Tribute to those fallen in 2011 Part 3

Posted on 01/03/2012 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

Here in the third part of tributes to those departed I focus on the people who controlled the radios and soundtracks of our lives.  I have linked to music videos or tracks posted on Youtube and other links where possible.

MUSICIANS

Joseph Brooks (73- suicide by suffocation): Was he possibly evil? Sure…I mean the dude was accused of using his prestige as a musician and producer to rape over 13 girls. He was arrested and had a good case against him, but he was not yet convicted. According to a suicide note he says he killed himself cause his health sucked , so he took the easy way out and killed himself. The Gothamist has pretty good articles about the whole torrid ordeal that you can google. At the same time, artistically he was amazing and for alone creating the Oscar Award winning “Light Up My Life” he gets recognized in my obits.

Clarence Clemons (69- complications from stroke): I had the pleasure and privilege to hear this talented saxophonist, most famous for being a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, at a Book Expo America event a few years ago. He was there promoting his upcoming autobiography. He was also meant to be an opening act for Steven Tyler, who came out with Mark Hudson. Clarence was interviewed by Chuck Klosterman and he was an insightful, endearing, wonderful man who even indulged Chuck and the audience by playing some sax. I have great memories of that time which will stay with me forever. Here is video I shot of the event itself.

Dan Peek (60, unknown/unrevealed causes): A member of the excellent rock band America, Peek, he was with the group for during it’s heyday of 1970-1978, writing and recording for their first seven albums. His most notable songwriting would have to be considered “Lonely People”, while not the best song he wrote while in the group, it is the most famous one he wrote. Their other most famous songs “Ventura Highway” and “Sister Golden Hair” were written by Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Buckley respectively.

Carl Gardner (83- complications of congestive heart failure and vascular dementia): The leader of The Coasters, the band that did the original recordings of many of the Lieber/Stoller songs including “Yakety Yak”, “Searchin'” and “Charlie Brown”.

Andrew Gold (59- cause unknown): The writer of one of the greatest songs of all time “Thank You For Being a Friend”, he created something that has brought a smile to not only me, but millions. Could you imagine Golden Girls without its theme song, which was also a hit without the show? I don’t think you could and for that song alone I shall be eternally grateful to Andrew Gold.

Heavy D (44- pulmonary embolism): My Hip-Hop knowledge is sorely lacking, with only minimum knowledge. Enough to get by when it matters, but not enough to really state much on Heavy D. I never listened to his songs, but I know who he was and I would recognize him when he appeared in a TV show. I also know he was extremely successful as a businessman and music mogul at a certain point, definitely leaving his mark on the industry as a whole and that his death was a shock to many, especially being so young and supposedly as healthy as a man called Heavy D could be.

Gil-Scot Heron (62- undisclosed illness, probably attributed to HIV complications): Truly an amazing poet, writer and visionary, he also had a compelling voice and straight forward presentation. He was the movement, the machine propelling aginst the machine, the person not letting the man get him down, bu working with the man. All you have to do is read his works or listen to them and you’ll understand how great he was.  His best known work is of course “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” but alongside Brian Jackson he came up with amazing songs like “Hello Sunday, Hello Road” as well.

Don Kirshner (76- heart failure): Influential music producer and manager. As head of Aldon Music he has ties to many of the other people lost this year including Lieber, Gardner and Schneider. Lieber wrote the music that Don owned and made sure got out to the public, Bert approached Don to develop the early sound of The Monkees, which was mostly helped by Neil Diamond who Don sort of discovered. Monumentally he changed the music landscape and as the head of several labels was definitely a force in his time.

Jani Lane (47-alcohol poisoning): Undoubtedly Warrant was one of my favorite groups growing up. I was with them from day 1 with “Down Boys” and “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich” and I stayed with them and Jani all the way through “Indian Giver”. When Warrant gave up on Jani though, I gave up on Warrant. While the members of the band were all talented musicians, Jani Lane was the driving force. I would listen to songs like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” on repeat as a teen along with “April 2031”. His voice and lyrics really resonated with me in ways that I can barely understand and I wish there style of music was still prominent and had a place in everyone’s world, not just those of us who lived through it and keep it alive. Some of my other favorite songs are “I Saw Red” off of Cherry Pie, “Hollywood” off Dog Eat Dog, and what seems a perfect way to say a final goodbye to Jani, “Stronger Now” off of Ultraphobic.

Jerry Leiber (78- cardio-pulmonary failure,): One half of the duo of Leiber and Stoller, Jerry wrote the words to such songs as “Yakety Yak”, “Hound Dog”, “Stand By Me”, “On Broadway”, “Jailhouse Rock”, “Charlie Brown”, “Love Potion No. 9”and many more.

Gerard Smith (36- lung cancer): A superb musician, he was the bassist for rock band “TV on the Radio” and would also play keyboards, help compose and create visual conceptions, TVOTR happen to be one of my favorite groups of recent times and the announcement of Gerard’s lung cancer and subsequent passing was very hard to bear, especially for a man so young.

Lee Pockriss (87 – illness): I don’t have anything to say about this song writer, but he co-wrote “Itsy Bitsy Teene Weene Yellow Polkadot Bikini”, one of the silliest songs ever, that was yet super popular at its time and “Catch A Falling Star”, a hit for Perry Como.

Gerry Rafferty (63- liver failure): A successful singer, songwriter, musician, best known for Stealers Wheel “Stuck in the Middle With You” and his solo work “Baker Street” which features one of the greatest sax pieces ever.

