El Professore Movie: Kongo

Kongo

1932
Director: William J. Cowen
Starring: Walter Huston, Lupe Velez, Conrad Nagel, Virginia Bruce
* * * 1/2

A sound remake of the silent film, 'West of Zanzibar', 'Kongo' is conceptually one of the most depraved motion pictures ever made, lensed right at the peak of Hollywood's Pre Code era.

Pre-Order Hot Toys Jim Gordon and Avengers Hulk Maquette!

Our dear friends at Sideshow continue their noble quest to beat the crap out of your credit card with two new hard-to-resist items fresh out of their fun oven. Up for pre-order is an exclusive Hot Toys Lt. Jim Gordon S.W.A.T. suit version 1/6th scale collectible figure featuring an uncanny likeness of old man Gary Oldman in The Dark Knight...

And if that didn't get you frothing enough, here's a 2 feet plus Hulk maquette from The Avengers, kind of like the one they used on set except this one is wearing pants. This seems to be the definitive piece for Ruffalo-Hulk enthusiasts...

More images and commentary after the jump, but if you're already convinced you can pre-order Jim here: Hot Toys Movie Masterpiece Series Jim Gordon (SWAT Version) The Dark Knight - Hot Toys
and Hulk here: Marvel (R) Collectibles Hulk Maquette

Thank Gif It's Friday

Today marks the start of the greatest sports event in the world... the Olympics. And to celebrate, here is the greatest Olympics animated gif of all time.

Coming in September: The Hobbit Lego Board Game!

Lego is making a board game for The Hobbit! Unlike the Lego Star Wars board game, I hope this one actually comes out in the US.

For the press release, images, and thoughts (mostly a Heroica rant)... click through the jump!

Review: Hot Toys Sucker Punch Amber 1/6th Scale Collectible Figure!

I unapologetically love plucky lil’ Zack Synder’s audaciously indulgent, hyper-violent ,burlesque, music-video epic Sucker Punch and none of the collective jibber-jabber will ever dampen my enjoyment. I’ve already reviewed Hot Toy’s 1/6th scale Babydoll figure, and now I have a lollipop devouring, fetish/army Amber - featuring the likeness of actress Jamie Chung - to add to my freakishly realistic tiny people collection.

To find out what I thought (and see a lot more pictures!) join me... after the jump!

Review: "Redshirts" by John Scalzi

I grew up as a Star Trek kid. Didn't see Star Wars until high school, so I grew up on the Star Trek cartoon with the original cast and with Star Trek: The Next Generation. Q was - and largely still is - my favorite fictional villain. Deanna Troi my first celebrity/fictional crush. Star Trek is really the reason why I love science fiction so much today.

Redshirts is equal parts love letter and parody to the Star Trek I know and love. Clearly, John Scalzi knows how ridiculous many sci-fi tropes are, and they're lampooned perfectly here. The characters realize that the ship they're on is radically different than the others that the Federation is associated with, and how things work on a specific timetalbe, and it becomes very obvious very quickly where the plot is going (as if the title isn't a dead giveaway).

What follows is simply a lot of fun from start to finish. There's time travel, there's the uprooting of basic sci-fi conventions, there's just a lot of fun stuff going on from start to finish. Plus, the book ends with a number of postscripts from various characters we encounter along the way. I don't want to give those parts away at all, but I finished the main story very late at night and still wanted to plow through the extra stuff, as they felt like bonus features as well as fleshed out the story a bit more.

What's interesting is that the story may be a tad too long and unnecessarily profane to get to its point, but it's easy to forgive it because it's so much fun, especially the codas. I'd imagine the audience for this is very limited to those who have a soft spot for Trek and the like, but there is plenty to enjoy here on a whole.

Stryder's Favourite Comics - 7/18/2012

I'll leave a review for The Dark Knight Rises to more capable hands, but suffice to say it was AMAZING!  If you haven't seen it yet, go right now!  Tell your boss you're sick and head to the nearest theatre...Go ahead, I'll wait! 

Ironically, in the biggest Batman week of the year, there were NO Batman comics released.  However, there was a book with Batman in it!  That book, of course, is...

Justice League #11 -  The League is all stressed out this month as they continue to try and deal with Graves, the one-time author now turned super-villain who blames them for the death of his family.  Graves has kidnapped Steve Trevor and our heroes are trying desperately to catch up with him.  Tempers flare and Wonder Woman, feeling responsible, loses it!  Green Lantern tries to talk some sense into her and ends up instead in a battle that of course gets broadcast to everyone around the world.  Even Superman gets involved...Batman is SOOO exasperated.  Not cool, guys...

On the plus side, at least they manage to find Graves old writing cabin and get a lead on where to find him.  Of course this may very well all be too late to save poor Steve...

In other news, Shazam is back again this month, as Black Adam is released from his tomb by Dr. Sivana, who promises to help him find "The Wizard".  Billy Batson, meanwhile, is playing a prank on his schoolyard bullies that goes awry.  They chase him onto a subway train when suddenly he's surrounded by lightning!  Next thing he knows, Billy is...somewhere else!  Somewhere mysterious...

Of course that's not all!  Join me for some Before Watchmen, some Wonder Woman and more after the JUMP!

Comic School Review: Iron Man's First Encounter with The Mandarin! (1964)

Surely one of the greatest things witnessed by those lucky ducks that attended this year's San Diego Comic Con was the first glimpse of Oscar Devourer Sir Ben Kingsley in his role as nefarious villain The Mandarin in the much anticipated Iron Man 3: Go Tony Go! Since reading the truly salacious descriptions of Sir Benjamin with a well groomed mo', I have had undeniable MANDARIN FEVER and have wanted to know everything possible about the bad guy that Marvel claims is "the most feared Oriental of all time!" Don't believe me? Check this out...

This is the introductory page of Tales of Suspense #50 in which Iron Man trades blows with Red China's sour-faced secret menace for the first time! Naturally it was written by Stan the Man Lee in the manner only he knows how, and drawn by the delightful Don "What The" Heck. I bought it from Comixology for a mere $1.99 and you will too if you know what's good for you!

Read along with me as I review this culturally insensitive classic from 1963... after the jump!

Mists of Pandaria - We have an ETA

And it is September 25th, 2012 - completely throwing me off. The prediction had been for Christmas, but Blizzard has been mighty coy and sneaky and will be springing it out earlier.

Whilst I'd been initially a bit - iffy about the premise of Pandaria, I've warmed to it. And it makes sense; Lich King was the Warcrafting equivalent of a Shakespeare play, Cataclysm reached a completely untoppable level of chaos and destruction - where could they possibly go from there? You can't just keep trying to outdo the previous bad guy.

Blizzard official press release can be found here, and click on the pretty picture for pre-sale. That special edition mount looks SWEET.

My panda will completely pwn your panda.

America's Got Talent Quarterfinal Recap: A Close Call!

It's the last of the America's Got Talent  quarterfinals… and going in, Howard said it'll be the best show yet. I really hoped so. Last week was pretty awful, especially after one of my favorites was axed.

This week was different, and one of the best yet. Howard blamed the producers for lining up so many great acts, and you could see how the producers can make or break the show. Acts from previous shows went through that are not as good as these were.

It was the first show where there wasn't a super clear cut group going through. William Close is going through for sure, but I said the same thing last week about Wordspit. But other than William Close, the rest is really up in the air.

Click though the jump for the full recap and my hopeful predictions of the top 4. (YouTube videos at the end)