Sunday, July 31, 2011

Infinite Playlist - Solace Lost at the Masquerade Special Edition


Last night I went to Atlanta for Music Mayhem at the Masquerade. 25 bands for $10 is never a bad deal, but when you take into account that Solace Lost was playing, it becomes the deal of the century. If you've followed the Infinite Playlist at all, you're already familiar with them as I constantly post anything they release, because I'm a good friend like that.


If you actually LISTEN to the stuff I post in the Infinite Playlist, you may also have noticed that they've changed the direction of their music slightly, and added a second vocalist. I've told them this, but in my opinion this is the best music they've done so far. Last night just made me even more sure, as despite the fact that I've seen them play several times over the past year or so, last night was like seeing them for the first time again. The set list contained all of the new stuff that they've released so far, a surprise cover of Sunglasses at Night which was badass, and even when they played some of the older stuff it somehow sounded even better than it used to.

So this Infinite Playlist post will once again be another Solace Lost edition, only this time I have a ton of pics to share as well, thanks to my girl Lissa who accompanied me once again into the big city. She's a good picture takerer, no? I'm also going to post the brand new demo they've released, Fading Regrets, for your listening pleasure. If you like what you hear, they've also put their entire first album up for free download, and I highly recommend you check that out here. Of course if you're too lazy to download it, you can always listen to it in the player over there on your right. Solace Lost is going to set the Earth on FI-YURR, get in on this now so you can be one of those music snobs who can say they were listening to them WAY before they got popular and took over music. I'm totally gonna do that.











Saturday, July 30, 2011

Wedding Cakes that Make Me Wish I Wasn't Anti-Marriage

Just a few badass cakes I came across while bored, had nothing else to post for today. What do you want to bet at least 90% of these were groom's cakes?








Friday, July 29, 2011

Friday Night Drive-In


Yet another one this week that you better watch while you can. This is hands down the best Stephen King adaptation ever done. Frank Darabont really knocked it out of the park with the Mist. The real standout here is the cast, which did a phenomenal job bringing all the characters from the short story to life, especially Marcia Gay Harden as Mrs. Carmody. There have been few characters in the history of cinema that I have loathed as  much a I did her. In fact, other than the giant creatures, what happens at around the 1 hour and 36 minute mark is my favorite part of the movie.

"There's something in the mist..."
This one clocks in at just about two hours long, and it is worth watching every single minute if you've never seen it, just be prepared to be here for the long haul. Once you start this masterpiece, you won't want to turn it off. Enjoy The Mist!


Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Infinite Playlist - Tastes Like Kevin Bacon


In honor of the release of their fantastic new album "Ruining it for Everybody" yesterday, today I'm adding my favorite song from iwrestledabearonce, "Tastes Like Kevin Bacon" from their first full length album "It's All Happeing". As a little bonus this time, I'm also going to post a live performance of this song that should make you extremely jealous of anybody who's had the good fortune of seeing them play live. I know I certainly am. In fact, when the tour for this new album makes it's way down to my neck of the woods, I do not plan on missing them again.


Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Captain America


The summer of the comic book movie keeps on rolling with the latest from Marvel, Captain America. Cap just so happens to be in my top 3 favorite Marvel characters, so I was really looking forward to his transition to the big screen. Say what you want about Chris Evans, but I like the guy. He's funny, he was great as both Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four and was absolutely perfect as Jensen in The Losers. So if nothing else, I felt like they had the right guy to play Steve Rogers. Joe Johnston directing also didn't worry me much, as I love The Rocketeer, it's still one of my favorite superhero films of all time, and I'm also a big fan of last year's Wolfman flick.


I'm going to assume if you're reading this blog then you already at least know a little about Captain America's origin. The First Avenger tells that story, and does it quite well. In fact, aside from a few minor liberties, it's almost directly out of the comics. As I expected, Chris Evans does a fantastic job as Steve Rogers, he is both funny when the movie calls for it, and stone cold serious when the situation dictates. As good as he is though, he still takes a back seat to Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull. Even with all the talent in the cast of this movie, Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Phillips, Sam Jackson reprising his Nick Fury role, Stanley Tucci as Doctor Erskine, Hugo Weaving absolutely steals the show, and is picture perfect in both likeness and personality as Herr Schmidt, the Red Skull. I was absolutely giddy anytime he was on the screen. One other standout was Toby Jones as Arnim Zola, I felt like he did a great job breathing life into one of my other favorite Cap villains.


