Monthly Archive: May 2011

Review: ‘I Am Number Four’

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  • May 22, 2011

A young boy from another world is raised on in the mid-west to use his special abilities for the good of all. He struggles to fit in at high school, constantly hiding his true nature under the watchful eye of his mentor. After Smallville, one would have thought the writing team of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar would have been comfortable with the subject matter much as Marti Noxon could have used her experiences from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to add some snark and fun to the high school life. Instead, the three combined to pen a middling, ineffective script adaptation of [[[I Am Number Four]]]. The movie, made for just under $60 million earned barely $90 million worldwide and extinguished much hope of a film series to follow the projected six book franchise. Now out from Walt Disney Home Entertainment, the movie is so incredibly devoid of personality and charm, it feels instead that it was constructed by the numbers.

Nine infants were smuggled off the war-torn world of Lorien and brought to Earth to be raised in anonymity by their watchers, er, guardians. Each were descended from a line of powerful inhabitants and born with gifts that would manifest at some time during adolescence. Until they were ready to return and free Lorien from the marauding Mogadorians, they lived apart. A squad (or more, it’s never clear) of Mogadorians are on Earth, hunting the nine. As each one is found and killed, the others are made painfully aware as a tattoo on their legs burns to life. Number Four is a teen living with Henri, who is obsessed with figuring out where the others are and banding them together before more are lost.

Four, or John, refuses to just live in hiding and insists on attending high school, this time in Paradise, Ohio. He tries to fit in but of course, that’s when his special abilities flare to life, and make him a target for the Mogadorians. John falls for Sarah, complicating things, as her ex-boyfriend has it in for the newcomer while the Mogadorians come to town. (more…)

ComicMix Six: Ends of the World

krypton-explodes-1-5084177

Good news, everyone: If you’re reading this, it’s just passed midnight in American Samoa, so it’s no longer May 21st anywhere on the planet– which means that the Rapture didn’t happen (yet), society hasn’t crumbled (yet), and there’s still a readership for comic books (for now).

That said, as far as ends of the world go, the Rapture lacks a certain panache. Comic book readers have been used to the idea of worlds ending in cataclysm for a long time. Over a near-infinite number of crises, comic books have always made sure it ends with all bang, no whimper – even if, sometimes, that bang is more figurative than literal. Here’s a look at six of the best ends-of-the-world that comics has yet come up with.

Krypton

The birth of superhero comics started with the death of a planet. We’re willing to wager it’s the best-known origin story in all of comics: desperate scientist Jor-El and wife Lara shoot their only son Kal-El away from the doomed planet Krypton towards Earth, where he’s adopted by the kindly Kent family. And in most versions of the Superman story, what took out Krypton? A nuclear chain reaction triggered by a loss of stability Krypton’s radioactive core, which also creates the only element that can kill the most powerful man on Earth.

Krypton: 1, Rapture: 0.

2011 Nebula Awards Winners Announced

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  • May 22, 2011
Blackout (novel)

Image via Wikipedia

The Nebula Awards® are voted on, and presented by, active members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America to honor the best in science fiction and fantasy. The awards were announced at the Nebula Awards® Banquet held at the Washington Hilton Hotel last night.

Winning Novel: [[[Blackout/All Clear]]] by Connie Willis (Spectra)

Also Nominated:
[[[The Native Star]]] by M.K. Hobson (Spectra)
[[[The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms]]] by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit UK; Orbit US)
[[[Shades of Milk and Honey]]] by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
[[[Echo]]] by Jack McDevitt (Ace)
[[[Who Fears Death]]] by Nnedi Okorafor (DAW)

Winning Novella: “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window” by Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’10)

Also Nominated:
[[[The Alchemist]]] by Paolo Bacigalupi (Audible; Subterranean)
“Iron Shoes” by J. Kathleen Cheney (Alembical 2)
[[[The Lifecycle of Software Objects]]] by Ted Chiang (Subterranean)
“The Sultan of the Clouds” by Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov’s 9/10)
“Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance” by Paul Park (F&SF 1-2/10)

Winning Novelette: “That Leviathan Whom Thou Hast Made” by Eric James Stone (Analog 9/10)

Also Nominated:
“Map of Seventeen” by Christopher Barzak (The Beastly Bride)
“The Jaguar House by in Shadow” by Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s 7/10)
“The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard van Oost and Oludara” by Christopher Kastensmidt (Realms of Fantasy 4/10)
“Plus or Minus” by James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s 12/10)
“Pishaach” by Shweta Narayan (The Beastly Bride)
“Stone Wall Truth” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Asimov’s 2/10)

