return to crystal lake.

This morning, I decided to check out the Friday the 13th film fan site to see if they had any news about the upcoming Platinum Dunes "Friday the 13th" remake. They did, and I'm all worked up into an excited fanboy frenzy now.


They posted a teaser trailer that was shown at last week's San Diego Comic Con. I've watched this thing several times now and though the video quality is rather poor, it still manages to get me all kinds of stoked. Of course, it's already been taken down from the site and I can't seem to find another link to it. I'm sure it will turn up again soon. The trailer looks pretty sweet though and it certainly made me way more pumped up about this movie than I was when I woke up this morning. It's hard to tell exactly what was going on in the footage, but Jason definitely showed up and started chasing down some teenagers. He definitely was running, or at least walking way faster than I'm used to seeing. The thing is, I'm so damn excited about what I saw that it doesn't even matter to me that Jason was briskly moving along. He's fucking evil, you can't outrun that sort of thing. Also, the fine folks at BloodyDisgusting.com have posted a few teaser posters and tons and the latest news about the movie.


You must understand my complete and undying love for the "Friday the 13th" movie franchise. That Jason Voorhees tattoo pictured above is a part of me for the rest of my life. I've had that tattoo for a few years now and I still look at it every single day and smile. I've more or less been super into Jason Voorhees since I was about 11 or 12 years old and my mom used to let me and my neighborhood friends rent those movies from the video department at our local grocery store. Back then, it was only $1 to rent movies and me and my pals would often rent several Friday the 13th movies and have Jason marathons. We did this with the "Nightmare on Elm Street" flicks too, but for whatever reason the latter series never quite struck the same chord with me. I love those movies, but I absolutely adore everyone's favorite hockey mask wearing, undead serial killer.

At first, all this remake talk kind of upset me. My gut reaction was the standard fanboy cliche. "How dare they!?! Those movies are classics and they don't need to be re-done!" But I must admit I enjoyed what Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes did with re-booting the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" franchise. The movies were much glossier and, dare I say, hipper than the originals; they were also geniunely twisted and mostly entertaining. This gave me the slightest glimmer of hope that Bay and co. wouldn't mess up the "Friday the 13th" franchise, instead they would simply inject some new blood into it. Pun fully intended.


Words can't really express my sense of satisfaction when I saw that they cast Derek Mears, pictured above, to play Jason. It would have been awesome if Kane Hodder would have been brought into the fold. He was the defininitive Jason Voorhess in many fans eyes, but I'm ok with them going in a different direction. I'm sure Mr. Hodder isn't having any trouble finding new roles to play. Plus, just take a look at Mears. The guy looks downright menacing and that is just his headshot. He's a big hulking dude who seems to fit the Voorhees mold to perfection. As soon as I saw pictures of the new Jason, my pessimism about this remake began to quickly turn into cautious optimism.

No matter what, I'm still doing to be hesitant about this movie. Though Michael Bay has redeemed himself a bit in my eyes with his work on the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" films and of course "Transformers," he is still the guy behind "Pearl Harbor" and "Armageddon." He's not as intimately involved with "Friday the 13th," but he's producing this thing and putting a bunch of money into it and that always gives me an uneasy feeling. Regardless, I'm planning on being at the cinema on Friday, February 13, 2009.

Maybe I'll even wear a Jason mask to the screening.

the skyline is burning.

Needless to say, "The Dark Knight" was awesome.


Heath Ledger did not disappoint as The Joker. After hearing the non-stop Oscar buzz surrounding his performance, I went into the film wondering if he would be able to live up to the hype. As soon as he walked in screen and did his "magic trick" I knew that he was going to kick ass. Was he better than Nicholson in Tim Burton's "Batman" from 1989? I'm not sure the two really compare. Though they were playing the same character, their interpretations of him were vastly different and I really think Ledger nailed the darker, more sinister Joker that we usually only get to see in the pages of the comics. Regardless, don't be shocked if Ledger wins a posthumous Academy Award for his portrayal of the yin to Batman's yang.


If you ask me, Gary Oldman is Jim Gordon. His performances in both of Christopher Nolan's Batman films are so perfect. He even looks just the way I expect Jim Gordon to look like, like he leaped right out of the pages of Frank Miller's "Year One" and onto the silver screen. He doesn't really steal the movie, but then again I think it is safe to say that it wouldn't be the same without him. The same can be said for Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent. He plays the "white knight" of Gotham so well and seeing his transformation into Two-Face is quite fascinating. Some feel like they should have saved the majority of the Two-Face portion of "The Dark Knight" for the next Batman film, but I think including it this time was the right choice. Nolan and his screenwriters did a really fantastic job of using two villians and making it not seem overwhelming to the viewer, unlike what happened with all the villians in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man 3."