Mike Starr (45- prescription drug overdose): Mike Starr unfortunately became more famous in the last year as the EX bassist of Alice in Chains appearing on Celebrity Rehab. On that show it was revealed that instead of dragging him out of drugs, Layne Staley’s accidental overdose pulled him further in, feeling guilt as he blames himself for Layne’s death. Before all that though he provided the bass line to AiC for their first three albums, Fallout, Sap and Dirt. It’s that pounding bass seen and heard in the songs and videos for “Man in a Box”, “Them Bones” and “Rooster” among others. I had hoped somehow Mike would end up in some kind Celeb Rehab supergroup with Binzer and find success and sobriety, but this would not be.

Taiji (45- complications of suicide by hanging): Bass player, song writer, musician of the awesome Japanese rock groups, X, X Japan, Taiji with Heaven’s and more. A very tragic end came to Taiji where after an airplane situation he was subdued. In Japan his crime is considered a capitol offense and he sadly chose to take his life than go to prison. Here’s a good selection of him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKEBMVQ4OAU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACArplq3EWo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbfqgDWuugY

Joe Yamanaka (64- lung cancer): A Japanese actor and musician who was the lead for Flower Travellin’ Band and a solo career. Internationally he is known for appearances in a few Takashi Miike films and as Bob Marley’s replacement as the lead of The Wailers, recording three albums with them. For the super cult, he also plays himself and had three songs in the martial arts flick Ulterior Motives, a vehicle for Karate Kid Part 3’s Thomas Ian Griffith to try and be up there with Seagal, Van Damme and Norris, it was the first production from Direct-To-Video Indie Auteur James Becket. In Japan, Joe had some serious success by the way.

Posted in Tributes to the Fallen | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Tribute to those fallen in 2011 Part 3

Tribute to those fallen in 2011 Part 2

Posted on 01/03/2012 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

Here is the second of my tributes to notable personalities who died in 2011, this time focusing on the art of warfare.  In the cases of Randy Savage and Larry Sweeney choosing just a few matches seemed unfair to their career and in terms of others I chose based on what I knew and could find online that I felt was quality enough to display.

PROFESSIONAL WRESTLERS/BOXERS/MMA

(It can be argued that fighting and wrestlers don’t belong each other, but they do call it sports entertainment if its not wrestling, so they fit together)

“Smokin” Joe Frazier (67- cancer): The brazen and boisterous boxer and co star of the three boat Fight of the Century, Part 2 and Thrilla in Manilla turned into a bitter, crazy man whose answering machine recording had him razzing on Mohammed Ali, brought that Ali is now fallen with Parkinson’s Syndrome and feeling as he was the cause of it. The documentary “Thrilla in Manilla” showed the world a very broken, torn, damanged, interesting individual who believed in himself, his skill and his convictions and a man who proved himself in the ring day in and day out. It’s almost shameful that he was the one who passed before Ali. I doubt Ali thinks of it that way. Ali made heavy gestures to seek a kinship and forgiveness from Joe for a long time, and Joe seemed to just ignore it up until 2009 where he finally forgave him and they mended things before the end. His boxing matches will always be something worthy to re-watch and he left a powerful legacy.

“Macho Man” Randy Savage (58- massive heart attack): Following this sentence is the wild obituary tribute I wrote for Savage on his passing at the time and it still stands. Savage was easily one of my favorite of all time. He brought everything I liked about wrestling into a secure package. Flamboyancy, technical athletics, insane rumblings, maniacal interviews and a never say die attitude. When everyone went right, he went left. I’d say his promos and raps tell his tale better than anything ever could. Sugar was sweet and so was honey. Macho Man went to the top, fell down, got back up and went to the top again. The mountain was there standing like a pillar of salt and he just tossed it behind his back like a rock, paper, scissors. You don’t see the steamroller coming till it’s ahead of you and you’ve been flattened out. An elbowdrop from the top is what it was all about. Yellow and Pink, Purple and green, red and black, colors bleed and so does blood. Hardcore before there was hardcore, he piledrove Ricky Morton on a table and it didn’t crack in half, it shattered. It wasn’t breakaway, but real furniture. Did he become a joke with his rap album or just cement his legend of insanity and unpredictability? I say the second, you can disagree. It doesn’t matter, because here’s to the Macho Man. Hoping he’s off in some afterlife back together with Miss Elizabeth after their break up almost 20 years ago. Or maybe he’s with Sherri. He has his pick, he’s the Macho Man!

Bison Smith (38-heart complications): A huge wrestler who never really got his chance to prove himself stateside. In both Cuba and Japan, he worked for major markets, including the Colon’s IWC and Misawa’s NOAH. He was as brutal, determined and talented as any hoss currently in WWE or TNA, even better. In this one notable American organization he worked, Ring Of Honor he was brought in as a beast, but quickly became just another dude via bad booking, storylines and wasted potential. He sadly had heart issues and passed away not long after a match with current WWE superstar Primo Colon in Cuba. Sadly and unfortunately he was involvd in the match that took Misawa’s life, although nothing he had done was the cause of it… that was all on Saito and Misawa being too rough. Bison wasn’t too rough, he just made it look that good.  This particular playlist of matches off of Youtube really shows off Bison really well.

