Jimmy Fallon Twilight Hilarity

Aside from what I said over here, I don't really have an opinion on Twilight. I do however find many of the spoofs about it funny. This post was originally going to be about those awesome Burger King Twilight commercials, but the haven't been posted on the BK website yet, so I'll take a minute to talk about Jimmy Fallon's continuing Robert Pattinson Is Bothered series and his interview with Twilight werewolf Taylor Lautner from last night's episode. I think I've seen most of the Robert Pattinson Is Bothered segments, but last night's was pretty great, with Fallon and Pattinson spending most of his time complaining about werewolves. Heck, it has its own website even.



Fallon went on to interview Lautner and it seemed like both of them had a pretty good time. I only stuck around to watch the first segment because I wanted to play a little Gears of War, but these other clips are pretty fun too, especially the mini-bike race.







If it wasn't for the intense allure of shooting the Locust in the face, I would have stuck around because Fallon had me laughing my fool head off last night. I had to stiffle myself so as not to wake the missus. It's nice to see him getting more comfortable in his roll as host.

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New Marvel What The?! Rags On Twilight, Makes Me Laugh

My buddies who work on the Marvel Super Heroes What The--?! banged out another hit today over on Marvel.com with this Twilight parody using the Marvel Legends Monsters box set from a few years back. Well done sirs! If you don't laugh at Dracula's line "These kids today with their emo vampires and too-tight trousers" you're out of your mind.

I can't say I have a personal problem with Twilight because it hasn't affected me in any kind of personal way. I can only say that the chaste vampire craze is a bit weird, that's not how Sita, the star of Christopher Pike's book series The Last Vampire rolled.


Just saying.

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Halloween Scene: Crimson (1998-2001)

Along with Battle Chasers and Danger Girl, the third comic to bow from WildStorm's Cliffhanger imprint was none other than Crimson, a vampire saga written by Brian Augustyn and drawn by none other than Humberto Ramos. I know Battle Chasers and Danger Girl were the big titles coming out of Cliffhanger, but Crimson was the one I glommed onto. I read the first few issues of DG, but couldn't afford to keep up with that and all my other books, so I dropped it. I believe I read every issue of Crimson, but getting to the end of the fourth volume and the end of the story, I didn't remember as much.

The basic story is that this teenager Alex is driving through Central Park with his friends when a vampire gang attacks. His friends get killed and Alex gets turned. He becomes a vampire, an ancient being named Ekimus tells him he's the chosen one and he makes friends with a Mexican vampire named Joe. From there things get even crazier. For a full-on crazy review, hit the jump.

The first trade focuses on Alex adjusting to his new life. He's got to give up his family and his girlfriend gets caught up in his new life. He gets vengeance on the vampires who turned him. We also meet a young woman named Scarlet who s part of a group called the Red Hoods which hunt down vampires, werewolves, demons and other monsters. We're also introduced to Senator Van Fleet, another vampire who employs Alex's dad and a cop who turns out to be the reincarnation of St. George the Dragon Slayer.

The next volumes broaden the spectrum of the story, by introducing all kinds of religious and mythological characters. The Christian idea of God comes into play, there's angels, werewolves, Templar knights, Eden, the queen of the vampires and dragons.

Looking back, I think Crimson might have been the first limited series I ever read. Everything else I was reading at the time was ongoing superhero stuff. Seeing as how the neverending superhero idea is what I was used to, I don't think I was prepared for how crazy Crimson got so fast. By the end of the second year, you've got all these ideas about Alex being the chosen one, defending the trod-upon demons and monsters of the world and fighting against the Church's assassins. Soon enough, you've got dragons overrunning New York City and Lisseth, mother of all vampires, trying to destroy all living things so that neither heaven nor hell will have anything to rule over.

I'm a bit conflicted on how to review this series. I really liked reading it, but there's a lot of nostalgia behind it. The dialogue slips way into Silver Age "let's explain EVERYTHING we're doing and recap EVERYTHING that came before in the book" which can come off as tired and stale. It's annoying, but it's not a dealbreaker for me. There's also echoes of Buffy, but the two things were kind of happening at the same time. There aren't even that many crossovers or references to Buffy (you do get X-Files, Friends and NYPD Blue references though in the issues), but it's hard to think of any late-90s vampire without thinking of Buffy. Consider this Buffy if it was starring a teenage vampire and done by the BBC with a lot more religion involved.