Speaking of, it was good to see such a huge response for "The Dark Knight" from fans everywhere. It raked in close to $160 million on it's opening weekend and broke basically every single box office record imaginable. Unlike Spidey's last film, which set the weekend gross record last year, I actually felt very satisfied walking out of the movie theatre. There were only a handful of stupid little things that bothered me about the sophomore effort in the Batman franchise. Overall, I found it to be a far superior film than the last Spider-Man movie and it is much more deserving of these box office achivements.


My biggest complaint is the new Batman costume. It just looks, well, kind of ridiculous. I'm not into the all-black motif and the mask looks odd-shaped and awkward. It is definitely better than the costumes used in Schumacher's Bat-films, but not by a whole lot. Christian Bale's Batman voice was also a little much at times. Yeah, we get it, Batman is supposed to be menacing and scary but at the same time he doesn't have to growl and speak so harshly all of the time. I don't know, I just found it a bit much. Kevin Conroy, who does the voice in the classic Batman: The Animated Series and the recent "Gotham Knights" DVD, is my quintessential Bat-voice. Oh well, at least Bale really shines as Bruce Wayne. That allows me to forgive his cheesy voice work while in cape and cowl.

If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for? It is great.


In completely unrelated news, another really good hardcore punk band is calling it quits. I wrote about the short shelf life of hardcore bands in my last blog entry and then found out that Dead Hearts are breaking up a few days later. This is a bummer, especially because these guys are from Buffalo, my hometown, and they seemed to be doing really well as of late. Their last record, "Bitter Verses," was solid and I was stoked to hear what was coming next from them.

Dead Hearts were never my favorite band ever, but I always enjoyed their shows and their music. I think they are solid guys and they made music that inspired a lot of people in this area, for that I'm always going to have fond memories of them as a band. I'll never forget seeing them play a Christmas party at a local independent record store called Sit and Spin. The place was packed and the singer, Derek, came out of the back dressed as Santa Claus as the band ripped into their first song. Minutes later, the costume was nearly destroyed and strands of stringy, white, fake hair were all over the place. I probably swallowed a good chunk of Santa Dole's beard that night. Anyways, I'm sure that some of the dudes will move on to new bands and I'm looking forward to hearing them when that time comes. Until then, I'll just count down the days until their last show. September 12, 2008. Should be a blast.

"Some promises last long after we're in our graves."

aggression.

The other day I went to the local record store and picked up a copy of the new Verse album, "Aggression." It dawned on me that this was the first new hardcore record I had been excited about in quite a while, probably since Paint it Black released "New Lexicon" way back in February. I'm not too sure why that is, though it probably has something to do with the incredibly high break-up rate of every single hardcore punk band that I really love. Most bands in this genre seem to have a short shelf life.

With so many great bands calling it quits after a handful of records, I've been a bit depressed with hardcore these days. Thankfully, Verse is doing something very excellent. "Aggression" is incredible.


Verse released their debut EP in 2003 and have been consistently putting out solid music ever since. Vocalist Sean Murphy, whose work I enjoyed in his previous band (What Feeds the Fire), has one of the most distinctive voices in all of hardcore and he really flexes his vocal chords on "Aggression." I've read reviews that compare his delivery on this record to Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against The Machine, and I suppose I can hear it from time to time in certain tracks. Overall though, I wouldn't put much thought into that comparison, Murphy still sounds much the same as he did in "Rebuild" and there are no rap-rock elements to this record.

One thing that I really like is that "Aggression" sounds like an album. The songs flow perfectly and you can tell that this whole thing was put together carefully. Verse try something most hardcore bands wouldn't dare to, a nearly-seven minute long song broken up into three tracks, each with a different subtitle, kind of similar to what Green Day did on with "Jesus of Suburbia" on "American Idiot." Verse's "Story of a Free Man" deals with a father killed at war and is quite moving for a hardcore song, especially when Murphy screams out "...this is the story of a free man!" to bring the final chapter, "Serenity," to a close. Some of the transitions between tracks on this record are perfect, especially how "Blind Salvation" leads into "Unlearn" near the end of the album.


