Stormwatch Post Human Division Volume 3

 

Ahh Stormwatch the little Wildstorm comic that kept going for so long.

Been a Stormwatch fan for a bit now. Read the Ellis run. Read all of the DC NEW 52 run. So all I had left was Stormwatch Team Achilies and Stormwatch Post Human Division.

Months back I read the first 3 issues of the PHD run and enjoyed them. Then found the above pictured trade cheap. This trade collects issues 13 thru 19 of PHD.

The world has been almost destroyed by supers. Stormwatch is back in the sky,Jackson is back running it and trying to save as many people as he can. While using what is left of Stormwatch to protect what is left of mankind. 

This feels a lot like the run Warren Ellis had. Big huge threats that last at most 2 issues. Little hints early on for what will happen issues down the road. And  a few nice callbacks to previously mentioned minor things.

Nice art that is easy to digest while helping push forward the story. Not an overbundance of 2 page splashes.

And now I want to go get the rest  of the TPBs covering this era of the Wildstorm universe.

Stormwatch PHD vol 3 gets a A-.

Wetworks Volume 2 TPB 2

 

Ahh Wetworks. The Whilce Portacio series from Image. That cause of various events came out 2 years into Image's run instead of that first year. Also one where I had a huge chunk of hte first vol. But besides the sourcebook I have never read any of the issues.

Wasn't that long ago I was at the nearest Ollies. Saw this trade and it was cheap and took a chance. Cause the basic premise of Wetworks is a good one.

Military unit gets connected to this golden liquid metal. Which will cover them and they have to fight werewolves and vampires.

The TPB pictured above reprints issues 6,7,8,9,13,14,15 of vol 2. Yes it skips a pile of issues. No idea why. But it contains two full storylines.

Up first is The Scapegoat Effect. First issue penciled by Wetworks creator Whilce Portacio. Wish he had done more than one issue in the tpb. The leader of Wetworks,Dane,is rebuilding the team. And also we got a civil war in the vampire nation. All of which ends with a portal to another world being opened and more powerful vampires flooding Earth. 

Then the second storyline,Unholy War,brings to a head the civil war. Seems various factions in the Vampire Nation are trying to take over. 

After wiping out a small Europeon city and heading to a bigger one Mother One,the former member of Wetworks,gets changed into a cyborg/vampire/something else. Saves everyone. And all it costs the world is one nation of the world gets turned over to the Vampire Nation.

The art is good but having 6 different  artists across not many more issues than 6 isn't great. There is times where from one page to another the look totally changes. Yea I get it I am going from the end of one issue to another. Still it is jarring.

Writing it damn good. Reads a bit like a slightly more serious version of Larry Hama's run on GI Joe with a supernatural element added.

Wetworks Vol 2 TPB 2 gets  C.

Physical media,thift stores,junk stores and why I am up early on Friday and Saturday mornings

 

Ever since I started working back when  I was 15 I have been a collector of movies on whatever physical media I can get. And  I never really stopped buying.Even back 6 years ago when I started streaming I still buy dvds/blu rays and 4Ks. 

And I would have people that asked me why. Why are you still buying them when you can just stream the movie? Why do I have more dvds than most stores that sell them?

Why? Cause many reasons. First off when I stream say Snakes on a Plane all I get is the movie. Not the commentary,not the deleted scenes. Just the film. Secondly I never know when for example Airheads will leave streaming. Not that long ago I saw Airheads was streaming on Hulu. Cool I want to watch it. Watched it and enjoyed it again. Maybe 3 weeks later want to watch it again but now it isn't streaming. 

Noticed over the past 5 months more and more people talking about how they are rebuilding their DVD library. Guessing people just sold off their DVDs once they started streaming. Dumb idea.

And right now is the time to get back into physical media. Once a week I make a circuit of the pawn shops,junkstores and thrift shops.  And depending on the store prices can be as cheap as 50 cents a dvd/blu ray,all the way up to buck per dvd and 3 bucks for blu ray.

As to why I am up early on  Friday and Saturdays...the best junkstore in the area is only open those two days. Opens at 8am and gotta be there early to  get the  deals. Like  how recently I got 4 seasons,two of them still sealed and new, of Everybody Loves Raymond on  DVD. 50 cents a season. Less than a week after buying them I had the two sealed season sets sold and  made a 14 buck profit. Which of course got usedd the next week on more cheap DVDs.

