Category Archives: General

Django Unchained #1 Review (COMICS!)

“What’s yer name?” “…Django. D-J-A-N-G-O….The D is silent.”

Howdy, folks! This is your bounty hunter from another mother, Richard, here! Today, I present to you a comic book review! However, this is not just some regular comic review where I chit chat about Batman’s latest adventure in Gotham City. No…This is a review of a comic book adaptation of a Quentin Tarantino film script! Specifically, his original script for his latest film: Django Unchained! OH MY GOD! That is freaking awesome, peeps! This is not something you usually see in comics. Also, what’s really exciting about this is the comic series will be a straight adaptation of the ENTIRE script.

This means that if there is something in the script that didn’t make it to film, it’s probably in the comic! The first issue was released today, and I’m loving it, in case you can’t tell. I will say this, if you don’t want to be spoiled in anyway…AVOID THIS COMIC! Once again, It’s a direct adaptation of the script. So, avoid it, or wait until the film comes out to pick up issue one.

Anyways, Issue one starts off with a group of slaves being escorted to possibly another location to continue their unfortunate slavery. During their journey, The slaves and slavers meet a dentist named Dr. King Schultz. They also meet his horse, Fritz. Schultz is looking for a particular slave that he believes is among the group. As expected, that very slave is among the group, and his name is…Django. Schultz attempts to acquire the slave by politely purchasing him, but the slavers won’t budge. Instead, Schultz is forced to aggressively purchase Django. Schultz and Django then ride to the nearest town to chat about why this has all happened. Apparently, Schultz is actually a bounty hunter looking for some people Django might know. So, he enlists Django to help find these people, and kill them.

First off, I’m so glad this is a direct adaptation of Tarantino’s script. I don’t think there is a single writer out there who could have done a Tarantino script justice. Especially in the dialog. Tarantino dialog is always rough, witty, and fun all at the same time. That’s probably why I hate most film adapted comics. The writers can never really capture the voice of the story or the screenwriter. I will say, the dialog does get a bit wordy at times. Even more so when Schultz is speaking, which is most of the time. That being said, if it were bad dialog, then it would be an issue. Thankfully, the dialog is amazing, and totally fun to read.

But! This is something I expect from Tarantino! I know he is going to wow me when it comes to writing. The real thing to look at is the artwork. The artist on this comic is R.M. Guera. The art in the comic is very rugged, tough, dark and stylized. It’s a style that nicely fits the story. I wouldn’t say it’s perfect, though. Some of the faces are a bit weird at times. Other then that, I really dig the artwork. It very much looks like a western comic. Overall, I’m very happy with the way this first issue turned out. Also, it was nice to get kind of an early peek at the first few moments in the film!

I give Django Unchained #1 4.5 gun shots outta 5! I realize half a gun shot is odd, but that’s my rating!

If you would like me to review the rest of the series as it comes out, tell me in the comments! Also, please subscribe to Channel23hahaha on Youtube! I’d really appreciate it!

COMICS! Celebrates 100 Episodes This Week!!!

Thanksgiving isn’t the only thing to celebrate this week…..and I’m not talking about Black Friday, kids!

HELLO EVERYONE! It’s your Nostalgic Avenger, Richard, here! Now, I’m am super duper excited right now! Why? Well, This week will see the release of the 100th episode of COMICS! AHHHHHHHHH! Holy s#!%, Batman! It’s real crazy that Carter and I have done that many episodes! 100 episodes ago, Carter and I were just two guys whom love comics, but couldn’t fully express it. Now, we expressed the crap outta ourselves every week. Not literally, of course…….ANYWAYS! So, we wanted to thank everyone for watching the show, and making it last as long as it has and wanting it to go on. Carter and I aren’t even close to finished making episodes, so It’s nice to see that some of you aren’t even close to being done watching! You are all the best! Now, to celebrate, Carter and I will be doing a LIVE episode of COMICS! on Sunday at 7pm EST. You heard correct! COMICS! will be live this week! Also, we will be answering questions those of you asked in the previous episode, which you can watch by clicking the photo! Ask us a question, and you can be apart of our live episode! Anyways, thanks again for watching! You are all amazing, and I love you! Here is to 100 more!

