This can either go really really right, or really really wrong. Either way, I'm pretty sure I want to see Anchorman 2!

It's a little concerning when Brick is right...the legend continues in December.

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Prior to seeing Iron Man 3, the latest release from the Disney/Marvel Avengers franchise, I deliberately avoided reading reviews or actively discussing the film. After, however, I’ve taken to reading the range of impressions with some interest.

marvel.com/ironman3

Accusations of a ‘hollow core’ – I see what you did there, ‘franchise rust’ – cos he’s made from metal, right, ‘tired effects’ – this isn’t Michael Bay, and ‘utter exhaustion’ – well, I was knackered by the end, all leave me wondering whether the film they’ve reviewed was an entirely different cut to the one I saw.

Now, I don’t expect everyone to share my taste in film, but they could do with chilling out a bit.

The fact is, though, this third installment in the life and times of Tony Stark (although fourth if you count The Avengers, to which this film alludes) has polarised critics and fan boys alike. For some, it’s not just a superhero film but a smart commentary on the state of our economic and political reliance on the continued turning of the cogs of war, and the state of fear we’re encouraged to reside in. I would probably place myself in this camp. For others, particularly the comic book fundamentalists, there is no seeing passed the virtual crucifixion of the source material. I’m sorry, but I truly believe that this film was not intended to please those of you in the latter camp.

IM3 is not a comic book movie, first and foremost. It has outgrown comic book Iron Man. It has a new audience now. My advice would be to move with it or get left behind. I’m not going to win any love with that, I know.

For some, the fundamental problem with the film is that it is disingenuous to the source material, and is wholly disregarding in its characterisation of The Mandarin. I have read whole reviews tainted by this and this alone. Apparently there is no redeeming factor because ‘it’s not how it is in the book’. Look, we’ve all had issues with our favourite book being reinterpreted for the screen, but what I find remarkable is that comic books are full of continuity problems, redefinition of characters, multiple deaths and resurrections. Hardly a strong platform on which to lean, as I for one am still hanging out to see Hugh Jackman sport a yellow and blue unitard.

IM3 is aimed at a broader audience. One that has no concept of The Mandarin, his history and background. And the reason for this is that there is a higher dollar value in creating a compelling storyline that, even in fantasy, appeals to the present day than there is in paying homage to a storybook legacy.

marvel.com/ironman3

There are a number of reasons why IM3 works and works well. The first is the redefinition of the character of Tony Stark, bringing him back from the brink of an absurdist’s wet dream – genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, anyone – to one that is recognisable, relatable through weakness and trauma. In doing so it alludes to, but does not labour, the collective post-9/11 consciousness. It is enough to recognise the continued but subdued pre-occupation with the events of that day, and the ‘what the hell happened’ and ‘I don’t understand it’ that still remains over a decade out.

It also asks the question of why, given we have chased down the bad guys ‘they’ told us were responsible, is it not over?

The social, economic and political commentary thereby extends to our perceptions of the baddies, with the terrorism of IM3 about the game of conflict that takes place off the television screen. We create our own demons so that we have something to hate, all the while missing what is actually going on behind the scenes. A figurehead is easy to hate, preferably one with which we do not identify racially or culturally, real or constructed, but it’s a diversion. IM3 plays this well. The Mandarin is a case in point.

Unfortunately we do not live in the videogame world where if you kill the boss whole enemy armies collapse and you win the princess. Collusion with government and business, those in whom we place our faith and trust, exists. War is all about government and business. It is not in their interest to keep us safe so much as it is to keep us scared. That and to corrupt ‘good’ not for comic book style evil, but for profit.

The other reason it works is Robert Downey Jr. Nuff said, ladies.

marvel.com/ironman3

The quintessential reason why Iron Man 3 is an enjoyable watch is because it is both a superhero movie and yet, not. There is enough there for those who want explode-y things and gadgets, but it's also smart enough for those seeking a little political and social commentary from our shiny suited hero. And it does it without being a moody vigilante rodent man with significant and undiagnosed mental health issues.

Mrs_OC 

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“Took me years to get it this cool. The lab. The Sanctum. My place of business.”

How many stories are set in ‘The City’? Where is The City? A contemporary metropolis, riven by crime and corruption, where good folk die bad and the bad have a good time. It is instantly familiar to every reader; we know where this is even if it doesn’t exist on a map. Big, nasty, a jungle that borrows the grand buildings, but also the grime and street filth from Paris, London, New York, Rome and Jo’Burg. A former enforcer for a magical cult known as The Library is our guide to this City, this no-place of magical gangwars, curse crossfires, mercenaries decked out in Kevlar and protection charms. The man who is telling the story calls himself Lark – a name he has chosen to signify his entry into the world of magic – and he is our Virgil, taking the reader by the hand and leading them down into The City.