And that picture at the top. That is a new blu ray from Terror Vision. A small boutique company. And somehow they got a deal to get that one film into big box stores,like Walmart. So to support a small company and hopefully make it where more smaller companies can get stuff into mass market stores I grabbed that movie sight unseen. Turned out to be a good movie.

Now I gotta finish getting dressed cause it is time to hit my secret junkstore and see what I find. 

Supreme Blue Rose

 

TITLE-Supreme Blue Rose

PUBLISHER-Image

Supreme is an oddity when it comes to 90s boom creations. Sure he got 40+ issues before Alan Moore took over and revamped the title into a critical success. I read maybe the first 3 issues of that run. Skipped the Moore run. Then  finally in 2009 or 2010 thanks to Inter Library Loan I got the two TPBs from Checker Books that reprinted all of Moore's Supreme run. 

I was surprised at how good it was. Having read most of Moore's previous work at Image,and only really enjoying 1963,Supreme was a love letter to Silver Age Superman. And  much better one that the IMO Highly over rated All Star Superman.

Thanks to no one wanting them and their reputation of being total crap,plus the early stuff having huge print runs,over the course of about 5 years I managed to get a full run of the pre Moore Supreme.

It was not long after finishing that run that I saw the solicits for the Supreme Blue Rose mini series. My plan at the tiime was to just get scans of each issue. Then  grab the TPB once that was out. Got the scans read and loved it. Then  forgot to grab the TPB until sometime in summer of 2023.

Written by Warren  Ellis and with amazing art from Tula Lotay. And that art. Pastels and this chalk or crayon like texture to most of the colors. The art fits the odd nature of the story.

An out of work reporter is hired to find out about a plane crash in Littlehaven. Hired by a man with the same name as Supreme's lead villain,a Lex Luthor like mad scientist.

Using the Supremacy idea that Alan Moore created(The Supremacy is a pocket dimension where all the previous versions of Supreme live.) Warren Ellis creates a story that reads like David Lynch and Jordorosky teamed up. And Vince Mcmahon/Hulk Hogan No Holds Barred style spent a weekend in a  hotel with a typewriter and possibly some chemical help and created this insane story.

A story that not only keeps all the previous Supreme stuff in cannon but adds to the concepts Alan Moore came up with in the other Extreme/Awesome comics he wrote.

Being only 7 issues, and having not read it since it was coming out monthly,I had forgotten how unlike most modern comics this isn't a fast read. Even with more than a few pages that are either double page splashes,that look amazing. Or sometimes 3 or 4 pages of no dialogue,just gorgeous art that tells the story.

From what I can see as of writing this is the newest Supreme stuff. One good thing about how Warren Ellis wraps up this mini is the next creative team can take what happens here and build on it. Or just ignore it and either way works.

Now I am not sure how well this reads to anyone that at least doesnt know the basics about Alan Moore's Supreme run. This re-read,which I did in  a doctor's waiting room one cold rainy day,I noticed how much stuff from the pre Moore run is referenced.

Looked and unless you just gotta have the issues it is much much cheaper and easier to order this as a TPB.

Supreme Blue Rose gets a B+.

Born in East L.A.

 

TITLE-Born in East L.A.

SOURCE-Universal Double Feature DVD

Was sure I had seen this. Remember the video store poster vividly. And not that long ago found the above pictured DVD Double Feature new cheap. 

Wanted something funny to watch and put on Born in East L.A. and maybe 15 minutes into the movie realized I had never seen it and was getting it mixed up with the other film Cheech made ,Shrimp on the Barbie.

Cheech  is sent to go pick up his cousin at factory. This is the same day that INS is raiding this factory. Cheech didn't grab his wallet when he left his home. Has no ID and no one is at his home to bring him his ID. 

Cheech gets deported and is now stuck in Mexico. And he is a Chicano who speaks almost no Spanish.

Based on Cheech's parody song,of the same name,this was Marin attempt at a solo comedic film career. Him and Chong had a falling  out and Cheech kept acting.