It's a bit on the long side, clocking in at just over two hours, which may be a bit much for average movie goers. As stated, it's an origin movie, and not much more than that. For fans of the character, it's nothing short of fan service. Everything that we've been reading for years in Avengers and Cap's solo title is there. It's evident that Joe Johnston and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeeley obviously care a lot about the character, and did their homework when it came time to bring him to the big screen. I'm sure this will cause some eye rolling, especially coming from me, but Marvel has finally produced a Batman Begins level movie for one of it's characters. The entire time I was watching, I couldn't help but compare the two, and while I still feel like Batman Begins is a better movie, I wouldn't put Captain America far behind it.

If there were any of Marvel's signature cameo appearances of other characters, I didn't catch it. Tony "Iron Man" Stark's dad plays a pretty big role in Cap, and Stan Lee makes his best cameo EVER. But no other little winks for the comic fans in the audience. It is worth your time to stay after the credits though, it's one of the worst kept secrets of the summer, but just in case anybody reading doesn't know what's there, I won't spoil it. Suffice it to say it wasn't as cool as I'd hoped it would be, but it's way too early to pass judgment.


Captain America ends up being the kind of movie that I desperately wanted Green Lantern to be. It doesn't forcefully cram a lot of unnecessary story into it's runtime, instead focusing on what it sets out to do, tell the origin of the character. It still manages plenty of action and entertainment, but more importantly perfectly introduces Captain America to a movie audience that may never have picked up a comic book in their lives. Don't miss this movie.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Dead Hooker in a Trunk gets distribution courtesy of IFC Midnight!


I don't normally do two posts in one day, but this news is too big not to blog about. The Twisted Twins have finally announced information regarding the North American distribution of their fantastic debut Dead Hooker in a Trunk! It feels like we've been waiting forever, but finally we will all get a chance to see the soon to be cult classic.

Dead Hooker in a Trunk will be released on VOD beginning August 3rd, 2011. That's one week from this coming Wednesday. If you absolutely can't make it to a theater for a viewing, make sure you at least check it out on VOD. Those of us who are dying to see it on the big screen will be waiting just a little bit longer for dates and locations. Personally, I'm going to start tweeting, emailing, and basically bugging the shit out of the Plaza Theater in Atlanta to play it. I must, repeat MUST see the Hooker in a theater.


And who do we have to thank for bringing the Hooker to all of us? None other than IFC Midnight! How big is that? The same IFC that brought us I Sell the Dead, Doghouse, The Horde, and yes, even infamous The Human Centipede! Absolutely awesome news, I can't wait to get my copy on dvd or bluray. The IFC releases are among my favorites, and are almost always worthy of viewing. Dead Hooker in a Trunk is a perfect fit for them.

Big congrats to the Soska sisters, they're enormously talented, and at the same time extremely appreciative of their fans. Dead Hooker in a Trunk is only the beginning, and just look at the waves they've made in the horror community. Things will only be getting better from here, they're currently hard at work on their follow-up film American Mary starring the wonderful Katharine Isabelle, who you may have heard I'm also a fan of. Can't wait to see what kind of other twisted shit they have in store for us in the future.

Freddy Kombat!!!

What did I tell you about Comi Con week? This bit of news came from the gaming side of things, from our friends in the Mortal Kombat camp. It looks as if the one and only Freddy Krueger, of A Nightmare on Elm Street fame of course, will be added to the roster of playable characters via a DLC on August 9th. Looking at the trailer, it would appear that Mr. Krueger will prove to be a  more than formidable opponent for the residents of Outworld. You just know I have a couple minor issues though, and I do. First, he has claws on both hands, don't like it. Don't see why they couldn't have left one as a weapon hand and the other as strictly melee. Second,  it's "Jackie Earl Freddy" from the remake and not the real deal Robert Englund. This saddens me greatly, and even goes so far as to make this a little less cool. If it was a likeness issue with Robert, I would much rather they had just used a more generic looking Freddy.