Larry Sweeney (30- suicide by hanging): This indie wrestler and manager was a modern day Bobby Heenan, Jimmy Hart and Paul Dangerously all rolled into one. He was manic, frenetic and truly could raise a crowd. I had the pleasure of experiencing him at Ring of Honor in 2008 in Florida during a Wrestlemania weekend where my highlight was totally the two ROH shows, and also experiencing Universal Studios Florida for the first time in years. Sadly, Larry had many demons, demons he just could not defeat, demons so powerful they caused him to take his own life. The signs and warnings were always there and while he continually would seek help and friends offered a hand, I believe not breaking the bubble of getting further in his career weighed heavily on him. Heavier than it has on others in similar situations as his. He was a pretty formidable talent in the ring as he was in the mic, although only super indie and Chikara fans really got to see that side of him.  Please do yourself a favor and do a Youtube search on Sweeney, choosing just a few moments of his short but awesome career is impossible for me.

Little Tokyo (70- heart attack): Considered by many to be one of the greatest if not THE greatest midget wrestler of all time, Little Tokyo worked in the business for over 25 years and even reached the “pinnacle” of sports entertainment working at Wrestlemania where he teamed with his long time friend Lord Littlebrook and King Kong Bundy against Hillbilly Jim, Little Beaver and The Haiti Kid.  I recommend this tribute article by Slam! producer Greg Oliver.  The match I am choosing to link to is from Mid-South Wrestling in 1985, it features Little Tokyo teaming with Littlebrook and Jack Victory against “Iceman” King Parsons, “Cowboy” Lang and “Little Coco”, I chose it because Parsons is awesome.

Shawn Tompkins (37- heart attack): A highly influential and important fight trainer, while unsuccessful in MMA himself, he was a very successful kick boxer and helped coach future up & comers like Sam Stout and Mark Homnicheck, as well as some of greatest fighters ever including Victor Belfort and Wanderlai Silva.

Umanosuke Ueda (71- respiratory failure): Not familiar with his wrestling career as he worked Japan in the 70’s and 80’s a bit before my time with the countries wrestling, but he was in cult Japanese film, Burst City, which I loaned to my best friend and which he never watched and which he still has… “somewhere” as he says. I was able to find Ueda matches on Youtube though. I knew which one he was immediately when I saw the long blond hair. It was kind of his trademark to be a platinum blonde in Japan during a time when that wasn’t normal. Here he is a match against The Funks and another match featuring Stan Hansen, Dick Slater and his main opponent Genichiro Tenryu.

Doctor X (43, gunshot to the head): Never a big fan of CMLL, but this Mexican wrestlers death is even more messed up than one of my favorite Mexican wrestler’s Abismo Negro’s. Dude was a religious party and a fight somehow breaks out. He tries to calm the situation down and gets shot point blank in the head. I know so little of Dr. X as a wrestler/lucha rudo that I don’t even know what match to show you. I know he was working reguarly up until his murder, so if you look up Dr. X and CMLL or Perros Del Mal you’ll find something. Here’s one from August of 2011, where he was now Dr. Xtreme teaming with Peligro and Jigga Ek Boam against Tony Rivera, Zumbi and Black Fire in Perros Del Mal Rebellion.

Posted in Tributes to the Fallen | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Tribute to those fallen in 2011 Part 2

Tribute to those fallen in 2011 Part 1

Posted on 01/03/2012 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

I’ve always felt it necessary to look back on what people who had an impact on my pop-culture history and in some cases my real life. In the past I’ve written these obits with the most marginal of information, but I’ve always broken it down by categories. Frequently there would be people I’ve missed people or even complete categories as my heart and soul weakens as I organize this work. This is the first time this type of writing is showing up on Pop-Culture Spectrum. It will appear in approximately five parts and then a final collection post of linking for those who don’t go backward in blog reading. In each category it is broken down alphabetically and the age of the person and their cause is in parentheses after. Each category will have its own specialties. This first section will have some select images by the creators that show what they are known for or in the least what I appreciated them for.

COMICS and ARTISTS

Mick Anglo (95-natural causes):  Best known as the creator of Marvelman, Mick Anglo took an impossible situation and found a way to make it work creating the cement for building blocks that would not be turned into gold many years later by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. It is wonderful that starting in 2010, Marvel began to reprint the Mick Anglo books which even featured some new artwork from him, he truly got to have his comeuppance before leaving the mortal coil.

 

Eduardo Barreto (57-undisclosed health): Excellent comics and comic strip artist, he made a mark as an artist on Teen Titans in the 80’s after George Perez. He was a mainstay at DC, with runs on Superman and Batman titles, one shots, special, annuals. He was a go to magic genius. He was also a popular comic strip artist, drawing a strip I’m personally unfamiliar with, but supposedly was very popular. I just know during a time when I was a hardcore avid, read almost everything comic reader in the 80’s, Barreto was a hard to ignore artist.  Here’s a longer quality tribute.

Gene Colan (84-various health complications): An amazing illustrator, Gene Colan has at one time drawn almost every major character in Marvel and DC. His best known runs were on Daredevil, his adaptation and reinterpretation of Dracula with Marv Wolfman in Tomb Of. His work for DC on Batman, Wonder Woman and Teen Titans should not be missed, as well as Night Force, which is/was just pure awesomeness. Knowing Gene Colan was the artist on a book, at least guaranteed that visually the ride would be worth the admission price.

Bill Keane(89-congestive heart failure): Creator and artist one of the most successfully parodied strips ever, Family Circus, Bill Keane created a bit of Americana. I’m not sure when Jeff “Jeffy” Keane took over, but I don’t think it was that long ago. I can tell you the following. I had a best friend named “Not Me” growing up and while I didn’t have any siblings, Family Circus sure made me want to. I must say that unfortunately as much as I loved Family Circus, when I think of it I can only think of the amazing parodies done though. It was such a perfect, innocent, well drawn strip it was made for parody and that proved it’s high quality… only really good stuff creates funny parody.