So we got Cheech in Mexico and at first he tries sneaking across the border. Like hiding in the fridge of a motorhome driven by an old white couple. Guess what they are drug smugglers so the drug dogs at the border smell the drugs. The Border guard find Cheech and he is back to square one.

Daniel Stern plays a ppool hall owner who is also a coyote. Cheech ends up working at the pool hall,doing various jobs,to earn enough to pay to be snuck across the border.

While working at this pool hall/strip club/bar Cheech meets and falls in love with a waitress. And on his last night in Mexico he finds out she is also in  love with him.

The next morning Cheech gets into the truck that is gonna bring him back into the US. A couple shows up,but only the husband has enough money to make the trip. Cheech gets up and gives his spot to the wife. 

Cut to  the hill  by the border. We see the two US border patrol guys in their truck having lunch. Then up on top the hill is Cheech,the waitress and Daniel Stern. Then they are joined by what appears to be 2000 more people. As they all rush the border Neil Diamond's Coming to America plays.

Cheech and his lady make it across with Border patrol on their ass. They end up in the middle of a Cinco De Mayo parade. Where a nearby Priest marries them right before INS gets to them. THey try to deport Cheech's new wife but can't now cause she is married to a citizen.

While it isn't as wild as the Cheech & Chong films,this isn't bad. I was laughing hard many times. With some of the best parts is when Cheech is trying to teach a group of Asian guys,one of whom is a young film debut Jason Scott Lee,how to "act like a vato". So when they go across the border they don't stand out.

Did some reasearch and seems the TV edit of the film adds in a pile of cut scenes. Need to track down that version.

For the buck I paid I am more than happy with this.

Born in East L.A. gets a B+

Tank

 

TITLE-Tank

SOURCE-DVD Rip off PLEX

It's odd how memory works. I doubt I have seen this movie since 85 or 86. But I remembered the last 10 minutes of the film clearly.

Released in 1984 starring Jame Garner and Shirley Jones,plus a young C Thomas Howell,this is a story about Garner who is in the Army. He is nearing retirement age. All he wants to do is spend time with his one son and finish his contract. They just moved to a new base in rural Georgia.

All is well until Garner goes to a local bar. Where he learns the sheriff deputy runs a brothel out of some trailers behind the bar. This all snowballs into the deputy planting drugs in Garner's son's school locker. So Garner ,the hooker(played by Jennilee Harrison) hop in the Sherman tank Garner owns. Break out the son and are heading to the GA/TN state line.

Fairly simple plot. And it is a movie that if I hadn't seen it as a kid I doubt I would have watched it again the other night. What saves this film is the acting. Jame Garner is a guy I have enjoyed in pretty much everything I have seen him in. I was surprised with Jennilee Harrison. Only having seen her short run on 3s company. She shows more range in this film than she ever did on that show.

So that ending part that I remembered? The mayor of the town with the hookers and corrupt deputy has set up a trap for Garner and his tank. They block the road with 18 wheelers. And the field the tank tries to cross is muddy. The Tank gets stuck. And somehow the Mayor has gotten a anti tank rocket launcher. Which misses.

Thankfully a local biker bar had this story on the tv. So the biker gang comes and using a piece of heavy construction equipment drags the tank across the state line.

Yea this is nothing I will go watch more than once every 30 years. Not that is it a bad film. It made for a fun movie night. 

Tank gets a C+

Red Room The Antisocial Network TPB

TITLE-Red Room The Antisocial Network

FORMAT-Trade Paperback

When the Cartoonist Kayfabe Youtube channel started I became a fan. I knew who Ed Piskor was cause I had read Hip Hop Family Tree. Once Ed revealed his next project was a horror comic based on  the idea of Red Rooms and he had been reading piles of Splatterpunk fiction and watching piles of Gore movies I knew I wanted to read it.

I ordered Red Room vol 1 issue 1 from Fantagraphics. Got it in and stuck it in a longbox. As soon as the TPB was out for pre-order I did that. Got it in and stuck it on the shelf where it sat unread until very recently.

Why did I let the issue then the TPB sit there unread for over 2 years? Not really sure why. Been a few times I would grab the TPB and start to read it. Then change my mind. 

