I rarely venture out of the Mayfair for my movie watching, because I am thrifty and there is no better place to enjoy a movie than the Mayfair...I also tend to get rather snobby at the often sub-par multiplex cinematic experience. On occasion I'll get free passes to preview screenings though, and if I have a free night and I've seen the Mayfair offerings of the night, that is sometime enough to get me to venture behind competitor's borders.

I wish that I hadn't of gotten free passes to see the Red Dawn re-make, and that I wasn't movie geek curious enough to see anything and everything. I didn't think the movie would be all that good, it's source material isn't exactly perfection in itself, but it was just a train-wreck of horribleness. I give a pass to Chris Hemsworth and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, because I like them and they have proven their acting ability elsewhere, everyone else involved should be ashamed in themselves. The film was directed by Dan Bradley, a veteran stunt-guy and 2nd unit director, and this proves that skill and experience in one film profession does not necessarily equate success when jumping over to another job title.

It's a shame, because I have no ill-will towards the ongoing trend of remakes and adaptations and sequels in Hollywood, and this will become the new go-to example that Hollywood is out of ideas. This was one of the movies that sat on a shelf for a couple of years due to MGM's financial troubles, too bad it couldn't have stayed there.

I liked the original Expendables film. It was good over-the-hill action, fun seeing all of these icons and semi-icons on the screen together blowing stuff up, but it all left me neutral as the credits rolled.

Cut to a couple of years later, and due to the films financial success, the inevitable sequel was produced. Sylvester Stallone remained on-board the second time around as star and a screenwriter, but stepped away from the director chair with Simon West (Con Air) taking over the gig. Another point of interest was the promise of slightly bigger roles for first movie cameo appearance stars Bruce Willis and now non-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger. All of the Expendable mercenary soldiers return, along with the addition of upcoming action hero Scott Adkins, Thor's lil' brother Liam Hemsworth, and the addition of another senior statesman of action, Chuck Norris.

For me, the real excitement to see this movie is that Jean Claude Van Damme came to his senses and joined the cast. Evidently he was offered up a role in the original and for some reason he passed on the opportunity to be in what had a chance to be a big hit movie...I can't imagine that he had a more promising gig to keep him occupied instead.

The best part of all is that he's the bad guy, his characters name is Jean Vilain, and he has a fight with none other than Sylvester Stallone. I'm sure there is lots of other guns-a-blazing, explosion filled, bad guy killing action...but what could possibly be more awesome than Stallone vs Van Damme. I think we're in an age of never-say-never in cinema, and in my youth I never would have imagined such a battle ever actually being filmed and put into a movie. On top of that I think there's a scene where Willis and Schwarzenegger drive around in a tiny car shooting stuff.

We've been screening the trailer at the Mayfair, and it has me genuinely excited to see it. I don't know if Expendables 2 will be a good movie, but I can pretty much guarantee that it will be a kick-ass awesome movie. I will be cheering for JCVD to defeat those pesky Expendables.

The Expendables 2 - Tuesday November 20th at 9:00pm / Wednesday November 21st at 9:15pm at the Mayfair Theatre

One of the perks offered up in our ongoing fundraising efforts at the Mayfair on indiegogo is the opportunity to become a permanent part of the theatre via your name on a plaque on your favourite seat. The above image shows what seats have been snatched up so far (more have actually been purchased than that, just not reserved as of yet).

You know how when you get to the theatre looking forward to sitting in your favourite place, only to find that someone has beaten you to your chair? Well, if you are kind enough to donate to our cause in this manner, then now and forever you can point at said person and with plaque like proof prove that they are indeed in what is your seat. It's the best kind of charity, the manner that will leave you mad with movie theatre god-like seat possession powers!

Celeste & Jesse Forever was co-written and co-produced by Rashida Jones, which staggeringly enough means that she has some real talent in film production and writing on top of the awesomeness that she already had just from being actress Rashida Jones as is. The movie hit some heavier notes than I had expected, and at the same time had some of the funniest laugh out loud moments I've seen in a film all year. Although, even with her character as the one causing trouble and being a bit unsympathetic in certain moments of the film, you none-the-less have to make the unlikely to be realistic and mighty suspension of disbelief leap that someone would want to divorce Rashida Jones.

Celeste & Jesse Forever - last night to catch it on the big screen - Sunday November 18th at 6:30pm at the Mayfair Theatre

Tomorrow is not only a chance for you to charitably support our ongoing digital projection fundraiser, it's also a cinematic experience that you can partake in few other places on our planet than the Mayfair Theatre.

Schlock Around the Clock: The 24 Hour Trash Film Festival gets under-way at 1:00pm on Saturday November 17th, and the dissent into madness will conclude (as the title suggests) a whopping 24 hours later on early Sunday afternoon.

