Happy Halloween!

Did you know that The Rocky Horror Picture Show had its world premiere in Ottawa? Truthiness!

There is nothing better you could do on tomorrow night on Halloween then attend an Absent Friends shadow-cast hosted screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Mayfair. I am about 99% sure that both the 7:00pm and 9:45pm shows will be sold out, and 100% sure that it will be a great time.

It's time again for one of the Mayfair Theatre's most favorite of traditions. The eighth annual Killer63 short horror film festival makes its annual return to our screen on the night before Halloween! This year we have a dozen offerings from Montreal, New York, L.A., and lands as far off as Argentina and Australia. We will also of course showcase a batch of locally produced work from Ottawa's own homegrown filmmaking talent. You'll see all sorts of frightful horror sub-genres...ghosts, zombies, werewolves, cannibals, demons, aliens and even clowns!

Killer63 screens Wednesday October 30th at 9:00pm at the Mayfair.

When I was at Fan Expo in Toronto a couple months back, there were dozens of people walking around with creepy animal masks...maybe even hundreds. That fearful happening happened in promotion of this movie.

The Mayfair Halloween festivities continue with You're Next, the 2011 indie horror from ABCs of Death, V/H/S and V/H/S/2 director Adam Wingard. As often happens with indie fare, it took a little while for this effort to make it's way to the big screen. The trailer seemed rather generic to me, but I've heard nothing but praise from some very reliable sources for this home invasion, guys-in-masks scare-fest. I've made it this far without having any of the surprises spoiler-ed. There have been some negative comments, but I always feel like complaining about plot or characters in these kinds of horror movies is like complaining about loops on a roller coaster or flashing lights and noise coming from a pinball machine. These things follow rules, and I'm looking forward to seeing You're Next to see what it does with those blood and guts cinematic traditions.

Rest up before trick or treating in a couple days with You're Next at the Mayfair, tonight and tomorrow (Monday October 28th and Tuesday October 29th) at 9:30pm.

For thousands of years man has enslaved the ape, now the tables are about to turn! The Zomkeys release weekend concludes tonight at the Mayfair Theatre as Mirror Comics presents an experiment in terror in the form of the award winning (a Special Jury Prize from the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival) murderous super-intelligent orangutan 1986 classic, Link!

Doors will open at 8:00pm, and the rare 35mm print will screen at 8:30pm. There will be copies of the hot off the presses Zomkeys available, along with other Mirror Comics offerings. There will also be limited edition prints and original comic book pages available for purchase! There will be time for comic book related mingling and such after the movie.

See you tonight at the Mayfair for all manner of monkey related chaos!

Off to The Comic Book Shoppe for the grand Zomkeys comic release! If you live in Ottawa, I hope to see you there. Fun filled evil rampaging monkey times will be had by one and all.

This is what a geek looks like when a dream comes true! Digital and Print-on-Demand copies are available right now...or if you are in Ottawa, drop by The Comic Book Shoppe on Saturday or The Mayfair Theatre on Sunday to grab a copy of Zomkeys.

Just what are these guys up to? I betcha it's no good. Find out when Mirror Comics releases Zomkeys this weekend!

Only a few more short days until Mirror Comics unleashes the Zomkeys onslaught upon us! Saturday October 26th at The Comic Book Shoppe and Sunday October 27th at The Mayfair Theatre! Brave the army of ferocious rampaging evil monkeys and get to the store and / or theatre this weekend!

The powers that be have clearly fired whoever did that horrible poster for The Avengers. It's no painted Drew Struzan masterpiece...but a good job none-the-less. I am looking forward to watching Cap and Black Widow fight some bad guys in 2014.

The World's End lived up to all expectations, and Edgar Wright's directorial track record of perfection remains intact. You will laugh, you will get choked up, you will see amazing fight scenes.

You've got two more Mayfair chances to see The World's End, Wed Oct 23 and Thurs Oct 24 at 9:00pm

Finally got around to watching this years Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror. It has an opening sequence directed by Guillermo Del Toro. See if you can catch the plethora of geeky references crammed into not even three minutes. It is incredible.