During my night sit down and read after dinner time I had just finished another TPB and figured I would read issue 1 of Red Room out of this collection and then the next night finish it. Forgetting the first issue was double sized. Once I had those 64 pages read I went ahead and finished the TPB.

Ok what is a Red Room? Rumored for years they are places online where you can  pay and watch someone be tortured and killed.  If you have seen the Hostel films this is similar.

Ed Piskor is the writer and artist on this series. Many times he talked about how he wanted it where yoou could pick up any issue and read it without having to have read previous issues. He managed to do this. The 4 issues in this TPB are connected. But could be read in any order and still work. With each issue being a standalone story. A standalone story that also is building a world.

In the series we get introduced to the various people running these Red Rooms. They are using the Dark Web to broadcast these snuff films. People use Bitcoin to buy entry into the rooms. Then pay even more to see some graphic kills.

The kills are gruesome.Since I was a young kid I have watched horror films. Read horror comics and books. This series shows that Ed has also read a pile of the same books I have. Seen piles of the same gore movies.

Add in how good of an artist Ed Piskor is. He talks about how he wanted this to look like the so called outlaw comix of the 80s and 90s. Black and white indie comics that were filled with violence and various things you were not seeing in most comics back then. Piskor's art has this slightly cartoony look to it. Which makes a good contrast. You got something that looks like it could be taken from that silly comic strip your Aunt Lindey reads in the newspaper every day. Then the next page you will see Pokerface ripping out someone's eyeball then pulling their tongue through the now empty socket.

I just wish the writing was as good as the art. Might just be I have read/watched most of the stuff that inspired Ed to do this comic. For me the story is just a collection  of highlights from the last close to 50 years of extreme horror fiction. I wanted more about how the various groups keep their Red Rooms going. Instead of page after page of shhots of the live streams and the chat room to the side of the live stream.

Been told vol 2 is better ,story wise. And as of right now Red Room is over. There is 3 volumes. Feels like the sales were dropping so Ed cut bait.

Really it is hard to say who this comic is for. The hardcore horror nuts will more than likely be like me where the story feels like something we have read before. And those that aint hardcore horror nuts will be kept away by the levels of ultra violence and gore in the comic.

While I do enjoy Ed on the Cartoonist Kayfabe vids out of the 3 comics I have read from him the only one I can recommend to people is Hip Hop Family Tree.

Red Room The Antisocial Network TPB gets a C-.

Shoot Em Up!

 

TITLE-Shoot 'Em Up

SOURCE-Lionsgate Blu ray

I never seen anyone mention this modern action classic. Clive Owens sees a woman give birth. Then people trying to kill her baby. So the rest of the film is Clive protecting this new born.

Seems a Senator that is running to President is using babies for their bone marrow. And someone this is also connected to a plot to change gun laws.

Really this is a film you watch and don't really care much for the plot. It is a pure spectacle of violence and action. With many scenes feeling like they are out of some PS2 era video game. 

Clive Owens is great as the lead. Playing him similar to to how Clive was in Sin City. Paul Giamanti isn't his normal comedic self. Nope this film he is a pure evil piece of shit. Took me way too long to realize the lead female is Monica Bullucci. Her part sadly she isn't given much to work with.

If you grew up on all the great 70s and 80s action movies this is one to track down and see.

Shoot Em Up gets a B+

American Lowrider DVD Review

 

TITLE-American Lowrider aka Perfect Sunday Aka Lean like a Cholo

SOURCE-DVD

Thanks to streaming so many are selling off their DVD/Blu Ray collections. Which means the market is flooded. One of my local sources for used media has a big shelf of dvds/blu rays/cds/vhs. Buck each buy 10 get 1 free. 

I was in this place recently had found 7 dvds I wanted so was looking for 3 more to hit the 10 mark. Saw the above cover and figured what the hell take a chance on what appeared to be a b-level comedy.

Plot is simple our leads are three brothers who live with their parents. Early in the film they get challenged to a low rider bounce off and lose. They dont  have the money to pay off this lost bet,but a local "wise guy" pays it for them and they got a week to repay the wise guy. The film is a remake of "Friday" but this time with an all hispanic cast.