Lark is both narrator and protagonist in Black City, with the rules of magic explained as the plot sweeps the reader along. Reading the book feels like entering into a conversation with this worldweary would-be investigator who has a taste for magical tomes. The story begins with Lark operating as a freelance sorcerer, having gone independent after an incident involving his partner. While his former employers The Library suffer him to still breathe air, he is under a curse that prevents him from leaving town. He is too valuable an asset, with enough corporate knowledge locked away in his brain for him not to be killed outright. Perhaps it helps that his ex Scarlet is now a high-ranking member of The Library. Regardless he is managing to just scrape by on the few gigs he can get.

Then a major player in the magical community, a rival organisation to the Library, is eliminated in a single night. The evidence points to a minor religious cult operating on the periphery of the scene, which sets alarms bells ringing. Scarlet hires Lark on the down-low to investigate. This raises further questions, as it seems more likely the Library is unable to front a proper resistance to what is coming than any concerns over unsavory associations with him. Alone save for a pissed off zombie who owes him a favour and without the authority of the Library behind him, Lark is exposed and vulnerable, both to old enemies and new. Then he learns who is really behind the attack and decides to run to the only place he knows he can’t be found – the Black City.

Meanwhile a young woman has taken to tagging public spaces with graffiti art that draws on a language alien to this Earth. Those who see it soon bleed.

Black City is a story that riffs on a multitude of sources, crossbreeding the occult literary concepts of Machen/Lovecraft/Hodgson with Chandler/Hammett/Huston. It is a hybrid, a mutant mesh of chaos magick and gumshoe PI doggedness. The book’s prose unfolds in sequences of perfectly pitched free verse – “every fit in the gutter is sour alchemy, every hobo shrieking does it in a twilight language” – that captures the discordant otherworldliness of this place. 

Then there are gleefully disturbing concepts such as the feeder fetish website that doubles as a shrine to a Madonna, or a killer whose belief in Hell justifies his brutality – murder will guarantee his victims' continuing existence in the afterlife. You can imagine the pages of Black City being eagerly turned by the nicotine-stained fingers of Lark himself. 

Author Read name checks every weird idea you ever heard a passing rumour of, every lurid piece of Apocrypha or cultic atrocity– and skillfully interweaves this Enochian encyclopedia together with a visceral plot.  Black City is a pop-grimoire of heady weirdness, and wickedly delightful.

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Last night, for the first time, I watched George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Being married to Emmet, it’s a wonder it wasn’t a pre-requisite to us exchanging vows, but no, it has taken some time and wearing down for me to actually get around to watching it.

And here’s what I learned: it is every zombie film made, ever. Shockingly, or is that schlockingly, so.

I say this because as someone coming to Night of the Living Dead seriously late, my knowledge of zombie movies had been made up of more modern interpretations, some of which I’d assumed to have elements of originality. But having now seen Romero’s original, I am actually taken aback by how you could pretty much trace the genealogy of any subsequent zombie flick back to the elements he employed. Okay, I’m willing to admit that this might be a bit of an overstatement, but I’m sticking with it.

The motley crew of potential survivors, the consequences for idiot characters, the innocent victim you know they probably should have shot but keep around out of misguided compassion, the running commentary of the news media, the do-we-stay/do-we-go conflict – it’s all there. You’ve seen this movie before, and you will again.

The other thing I learned is that it’s brilliant.

Romero shows us what you can do with little to no budget and a butcher’ slop bucket, managing to not only push the boundaries of good taste, but also to allude to a broader social commentary with a black actor cast as the central lead and an altogether ambiguous ending, deliberately unsatisfying. It just, ends.

By the standards of torture porn we’ve somehow come to tolerate, Night of the Living Dead is altogether mild, and might even be considered lame. That said I still struggled with the image of the walking dead devouring intestines and various other offal, not just inferring but actually seeing it. It’s quite confronting, especially considered in the context of 1968 when the film was labelled an ‘orgy of sadism’ by Variety.

Walking away I am still not a horror movie fan, but I now understand the almost legendary appreciation of Romero’s classic. I also think I need to re-watch Shaun of the Dead, my personal favourite of the zombie genre.  

Mrs_OC 

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Baffling, strange, fun and occasionally frustrating, Tarantino's latest film - and his most successful to date - will soon be moseying over your thresholds. Much as I had some issues with the finished film, it is still an entertaining picture destined for a long life on home entertainment and endlessly quotable.

The upcoming release will also include a Limited Edition Steel Book containing a 32 page comic recently published by DC's Vertigo imprint and the soundtrack.

