So the toy company NECA has the license to produce all the goodies you could possibly want from the re-make of "Clash of the Titans". They have figures, statuettes, and prop replicas of weapons. Head over here: NECA to read their blog & here: Amazon Storefront to buy. You can also find their stuff in toy stores & entertainment stores like Hastings. I would urge you to skip over Amazon.com & support your local stores. You know, the one you love & never want to go away, but if you don't start buying stuff there will & it will be all your fault.
Mezco also has a license to produce toys based on the film. So far they have produced a Perseus Mez-it.
If you like the Original version of the movie, you can still find some of the sweet figures produced by Gentle Giant on Ebay from time to time.
April 2, 2010 the movie hits theaters in 3-D & non 3-D! See ya at the theater!
Music Thursday is here & so is Hammerfall. Hammerfall is a Swedish Metal Band that has been around since 1993, right at the fall of metal from the mainstream in the USA. If you've never heard of them, you can thank all the jerks at MTV & your radio stations for blasting Nirvana & all that pathetic grunge crap instead. The founding member, Oscar Dronjak, was the guitarist for a band called "Ceremonial Oath". Two ex "In Flames" members also joined the band. Hammerfall's album "Glory to the Brave" reached number 38 on the German Music Chart the week of its release, something which had never before been achieved by a debut heavy metal music album. That's in Germany. Pretty impressive.
Hammerfall has played at the Wacken Open Air Festival & toured with Alice Cooper, Rammstein, Deep Purple, Dream Theater, Saxon, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Twisted Sister, U.D.O. and Stratovarius.
Their 6th album, titled Threshold, was released on October 20, 2006 and it went directly to a number 1 position on the Swedish charts.
HammerFall's newest album is titled "No Sacrifice, No Victory" and was released in the UK on February 23, 2009. Songs on this album include "Any Means Necessary", "Life is Now", "Punish and Enslave", "Bring the Hammer Down", and a cover of "My Sharona". The Album peaked at #38 on the Billboard heatseakers charts. There is also a music video for the song "Any Means Necessary". To kick off their new album HammerFall is going to be touring all over North America with supporting acts, Powerglove and Echoes of Eternity.
They will be coming to Dallas, TX on April 6, 2010. Get all the tour info & tickets here: Hammerfall at The VAULT
Over at the cartoon network they show cartoons during the late evening/night in a time & segment they call Adult Swim. Adult swim consists of toons that many people would probably prefer their kids not watch. It's for us 30 year old kids. There are cartoons like Morel Oral, Metalocalypse & other adult themed shows on at this time. Adult Swim also has a website: Adult Swim
Now the part of the website that is my favorite is the game part. There are hundreds of tasteless & wrong but funny as hell games. Games like Zombie Hooker Nightmare, or my lil' bastard. Some of my favorites are 5 minutes to kill yourself, Bible Fight, Amateur Surgeon, Floater, & Floater on Ice.
If you get bored & are looking for something to do, go check these out. They are hilarious, challenging & fun! Be advised though, if you don't have a bit of a twisted sense of humor & are a straight laced type, who doesn't get the hilarity, you'll be shocked & horrified by pretty much all of these games. You might want to head over to Christian Oasis or Christian Computer Games.
So way back in the late 70's, early 80's there was this all girl band named "The Runaways". Two of the girls went on to have quite a bit of spotlight shone upon them. You know them as Joan Jett & Lita Ford.
Meanwhile, one of the other girls may not have been in the spotlight, but continued to be successful through creative outlets, art, solo albums, writing, etc. A bit of a "Jack of all trades". Her name is Cherie Currie. Let me tell ya, she has some mean chainsaw art skills. Go check out her sculptures here: Chainsaw Chick
The pic at the top of the post is a sculpture of a mermaid Cherie did. Wow! She also wrote a critically acclaimed autobiographical book about "The Runaways" called "Neon Angel". You might want to go check it out & give it a read. If not, then maybe you can go check out the movie based on the book that hits theaters this week.
Think Sexplotation movie from the late 70's early 80's. 3 gorgeous women are tangled up in a mess trying to find a wealth of diamonds buried somewhere in the desert. Oh, and there are guns. Lots of really big guns. Also, scantily clad women beating the holy bajebus outta each other & everyone else.
The story is solid & very fun. There are flashbacks that keep moving us farther & farther back in time. The acting is great except for maybe the crazy chick "Camero". I had middle of the road expectations for this flick & was a little surprised at how well they used the genre.
Eric Guendemann & Rick Jacobson, who worked on many an episode of Xena & Hercules, wrote the screenplay. Rick Directed the picture & also helped Rick produce it. Zoe Bell, Xena stunt woman & star of Death Proof, coordinated all the stunts & fights scenes as well as doubling. There was plenty to see for any Xena/Hercules fan in this picture, with Lucy Lawless (Xena), & Renee O'Connor (Gabrielle) making cameos as nuns. Micheal Hurst (Iolas in Hercules) had one of the major roles in the film & proves once again what a great actor he is.
I give it a B for a GREAT B-movie! Go rent for sure & if you like good B films, just go buy it.
Make sure to watch the 3 part documentary on the Making of a good B-movie just to laugh at Micheal Hurst & be surprised how absolutely full of herself Erin Cummings, "Hel", is. I'm pretty sure they added all of her diva moments as a warning to ANYONE out there even considering her for another part. I had thought she'd make a great RED SONJA until I watched her in the extras. OMG. No way. I feel sorry for ANYONE who ever has to put up with this woman. Wow.
I hope to see Julia Voth, "Trixie", in many, many more films.