Verse are a bunch of intelligent dudes and it's apparent by reading their highly policital and often very personal lyrics. I firmly believe that hardcore and punk rock go hand in hands with world events and politics and bands like Verse give my beliefs and my point of a view a much louder and powerful voice, even if I don't completely agree with everything that they stand for. It's refreshing to hear a band scream about how fucked up things are in this country and this world and know that people out there are just as fed up and angry about it as I am. One of the coolest things about "Aggression" is the lists of books to read and films to check out in the liner notes, for those who would like to know more about what is behind the music, so to speak. It just goes to show that Verse stands for something and they want their fans to educate themselves about what that is.

I can easily see this album making my top 10 at the end of the year. Few hardcore records in my recent memory have been so fiercely political and so well put together and complete. These guys have come a long long way from their early days of Bane inspired, fast melodic hardcore and I'm stoked about where they are heading.

Do yourself a favor, give it a listen.

two-for-one comic book movie review madness!

Two really cool comic book related movies were released this week, causing fanboys like myself to spend their hard earned cash money to take in the direct-to-DVD animated project "Batman: Gotham Knight" and the much-anticipated feature film "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army."


Let's take a look at the Batman DVD first off. This "movie" features 6 short episodes, each around 10 minutes or so, written by some of the best comic and television scribes, including Greg Rucka and Brian Azzarello. They pair up with some acclaimed anime studios to produce a neat little compliation of Batman stories that fits snugly between the two feature films, "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight." Now let me make this clear, I'm not a huge fan of anime at all. In fact, most of the time I just can't stand it. My favorite anime styled cartoon is The Boondocks, which is basically just a very Americanized version of anime in the first place. I'm no expert on who these directors are either, I think one of them did the "Ghost in the Shell" but that's about as far as my knowledge goes on who these guys are. Needless to say, I was a bit weary going into this DVD knowing my general distaste for the style of animation being used.

Thankfully, most of the animation didn't bother me. I only thought Batman and company looked ridiculous in a few of the stories and for the most part it was kind of cool to see how these anime directors interpreted the Caped Crusader. I won't spoil all of the fun and discuss each story, but I would like to briefly focus on the two I enjoyed the most. "Have I Got a Story For You" kicks off the film and "Deadshot" closes things out.


The former is written by Josh Olsen, who wrote the screenplay for "A History of Violence." His tale is a cute little one about a group of kids and their stories about the Batman. Seeing each child tell their friends what they saw when they encountered the Dark Knight was amusing, as these kids apparently have very healthy imaginations.

The final episode of the film, written by Alan Burnett of "Batman: The Animated Series" fame, features an action-packed battle between Bats and the titular character. It was pretty rad to see someone like Deadshot being used here, especially when considering the depth of Batman's rogues gallery. The only other bad guys from Batman's extensive group of villians who even appear in this film are Killer Croc and the Scarecrow. It's nice to see a C-lister like Deadshot get his moment in the sun, even if he does get his butt kicked.

"Gotham Knight" is a nice treat for the hardcore Batman set and also something worth checking out if you happen to be interested in anime or just would like to learn more about the Dark Knight. The two-disc edition is loaded with tons of really excellent features that should please rabid fans, including a look at Batman's rogues and a feature on creator Bob Kane. They are very well down and nearly worth the price of the DVD alone.


Four years have passed since the release of "Hellboy" and after several delays and a change of film studios, "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" finally hit the silver screen on Friday. I might not be the first to say it, but let me emphatically state that this movie was 100% worth every single second of waiting. It took everything I enjoyed about the first film and cranked it up to 11. It might be a bit of a bold statement with "The Dark Knight" looming next week, but so far this is my movie of the summer.


Ron Perlman is perfect as Hellboy. If he ever decides to stop portraying "Red" then I hope they never make another Hellboy movie. He is that good at playing the cigar smoking, cat loving, right-hand-of-doom possesing hero. I honestly could not imagine anyone else stepping into this role and doing the things he does. Anyways, as you can probably tell Perlman was spot on again and the supporting cast from the original movie returns with top notch performances as well. Doug Jones nearly steals the show once again, this time lending his voice as well as his physical acting talents to "fishstick" Abe Sapien. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane joins in on the fun, voicing the newest B.P.R.D. member, the ectoplasmic Johann Krauss. He also does a truly great job and his banter with Hellboy provides some of the film's many comedic moments.