Anyway, nitpicks are just that, nitpicks, and there's no way I'm not getting this dlc when it's released. I read that this would be the final content released for Mortal Kombat, but I can't help but hold out hope that since Freddy is being included, maybe a playable Jason Voorhees isn't totally out of the realm of possibility. Guess we'll just have to wait and see, and in the meantime, welcome Sub-Zero and the rest of the gang to prime time, bitch!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Amazing Spider-man Teaser

You can tell it's time for Comi Con, eh? Trailers and comic book news and announcements coming out of the woodwork. It's almost overwhelming this time of year. Hot on the heels of the Dark Knight Rises teaser I posted earlier this week, the first teaser for the Spider-man reboot hit the web, pun intended. Personally, I didn't see anything wrong with Sam Raimi's direction for the first three films, they seemed to fit the tone of the character perfectly.

This new one looks kind of darker in tone, and if you didn't know better at first, you'd think you had clicked a link for a new Dark Knight trailer instead. Guess Marvel is hoping for some Dark Knight-level success for the new Spidey. Only problem being , Spidey isn't a dark character. Yeah, he's been through some tough times before, but he's definitely no Batman. Eh, either way I'm sure I'll get some form of enjoyment from this movie, I dig Spider-man, especially his villains. Here's hoping for a real Green Goblin costume this time, and not some dorky green Power Ranger armor suit.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Arkham City collector's edition goodies


You can bet your ass I'll be picking up the collector's edition for Arkham City, the follow-up to Rocksteady's greatest superhero game of all time, Batman Arkham Asylum. The first game itself had some pretty cool swag, loved the true to scale batarang, but Arkham City's goodies put it to shame.

First up, and probably the nicest bonus, is a Kotobukiya statue. You might remember one of the nicest statues I currently display in my Batcave is their first vinyl Batman statue. It's beauty indeed knows no bounds. The Arkham City statue is done in black and white, and is going to look nice sitting on the shelf next to all of my other Batman Black and White series statues.


The second most important bonus is the addition of a Dark Knight Returns costume character skin. I'm not gonna lie, Rocksteady's Batman looks good, my only complaint is how tall the ears on the cowl are. I've always liked them a little shorter. The Dark Knight Returns costume is classic and iconic, and I will be playing the entire game with it equipped.


The rest of the package includes early access to a challenge map set in Penguin's Iceberg Lounge, a copy of the excellent Gotham Knight animated movie, four collectible cards, an art book, and what is possibly a soundtrack album. I wasn't a huge fan of the challenge maps the last time around, but free is free, and it might be cool to bust heads in the Iceberg. Being a collector of all things Batty, collectible cards and an art book are always welcome. I already own Gotham Knight, but it might be nice for the kids to have their own copy, so that works out well too. The "album featuring all new music from hit artists" is the one thing that I'm not particularly excited about. I'm not really a fan of what are considered to be "hit artists" in most cases, but who knows, maybe there will be some decent tunes on it.

All in all, not a bad lot of goodies for the extra $40. Truth be told, I would've paid that just for the statue alone. Arkham City looks like it's going to be every bit as good as Arkham Asylum was, and might even end up being better. October 18th can't get here fast enough.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Mister Bones' Friday Night Drive-In


Came across this while looking for movies to use in tonight's Drive-In post. I can only assume there's no way this is completely legal, so better watch it while you can before it gets taken down from Youtube.

"Tito! What are you doing?!"

I'm a big fan of the original Rec, then hated the American remake "Quarantine". Rec 2 yet again proved to be awesome, and I can only assume the forthcoming Quarantine 2 will suck royally. Maybe not, but I don't have high hopes for it. If you haven't seen Rec, it comes highly recommended from the Batcave, a must see for fans of the "infected" style of zombie movie, in the vein of 28 Days Later. If you haven't seen Rec 2, well it comes just as highly recommended , and you can watch it right here. Enjoy!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Dark Knight Rises teaser!

Hot on the heels of the poster comes the first teaser trailer for Dark Knight Rises! Is that Bane at the end?!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Cobra Punk


Cobra Commander's gone punk courtesy of artist Matt Parsons and Nowhere Bad! A must-own for the collection. COBRA!