So looking at the cover you would expect Danny Trejo to have a huge role...I knew better. Knew that after he became a name he would appear in low budget films for small parts. Usually be on set for a day and get about 15 minutes of screen  time. I am betting Danny was on set for at most 2 hours,cause his screen time is at most 3 minutes and almost all of that is in one scene early on.

And as you can see up near the top this movie had 3 titles. I started off as Perfect Sunday. Made in 2010 this film sat on the shelf. No distribution. A company that specialized in films aimed at the growing Hispanic market was going to distribute the film but wanted a title change. So for a short bit this film was known as Lean like a Cholo. Still no distribution. But in 2013 RedBox wanted some exclusive titles and so they put it out and that is when it got the American Lowrider title.

Which is an odd title cause after the bounce off in the first 10 minutes low riders aren't part of the film.

How much you enjoy this will depend on how much you like low budget comedy. Yea half the jokes fail. But I still enjoyed this. And it is one I doubt I watch again in the next five years.

American Lowrider gets a solid C.

National Lampoon's Barely Legal

 

TITLE-National Lampoon's Barely Legal AKA After School Special

SOURCE-Sony DVD

National Lampoon,use to be the name that you trusted for funny movies and a great magazine. Then by the mid to late 90s anyone could license the National Lampoon name and put it above the title of their film. Which lead to piles of really shitty films with National Lampoon over the title.

It was 2004 or maybe 2005. I had recently been linked up to a torrent site that was packed with screener dvds. Nice rips of these screeners and usualy in the DIVX codec. Bonus I had 2 dvd players that could play DIVX files. While browsing that site one day after work I saw the title National Lampoon's Barely Legal and grabbed a rip. Burnt it to a cd-r and the plan was watch it my next day off. Somehow that rip on the CD-R got tossed onto a spindle and sat unwatched until 2007. 

Was a shitty time in  my life I needed a laugh and saw National Lampoon and yea I knew the odds were this movie would suck. Still put it in the player and hit play. A bit over 90s minutes later it was over and I had laughed more in that  hour and 1/2 than I had in weeks. Which is why years later when I found the above pictured DVD at a thrift I grabbed it. Having lost that CDR years ago. 

Our leads are 3 guys in high school. They run the AV club and use that to cover their side business. 

Bit of history. I'm almost 50. So when I was in high school it wasn't like now where everyone has access to porn. Nope just having a Playboy gave you status. And thanks to someone I knew that owned a video store,and me owning two VHS vcrs,I had access to porn tapes. And could make copies. Most of my 3 years at high school I was copying these movies and selling them. Cause I thought about it back then guys my age wanted 3 things,beer/pot/porn. And the first two if you got caught with them at school you got in big trouble. But get caught with porn they just took it from you and sent you home for a day. Many days I would show up to the high school with 4  or 5 vhs in the bback pack,labeled as Married with Children reruns,which it was actually stuff like One Night In  Bangkok or Sweat ont here. 

These high school guys,one of whom works at a video store,are making copies of the pornos and selling them. Then the video store guy loses the job. So now they gotta get a supply of porn to sell. 

And they come up with the idea of filming and selling porn. They call their production company and website After School Special and claim it is ran by the nerdy guys you knew in high school.

Of course to make porn they need women. So armed with bad fake IDs our trio go off to the nearest strip club. They find a lady interested iin making  the movies and our wacky hyjinx start.

The cast is odd,a mixture of people you will know then others that have solid careers in b movies. Tom Arnold is the father of the main guy. You got Horatio Sanz as the Ron Jeremy Stand in. Amy Smart as the pretty girl that is interested in our lead guy. 

Speaking of Horatio,he gets mad cause these After School Special guys are making too much money. And we get a crazed Horatio trying to track down and kill our leads.

Now yea this isn't nearly at the level of the comedis National Lampoon was putting out in the 70s and 80s. But it is way way better than shit like RoboDoc or that second Van Wilder movie.

As for the second title. Guessing since National Lampoon is a very US thing.So outside the US and maybe Canada,this movie is known as After School Special.

So if you want a halfway decent comedy,with a plot that by 2003 was becoming a thing of the past,give Barely Legal a watch.

National Lampoon's Barely Legal gets a C+