F. Solano Lopez (83, cerebral hemorrhage): A notable comics career, he is best known to me for his erotic series Young Witches and Sexy Symphonies, which feature some of the best art I’ve ever seen, sexually or regular. A true talent who would’ve been awesome if he worked on something like X-Men or Titans.

 

 

 

Dwayne McDuffie (49, during emergency heart surgery): One of truly the greatest under appreciated comic book and animation writers. He equally was a genius editor and supervising producer. When Milestone was first announced and was just starting up I got to meet Dwayne, as well as Chris Cross, Denys Cowans and others. Dwayne was someone who contributed much to many things that I have loved including his first series for Marvel Comics, DAMAGE CONTROL and issues 33-35 of “Firestorm: The Nuclear Man” featuring Jason Rausch. On top of that he spearheaded much of Justice League Unlimited and was in charge of Ben 10: Alien Force and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, as well as writing and producing the DC Original Animations Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, All-Star Superman and Justice League: Doom. Doom would be Dwayne’s swan song, but also looks like it’ll the best DC Original yet. He had much more to give the world of comics and animation before his untimely demise though and I can only imagine what we are missing out on.

Jerry Robinson (89- natural causes): There is not enough evidence in any direction to say if Jerry Robinson is one of the most inventive creators ever or if he was just an able artist who worked alongside Bill Finger and Bob Kane in helping turned Batman from simple crime fighter and socialite bent on revenge Bruce Wayne into the very fleshed out interesting character with an incredible rogues gallery and supporting cast he has today, either way he stands as one of the most important figures in comics history.

Joe Simon (98- natural causes after short illness): One of the most important comics writers in history, he most famously co-created Captain America with Jack Kirby. With Kirby he also created the original Sandman, Newsboy Legion, the Archie Heroes The Shield and The Fly. Joe Simon also created two of the most incredible cult comic book characters in history in Brother Power, the Geek and PREZ. It is almost amazing to think a writer with such creativity and conception to develop characters and stories of this ilk will not be remembered as fondly as he deserves to be. He was a living, breathing institution and legend and and I hope in years, decades, centuries to come, he is recognized as such. Many luminaries based this year, some young, some old, but Joe Simon deserves to be up there with the best of them.

D.K. Sweet (77- Natural causes): Longtime cover illustrator for lots of notable sci-fiction/fantasy books. Most famously he was the cover artist for Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and Piers Anthony’s XANTH, but he also did covers for many a random sorcerer tale, pirate legend, dragon myth, space adventure, ufos in medieval times, random aliens and the like. He had a deft and beautiful painting skill which would easily attract you to the book long before even reading its description.

Tom Wilson, Sr (80- pneumonia related): The creator of the cartoon Ziggy, which since 1987 has actually been the work of his son Tom Wilson. During Senior’s 16 year contribution, he was also at American Greetings where he spearheaded the group collectives that created Strawberry Shortcake. I didn’t get to actually see much of Senior’s Ziggy work, but I’m a fan of Tom Wilson, Jr.

Posted in Tributes to the Fallen | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Tribute to those fallen in 2011 Part 1

Movies in 2012 I am tentatively excited by

Posted on 01/01/2012 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

There are lots of movies in 2012, some only in post production, some only with a minimum of information and others with full on trailers to give you a feel for the film, enough to at least state that you’re more than genuinely interested.  This list has some of all of that.  Links are provided to trailers or official websites where possible.  As release dates and availability is always subject to change till the last minute I’ll leave that information off.

Haywire: The latest from Steven Soderbergh, and the first feature for the sexiest woman who can legitimately kick people’s ass next to Zoe Bell.  Can Gina Carano actually act?  Well, that’s what’s left to be seen.  The last time Soderbergh took a chance on a total unknown commodity was porn star Sasha Grey, so… we shall see.  The film does have the fact that it stars Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas in acting bulk of the film, so if all Gina really needs to do is kick ass and look good, this movie should actually work, even if it’s been awhile since Steve shot one out of the park.

The Expendables 2: The first Expendables failed in many ways, story, character development, plot construction, even dialogue, all things we know Sly Stallone are good as a screenwriter, but somehow he missed the mark.  Maybe it was because he was hoping for a different crew and ended up with who he got, but didn’t rethink the film when he didn’t get a cast that didn’t need as much development as characters.  Despite all that it was an excellent  action flick and from the trailer alone it looks like story and character development was fore front in the mind for this sequel.  Also Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Damme are promoted for this one and Schwarzenegger and Willis’  roles seem way more pronounced, so the dream movie of tons of action stars at once is more realized

Baz Luhrman’s The Great Gatsby:  This one is actually still in production, but has been slapped with a Christmas 2012 release date.  With Leonardo DiCaprio as the titular character, Tobey Maguire as the actual main character Nick Caraway and a cast rounded out with Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher,Jason Callhan and Joel Edgerton it compelling enough.  Add in that  2 time academy award winning costume designer Catherine Miller is back along for the ride and Craig Pearce who was not there for Australia, but fleshed out Moulin Rogue and Romeo+Juilet is back as well, I have high hopes for this one without seeing a single roll of film.

Battleship: Sure Peter Berg made Hancock, but before that he made The Rundown, The Kingdom and Very Bad Things.  This huge blockbuster explosions galore, aliens and the armed forces menagerie was crafted by The Hoeber brothers who gave us the pretty okay adaptations of almost unadaptive comics Whiteout and RED.  There’s a good cast here and the trailer just has some top notch high energy and well, all that other stuff I mentioned.