A rare lazy day of catching up on some teevee - Agents of SHIELD, New Girl, Bob's Burgers, and a binge of Parks & Recreation episodes. It for some reason totally wares me out taking in that much teevee in one day. Even though I didn't do anything, it felt like an accomplishment.

Hardly ever watch movies at home anymore, I watch everything at the Mayfair or the occasional multiplex visit for a free preview screening. On these days when I have a spare moment to do so, trying to catch up on non-theatrical movie watching too. Especially during the Halloween season, there are a ton of theme appropriate movies that even a movie geek of my stature hasn't gotten around to seeing just yet.

Tonight's Halloween themed offering was Burke and Hare, the latest telling of the 19th century Scottish murderous grave-robbers. It was a lot of morbid Hammer Films style fun. It stars a pair of greats in the title rolls, Simon Peg and Andy Serkis. It was finely directed by John Landis, who has directed such classics as The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London. And yet, this movie couldn't find wide North American distribution, and hence very few people got to see it. We weren't even allowed to screen it at the Mayfair. It was going to be my birthday movie! It's a shame that that happens to these kind of well worth seeing movies. I blame Michael Bay.

I'm hoping that the announcement of the Muppet teevee special featuring Lady Gaga, coming out next month, is a step in the right direction to getting a Muppet Show back on in a regular basis. Everyone be sure to watch, stream, download, buy this in as many ways possible on American Thanksgiving - November 28th.

I was pleasantly surprised that I really enjoyed Red 2. On the heels of his sleep-walk of a performance through the terrible fifth Die Hard film, I thought that maybe Bruce Willis had just given up. Luckily, under the direction of Dean Parisot (who also directed the hilarious sci-fi cult classic Galaxy Quest), this comic book sequel attains the rare achievement of being even better than the original. Red 2 is a real crowd-pleaser, and received lots of laughs and even a round of applause at its end from the crowd. Maybe there is still hop for Mr. Willis after all. At this point I would much rather see a Red 3 then a Die Hard 6.

Red 2 screens one last time at the Mayfair, tonight at 7:00pm

Never say never, especially in this geeky age of entertainment, but I can't imagine that we're ever going to get more teevee episodes or a movie set within the Buffy universe starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendon, and Alyson Hannigan and all the Scooby Gang. Hence, these Joss Whedon supervised comic book adventures are the next best thing. If you are a Buffy fan and haven't checked out these comics, you really should. They are conveniently available in collected editions at your local comic shop, book store, or library. Or you can download them from the Dark Hose Comics website. I am very excited for the upcoming Buffy Season 10.

It's nice having talented friends. It's even nicer when you can collaborate with them on comic books that you wrote. My pal Kelly Tindall was kind enough to offer up a pin-up for Zomkeys. The powers-that-be loved it just as much as I did, and now its become a variant cover. Which of course means that now you have an excellent excuse to buy two copies of the book.

Big screen promotion for the Mirror Comics publication Zomkeys. Even though my involvement with the Mayfair means that making such a thing happen isn't all that difficult, I still think it's pretty awesome.

Out of non-meat eating curiosity, I had Tofurky for the first time ever this Thanksgiving. It was overwhelmingly and shockingly not only eatable, but actually really good. From what I understand, the product has improved in leaps and bounds since its creation, but they have the recipe down pat now. Even some of the carnivores around the table gave it a try and were impressed. Good job crazy hippy food scientists.

Today I am thankful that I am able to share this full page preview from the upcoming book Zomkeys from Mirror Comics.

A preview of the guns a blazing action from the upcoming book Zomkeys from Mirror Comics!

A preview of some of the terrifying creatures drawn by Barb Felix that the characters will have to survive in the upcoming book Zomkeys from Mirror Comics.

It's not hard to top the train-wrecks that were X-Men: The Last Stand or X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The third X-Men film dropped the ball on what could have been a great trilogy. It didn't help matters that the scond X-Men film ended with such an amazing emotional cliffhanger, only to be followed up with a jumbled mess of a conclusion. Then, Hugh Jackman was left with a mess of a script and a movie overloaded with unneeded characters and subplots in his characters previous attempt at solo-ing in an adventure.