Capsule Review: Cloud Atlas (2012)

Cloud Atlas more tightly interweaves the six narratives from its source along rising and falling action instead of a relatively flat 1 2 3 4 5 6 5 4 3 2 1, but the protraction of each beat to repeat over matching actions can still make it feel topheavy. The fact that the three directors held the whole production together and the editing flows smoothly is admirable regardless.

–DB

3 Capsule Reviews for E. Elias Merhige

Begotten (1990)

This experimental feature has gained some cult status from reuse of its imagery in Shadow of the Vampire and Marylin Manson videos. Unfortunately it’s one of those ‘films’ that should be seen on film, as the optical-printer post-production effects are based on the emulsion medium itself. Anyway, think a visceral and gory Kenneth Anger: Merhige is a religious relationship to cinema and this is his genesis story.

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

This movie is one of those loving homages that feels like Merhige wants to own the original as his own child; nevertheless the casting wins it over with Malkovich portraying Murnau as a sacrificial high priest of cinema and Defoe as an antsy, irritated aging vampire both camera shy and obsessed with the lead actress. It’s not a very chilling movie but quietly crazy.

Suspect Zero (2004)

The script obviously was written to ride off of Se7en’s audience, but Merhige can’t help taking the paranormal investigator aspect seriously; playing off of the popular conspiracy theory about psychic CIA operatives, the movie extends it to the FBI. Merhige elevates the script with some interesting headache and psychic input abstract montages but not much saves this generic thriller from itself.

Final Word: Merhige believes cinema replaces literature and has a deep but dark spiritual affiliation with it, which results in interesting imagery and quietly mad narratives but doesn’t give him much room to play in the mainstream and doesn’t always pan out to a novel elevation of the form.

–DB

Capsule Review: Possession (1981)

Uh. Zuwalski gives you .2 seconds to adjust and then it’s direct to the howling fantods as characters claw, yell, cry, and seizure their way through a narrative featuring jealous infidelity, doppelgangers, conspiracy, religious anxiety, petty hatreds, possibly the birth of the antichrist, definitely the end of the world, and a gag-inducing tentacled sex monster. Other than that it’s really, really weird.

–DB

Capsule Review: Lady Frankenstein (1971)

Somewhat typical Euro-trash horror intercuts the roving monster stumbling upon scenes of nudity with one woman’s plan to justify her father’s creation… by suturing her lover’s brain into a hunky new body. The script at the heart of this thing is surprisingly vibrant, meaning if the movie was aiming for some other type of production value we might have had a real, instead of an ironic, cult classic.

–DB

Evil Dead (2013) Trailer Review!

Wait….This has nothing to do with comic books? Why am I writing this?

So, when folks hear the word remake these days, the words “not again” is groaned in reply. It’s true that we’ve had an insane amount of remakes these past few years, and we’ve got more to come. Plus, the majority of these remakes released are based upon some of the biggest horror films ever made. You name it, it’s probably been remade. Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Dracula, Frankenstein, Last House on the Left, Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the list goes on and on. Now, we have a new horror classic to add to the remake list: Evil Dead.

However, the horror remake list is slightly divided. Some horror remakes are actually not that bad. While others do nothing but give the middle finger to the original film and it’s many fans. I’m looking at you, Halloween! Yes…I’m looking straight at you, fother mucker! So, all that being said, where will Evil Dead end up? Well, based on this trailer, the film might actually end up on the good list! Yes, I actually liked this trailer a lot! I’m surprised as all hell that I liked it, but I did! I mean, It’s got the feel of Evil Dead, and It has the look of Evil Dead. Also, the original film makers (Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert Tapert) are heavily involved in this new movie! So, That makes me very excited!