Winning Short Story (tie): “Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com 1/17/10) and “How Interesting: A Tiny Man” by Harlan Ellison (Realms of Fantasy 2/10)

Also Nominated:
“Arvies” by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed 8/10)
“I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” by Vylar Kaftan (Lightspeed 6/10)
“The Green Book” by Amal El-Mohtar (Apex 11/1/10)
“Ghosts of New York” by Jennifer Pelland (Dark Faith)
“Conditional Love” by Felicity Shoulders (Asimov’s 1/10)


Ray Bradbury Award: [[[Inception]]]

Also Nominated:
[[[Despicable Me]]]
Doctor Who: “Vincent and the Doctor”
[[[How to Train Your Dragon]]]
[[[Scott Pilgrim vs. the World]]]
[[[Toy Story 3]]]

Andre Norton Award: [[[I Shall Wear Midnight]]] by Terry Pratchett (Gollancz; Harper)

Also Nominated:
[[[Ship Breaker]]] by Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)
[[[White Cat]]] by Holly Black (McElderry)
[[[Mockingjay]]] by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press; Scholastic UK)
[[[Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword]]] by Barry Deutsch (Amulet)
[[[The Boy from Ilysies]]] by Pearl North (Tor Teen)
[[[ A Conspiracy of Kings]]] by Megan Whalen Turner (Greenwillow)
[[[Behemoth]]] by Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees!

Glee’s Dianna Agron Woos Number Four

Dianna Agron has been television’s perpetual high school cheerleader, attending classes with Veronica Mars or dissing Clarie on Heroes. Now a junior at William McKinley High, she has achieved national fame on Glee. Argon can be bitchy or catty or flirty but can be incredibly symapthetic when she lets her guard down as seen on the small screen. Her work in DreamWork’s I am Number Four, out on video next week, puts her on a path for a screen career. Here, she answers some questions courtesy of Walt Disney Home Entertainment.

Was it fun to leave the Glee gang behind for some big-screen action with your new movie, I Am Number Four?

It was a lot of fun to try something new, but I knew I was going back to Glee after we finished filming I Am Number Four. It was only a brief change for me, but it was great to step into a whole new world.

When did you discover that you clicked so well with your co-star, Alex Pettyfer?

When I was cast on I Am Number Four, I hadn’t met Alex. I had dinner with the movie’s director, D.J. Caruso, a couple of nights before our first table read with the big studio executives and that’s when D.J. said to me, “Perhaps you should meet Alex before the table read?” I thought that was a really good idea.

Alex has described you as an actress with an old-school movie star quality. How does that make you feel?

That’s very nice of him. It’s pretty hard to accept that compliment because I grew up watching and loving old-school actresses like Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren and Katharine Hepburn. They were always effortless to watch, but I’m growing and trying to challenge myself to get to that place. If I do get to where they are it would be amazing. That’s my goal.

Your character in the new movie is very romantic. Are you similar in real life?

I think so. I really love the character of Sarah because there are a lot of similarities to how I was at school. Sarah loves photography, and so do I. I really started to get into it at school. I have about 10 cameras now and they all have different purposes.

What else do you like to get up to in your spare time?

I love cooking. In fact, my favorite thing to do on a weekend is to have friends over and cook dinner. We’ll sit around, talk and play board games. I love doing things like that, although I also love to be outside and travel. I have such wanderlust. I try to go somewhere new for every vacation and there are so many places that I have yet to visit.

Are you into Twitter and the internet?

Computers are not a huge part of my life. I write, so I use a computer daily for that – but I’m not a big web surfer. I surf the internet every now and then, but it’s not like a two-hour a day, three-hour a day obsession of mine. (more…)

Review: ‘The Hustler’

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  • May 21, 2011

Far too films hold up to the test of time, their iconic nature re-evaluated through a modern prism and found wanting. Memorable performances or screen characters suddenly look one-dimensional or wanting. Then there are those that grew in stature through the years as audiences and critics catch up to the creators’ vision. Those are the ones that are hailed in retrospectives, make it to the National Film Registry and get the deluxe treatment when released on home video. The Hustler, the 1961 film about pool and people, is one such film and is this week making its Blu-ray debut courtesy of 20th Century Home Entertainment.

It used to be, pool sharks could tour the country, play high stakes games and eke out a living of sorts. Legendary pool players had a word-of-mouth reputation every bit as powerful as celebrities made famous by ESPN. The great novelist Walter Tevis captured these players and their world in his 1959 novel, prompting Robert Rosen and Sidney Carroll to adapt it to the big screen.