Men in Black 3: A third MiB film does seem like it’s pushing it and here’s hoping that they have at least a throwaway line explaining where Jeebs, Frank the Pug, Laura and Agent K’s wife are.   Since Sonnenfield is still at helm as director I have to keep my hopes that everything will addressed for the long time fan without confusing the possible new fan coming in to a 15 year old franchise with a lot of history.  Speaking of franchises with History… that brings us to the next film.

American Reunion: It seems a little weird that the people who would write and direct the reunion film for the gang from American Pie, American Pie 2 and American Wedding would be the guys who brought us all 3 Harold and Kumar films, but since Herz produced and all the actors, none who are begging for work agreed to return to these characters, means the script had to actually be punchy.  The trailer itself shows a lot of quality updating and humor and sexual funny, instead of scatological.  There’s disgusting to be disgusting and then intelligent disgusting.  It exists and like previous American Pie films it looks like they succeeded.  They even brought back Chris Owens as Chuck Sherman… this is a serious reunion.  It’s the kind of film I’d love to see other films do even.  Ya know with the right script.

METH HEAD: It’s a first full length feature for the director and there’s no trailer, but between the plot, subject matter and the fact that it stars Lukas Haas and features Curtis Smith’s first ever movie score, I’m compelled.

On The Road: Like Baz Luhrman’s Gatsby I’m excited for this with baited breath.  It has a competent cast that should handle the intracies of story and plot lpnety well.  What makes me think this will actually be any good is that it’s from the team that that brought Che Guevera’s  The Motorcycle Diaries to life on the big screen.  If any film should/could turned out horribly it was that, but instead Sallies and Rivera knocked it out of the ball park.  They get the times, they get that language and I’m sure they can do the same thing for Kerouac that they did for Che.

Wanderlust: The latest from David Wain and Ken Marino,who gave us Wet Hot American Summer and Role Models, not to mention The State.  Additionally David Wain was in Stella and Wainy Days and Ken Marino is well… Ken Marino.  After the The State, as an actor he was in Dawson’s Creek,Veronica Mars, REAPER,  Party Down and Children’s Hospital, as well as Wainy Days.  This flick  romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd with an awesome back up ensemble including Ray Liotta, Kerri Kinney, Alan Alda, Joe LoTruglio, Lauren Ambrose and Malin Akerman.  It looks really funny and just one of those feel good flicks with some great weirdness you expect from Wain.  Supposedly Aniston also goes topless and it isn’t cropped like it was in The Ex.

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax:  I recently finally saw the  Horton Hears a Who and found it unbelievably charming and clever.  I was expecting to hate it and I ended up loving it.  The writers of that also wrote this and they also wrote Despicable Me.  On Lorax they team with one half of their Despicable Me partner in Chris Renaud who gets assistance from Despicable layout supervisor.  I assume Pierre Coffin started the pre-production on Despicable Me 2 while this happened.  The trailers definitely have me stoked and Danny Devito as The Lorax is pure excellence and luck.  I mean he could play him if it was live action even!

Sushi Girl: This is writer/director Kern Saxton’s first feature, but it has a a lot power behind it.  His long time producer and collaborator on shorts has been Destin of Millionaire Matchmaker fame.  Destin’s success on that show I am sure helped him get the backing for this crazy wild violent sexy heist flick with a cast that features Tony Todd, James Duvall, Mark Hammill, Noah Hathaway, Sonny Chiba, Jeff Fahey and Danny Trejo.  One look at the trailer and if you aren’t hooked then you just don’t like these kind of films.

Dorothy of Oz:  This upcoming animated feature is being touted as a supposed sequel to Wizard of Oz and is a musical starring Leah Michelle, Martin Short, Kelsey Grammar, Patrick Stewart, James Belishi, Oliver Platt, Hugh Dancy, Dan Ackroyd and Megan Hilty (who will soon be seen as a regular in NBC’s SMASH ).  The website has great interviews with the cast and crew that really make excited for this.  They’re basing it off a book by Roger S. Baum which is not cannon, allowing it to go places not before imagined, even if that pissed of Ozonians.  I don’t care as long as the animation is good, the story is fun and the music is well composed.

16-Love: I’ll be honest, this teenage romantic comedy based on Tennis isn’t really calling to me but god damn it if Lindsey Shaw and Lindsey Black  aren’t compelling to watch (read: super cute, infectious and totally hawt).

Playback: There’s no real trailer for this thriller, but there is an e-book trailer and the fact there is an original e-book developed as a prequel, along with the plot being built around Louis Le Prince makes it interesting.  The fact that it stars Christian Slater, Alessandra Torresani , Johnny Pacar, Mark Metcalf and Daryl Mitchell doesn’t hurt either.

Being Flynn: An adaptation of the Nick Flynn memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City starring Paul Dano as Nick and Robert DeNiro as his estranged homeless father Jonathan.  Written and directed by Paul Weitz,whose last adaptation work of this type was Nick Hornsby’s About A Boy, this looks like a strong drama with exciting acting telling the true story of one of America’s greatest poets.

Of course 2012 will also see The Dark Knight Rises, The Woman in Black, Warm Bodies, Underworld: Awakenings, The Hunger Games, Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, John Carter, Jack the Giant Killer, Gone, The Five Year Engagement, Rise of the Guardians and many more to look forward to tentatively.  Will I see any of these films?  Will I instead see movies not even listed here?

That’s for myself to answer when the time comes.  I still have plenty of 2011 to still catch up on and I won’t even get into that right now… it’s for a different entry/post/article.