It reminds me of when I made a crappy short called Specter Quest. Eventually, I made a better version that captured my original vision perfectly! That seems to be the reason Raimi and company, along with director and co-writer of this remake, Fede Alvarez, want to make this version. Well, that’s what Bruce Campbell said when He told me, and a few other press peeps, about the remake during the New York Comic Con. When they made the original, Raimi and Campbell looked to make a scary film. However, It ended up being more comedic and cheesy because of the low budget effects, and “melodramatic dialog delivered by bad actors” as Bruce Campbell said. ha-ha!

Fun fact, by the way, I’d never seen the original Evil Dead film until after I did the press round table for the remake. When I arrived back in Ohio, I immediately drove to Best Buy, purchased the original on Blu-Ray, and loved every second of it. It was such a fun film, but I didn’t really find it funny. It was pretty bloody, and cheesy, but I didn’t really find it all that funny. I mean, how can you find raping trees funny? I guess this world is full of sick sick people.

Anyways, so even though I liked the trailer, there were some stuff that bugged me. First of all, and this might just be me, but I loved the fact the original film didn’t feature crazy bad language. Not a single f-bomb was dropped. A few hells and damns sure, but no ships or trucks at all. This new film has an f-bomb dropped in the trailer! I just hope it’s not over used, like most horror remakes.

Second, the original’s crazy violence was fun because of the low budget effects. With this new version and it’s bigger budget, I fear the violence might come off as torture porn. Bruce Campbell spoke a bit on torture porn at NYCC, and how he felt it was just bad film making. I couldn’t agree with him more. I’ve always been incredibly against torture porn because it is just bad film making. He also said this new film doesn’t feature a single frame of torture porn in it.

Which would imply that the film cares about the story, and the violence is just icing on the cake. So, I hope that is the case with this version of Evil Dead. In the end, I was rather impressed with this trailer, and I am excited to see the final product. I just hope that I’m as impressed with the actual film when it’s released next year. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, click on the picture above! I should warn you, though…It’s not for the faint of heart!

Fantastic Fest: A Look Back, Part 1

THURSDAY: “Frankenweenie,” “”The Final Member”

Consumed: A breaded veal testicle for phallocentric documentary, THE FINAL MEMBER, fed to a dog in honor of FRANKENWEENIE.

FRIDAY: Far East/Far Out

Films/Events: “The King of Pigs”, “The Warped Forest”, “Miami Connection”, “Doomsday Book”

Consumed: Strange juice (durian?) during THE WARPED FOREST, inspired by the opiate-like fruit consumed in the film.

Emerging Themes: Rotten fruit.

Standouts: Yim Pi-Sung’s “ A Brave New World”, the first and most entertaining of THE DOOMSDAY BOOK’s three end-of-the-world short films, merges biblical allegory, romantic comedy and media satire with a zombie apocalypse.

Kim Ji-Woon follows up with “The Heavenly Creature,” wherein a service android stationed at a Buddhist temple achieves enlightenment: after all, the elimination of human needs is at the heart of transcendence.

Pair with: BLADE RUNNER

SATURDAY: Fistfights

Films/Events: “Wake in Fright” and the Fantastic Debates

Consumed: Half-price beer, in honor of the thousand pints downed by thirsty Outback laborers throughout WAKE IN FRIGHT.

Emerging Themes: Intellectuals with poor impulse control.

Standouts: Ted Kotcheff’s long-lost 1971 masterpiece, WAKE IN FRIGHT, follows an erudite schoolteacher, played by Gary Bond, who traps himself in the fringes of Bundanyabba, a mining town in the Australian outback.

The title suggests a horror movie, and it is; but only through the viewpoint of Bond’s teacher, who loses himself to impulse and gets literally stripped of his trappings and his educated veneer.

He finds himself cast to the outskirts of town, living in a hovel with a drunken doctor played brilliantly by Donald Pleasance.

This is a man’s movie, filled with gambling, beer, sex, beer, kangaroo fights and beer, beer, beer. It’s both visceral and literate, conjuring the harrowing spirit of Joseph Conrad’s novella, HEART OF DARKNESS.