Also, the originality of this book depends on what you've read coming in. See, for me, this was the first piece of fiction that addressed the Knights Templar, the idea of multiple chosen ones living at the same time (I got really sick of the chosen one concept eventually) and especially the idea that agents of the Church were actually persecuting innocent demons who weren't hurting anyone. To me, at the time, these were all very novel concepts. Now, I feel like I've seen all of them thanks to watching hundreds of freaking horror movies and reading my fair share of limited series comics.

Having read all of this one a relatively brief sitting, I will definitely say that I enjoyed Crimson as a whole. While Augustyn's writing got tedious at times, Ramos' art stayed amazing throughout the entire series. And think about this, not only do you get to see regular doses of vampire, but also werewolf, dragons, angels, demons and even an alien or two (in crowd shots). I haven't read a ton of Ramos' comics, but I freaking loved what he did on these books (though I wish the borders would have been a little interesting than just solid colors, but whatever). For horror fans, the way the blood is penciled, inked and colored is proabably the best I've ever seen in any comic book. I have no idea how easy it is to get these trades. I got them on Sequential Swap, though there was nothing easy about that. Plus, just check out the cool designs for the trades. Even though I usually like some kind of uniformity in my trade designs, I like how amazingly different these covers were designed. You'll just have to wait for someone else to scan the backs or buy your own to see how the themes were continued on the back.

So, if you're looking for a vampire story without sparkles or too much relationship drama, then you should do what you can to dig up Crimson issues or trades. Danger Girl kind of trailed off and I don't think Battle Chasers ever ended, so I think Crimson is your best bet when it comes from the world of Cliffhanger, though I would love to read some of Chris Bachalo's Steampunk. I even followed him on to Out There, but I have no idea if that book ever ended because I was in college at the time and reading my books in awkward bursts. Give it a shot if you're game, if nothing else, the art is of the highest quality throughout!
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Halloween Scene: The Batman Vs. Dracula (2005)

Did anyone else watch The Batman? It was a pretty rad cartoon that got off to a slow start in my opinion. What bogged the show down, for me, was that the first season or so just introduced all of the various Batman villains, something I've seen in several incarnations over my many years of being a Batfan. It eventually went on to feature Batgirl and Robin, team up the various villains with each other and even bring in the Justice League. It wasn't up to the same caliber as Batman: The Animated Series or as fun as Batman: Brave and the Bold, but it was a fun little series from the episodes I saw (it lasted 5 seasons, one of which included an awesome rendition of Dark Knight Returns). The figures they put out were super cool too.

What first grabbed my attention about the series though was this straight-to-DVD movie which pitted Bats against everyone's favorite vampire. I had heard it was pretty good, but never got around to watching it until last night as I played a little Russian roulette with my NetBox queue and landed on or near it. And it was pretty freakin rad. You never know with something like this how vampy it will get. It is a WB cartoon afterall and these are the guys who edited the crap out of the Batman Beyond: The Return Of The Joker movie (another one I need to check out, which is also on NetBox).

So, no, you don't get full-on scenes of Batman staking vampires, but you do see vamp versions of The Joker and Vicky Vale and Batman fighting off the undead with batarangs. Batman of course develops a cure for vampirism that he injects into every single vampire in a fight scene straight out of the Arkham Asylum game (but, you know, three years early).

Lack of blood and guts aside, this is a super fun movie. You know how a lot of vampire (especially Dracula movies, like 1979's Dracula) are really boring in the beginning? Well, with this one, you start with an Akrham breakout, action with Joker and Penguin (Penguin goes on to take the Renfield role), Dracula hunting victims, a party at Wayne Manor that Drac attends, Batman fighting Drac, Batman fighting VampJoker and the big final battle. The fight scenes are rad, on the level of JLU and it's especially fun seeing Batman actually losing his first fight with Dracula. It's even more fun to see the vamp-fighting gear that he and Alfred develop to level the playing field and give Batman the final victory. Speaking of the final fight, it's a hard fought one for Batman and Alfred that includes a pretty great "smoke clearing reveal" scene and Batman getting a pretty fantastic one-liner in before, well, before the end. I don't want to spoil it as it's pretty cool.