“Fast Eddie” Felson is the wandering pool player, with no roots, no life beyond the end of his cue stick. He arrives in the small, dark town of Ames specifically to challenge the legendary Minnesota Fats – and loses. What happens next propels the rest of the film and becomes a study of pool players, friends, and lost souls searching for a better way.

Felson is a brilliant player but empty inside, yearning for something more but not sure what that is or how to get it. All he knows is he’s the best and wants to prove it time and again so being humbled by Fats rankles. And while he’s lost, he discovers there are others who don’t know just how lost they are, a point made when he meets the drunken Sarah Packard. (more…)

GLORY AND GHOST GOODNESS THIS WEEK!!!

From Kevin Paul Shaw Broden-

FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY

“I would show them what I could do…” 
Get a sense of who this new menace is and why he sees Flying Glory as a constant threat in the latest page of “Generational Glory’ now available at: http://www.flying-glory.com
REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST
“But you’re dead.”
“Ya, I know.”
The Masked Ghost has been captured, so what is this mysterious conversation? Find out in “Ghost for a Ghost” Chapter 21 of REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST at: http://revengeofthemaskedghost.blogspot.com/

DOMINO LADY SPEAKS-COMING SOON!

For the first time ever on audio…The AudioComics Company presents THE DOMINO LADY

The AudioComics Company is proud to present the second characters in their original pulp audio project will be THE pulp vixen of the 1930′s, the scourge of LA herself, The Domino Lady!

First introduced by Lars Anderson in Saucy Romantic Adventures and Mystery Adventures, The Domino Lady is the alter-ego of Ellen Patrick, a wealthy UC Berkeley graduate out to avenge the murder of her father, District Attorney Owen Patrick, in the Raymond Chandler-esque Southern California of 1935. While she brandished a .45 and syringe of knockout serum, her greatest weapon was her sexuality, which she would use to disarm her unsuspecting opponents. Routinely stealing from her targets, she donates most of the profits to charity after deducting her cut, leaving a calling card with the words “Compliments of the Domino Lady” behind.

DL appeared specifically in “spicy pulp” magazines, pulps that typically featured semi-pornographic short stories. Such magazines had smaller print runs (and were as a result a few cents higher in price) and were usually sold “under the counter” upon request. Only a handful of Domino Lady were published, all of which were collected in Bold Venture Press’ Compliments of the Domino Lady, featuring a cover from the one and only Jim Steranko. In addition, Moonstone Books has published a new series of Domino Lady comics and prose stories. The AudioComics Company’s world-premiere productions will mark the first time that the alter-ego of Ellen Patrick has ever appeared in an audio format.

Portraying the Domino Lady will be San Francisco Bay Area actress and filmmaker Karen Stilwell, who has a unique tie to AudioComics; take a read of her bio…
Karen Stilwell began acting in San Francisco at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco as a teen. After winning a National Theater award for best ensemble work in regional theater (playing a maid in one of Tennessee Williams last plays called This is (an Entertainment)), she was propelled to continue acting after meeting Williams and Michael York and choosing, with the help of “A Chorus Line” summer touring cast members, to go to the Big Apple just after High School at age 17. Within a year she had joined both the Screen Actors Guild and The American Federation ofTelevision and Radio Artists recording voice overs, commercials, under five roles on soap operas like All My Children and The Guiding Light with some small parts in the films Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession and C.O D.

She became a core member of a theater company called Wild Hair Productions consisting of mainly fellow actors who had met in class and enjoyed writing and acting together in their own plays. The biggest hit to come from the troupe was Starstruck with Karen playing the original Erotica Ann 333, an android built for sex but re programmed to be the maintenance officer on the GOOD ship Harpy.

After several more years of off B’way work, more under five roles on soaps, and a few more national commercials, Karen did some stand in work for the lead ladies in Love Sick (staring Dudley Moore), was taken by the ensemble feeling the film crew had, and decided to get behind the camera herself taking off to film school in San Francisco. Soon Karen was making documentaries and shorts while raising her daughter Jenna. Two of her documentaries made it into the Library of Congress: The Real Jean Roe and Tear Gas Filled the Sky staring longshoreman, activist, writer & actor Bill Bailey. Acting picked up in San Francisco again in the 1990s with parts on television shows shooting in SF, not to mention many industrial films and commercials.

During the 2000’s Karen mainly worked in video post production with some corporate producing jobs and only acted when friends called upon her to jump in on low budget films and such. It wasn’t until reconnecting with Elaine Lee, her old acting troupe buddy, at the revived staged reading of Starstruck in Big Sur (which of course became The AudioComics Company’s debut audio play) that she finds herself ready to get in the nightgown and mask…behind the microphone that is…and play The Domino Lady.