Monday, July 18, 2011

Transformers Dark of the Moon


My love affair with the Transformers dates all the way back to the days of my misspent youth. When cartoons served no purpose other than to entice my brother and I to beg our parents to spend their hard earned money on tiny plastic cars, trucks, jets, and dinosaurs that also turned into robots. Sure the blueprints required to perform these transformations were often times far too complicated for our young minds to comprehend, thus leaving the toy is some sort of pseudo-car/robotic form. But as long as we had a new episode of the show to look forward to while getting ready for school the next morning, we never seemed to mind. 

Being that the toys and cartoon were such a big part of my childhood, you can imagine that I was pretty excited about the first Transformers movie, even though Michael Bay's name was attached to it. All in all, I ended up enjoying the first one a good bit. There were a few little things I didn't care for, but if nothing else it introduced Optimus Prime to a whole new generation, my son included, and for that I'm thankful. The sequel was a bit of a letdown, but I still didn't hate it as much as some other people I know *cough*mybrother*cough*. I just knew that the powers that be in Transformers hq were going to learn from those criticisms though, and deliver the goods with Dark of the Moon.


Once again, it's not perfect but I definitely think that Dark of the Moon makes strides toward getting the franchise back on the right track. Some of the problems with Revenge of the Fallen are still made, like introducing lots of new characters who don't get any introduction and only seem to serve to sell toys and take up some space in the background. This one even goes so far as to include a couple of Nascar Transformers, which sounds really lame, but I gotta admit they looked kinda cool. Still it's not like we even get to learn their names, so I'm guessing they are included solely to get redneck kids to run out and look for "Nascawr Rowbawts".  On the other hand though, some of the new characters shine, and even steal the movie a bit. I loved every second that Laserbeak had on screen, always loved him when I was a kid, and despite that fact that I was disappointed that he never transformed into a micro cassette and jumped into Soundwave's chest, he was very well done. Shockwave also impressed, dare I say he's even cooler here than he was in the cartoon, Bay definitely had him bringing the pain.


 There's forced humor, which I know we should expect from Michael Bay who seems to be something of a 12 year old simpleton trapped in the body of a grown man who is given millions upon millions of dollars to make movies. Personally though, I can do without it in my movie about giant robots kicking each other's giant metal asses and turning into jets and trucks and shit. At least it seemed to be dialed down a bit this time around. Wheelie was still in it, and he had a sidekick this time, but Mudflap and Skids were mercifully omitted. My biggest complaint though is that John Turturro rears his talentless an unnecessary head again. I seriously hate that guy, he does nothing but cheese up the proceedings with his ridiculous overacting. Thankfully Anthony Anderson is once again absent, as is Sam's ridiculously annoying roommate from Fallen. No Megan Fox this time either, but aside from all of her "running in slow motion" scenes, she never really bothered me all that much, and those scenes were hardly her fault.

What works in this movie though I felt like worked pretty well. The plot was a little hokey, with the whole moon landing being a secret mission to investigate a crashed space ship which contained a Transformer who had escaped from the war on Cybertron with a weapon that supposedly would've turned the tide for the Autobots. Russia and Sputnik are even involved. Again, it's hokey, but it's a Michael Bay movie, so aside from maybe a special effects nod, we aren't looking at Academy Award consideration anyway. The most important thing to have in a Transformers movie is hot and heavy robot on robot action, lots of explosions and robotic carnage, and in that regard Dark of the Moon delivers in spades. There are so many great action sequences, culminating in a final 30 minutes or so which more than makes up for all of Revenge of the Fallen. There were so many "holy shit" moments that I lost count. I should mention though, that despite the fact that it was a really badass scene, there was one thing that forced me to send the following text to my brother: "Michael Bay just crossed a fucking LINE". I won't spoil it here, but there were two major things that happened that I was REALLY upset about. Not that they were such terrible things in the context of the movie, just that the Transformers fanboy in me felt betrayed. Then again, during the big finale, Megatron did something that forced my inner fanboy to squeal out loud like a little girl. 