All in all, it's probably one of the better Dracula movies I've seen (at least one of the more action-packed ones)and it gave me something I didn't think I'd ever seen in animated form: Batman fighting a vampire Joker. Plus, it's an easy 83 minute watch and it's on instant watch, what more do you need?

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Halloween Scene: Lost Boys Reign Of The Frogs (2008)

I already admitted to not really paying attention to Lost Boys: The Tribe, so I figured I should give this miniseries that came out from WildStorm to bridge the gap between the two movies a shot. And you know what? I liked it.

It's written by Hans Rodionoff and drawn by Joel Gomez. I'm not familiar with Rodionoff, but I've seen Gomez's art on Gelatometti, the WildStorm artist blog (one of my favorite artist blogs out there) and have liked what I've seen. So there's two stories going on here. There's a wraparound story with a kid who I'm guessing was in the sequel, but I can't remember, going to Edgar Frog (Corey Feldman) in 2007 asking to be trained in the art of killing vampires. The other story flashes back to 1990 after the events of the first movie and features all your favorite characters, minus Michael and Star who are running around somewhere. I won't get into the details too much, but it was fun seeing the familiar faces again, even if they don't necessarily look like the actors. You also get to find out some interesting things about Grandpa and vampires in general. Oh, plus, politician vampires, a house full of hot Goth vamp chicks and even your first look at the Widow Johnson.

Now, I can see how this book might upset some fans as there are some pretty huge continuity shake-ups and they even kinda sorta got to me, but you know what? It's just a comic. I love them as much as anyone, but this comic isn't going to take away from my enjoyment of the movie next time I watch it. All in all, good stuff that's worth a read if you're a fan of the movie.

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Halloween Scene: Lost Boys The Tribe (2008)

There are two things I've gotta say right off the bat when it comes to this straight-to-DVD, 20-years-too-late sequel to Lost Boys. First, as I've mentioned before, Lost Boys isn't the kind of movie I saw as a kid and have a long-time love for. I saw it for the first time just a few years ago and appreciate it on a fun level, but I'm still not so sure it's such a great movie. 2. I was NOT paying attention to this movie while it was playing on NetBox. I was reading or on the computer or something because, well, everyone said it was a dumb movie, so who cares?

Anyway, here are my brief thoughts that I wrote down while kindasorta watching:

*Gotta love the Tom Savini cameo in the beginning. That guy's awesome.

*The sax guy is back!

*Listening to Feldman do his terrible Dirty Harry impression as an older dude is just kinda weird and sad.

*"Hey, a lot of good information can be learned from reading comic books" - paraphrase cause I drank too much wine.

*Haha, "Warriors, come out and plaaaay."

*I'm pretty sure if I became a vampire, I would take up x-treme sports too.

*I'm not a fan of the Lost Boys mythology which says you're a partial vampire, but can get rid of it or whatever after just drinking a cup of blood.

*This movie's not so bad when you're not a huge LB fan and not really paying much attention.

*The "we're vampires" beach bonfire moment is kinda cool and awesomely bloody.

*I like how the vamps puke blood Red Lantern-style after getting impaled.

*Everything Feldman says is a ridiculous pun or sounds like it should be one.

*Vampire + drill = awesome. Why is his face melting? who cares it looks cool.

Well there you have it. I don't know if I even saw the whole thing. At one point it was just over. I didn't see the cameos by the other Frog Brother or Corey Haim, but I wasn't about to rewind or stop what I was doing.

Did anyone else watch The Two Coreys? The episode where Feldman breaks it to Haim that there's already been talk of a sequel, yet no one contacted Haim is freaking heartbreaking. Seriously, you can see the man's heart break. Here's the clip:

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Suckfest: Def By Temptation

Last week and the week before were pretty lackluster for me as far as picking out new movies to watch. I mentioned before that I watched the 1979 version of Dracula based on a HorrorMovieADay review I read. Now, I'm not blaming BC over there at all, I love the site and am finally caught up on his entries (a must for any horror fan), I just got really bored with the movie. I guess I just prefer my vampires a little less Victorian. So, with that in mind I checked out a movie called Def BY Temptation (1990) on Netflix and it was even worse.


With a cover like this, how could you not be interested in this movie? Sam Jackson and Dwayne Wayne (a.k.a. Kadeem Hardison) in a vampire movie directed by a guy calling himself James Bond III (who weirdly directed two episodes of The Waltons)? I do have to note that the image on Netflix didn't have the Troma logo, not that would have dissuaded me (I love Toxic Avenger).