The story this time around strays away from Hellboy's comic origins, something I actually found quite refreshing. Instead of a rehashed story, we get something entirely new for the $10 admission price. The main plot deals with Hellboy and his B.P.R.D cohorts trying to stop Price Nuada, an exiled elf warrior played by Luke Goss, from capturing the pieces of a powerful crown and awakening the ancient Golden Army to bring about the end of mankind. Nuada is obsessed with taking back the Earth for his elven bretheren and will stop at nothing to do so. Big Red and his posse naturally have a problem with this and several confrontations ensue.


Price Nuada has a twin sister, Princess Nuala, who does not share in his grand vision for Earth. He tries to sway her over to his side but she winds up with the B.P.R.D. One of the films many subplots features Pricess Nuala and Abe Sapien developing feelings for one another, leading to some tender moments. Perhaps the best scene of the film is between Abe and Hellboy. Abe goes to him for some advice on the Nuala situation, while Hellboy is dealing with his own relationship troubles with Liz Sherman. The end result needs to be seen to be believed and certainly provided the most laughs at the theatre. It is a shining example of what makes this Hellboy film universe so unique.

The wonderful thing about "The Golden Army" is director Guillmero del Toro's vivid imagination. Along with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, del Toro has cooked up a beautifully put together movie chock full of outlandish characters and stunning landscapes. I spent as much time looking at the surroundings as I did the main characters. You get giant forest god elementals, adorable yet vicious "tooth fairies" and of course Wink, who is Price Nuada's bad-ass sidekick. The "Troll Market" scene rivals the Mos Eisley Cantina from "Star Wars," no joke. It would be a travesty if the visual effects team doesn't find themselves in the midst of the Oscar talk for their work on this movie.

"Hellboy 2: The Golden Army" ends with the promise of another story to tell. Here's hoping the next one happens sooner than later.

my kind live low.

The other night, I saw Lords rock the shit out of Broadway Joe's.


That pic isn't from the show, I just snagged it off their Myspace page for illustrative purposes. I should've brought a camera to the show, but for some reason I never really thought about that until afterwards. Anyways, they were loud. Really, really fucking loud. They were also incredibly tight. Chris Owens is a madman.

I've been digging their debut full length, "Swords," for some time now and I recently picked up their "House that Lords Built" 7" and that also rocks. They have a new full-length, supposedly it will be out by the end of the summer. Color me very stoked for that. They are such a good band, I'd best describe them as Black Flag colliding head on with Black Sabbath at 100 mph. They also have some of the coolest t-shirt designs, I picked up this super sweet one below. It was designed by Richard Mineo, who does some awesome artwork under the name Horse Bites. Check out some of his work on Myspace.


Speaking of good bands and records that I am stoked for, Off With Their Heads has a new album coming out later this month on No Idea. I'm beyond excited. That band, to me, are undoubtably one of the most important bands in punk rock today. Very few bands have the ability to mix complete piss and vinegar with catchy hooks that will insantly stick in your head like these guys. "Hospitals" is one of the best records of the last decade and that is only an 8-song EP. I can't wait to see how they follow it up with a full-length.


"From The Bottom" comes out July 27 and I'm more or less counting the days. A few tracks are up on Myspace and I've been listening to them a lot. So far, so good. I can see this as the best record of 2008 so you can tell my expectactions are pretty much ridiculously high. Whatever, OWTH can pull it off.

Another early contentder for the best album of the year is "On Parallels" by LaGrecia It's a shame that this band didn't even make it until their debut record was released. Singer Jason Shevchuk, who also sang for Kid Dynamite and None More Black, decided to quit the band shortly before the record dropped. Now, while this is a total bummer, he also announced that None More Black would be playing shows again. That kind of rules, so I suppose it softens the blow of LaGrecia's demise.


That is some most excellent cover art. The record itself ain't so bad either, it almost seems like a continuation of where Jason was heading creatively with None More Black. I really loved their last record, "This Is Satire," and "On Parallels" feels like it picks up where that one left off. The opening guitar riffs are pure bliss and there is a great ebb and flow to the whole album. Like I said, it's a contender for my favorite album of '08 and it will undoubtably end up near the top of the list.

So, check out those bands if you haven't yet. They get my seal of approval.

can I get away with one more fart joke here?

George Carlin. May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008.

"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."

My first experience with George Carlin was his role as Rufus in "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure." That movie came out in 1989, which made me a whopping 8-years-old at the time. I loved that flick and probably watched it almost daily as a child. You could imagine my suprise when I saw my dad watching a George Carlin comedy special on TV one night. There was the noble and wise Rufus, who I'd only known from his guidance of the two most excellent Wyld Stallions, spitting out curse words and making my father laugh his ass off.