Posted in TV and Movies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Keeping an eye on Wadjeteye

Posted on 11/03/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

I first discovered the writing and programing talent of Dave Gilbert through the AGS website and specifically the first games he tackled based on the Reality-On-The-Norm universe and then his first AGS game, the uncomplicated as it existed, but still essentially continued (by Blackwell) Bestowers of Eternity. I was happy to see him continue on as a writer with the AGS award winning Two of A Kind and his first major project The Shivah. This game was eventually expanded into a commercial game which allowed him to begin his independent studio Wadjeteye Games which has not only become home to his excellent and inspired Blackwell series, but as a publisher/distributor for games written by.

The latest game from Wadjeteye was The Blackwell Deception, a very well crafted chapter full of interesting dialogue, clever puzzles and exciting plot enhancement and direction which delivered on all fronts for fans of adventure games. While the pixel bit graphics are obviously a desired taste, a true adventure game fan and a person who appreciates great writing as well as the painstaking effort to create recognizable quality pixelart will absolutely love it.

At this years New York Comic Con I had the pleasure to sit down with Dave on a relaxing Sunday after much chaos and have a passionate and exciting 25 minute conversation about his history getting into programming and developing as such.

I found it quite interesting that prior to AGS and Reality-On-The-Norm he had minimal background in programming and had not been published professionally as a writer. It was 10 years ago after going to school for broadcasting and being laid off from a job at CNN, that over a weekend after the Twin Towers/September 11th situation happened he discovered AGS and the RON games and decided he could do this, as the software was fairly easy for one with some basic programming skill and RON already had an established shared universe and graphic assets.

Following that came the aforementioned Bestowers of Eternity, followed by a collaborative project Two Of A Kind, which won lots of merit and awards. Dave laments that the two other people he worked with no longer seem to be involved in the gaming world.

I asked Dave a lot about the writing process behind the entire Blackwell saga, curious to how much he had locked down in terms of where the story is going. He told me that he knows exactly his ending, but it isn’t exactly fully structured out with notes like a set screenplay or novel, there’s no “bible”… just what sits in his head, except some major structures are “written” down, like Joey’s origin. Which I find quite fascinating, cause that’s a lot to keep jumbled up there, but at the same time it allows him to work more freely and let random ideas pop in or change his focus on the sage as it exists. He had done a job where he was paid to defraud a phony psychic and he knew that at some point he wanted to use that as the plot for a game and he worked around that for a Blackwell game, building from the basic plot. The puzzles and writing come first, followed by dialogue and restructuring before the actual coding.

We proceeded talking about puzzle solutions, how people will solve them, how they get decided upon, it was really fascinating, and showed me how passionate Dave is about game creation and adventure games.

One of the final things we spoke of was Dave’s one professional game developed outside of Wadjeteye. Approached by games company Playfirst for a casual adventure game and after several pitches an Emerald City/OZ game was approved. Emerald City Confidential is one of the favorite games in my echelon of ownership. We discussed the conceptions of creating an OZ story and the rights behind creating something in public domain.

I suggested that Dave consider writing his games out as a book as well, we shall see where that goes but in the meantime, grab yourself all the Blackwell games, as well as Gemini Rue, the first published game by another developer from Wadjeteye and do yourself a favor and hunt down other games as well. The AGS scene is awesome and while Dave is one of the tops and deserves the attention, broaden yourself, it’s worth it.

Posted in Video Games | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Keeping an eye on Wadjeteye

Good Vibes on MTV, Interviews and Fun

Posted on 10/26/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

On Thursday, October 27th, after the major return of Beavis & Butthead on MTV at 10:00 PM EST, an even possibly cooler show begins in the timeslot right after. That show is GOOD VIBES, a supercharged funny jaunt about a new kid in town, with surfing, rock stars, sex, drugs, surfing, babes, weird teachers, friends, surfing, and fun. It stars the voices of Adam Brody, Josh Gad, Olivia Thrilby, Alan Tudyk, Jake Busey and Debi Mazar. The animation style is excellent and being produced by folks fairly new to the animation scene it has that excellent feel of new, different and yet awesome.

I was lucky to be involved in a Press Hour at New York Comic Con and to be involved in roundtable interviews with the various talent. Here are the Youtube videos of that.

David Gordon Green and Olivia Thrilby

Adam Brody & Josh Gad

Debi Mazar

You should also go and check out Debi Mazar’s Under The Tuscan Gun and her cooking channel show Extra Virgin as well.

Posted in New York Comic Con | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Good Vibes on MTV, Interviews and Fun

New York Comic Con 2011 Overview Part 4

Posted on 10/26/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

SUNDAY – DAY 4

I ended up waking up much later than planned and found myself rushing out of the house to at least catch my 12:15 Press session with J.Q. Quintel of “Regular Show” and Pendelton Ward of “Adventure Time” along with other writers and voice talent from the show including Tom Kenny.

From there I had about an hour or two to kill before a scheduled interview with Dave Gilbert of Wadjeteye Games. That interview was amazing and will be on this site sooner than later, probably this week. My mother’s hospital stay has delayed a lot of things.

In between I enjoyed many of the various booths I had missed on other days. I saw video games, indie publishers I hadn’t seen in years, had great conversations, saw amazing cosplay, took photos and all that jazz.

I stood on my feet as long as I could and even considered doing my traditional see what’s left over from booth destruction/left over, but the madhouse made me just feel best to get the hell out of Javits and not deal with people anymore.

I made plans to meet with my best friend Nick and figure out something fun to do for his birthday which we went and did.