Press Release

Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Australia is releasing Django Unchained on Blu-ray™, DVD & UltraViolet from June 6.

Vengeance has a new name in the Oscar-winning, global box office hit DJANGO UNCHAINED. This epic, action-packed Spaghetti Western from writer/director Quentin Tarantino was nominated for five 2012 Academy Awards®, taking home awards for Best Original Screenplay (Tarantino) and Best Supporting Actor (Christoph Waltz).

The film has grossed more than $400 million globally and features a stellar cast, including Academy Award® winner Jamie Foxx, two-time Academy Award® winner Christoph Waltz, Academy Award nominee Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington and Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson.

DJANGO UNCHAINED is a classic Tarantino revenge story about a slave (Foxx) who, with the help of a German bounty hunter (Waltz), rises up from the brutality of his former life to exact his own bran of personal justice in his quest to free his slave wife (Washington) from an evil plantation owner (DiCaprio).

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Originally published on Beardy And The Geek. 

In this month's episode, we talk to Steph Daly and Laura Gomez about the upcoming Comic Gong event, for which details can be found on the Wollongong City Libraries Facebook page. The day itself promises comics workshops, an artist alley, costumes, competitions and local comics creators selling their books to attendees. 

During the intro Ryan and Emmet also discuss Free Comic Book Day, give congratulations to a certain happy couple and discuss the Geek's own upcoming live Q&A event at the Evangelion Art Exhibition.

But first, before we get stuck in, let's have another look at that phenomenal promotional art piece for Comic Gong by Marcelo Baez!

http://marcelo-baez.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/comic-gong-2013.html

Enjoy folks and as always you can find us on Facebook and iTunes.

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Oh yes, that hit the spot.

Courtesy Empire Magazine/Universal Pictures

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Dr Matt Finch drops by the show to talk about making libraries fun and enjoyable places for kids to use....all it takes is a zombie siege!

Courtesy of ABC Open Central West NSW

Photos of Matt's previous projects can be found here, from an live-action event held at Tullarmore NSW. Most recently he took the idea to Tupa Youth Library, in Auckland New Zealand. Video from the event can be seen here.

In this episode we discuss the educational potential of pop culture such as zombies, Doctor Who and gaming. Enjoy and as always subscribe to the iTunes channel or say hi over on Twitter and Facebook.


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The new poster design for The World's End has been released by Edgar Wright and it's a thing of beauty - 

Not only do we have our favourite onscreen couple back - well Frost and Pegg are great fun in everything - the image also gives hints as to what's coming. 

We have the somewhat Village of the Damned-y style humanoids, a looming meteor from space and the general sense of imminent apocalypse. Information on the film itself is scarce, but if we take the trilogy of Shaun of the Dead as the team's horror tribute, with Hot Fuzz a loving homage to British cop dramas, could The World's End be a nod to the excellent Hammer sci-fi films like Quatermass?

Anticipation is building.

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Recently a story broke that the finale script for Breaking Bad belonging to star Bryan Cranston had been stolen from his car. Not only did this information do the rounds of fan-sites like wildfire, but it made headlines on major news sites too. It was a measure of just how popular the show about a high-school teacher with terminal cancer who turns to the drug trade to provide for his family is. 

Of course that one sentence does not do justice to the premise. Walter White is a far more complex character than a simple chemistry teacher resorting to drastic measures. As the show has progressed we have learned more about the man beneath his amiable exterior - all excellently brought to life by Cranston - with the supporting cast also richly drawn characters. Instead of relying on one-note caricatures for this story about the War on Drugs, Breaking Bad trades in quick-fire dialogue, hard truths and a sly sense of surrealism. The show's vibrancy also draws on its setting - a seemingly ordinary Arizonan town, which has become a battleground between the Mexican cartels and US Federal Agents. Breaking Bad excels at drawing out the seeming contradictions in this set-up, in effect becoming equally as strange and wonderful as David Lynch's Blue Velvet, which opened with that unforgettable sequence of a sedate suburban street and slowly unveiled the violence and horror waiting beneath the surface.

Fans of Breaking Bad have this tendency to be somewhat smug that this is one of the best shows on television. See also devotees of The Wire (and I'd like to throw in the Danish political drama Borgen, which is amazing) - the thing is, they're right. Breaking Bad is one of the best shows on television currently, and for many years. It is also perfect home viewing. Season 5 comes out in just over a month's time on June 13, which gives you plenty of time to plough through the previous boxsets if you haven't already!