Over the years, I've grown to appreciate the comedic stylings of Carlin. I'd never call myself a devoted fan, but if I had to pick a favorite comedian he would probably be at the top of the list. He was my dad's favorite and my younger brother's favorite as well. When I heard about his death, they were the first two people I called. Both were just as bummed out as I was.

In my opinion, the beauty of Carlin lies in his ability to seamlessly switch from dick and fart jokes to thought-provoking social commentary. And it's all hilarious. Maybe it's because I feel like we shared many similar beliefs and I could relate to what he rambled about, but George Carlin spoke to me like no other comedian has. Like I said, I've never really been a devoted enough fan to go and see him perform or purchase any of his releases, but anytime I'd see a George Carlin special on HBO during the middle of the night, I'd be watching; and laughing.

Always have, always will. Rest in peace, George.

"You know what some people don't talk about in public anymore? Pussy farts."

living on the edge fighting crime spinning webs

Two of my favorite things in the whole world are cartoons and Spider-Man, which sort of makes Marvel's various Spider-Man animated projects something that I am automatically interested in by default. In fact, you can blame the cartoon version of the web-head for my lack of updates this week.

Toon Disney has been showing the 1990s version of Fox's Spider-Man animated series on their "Jetix" block of programming. I currently have close to 50 episodes of the show on my DVR and I have spent far too much time lately watching them late at night. Without a doubt, this version of Spidey stands tall as the finest cartoon adaptation of Peter Parker's adventures.


In the past week alone, I've enjoyed watching Spidey save Mary Jane from her demented ex-boyfriend Hydro-Man, Cleatus Kassidy becoming Carnage thanks to the evil Dormammu, the formation of the "Insidious Six" and the X-Men teaming with our friendly neighborhood hero. I've pretty much been in cartoon heaven.


One of the best things about this series is the incredible amount of characters that are used. I've got quite a ways to go before completing the entire run, but I've seen classic Spidey villians like the Shocker, Rhino, The Scorpion and Mysterio along with allies like the X-Men, the Black Cat, Daredevil and The Punisher. Virtually every corner of the Marvel Universe has been touched in this cartoon, which is part of what makes it so amazingly enjoyable.


Sure, sometimes the story strays a bit too far from what we have come to know and love in the comic books. Carnage, pictured above, gets his symbiote as a gift from Baron Mordo and Dormammu in order to destroy Spider-Man and bring Dormammu into our world. Yeah, it didn't happen that way in the comics but you know what? It works perfectly in this cartoon. I'm all for taking creative liberties here and there in order to tell a fun, well-thought-out story. Then again, that is probably the reason I'm enjoying the "Brand New Day" of Amazing Spider-Man currently being produced by Marvel comics.

As far as current animated Spidey adventures, you can also count me among the fans of the CW's "Spectacular Spider-Man" animated series. I actually find it to be a breath of fresh air and it reminds me a lot of the old Fox series. MTV's computer-animated Spidey series from a few years back just didn't resonate with me. It was alright, but it felt too much like something targeted to the casual fan. Not this new series though, it definitely packs and old-school feel and can be enjoyable for both newbies to the Spidey world and faithful followers of the web-slinger.


The first season just wrapped up and I'm anxious to see what is going to happen the next time around. I already have the DVD on my "to-buy" list, whenever it gets released as a box-set. The whole thing was just fun, it felt like a combination of the classic Spider-Man stories and the more recent "Ultimate" version of the character. Things have changed from the comics, but it all works within the context of the series. Harry Osborn was revealed to be the Green Goblin, despite evidence pointing towards his father, Norman, who as most everyone knows is the original Green Goblin in just about every other Spidey story ever created. I still have my theories about his involvement with the Green Goblin in this cartoon, I'm thinking he may have somehow set his own son up. We'll just have to wait for season two to come out.


"Jetix" has also been airing episodes of "Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends" a few nights a week. I have only caught a few of them so far, but the series is a fun little nostalgia trip back to the 1980s featuring Spidey teaming up with Iceman and a female mutant character named Firestar, created just for the show, to take on his various enemies. Though entertaining, it doesn't come close to the overall greatness of the other Spider-Man cartoons I've rambled on and on about.


DRG4's Marvel Cartoon Pages helped me out a ton with some of the research and pictures used in this blog entry. Do yourself a favor and check out the Web site. You'll find everything you have ever wanted to know about Marvel's classic cartoons from the 90s.