Posted in New York Comic Con | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on New York Comic Con 2011 Overview Part 4

New York Comic Con 2011 Overview Part 3

Posted on 10/23/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

DAY 3-SATURDAY

I didn’t have anything NOT miss till 5 PM, so I used today as a chance to further walk the floor and try and accomplish what I could through exploring Artist’s Alley, the rest of the floor and more. Time permitting and length of lines determined a lot.

The place was an utter madhouse.

I had at one point considering trying to get into Speed Dating, but when I saw the extreme line gathered just an hour before, I decided if I’m going to find the love of my life or even just some good, funny, cute dates who likes geekdom and pop-culture it’ll be through everyday life.

It was nice to be able to see some old friends and make some new on this day though. I could be mishmashing days here, but it was great to see folks like Paigey Pumphrey, Laura Lee Gulledge, Reilly Brown, Kathleen David and Peter David, Jamar Nichols, Tim Piotrowski, Jennifer Hayden and many more who I am probably, if not most definitely forgetting but not on purpose.

I helped Peter and Kathleen recreate a scene from X-Men First Class, with an excellent Wolverine cosplayer and Kathleen’s amazing Xavier and Erik puppets.

I also was able to make it over to myplasticheart in The Cult Yard to say hello to my street art buddy Matt Siren and was able to see a few other good friends while there. So that helped the day immensely.

At a certain point my good friend Trish called me and we played phone tag for about a half hour if not more till I found her and fellow buds, the very talented MF Grimm and Infinit Evol. I basically spent the rest of the day with them taking photos of cosplay, chilling, and mainly relaxing.

At 5 PM I rushed over to the panels room to catch the “The Heart, She Holler” panel. This would be the only panel I would make all show, but knowing I had press hours after with the cast and being pretty blind to the show, I had to check it out.

They showed the entire first 12 minute episode which premieres November 6th on Adult Swim and it was one of the funniest things ever. The panel had excellence because of bards back and forth between moderator David Cross and show star Patton Oswalt, but as usual, fan questions were quite silly and didn’t help provide any insight, but they did provide guffaws. John Lee, one of the main dudes at PFFR really handled the fans in a wonderful sardonic style.

I headed over to the press room after wards and despite their obvious exhaustion it was great talking to Kristen Schall, Heather Lawless, John Lee, Patton Oswalt, et. al.

I had decided I wanted to make it to at least one after party. I actually wanted to go into Brooklyn to see Wrona, but I knew if I did that, I’d never make it into the show Sunday and I had a scheduled interview I looked forward to.

Instead I went down to a bar in Alphabet City where there was a street art “battle”, essentially some of the best street artists and toy customizers out there drawing on sheets of paper and then being judged for no actual prize.

Sketchbot, Shiro, Emi Boz, ChrisRWK, El Toro, Josh and more were involved and it was a great way to end my Saturday night, even if it ended way later than I planned.

Posted in New York Comic Con | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on New York Comic Con 2011 Overview Part 3

New York Comic Con 2011 Overview Part 2

Posted on 10/20/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

Quick clarification… as the Tom Morello concert was over before 8 PM I ducked into Jim Hanley’s and got to get an awesome drawing from Eddy Barrows as part of a signing and say hello to long time friend Ian Brill who just happened to be in the store.

DAY TWO-FRIDAY

The morning consisted of walking more of the very large convention floor. The show this year took over the entire building, so it was a lot to explore, especially in between panels and meetings and press sessions. I got some good snaps in my first two hours on Friday, but before long it was time to head down to my press session for the new adult animation show Good Vibes which will be premiering on MTV October 27, 2011 after the new Beavis & Butthead.

In this press room were Adam Brody, Josh Gad, Olivia Thirlby, the show’s writers/producers and one of my long time crushes, Debi Mazar. The panel was done round table with 4 different press folks to a table and the actors coming in separate sections. This is what I’ve been used to do for these press rooms, but would get different experiences this year during the con. I had a lot of fun talking to everyone but talking to Debi was the highlight. I was amazed that neither Adam or David Gordon Green knew anything about the O.C. Cartoon, The Atomic County though. That was interesting to discover they made it without their knowledge or if maybe Adam forgot it? Who knows…

The press room ran long so I only ended up having time to make my way through the show discovering more of the floor to go to the HUSBANDS autograph signing with Sean Hemeon, Brad “Cheeks” Bell and Jane Espenson. Alessandra was supposed to be there too, but by the time I was there she was running late and wasn’t there by the time I was done. Before the show I tweeted to Brad that I wanted to have a photo taken where Brad and Sean were giving me a double kiss on the cheek. They obliged me and even did it in character instead of their actual personalities, which is awesome! I actually showed HUSBANDS to my mom for the first time recently and she was laughing and wanted to know what channel it was on. So there we go, the show must go on TV!

From there it was back to a quick floor walk and desperately trying to reach my friend Alesha. She really wanted to meet Doc Hammer and being the kind of friend I am, I had to indulge her and I know Doc and Jackson would have no objection to meeting an absolutely amazingly gorgeous mentally, facially and physically woman like Alesha. After finally giving her instructions I got over to the press room and set up my camera as Doc and Jackson did a press room like they usually do press conferences on TV, the people sitting at a table in the front and pointing to journalists for their questions.

Alesha popped into the room looking like a goddess dressed up as Lana Kane from Archer and took a seat next to me. She even got to ask a couple questions and like I promised she got to some one and one with Jackson and Doc after wards. Even though I’ve known Chris McCulloch (Jackson Publick) for years I had never met Doc Hammer either so it was a pleasure.