The marathon of 14 wonderfully horrendous motion picture masterpieces being presented in glorious VHS are: To Catch a Yeti, Cool As Ice, The Barbarians, TerrorVision, Deadly Prey, Film House Fever, The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of Yik Yak, 2020 Texas Gladiators, Enemy Gold, Eliminators, Skyscraper, Undefeatable, Heavenly Bodies and Hell Comes to Frogtown (trailers all available via the link above).

The word hero gets thrown around a lot, but if you attend, watch and survive this
from-a-seated-position marathon, you are truly a hero that will be worshipped and admired for the ages.

I haven't been a video game player for quite a number of years. It wasn't really a conscious decision, but my enjoyment at playing video games fell to the wayside thanks to there not being enough hours in the day. From childhood and then through about college years or so, I finished some 250 video games, and played who knows how many others on top of that. One of those games that I played a lot of but didn't finish, because it can't really be finished, was Tetris. I achieved 216 lines on Tetris on four separate occasions, clearly that's where my block-falling-line-making skills top out. I figure that I played Gameboy Tetris for roughy 87 bazzillion hours.

Even though I'm out of the video game world besides for semi-annual Mario Kart-ing or games in which I shoot my friends, I none the less remain fascinated with the video game art-form and culture. The King of Kong, a truth is stranger than fiction documentary about the insane world of competitive Donley Kong-ing is not only a great documentary, but is also without question one of my favourite movies of all time. I was also very impressed with the more recent Indie Game: The Movie, about the trials and tribulations geeks must undertake in the stressful and challenging world of independent video game production.

The latest doc to keep me enthralled about the world of video games is Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters. The movie explores arguably the most successful video game ever produced, and the assembly of the greatest players in the world for a line-making puzzle-piece 8-bit championship playoff. What's amazing about the power of a great documentary, is that no matter the subject matter, it has the power to keep a viewer in rapt attention and on the edge of their cliche seat. I haven't played Tetris in some 16 or 17 years, and yet the climax of the film had me holding my breath and mesmerized. Much like being hungry after seeing a good food themed movie, it also made me want to try my hand at Tetris again.

If you are a Tetris / video game fan, this movie is truly a must for you to see. If you are unfamiliar with or would like to be re-acquainted with the most addictive non-drug thing ever to be created by humans, I dare you to see this movie and I hope it doesn't de-rail and ruin your life too badly. You don't need friends and family and career and hobbies and hopes and dreams...making Tetris lines all day is much more rewarding.

Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters - Friday November the 16th at 9pm, Thursday the 22nd at 9:15pm at the Mayfair Theatre.

On my current stack of recently read comics is 2012's CBLDF Liberty Annual. CBLDF stands for the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund, a non-profit organization which prides itself in the protection of the comics art form and its community of retailers, creators, publishers, librarians and readers from the horrors of censorship.

Not only to proceeds from the comic books sales all go towards a good cause, as an added bonus the book is actually filled with some great work from an impressive collection of comic professional. The book features the writing and artistic talent of Andy Diggle, Robert Kirkman, James Robinson, Mike Allred, Terry Moore and Phil Jimenez to name but a few. Go drop down your $5 bucks, get a well worth the read comic, and as a karmic bonus do a good geeky deed all at the same time.

My talented pal Tom Folwer (who has drawn all kinds of nifty stuff ranging from Venom to Star Wars: Jango Fett to Hulk: Season One) was kind enough to donate his awesome rendition of Walter Sobchak to the Mayfair Theatre's Indiegogo portion of the fundraising campaign. I am happy to report that it has found a happy home, for the much appreciated to receive donation price tag of $300 bucks. Thank you Tom, thank you to our art purchaser, thank you John Goodman.

Tonight the live comedic genius event that is the Found Footage Festival returns to the Mayfair Theatre. For those not in the know, the mastermind's behind the phenomenon find the most bizarre things ever recorded to the VHS medium, and then tour their findings to an audience of appreciative geeks. I am a big fan of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and their style of audio commentary comedy is very akin to that. Their visit last year was the most hilarious thing that I saw at the theatre all year, and I'm looking very forward to seeing what insanity they have to offer and make fun of tonight.

Found Footage Festival Volume 6 - Monday November 12th at 9:30pm - Mayfair Theatre

Watched Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies last night, the middle chapter of 2012's presidential trilogy which began with Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer and will conclude with the more simply titled Lincoln. The movie comes from the copy-cat grindhouse geniuses at The Asylum, the makes of such other classic pieces of cinema the like of Snakes on a Train, Paranormal Entity and Transmorphers. Good luck to Mr Spielberg at keeping his Lincoln effort at the high cinematic quality that the first two movies have achieved. Also, why does Lincoln have two l's?