A Japanese superhero movie. I LOVED it as well. It started just a tad bit slow, but quickly picked up. I think it was geared more toward kids than adults, but if you like fairytale movies & superheroes, you'll probably like it.
A school teacher longs to be more & is obsessed with a TV series that only had 7 episodes called, "Zebraman". A wheelchair bound transfer student bonds with him over the old program. Little does the student know that the teacher has been constructing his own Zebraman outfit in the hopes of becoming a hero himself.
It's a sweet story. Rent it.
Well, that's it for now. Hope everyone has a fantastic week.
I've come to realize that my passion has waned. I'm not sure why. Responsibility, retail, outside influences telling me I need a steady income & health insurance, stress, I'm sure all have something to do with it. Having escaped retail hell & finding a place in higher education has helped, but I still find myself always reaching the same question. How will this passion or creative idea make me money. WHAT!? I never asked that of myself BEFORE I graduated college. I had a professor in college push me toward Graphic Arts on computers, telling me it would make me money. He told me Fine Arts would never make me money. I needed to be on the cutting edge. Truth is I don't enjoy rendering or computer graphic art. I like the feel of the paper, the smell of a fresh canvas, the way the paint glides from the paint brush to the canvas. I love trying to get what is in my head to look the same on canvas or paper. I never questioned what it meant or why. It was just what I was supposed to do. Now, I find myself trying to fill a niche or create something that masses might want. Why? Money. I have to pay the mortgage, right? I'm tired. I don't want to think this way anymore. How does a person rid themselves of this thinking? How does someone go back to the unlimited passion & not fret about the mortgage. How do you throw your cares to the wind & be free again? How does an artist, a shaman, a person who values independence & freedom connect with that flow of energy that runs through the universe once they've found themselves stranded on a muddy path? I'm stuck. Stuck in a place that pays me just enough to get by, but not get out. How do I escape?
The Marshall Space Flight Center Art Collection has a really great exhibit up on the net. It's a really cool interactive site that lets you enter the museum & click on a painting or work of art to get a close-up view & information on the piece. The really sad thing is how many of these beautiful concept pieces have "artist unknown" listed as the artist. These are images that are burned into all of our imaginations, yet they can't attribute many of them to anyone. That's sad. Still, head on over & check out the cool works of art depicting rockets, ships, shuttles, space stations, astronauts & other cool aspects of Space Exploration.
Black Dynamite. Oh, yeah, you heard me. This is an excellent blacksploitation sploitation film. Funny & entertaining. I really like many of the one liners in the film. The ending was alright. A little anti-climatic, but still fun. If you like purposely bad films like "Pootie Tang", "Kung Pow", or "Alien Trespass", you should check this out. Here's the preview:
Cool. I tried something new today to help get me motivated. I posted " Okay, give me an idea for a cool sketch. I'll then sketch it & post it. C'mon, anything. Get creative! No cats." today on FB to see what I'd get.
The first thing I got was: "Cats! DAMN!"
The second was: "What about a kitten? Or a tiger? Oh Oh! A panther??"
Ugh. Of course. My sarcastic friends. I love them. So I did a cat just for them.
A dead dried cat.
Then I got some honest efforts.
A hot air balloon. Eh, Okay. I don't think I've ever drawn a hot air balloon.
It turned out pretty good.
Then the one I really like. A Hobobot or Hobo Robot. Sweet. I love robots & hobos are crazy & cool. So I gave it a try.
All in all, I think my little experiment worked. It may just become a Wednesday tradition.
So you are a creative individual & you want to do something, but you don't have the money. You want to create a comic, but you're just one guy/gal. You're not Marvel or DC. You want to animate a movie, but again, you have no money. You have a computer, sure, and some pencils & paper, of course, but no money. Well, stop whining. You have everything you need. The only reason you aren't doing it is because you're lazy & afraid. You're afraid you're pretending. You doubt somewhere inside yourself that you really are what you want to be. You hold yourself back by being afraid that someone, somewhere, is going to call you out for being a poser. You use excuses like time & money for why you can't achieve these things, but really it all comes down to you. Ralph Bakshi was at Comic Con in 2008 & laid it all out for those of us who just stand still whining & crying. I have to say, I like an honest brutal opinion. So, for this Art Tuesday post I wanted to share the video of Ralph telling those of us who are creative to stop crying & do something. No one is stopping you, but you.
Well hello there! It's March! It also happens to be Women's History month & Movie review Monday. I have absolutely nothing. Lol. I rearranged two rooms in my house this weekend & barely even got a chance to sit down much less watch a movie. The rooms look great & I am going to be able to get rid of quite a mess of stuff. I really revel in the fact that I have someone that loves rearranging rooms as much as I do. The stagnancy wears on you & there are always those hard to reach places you can't get with a vacuum that you inevitably drop something behind the first week, that are now revealed, looted & cleaned! Hurrah! Plus, it's like a whole new house!
Hopefully the changes help make both of us more productive. The dog never likes it when we move things around. I think she may be OCD. Poor thing. Moving things does get you to thinking about the other rooms though. I keep thinking about the awful tile in the bathroom, the carpet in the hall, & the lack of a dishwasher in the kitchen. I want those all fixed. Now. Unfortunately, with a messed up rotator cuff & no money, it may be a while.
So as far as reviewing a movie today, I don't think it's going to happen. I want to see that new Amelia Earhart movie. It looks good. The new information & theories on Amelia are sad but fascinating. I heard the movie doesn't follow the newest theories of her surviving & successfully landing the plane on the water then living on a nearby island until she succumbed to the elements, but new archeological evidence is really starting to point that direction. It would be amazing if they could find that skeleton. Amelia Earhart was one cool lady.