The first Domino Lady project will be a three-part serial authored by one of the country’s leading DL historians, Rich Harvey, with the first part, “All’s Fair in War,” recording this fall in San Francisco, alongside AudioComics’ first two Green Lama audio adventures. The name Rich Harvey is synonymous with pulp stories and pulp history in the United States; a New Jersey-based graphic designer, writer, and publisher, his Bold Venture Press imprint specializes in reprints of classic pulp fiction, among  them Pulp Adventures magazine and Compliments of the Domino Lady, the reprint collection that thrust the Domino Lady back into the pulp limelight. He also sponsors an annual gathering of pulp enthusiasts, the Pulp Adventurecon, in New Jersey. Rich cites Dashiell Hammett as his favorite author and biggest influence, and next on the list is Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir’s The Destroyer series. www.boldventurepress.com is the handle!

“A warm west coast evening — a glamorous city bathed in silvery moonlight — a criminal element walking arm-in-arm with high society — and a masked woman who challenges their power the DOMINO LADY.”

Buffy Back On The CW

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  • May 20, 2011

We take a few more minutes with COMMUNITY‘S Allison Brie (can you blame us) about what’s on her mind, plus Comic Sales reports AND Guess Who is back on the CW in the fall?

Was your favorite show canceled this week? Drop us a comment below!

The Comancheros

At a time when movie stars were truly larger-than-life and iconic, few stood taller and were more memorable than John Wayne. The Duke more or less played himself, the tall, laconic keeper of the moral code regardless of era or genre. He’s best remembered for his work in Westerns, ultimately earning his one Oscar for True Grit, a tribute to a career spent along the dusty trails of a bygone America.

Bit by bit, Wayne’s oeuvre is being preserved on DVD and now Blu-ray, with [[[The Comancheros]]] being the most recent offering. In time for the perfect Father’s Day gift, the deluxe package from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment offers up one of Wayne’s last big Westerns just as interest in the genre was beginning to wane. The movie is well regarded by many Western fans and Elmer Bernstein’s score has lived on, well beyond the film itself, used elsewhere ever since (including The Simpsons). It also has the historical footnote of being the final film from director Michael Curtiz, beloved for his earlier work on The Adventures of Robin Hood and Casablanca. He was laid low early on by cancer and Wayne himself took over much of the directing but refused credit. Second unit action sequences were handled by Cliff Lyons. The unfortunate many hands approach probably led to the film feeling incredibly uneven, talky without much punch to the dialogue sequences, and sluggishly paced for the first third. (more…)

ALL PULP REVIEWS-FORTIER TAKES ON ‘GHOSTS OF WAR’!

GHOSTS OF WAR
By George Mann
Pyr Books
231 pages
Available July 2011
Hot on the heels of earning a Pulp Factory Award nomination for Best Pulp Novel of 2010 for GHOST OF MANHATTAN, writer George Mann unleashes the second novel in this steampunk series.  Although considering the archetype pulp trappings these books are totally saturated with, one would suggest labeling them steampulp.
This new adventure of Gabriel Cross, the haunted veteran of World War One who protects New York City as the rocket-boot propelled, black garbed vigilante known as the Ghost, begins only a few weeks after the end of his last, horrific case.  He is still emotionally wounded having witnessed his lover, Celeste, sacrifice herself to save mankind from outer-dimensional monsters.
When a new threat to his city arises, he gratefully dons his Ghost garb and goes into action.  Weird hybrid mechanical flying creatures called Raptors are swooping out of the night sky and randomly kidnapping people with no apparent pattern or purpose other than to cause city wide terror.  The Ghost sets about catching one of these horrible monstrosities with the help of his friend, Inspector Felix Donovan, who shares his secret identity. 
At the same time, Donovan is given the task of hunting down a British spy by his superiors.  He is told the secret agent is a catalyst with information that will ignite a war between England and America.  When elements from both assignments suddenly come together, the Ghost and Donovan begin to suspect a much darker plot with tendrils leading to corruption among the highest ranks of City Hall.  In the end the Ghost allows himself to be captured by the raptors and taken to their hidden lair.  It is his one chance to uncover the evil mastermind behind the attacks and discover the true horror that awaits all mankind unless he and his small band of allies can save the day.
Hideous creatures from another dimension, a mad scientist more machine than man, an armed, massive airship on a mission of doom and more thrill-a-minute action than any other ten, oversized thrillers on the market today.  GHOSTS OF WAR is even better then its predecessor as Mann is truly warming up to this alternate world and his remarkable, colorful and appealing cast of characters that populate it.  This is new pulp fiction at its finest and I’m predicting there’s another Pulp Factory Award nod in its future.  Long live the Ghost! 

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