I didn't really see any point in going into a lot of detail on the plot in my little post here. Transformers people are going to go see this, and non-Transformers people aren't because they're stupid and watch shit like Harry Potter. You've all seen the trailers, and have probably heard/read plenty about it already. All I can say is that I urge anyone who liked the first, but didn't care for Revenge of the Fallen to not give up hope and check out Dark of the Moon. I wasn't disappointed in the least. It's a bit of a long ride, clocking in at over two and a half hours, but it's a fun one that's rarely boring. 

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Zombies Ate My Android

Who doesn't love the Android app store? I check it at least once a week to see what's new out there, particularly in the games section. I'm all about free games and wasting valuable time at work, after all. There are lots of great time wasters, both free and otherwise, and just about every gaming genre you can think of is represented to some degree or another. I'm not a huge handheld or mobile gamer, but free is free and I always have my phone with me, which beats the hell out of trying to fist a PSP or DS in my pockets. Sure the games aren't as advanced, but for gaming on the go, I prefer the pick up and play easiness of gaming on my Droid.

As with just about anything else, there are a few key words that I'll search the app store for, one of which is "zombie". There are somewhere around two million zombie games out there, most of which range from bad to absolute shit, but every now and then I run up on something fun. So I thought I would take a minute to highlight some of my favorite free zombie games in the Android marketplace.


If you ever owned a Dreamcast and had the keyboard peripheral, you may have already played a game titled "Typing of the Dead". It was basically House of the Dead, only instead of shooting enemies with a light gun, they all had letters or words above their heads and you had to type out before they could get close enough to you to do damage. Typing Zombie is exactly like that. You use your keyboard to type out letters or words that appear above the zombies' heads before they can get to you and your delicious brains. It may sound silly or lame, but believe me when the difficulty ramps up, you'll be typing like a madman, or woman, trying desperately to save yourself. Once they do overwhelm you, the game tells you how many kills you got and shows you the words-per-minute you typed. It's fun AND educational!


Zombieville is a cutesy side scroller, with a visual style similar to Alien Hominid, only a poor man's version. Controls and premise are as simple as can be, you move from left to right killing zombies as they crawl from the ground both in front of and behind you. You start off with a pistol and baseball bat, but earn money for each kill which you can use to upgrade to better weapons like a shotgun, machine guns or a katana. It can get a bit repetitive, but to help break up the monotony there are several different kids of zombies for you to dispose of, including "special" zombies with various abilities like faster walking speed, or more damage.


Angry Birds fans take note on this one, Stupid Zombies is the exact same thing as the worlwide bird flinging sensation, only cool. Instead of playing as a giant slingshot that launches birds at pompous, self-righteous pigs,  in Stupid Zombies you eliminate zombies as a shotgun wielding character with a striking resemblance to a certain S-Mart employee whom we all know and love. Essentially, you're faced with a handful of zombies and  to dispose of on each level, you have a limited amount of shotgun ammo and must deflect your shots around obstacles in order to kill them as efficiently as possible. This is the game that I spend the most time with, it's highly addictive. In the beginning it's fairly simple, but the difficulty ramps up as the stages become more elaborate and the ammunition count gets lower. Hail to the King, baby!

Again, these are just a few of the multitude of free fun available. I also have a few non-zombie related games, Dante's Inferno, Ninjump, Traffic Rush, and of course the aforementioned Angry Birds. I also play a ton of Words With Friends, as I'm a huge nerd. I'm always looking for people to play Words with, so if you throw your lettered tiles into the righ with me, challenge Mister Bones to a game. Also up for any suggestions if anybody has any, preferrably free but if the game is good enough I don't mind paying.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Troll Hunting in Atlanta

Thursday night I went out to the Plaza Theater again, only this time it wasn't for Hobos, this time it was personal. I had a score to settle with a nasty, rabies infested Ringlefinch and nothing was going to stop me from bringing him down. Luckily I had seasoned veteran Troll Hunter Lissa Lycan along with me, as the Ringlefinch put up quite a fight. Ultimately though, he proved to be no match for our combined Troll Hunting prowess and I came home with a brand new stone decoration for my yard. Shortly after our victory, the government crowned us the Troll Hunting Tag-Team Champions of the World, then totally denied the existence of trolls, and promptly ran us over with their vans. Good times....