist. So I know these comics aren't aimed at me. But outta the ones I have read this has to be one of the worst. Jughead's Soul food earns a F-.

Strange find in the cheap bins-Jughead 327

Jughead #327

Published by Archie comics group

The year is 1983 and this issue seems to be Archie comics attempting to show they aren't stuck in a time warp and are hip to the current trends. In the first story "The Punk" ,the story starts with Archie and Betty in the offices of the school newspaper. Archie is looking out the window and sees a girl and guy. Who both are dressed in the "punk" style. Archie makes a comment about how he finds that style utterly revolting. And the guy hears him and turns around and makes a comment. Archie is surprised to see the guy looks like Jughead but has a mohawk. He ask Betty if she saw this but she was busy typing up a story. So Archie goes out in search of Jughead and he finds him. "Back off NERD!" is Jugheads response to Archie. And then he says his new name is Captain Thrash. Archie ask if Jughead's dog,Hotdog, also has a new name. And he sure does it is Vicious,and now Hotdog has a golden chain for a collar and has a yellow stripe down his back and a purple one down his side. Archie goes to Dingy's ,which is the local punk hangout. Archie sees a guy who while doing "the Slam" ends up punching Jughead in the face. So Archie comes up behind the guy and restrains him. This pisses Jughead off and he takes Archie and throws him outta Dingy's. The next day Archie is outside the school talking to Veronica,and he happens to notice Jughead is in the newspaper office and is talking to Betty. Archie assumes Jughead is talking Betty into joining the Riverdale punk scene. So Archie and Veronica go to confront Betty. It turns out that Jughead was going undercover so he could write an article on the local punk scene. So the story ends with the gang all going to Dingy's so Jughead can get a hamburger. The rest of the stories in the issue are your typical Archie stories. But just for the scenes with Jughead as Captain Thrash this comic earns a B.