Now that I'm back on Canadian soil, I will jump back onto the ongoing 2012 Mayfair Theatre fundraising bandwagon. Currently under-way is our online Indiegogo campaign portion of the event. For a total of 30 days (until December 2nd at 11:59pm) you can donate to our cause, and depending on how much you are interested in donating, there are a number of fun and interesting rewards set up which you can get a hold of in trade. Perks include a candy embiggining card, getting your name put on a Mayfair seat for eternity, you can present a film, or get a platinum card that will get you into free movies for a year.

Thanks to everyone for their continued well wishes and kind donations that will be used to acquire us a new digital projector and help keep us open and screening movies for many more a year to come.

My girlfriend and I, and our new Dunny's, are headed back home (after pit-stop's in Denver and Chicago). I am going to again multi-task my travels with the reading of a whole bunch of comic books. See you back in Canada.

Bad news. It seems like my girlfriend has been food poisoned. Funny (not funny ha ha, but funny weird) news. The exact same thing happened when I travelled to NYC with a friend of mine last year. Exact same time-frame in relation to the vacation, exact same evil food eating scenario. So, as happened last time, despite protest on my part I was encouraged to get out of the hotel and do stuff as she lay in a food poisoned coma.

I went to the official Kid Robot store in Vegas, and today was the unleashing of another round of limited edition Dunny vinyl toys. I would have waited and bought them from Lost Marbles, my home-town purveyor of such things, but last time Kid Robot put out a ultra limited edition semi-secret round of toys akin to this batch I completely missed out. They were sold out before I even knew that they existed. Following that I got my learn on at the Natural History Museum and the Neon Museum. The Natural History Museum has actual live sharks and cool not-live dinosaurs, like this crazy looking deinonychus all covered in feathers. If indeed it ends up that a whole bunch of dinosaurs spent millions of years covered in feathers, Jurassic Park is suddenly a little bit less scary.

After checking in to make sure that the girlfriend was ok, I went and checked out some Ocean's 11 locations, and braved some impending tornado like winds for a final check off the Vegas list by getting some food at Pink's Hot Dogs. Another nice day in Vegas, though of course sad to have done it solo, accompanied only by the Nerdist podcasts. Lesson learned for one and all, if travelling with me, only eat exactly what I eat.

We trekked south along the strip to go and see the famous Welcome to Vegas sign. The landmark was much smaller than I expected, and there was an Elvis in attendance, seemingly kinda' just hanging around. What's amazing about Vegas is that for a city that's so famously big and loud and bright, if you look out on the horizon there is endless an endless desert of nothing. Down by the welcome sign, there's nothing much visible to the South, and if you look East, a lot of sun-baked sand.

We partook in lazing about in the Riviera pool, and later on did the slightly more exciting and maybe a bit more dangerous zip-lining over Fremont Street. For some reason I was zipping at an exceedingly high and seemingly non-stopping speed, and for a brief second I thought I might just fly right through the end of the line. Luckily the scientific principal and safety enforcements placed on the structure stood true. While walking along the actual Fremont Street we witnessed lots of giant Neon signs, girls dancing on bars, and a Superman chatting with a pair of Elvis (there's a lot of poorly costumed folks trying to trick you into taking a picture with them in trade for money in Vegas).

We ate dinner at an impressively giant buffet, then took in some musical Broadway culture with The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. It was very good, but I love the movie and portraying a role that I saw Dolly Parton portray first = big shoes to fill. I also missed her original songs from the production, which were done for the movie and aren't in the stage show.

The night was capped off with a visit to fake New York City, and a ride on their roller coaster. It provided a lovely view of the city at night, and simultaneously made me feel like I was about to die on numerous twists and turns in a short few minutes of time.

Also, while visiting Vegas, Obama was re-elected as President of the United States. I can confirm nor deny that I assisted his victory with a vote.

We found a great lil' vegan place called Red Velvet, hiding in a mall nearby to our hotel. I had a delicious wrap and salad and we contained ourselves to walking away with only one giant delicious dessert in tow.

We visited the local roller derby shop, the Viva Las Vegas Skate Company, because we are too late in the season to catch a bout and derby folks love acquiring derby shirts from foreign lands. We hit a bunch of Vegas landmarks and touristy spots like the exterior of the Bellagio where Clooney and the Ocean's 11 gang stood, and the flamingo's and ridiculously enormous coy fish at the Flamingo.

We also spotted some pretty great local flare like an amazing seeing eye dog valiently guiding his master through the insane streets of Vegas. Equally impressive, though much funnier, was a tough as nails bus employee seemingly whose job it is to make sure drunks don't die.