The story as far as I can tell is that there's this female vampire who hangs out in a bar and takes unsuspecting dudes back to her house. There's also this country mouse-type dude visiting his cousin (Hardison) in the big bad city. Country Mouse gets sucked into the vampire lady's web of sexy vampire kills. I did not get very far into this movie, maybe a half hour, 45 minutes max, because it's SUPER boring. The problem is that they insist on showing the exact same thing over and over again. You see the vamp hit on a guy in the bar, bring him back to her place, get a little freaky and then she bites him. Sometimes she turns him and other times not, I think. It's really a boring movie, though according to this trailer I found on YouTube, it seems to get cooler as Kadeem and the guy who would go on to play Robbie Robertson in the Spider-Man movies go after the vampire chick, seemingly to kill her and save Country Mouse. Oh, also, Sam Jackson only shows up in a dream sequence as a preacher or something just to get killed. I have no idea if he shows up later in the film as he doesn't play a big role in the trailer.



One thing I did like about the movie was a montage of Country Mouse trying on clothes for his night on the town with Kadeem. Meanwhile, Kadeem's watching and laughing/commenting on the wacky fashion choices. Now, I love me a good montage regardless of what the subject is, but the funny thing is that this scene is VERY similar to one I just watched today in the best rollerblading movie of all time Airborne (review soon). One of you video wizzes should really splice the two together, it'd be awesome...probably.

Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed by the movie. It's not that I was expecting much (though I did love A Different World so much I actually had a pair of Dwayne Wayne flip glasses and would proudly wear adult versions today), but the fact that I can so rarely stay up late enough to watch a movie thanks to my commute that I wanted this one to be good. In the end I turned it off and watched an episode or two of Charles in Charge before calling it quits and then was dragging ass the next day. I guess I learned my lesson. For now...

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Halloween Scene: Seeing Halloweeners

Much like spying Lost cast members, I love seeing folks from the Halloween movies (well, the ones I've seen and liked at least) in other flicks. I've recently had the pleasure and surprise of seeing Danielle Harris and Donald Pleasence in various flicks I didn't even know they were in.

Danielle Harris popped up as a kid in two flicks about dads she doesn't really like who get into some crazy situations. First up, I watched a movie called Back to Back (1996) starring her and Michael Rooker (who I've only seen in Mallrats, he looks kinda funny with hair). Oh, Bobcat Goldthwait is in it too and is super annoying, but don't worry, he gets blown up pretty good.

Back to Back is not a good movie. It's not altogether bad, it's just kind of unremarkable. Rooker and Harris get kidnapped by this Asian guy who has a score to settle with someone for some reason, so he escapes from a police station and blah blah blah. I guarantee you've seen this kind of movie before done better. But, if you're like me and you're looking for something to watch on Netflix Instant, you can probably do worse.

Harris also appeared as the angry daughter in The Last Boy Scout (1991). I'll be honest, I wasn't all that interested in the movie and still haven't finished it from early last week (I had pretty bad luck picking movies as I'm sure I'll get to in further detail in upcoming posts). I'm sure there's some good stuff in there, I just need to finish it out. Thanks to this commute, though, it'll be rough. Anyone want to give me one of those plug-in internet things? I'd greatly appreciate it and even plug the heck outta you, for what it's worth.

On the Donald Pleasence front, I peeped him in two movies as well, first up the Sean Connery James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967). In it, Pleasence plays Blofeld, the big villain for the early Bond flicks. Pleasence was the first guy to play Blofeld in person (you saw him petting his cat a lot and feeding fish before this) and boy does he look crazy nutso, but in a good way. It's pretty clear that Donnie here was the inspiration for Dr. Evil in Austin Powers (down to the suit and even some of the mannerisms).

Pleasence also appeared in the 1979 version of Dracula starring SkeletorNixon himself Frank Langella as Drac. I read about the movie on Horror Movie A Day and thought it sounded pretty good. I was bored to tears for most of it, but Pleasence played a mental institute-running Dr. Jack Seward. He didn't do much but be a dad for the parts I saw (this was another movie I couldn't get through, even being a captive audience on a train. Ah well, you can't go wrong with crazy Pleasance, though he still, in my opinion, never topped the upper echelon's of crazy-old-guy he reached in Halloween 6.

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