There was a glimmer of hope in Wolverine's cameo in X-Men: First Class (a movie that I was so so on). As a young Charles Xavier and Magneto attempt to recruit Logan, only to be answered with a growl of a curse word, one quickly remembers that Hugh Jackman is this character.

So, with word that Wolverine was being given another shot at starring in a film, there were mixed feelings from media and fans alike. I am happy to report that under the direction of James Mangold (Cop Land, Walk the Line, 3:10 TO Yuma) and more involvement from producer Hugh Jackman, Wolverine is back in true form.

The plot is slimmed down, the character is it's loner samurai forced into being a hero best, and there's a sense that everyone involved actually had a love and respect for the task at hand. It's not hard to top the last couple of X-Men efforts, but The Wolverine succeeds in bringing everyone's favourite mutant Canadian back in true form. I love Wolverine, and I think this movie got it right. And (somewhat of a spoiler alert) the after the credits epilogue got my very excited of what is to come...and maybe even a little geekily choked up.

The Wolverine screens at the Mayfair tonight and tomorrow at 7:00pm.

I don't think there is anything better then a movie directed by Edgar Wright, starring his friends Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Simon and Nick are an incredibly talented duo, and Edgar Wright is on an impressive run of directing a great teevee series (Spaced) followed up by four great movies.

Tonight at the Mayfair we kick off the Halloween season in style with Shaun of the Dead , everyone's favourite zom rom com, at 7:00pm. If that's not enough bang for your buck, we're making things a double-bill with Hot Fuzz , the guys follow-up action-packed cop epic, at 9:00PM.

After watching the first two thirds of the Cornetto Trilogy, you'll be all good to go for The World's End, which hits the Mayfair on October 21, 23 and 24.

If you don't love these movies, you probably don't love movies.

This acclaimed Chinese drama has cops & crooks, back-stabbing and double-crossing, some riveting gun-play, an insanely explosive and brutally action-packed climax, and one of the most memorable endings you'll see in a movie. You should see it before the inevitable Hollywood remake happens.

You're last chance to catch the Ottawa Premiere of Drug War at the Mayfair is tonight at 9:15pm.

Got my latest delivery of comic books this morning. It included 4 comics from Image, 3 from Dark Horse, 1 from IDW, and 1 from Valiant. Nothing from the big two of Marvel and DC. And in my library book reading I've stumbled into just reading Archie Comics most the time it seems. A very different comic book reading world then my childhood or high school days.

It's evolving and changing reading habits such as this that always have me point out to folks who don't read comics 'cause they don't like super-hero's, that there is plenty of diversity of selections out there. If you don't like cop shows, that doesn't mean that there's nothing for you to watch on teevee. If you don't like Fast & Furious movies, that doesn't mean that there aren't cinematic offerings out there for you to take in. You can easily find a comic to read in any genre that might be on interst to you at a comic shop, bookstore, library or online.

One of the comics that I just got was the off-kilter super-hero comedic adventures of the third issue of Quantum & Woody from Valiant. My friend Tom drew it, which means that you should go and buy it.

Luckily, the poor Photoshop quality of a theatrical poster does not necessarily reflect the quality of the film. The Way Way Back is the follow-up project from Jim Rash & Nat Faxon, after their Oscar winning screenplay success of The Descendants. The film also marks the pairs directorial debut.

This summer vacation coming of age tale features engrossing characters, tense drama, and numerous scenes of laugh out loud comedy. The amazing cast of comedians with dramatic chops features Allison Janney, Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet, an evil Steve Carell, and a Bill Murray channeling scene-stealing virtuoso performance from Sam Rockwell.

Plus, Jim Rash (who if you don't know and love from Community...you should) does the Snoopy dance.

You've got three more chances to catch The Way Way Back at the Mayfair, tonight at 6:30pm, Sunday October 6th at 6:00pm and it's final night on Monday the 7th at 7:00pm.

I will not play spoiler by revealing what is about to happen to this character in the upcoming Zomkeys comic that I wrote. I'm sure it all turns out fine for him.

Jeff Smith announced a new ongoing web-comic called Tuki. It's the runner up for the most excited upcoming comic release for me...right after Zomkeys.

I'm a vegan. I'm allowed to write about dead pandas in a comic book. It balances out.

That there is one pissed off Zomkey.