Based on the time I decided I would just walk around with Alesha for awhile till my 6 PM session for Pizza Man press. We just explored the show and had a good time talking and walking. She got a ton of “Lana, Lana” “WHAT?” “Danger Zone” cat calls, a major change from last year when only one person recognized her. She still got one dude confusing her for Tomb Raider though. Only one though, she actually got like 20-30 cat calls as we walked around which was awesome.

I rushed over to my Pizza Man and this was run really differently than anything I’ve ever been to. It was a free for all and no one was moderating, so you grabbed who you could and when you exhausted what you could talk about or felt you had enough, you moved on to the next person. DDP ended up being super late, but I really did enjoy talking to Frankie Muniz and Corbin Bernsen before he showed up. Great interviews and soon on Youtube.

Once it was all done I had planned to go to the Pizza Man panel to see the full special trailer (luckily posted online), but with my mom in the hospital I rushed home to grab her a few things as she learned it would be a longer stay than ever hoped.

Despite this I had an excellent second day which I loved immensely.

Posted in New York Comic Con | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

New York Comic Con 2011 Overview Part 1

Posted on 10/18/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

To get a clearer idea of where my head was in a jumbled state and the factor of this being possibly a serious mishmosh, let’s set some background.

I’m working from memory mostly, with the notes of my schedule for reference. Twitter and Facebook were impossible to get onto while in Javits. I tried, and was successful sometimes, but mostly nope, so my notes are photos, videos, what I bought, sketches and my good ol noggin. Another thing to note is that on Wednesday my mom admitted herself back into the hospital. She was there throughout the weekend and is still there as I write this on Monday night. It is nothing serious and they are getting down to the bottom to various problems she has had lately, but it added a stress factor to what usually is my most exciting weekend I New York for the last six years.

DAY ONE- Thursday

I got to the convention center and down into the press room, registered and ready to hit the floor just around opening at 4. The first person I saw before even getting on the show floor was Steve Talkowski. He introduced me to Tim Jester and I got to see his GibbyGop figure while admiring the Tokidoki car as well.

For this first official preview night where I had no panels or scheduled press interviews or autograph sessions I wanted to hit up so it was all about hitting the floor, getting whatever goodies I could and seeing as much as I could before 7 PM hit and it was time for the Tom Morello concert.

I gave my hand at Dead Rising 2: Off The Record and I’m thinking I’ll want it eventually, although I’ve yet to beat Dead Rising 2. A lot of the game booths pertained to genres I didn’t care about or had no interest in, but at least Ubisoft was there with some Assassin’s Creed and their game for the TinTin film. I played that and found it really fun.

Over at the Rockstar booth they were showing off the 10th anniversary edition of GTA3 which is a port for mobile devices and tablets. I got the feel for it and with some final tweaking it’ll definitely find new life on iPhones/pad/droids/whatever.

They were also showing Max Payne 3 in an early build in a closed off room. I’m thinking I’m probably not even supposed to TALK about the game, but damn it, it’s not video or photos, it’s just some dteails on awesomeness. They showed us a sequence flashback with Max Payne looking like his old self in New York City. In this wild sequence we find out why and how he ended up in the games main part of Brazil. They showed us the awesome mechanics and amazing graphics that are still in process, which means they’ll get even better. They then showed us a section of the Brazil part where Max is running around protecting his girl. The bullet time and final kill shots are just mesmerizing and there’s even SPECIAL bullet time sequences to allow for balls out ballistic kick ass action and Max is way more brutal now. After a dive he can be on the ground and turn around while still shooting. While Batman: Arkham City, Uncharted 3, and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations are going to keep me busy, I look super forward to Payne right now after that preview they gave us.

Walking the floor exploring awarded me seeing various other industry friends and acquaintances such as Dean Haspiel, Chris Miskiewicz, Joe Infurnari, Michel Fiffe and Kat Roberts (aka The ACT-I-VATE Crew) and in the Cultyard, Jared Deal. I also got to see the FIRST comics booth and had a good conversation with the owner of the returning publishing venture. I was also happy to see Jarret Williams, writer/artist of Super Pro K.O. from ONI Press. He was the first of the very few sketches I was able to pull off at the convention this year.

Other things of note were the awesome Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City action figures on display the DC Booth, the Hasbro Announcement of bringing back Jem and The Holograms and while I found the new Rayman game way challenging it looks freaking awesome and that visual standpoint should help it overcome it’s pretty high difficulty in 2-D platforming.

I also really enjoyed meeting street artist/cartoonist Tito Na Roa. When he hit New York City as part of visiting for NYCC he hit up the legends rooftop in Manhattan. I am hoping he somehow finds/found time to hit up more walls before going home, but even if he didn’t at least he solds his books at NYCC and his project is so mesmerizing.

Before the show floor closed on Sunday I was staring at Mattel’s collection of WWE figures, because no matter what I can’t seem to quit this shit. No matter how bad it gets. I’m still not the kind of fan they want though and never will be. My TV’s aren’t counted in market share, I don;t buy PPVs, I don’t go to live events, I don’t buy the toys and I criticize them left and right whenever I can. So I’m an addict, but at least I take my methodrone.

I almost decided to not go to the Tom Morello concert, but I am very glad I did. It was a super enjoyable and fun concert to listen and watch. He did a full amazing set of Night

I fell like I’m leaving out essential information in that the evening before I was off buying an iPhone and while I was about to go home is when my mother called me to tell me she was going into the hospital. She didn’t even know if she was being admitted till much later, which is why I wasn’t worried on Thursday. She wasn’t put into a room into late Thursday.

After the concert I went home knowing that the next few days were going to be intense and brutal.

Posted in New York Comic Con | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on New York Comic Con 2011 Overview Part 1