Press Release Begins (some spoilers for the uninitiated)

Walter White’s transformation  from  high  school  chemistry  teacher  to  full-blown,  ruthless  drug  lord continues in BREAKING  BAD: THE  FIFTH  SEASON, available on Blu-ray™ and DVD June 13.   
 
The highly anticipated fifth season reunites Bryan Cranston, three-time Best Actor Emmy® winner and winner of  this  year’s  Best  Male  Screen  Actors  Guild® Award,  with  two-time  Emmy  Winner  Aaron  Paul Best Supporting Role. The Fifth Season Blu-ray and DVD feature an eight-minute bonus scene, “Chicks ‘N’ Guns,” written and produced exclusively for the home entertainment release. Starring Aaron Paul, Bob Odenkirk and Charles Baker, the scene tells the pivotal back story to episode -08 in the fifth season, “Gliding Over All.”  

“The  extra  scene  we  created  exclusively  for  the  Blu-ray  and  DVD  proves  just  how  much  the  relationship between  Jesse  and  Walt  has  drastically  changed  over  the  past  five  seasons  of  BREAKING  BAD,” said Vince Gilligan, show creator. “Chicks ‘N’ Guns is an original idea that presents fans with a pivotal missing moment  during  episode  -08,  Gliding  Over  All. Writers  Jenn  Carroll  and  Gordon  Smith,  and  Director Michelle MacLaren, did a fantastic job bringing it to life, and I think fans will love it.”

Breaking Buds
http://society6.com/JoshuaTree/Breaking-Buds_Print

 Synopsis 
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul return in their Emmy,-winning  roles of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman in the fifth explosive season of Breaking Bad. With Gus Fring dead, Walt’s transformation from well-meaning family man to ruthless drug kingpin is nearly complete. Forming a partnership with Jesse and Mike   Jonathan Banks, Walt proceeds to make a killing in the meth business until  the fruits of his murderous schemes are threatened by a new development in the investigation led by his  relentless brother-in-law Hank   Dean Norris. Executive produced by Vince Gilligan and Mark Johnson, the fifth season charts the murderous rise of Walter White as he reaches new highs…and new lows.
  
Episodes
• Live Free or Die
• Madrigal
• Hazard Pay
• Fifty-One
• Dead Freight
• Buyout
• Say My Name
• Gliding Over All
 
Blu-ray™  Exclusive  Special  Features  Include   
• Two all-new featurettes   
o “Scene by Scene   Directors Discuss Memorable Moments” provides the directors’ experience making the show.
o “The Writers of Breaking Bad” gives the writers a turn to show viewers what it’s really like to work together and create amazing scripts. 
 
Blu-ray  &  DVD  Special  Features  Include     
• “Chicks  ‘N’  Guns”  is  a  scene  created  and  produced  exclusively  for  the  home  entertainment  release. Certain that the DEA dragnet that sent Mike fleeing is about to close around him, Jesse enlists Skinny Pete and a stripper to help him forget his woes...until Saul arrives and gives him something entirely new to fear.
• Cast & crew commentaries on every episode
• Deleted scenes 
• Outtakes
• Three all-new featurettes   
o “Nothing Stops This Train” takes viewers on location to see what a huge undertaking it is to film a modern-day train heist.  
o “The Cleaner   Jonathan Banks as Mike” gives viewers a chance to spend time with fan-favorite Cleaner, Jonathan Banks, as he talks about his time with the show.
o “Chicks ‘N’ Guns   Behind-the-Scenes” shows how the scene came to be, going behind the scenes with Aaron Paul and Bob Odenkirk as it's filmed.  
• “Writers' Room Timelapse” takes viewers through the entire breaking of episode “Fifty-One” with commentary from the writers.
• Laura Fraser & Jesse Plemons audition footage
• Prison stunt rehearsal footage 
• “Gallery 1988 Art Show” features artwork inspired by the show
• “Chris Hardwick's All-Star Celebrity Bowling” features team Breaking Bad going head to head with team Nerdist to raise money for charity.
• Inside Breaking Bad   19 episodes that give a behind-the-scenes look of what it takes to create an episode
   
Breaking  Bad  The  Fifth  Season 
 
Director     Vince Gilligan 
 
Cast:       
Bryan Cranston (Seinfeld, Malcolm In the Middle)  
Anna Gunn (Deadwood, L.A Confidential)  
Aaron Paul (Big Love, Mission Impossible III)  
Dean Norris (Without Limits, Tremors: The Series)  
Price:       
DVD 3 Disc SRP  39.9- | Over 8 Hours Of Extras
Blu-ray™ 2 Disc SRP  44.9- | Over 9 Hours Of Extras
 
Duration    360min
Genre        TV Drama
Rating       MA1-+

- ENDS -

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