Championed by Martin Scorsese, it’s also one of only two films to ever screen at the Cannes Film Festival twice.

Pair with: APOCALYPSE NOW

This was chased with an epic beer-fueled debate/fistfight between mumblecore director, Joe Swanberg, and Badass Digest critic, Devin Faraci, who sought to determine whether mumblecore films were ‘catshit’ or not. It was a great debate, filled with verbal and physical jabs. The only thing this kangaroo court lacked was actual kangaroos…

FF2012: “Aww. Ninjas.”

The fun factor of MIAMI CONNECTION, a horribly entertaining 1987 musical martial-arts film directed by Grandmaster Y.K. Kim, cannot be overstated. Listening to its inane songs and dialogue will kill more of your brain cells than an all-night bender.

If you’ve haven’t yet, check out the posted interview with Y.K. Kim for more info. As promised, here’s a link to download Dragon Sound songs “Friends” and “Against the Ninja.” Your e-mail address is required, but it’s worth it:

http://t.opsp.in/a0EX7

Warning! Based on the behavior of the Dragon Sound squad at Fantastic Fest, one should think twice before inviting New Wave-rockin’ Grand Masters of Tae Kwon Do to your party, as they may bring watermelon and make you be the cutting board.

Y.K. Kim cuts into a watermelon. Photo by David Hill

FF2012, Day 1: “FRANKENWEENIE” AND OTHER PEENIES


 Alamo Drafthouse rolled out the black carpet for the world premiere of Tim Burton’s B&W stop-motion marvel, “Frankenweenie 3-D.” Burton, Winona Ryder and Martin Landau were there, and one theater was reserved for a pack of black-and-white lap dogs and their human companions.

“Frankenweenie” is the story of a boy named Victor and his dead dog, Sparky. The setting is New Holland, a seemingly placid town which boasts the highest rate of recorded lightning strikes in the world. Its citizens and quiet tract houses inspire both fondness and dread.
Yes, Victor’s an outcast, but the kids surrounding him in his Science class are an even freakier bunch. Wait until you meet the Weird Girl and Mr. Whiskers…
The concise screenplay, written with John August, incorporates many Burton hallmarks: suburban outcasts, sad-eyed waifs and homages to classic cult films. It’s also packed with brilliant comic speeches. The science lectures of Mr. Rzykruski (Martin Landau), and the earnest ode to compromise delivered by Victor’s dad — illustrated by Scottsdale, AZ and a plate of Surf & Turf — will live with me for some time.

It’s a return to form for Burton, and it’s a treat to see the film acknowledge Joe Dante’s shared suburban lunacy when events spin out of control. This is one of the most joyously anarchic and heartfelt films of the year.

I imagine that some programmer got a chuckle scheduling the “The Final Member”, a documentary about the Icelandic Phallological Museum, as the follow-up to “Frankenweenie”. After all, both films deal with the dream of a life after death for Men’s Best Friends.

“The Final Member” takes place in Iceland. With a population of about 300,000 people, almost everyone’s related and knows other people’s business. It was surely something of note when Professor Sigurður Hjaratson opened a museum featuring the world’s largest collection of mammalian penises. What began as a joke became a life passion. But with his health deteriorating, the Professor starts to worry he won’t live to see his legacy completed. The last and most difficult specimen he seeks to acquire is ironically abundant: the human penis.

In addition to the many legal and personal requirements that potential donors must meet, there is an added stipulation from Icelandic legend that the donor must reach the “Legal Size” of 5 inches.

Two men answer the call: an elderly Icelandic adventurer who was a renowned womanizer in his day, and an eccentric American named Ed, who so desires to see his member properly mounted that he goes to great lengths researching and developing display cases, preservation methods, etc.,
 Matters get more complicated when Tom decides to maintain quality control by cutting off his penis while he’s still alive.

The situation is extraordinarily absurd, but this documentary becomes an unexpectedly moving and thought-provoking piece on men’s fragility, mortality and legacy. It views our strange lives with bafflement and respect and is simply one of the best docs I’ve seen this year.