When in Vegas there are a number of fun yet cliché things to do while you visit, mayhaps at the top of that list is going to a burlesque show. We went to one from the talented ladies at X Burlesque, and I just might believe their claims that it is the best burlesque show on the planet. Yes, I fully admit that I enjoy mostly naked beautiful ladies as much as the next fella, but their dancing skills were truly astounding. It was a very impressive show.

Before the burlesque, we went for dinner at Planet Hollywood. A pretty touristy restaurant chain I know, but it's probably not too much of a surprise that I never get tired of looking at movie memorabilia. As you enter the restaurant, you are greeted by a trio wardrobe collections from Expendables 2, Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone and Jean Claude Van Damme (which is the jacket that I wanted to steal). Overhead there was an X-Wing, a Tie-Fighter and the Enterprise. My favourite thing about the place is how amazing pieces of motion picture history are displayed alongside left-over crap from garbage movies that no-one would ever care about preserving. For example: Princess Leia's gun from Empire Strikes Back, a pair of boxing gloves from Raging Bull, and the axe from The Shining...alongside a dress that Paris Hilton wore in some movie. Example 2: The ankle bustin' hammer from Misery, gold bars from Diamonds are Forever, and the frickin' Maltese Falcon!...alongside something Lindsay Lohan wore in a stripper movie.

Had a safe and uneventful flight to Vegas, with a brief lunch-time stop-over in Newark, spent most of the travels getting caught up on reading comics. We are staying at the Riviera, and because I am a giant geek, the first thing that I wanted to know was what films shot there. Ends up that it has a pretty historic track record as a film location, hosting films such as Diamonds are Forever, Casino, Austin Powers, and the original Ocean's Eleven.

All of the hotel staff and bus drivers and waiters are the utmost of professionals, have seemingly have a genuine sense of enjoying their job and workplace. Though my first instinct is that it is going to be a nice and worthwhile place to vacation, there is also easily spotted evidence that this place also crushes hopes and dreams via the whole gambling thing. There is also a sense of being transported back in time to an era when everyone smoked cigarettes. It's such a bizarre thing to see being done by dozens if not hundreds of people inside a building, you practically feel that you have stepped into a Twilight Zone of a plot twist.

On our first night in the city, we managed to fit in a very Vegas happening of dinner and a stand-up show. I wish I had written down the comedians names, they were both very funny. The show located in a cosy hotel located club featured a proud and loud Sarah Silverman-esque 40 year old woman, and a silver-haired veteran insult the audience Don Rickles type pro.

I was naive to the fact that along with all other forms of tie-ins and merchandising that cross-over to everything in our world, there are also pop-culture themed gambling machines. We played a Jaws game, and a very impressive Christopher Reeve Superman game featuring movie clips, audio and the rousing John Williams score. It was the perfect game for nerds and children alike, and we walked away with an impressive $10 profit.

Tomorrow I'm off for a lil' getaway to the wilds of Las Vegas, Nevada. Traditionally what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, but I will be sure to share all of my thrilling adventures with the blog-verse. If not thrilling adventures, I will at least do my bestest to regale in stories of watching burlesque and music stuff, eating buffet, seeing lots of drunk people and bright shiny lights and witnessing gamblers shattered hopes and dreams. I will also be there on election day, so I'll do my best to help out in that manner as well.

If this poster for the acclaimed Winnipeg produced, post-apocalyptic, pop-culture, no-budget (or $2,000...which is as close to no-budget as a production can get) masterpiece doesn't make you want to halt all other plans and run out of the house to see this movie, you may have to stop everything and re-evaluate everything about your life.

Manborg - Ottawa Premiere - One night only at the Mayfair Theatre - Saturday November 3rd at 11:15pm

Tomorrow I will join my derby family for a road trip across the border to Vermont, for the Rideau Valley Roller Girls Vixens team to battle the Grade A Fancy of the Green Mountain Derby Dames. If you happen to be in the Vermont area, specifically 105 Pearl Street in Essex Junction, do join us for what I'm sure will be a great night of derby action. As long as I don't get halted at the border for being confused with a criminal names Jamar (that happened on my last derby border crossing), I'll see yah there.

Join us at the Mayfair Theatre tonight and wrap up the Halloween season with Little Shop of Horrors, the greatest evil alien plant musical ever made in the history of motion pictures.

We've had a great month of October at the theatre, including sold out screenings of Shining, Exorcist and Rocky Horror Picture Show (thank you Mayfair patrons!), and Little Shop of Horrors is an excellent way to cap things off. This movie not only features the comedic talents of Rick Moranis, Bill Murray and Steve Martin, it's also directed by Yoda (or Frank Oz...but same thing). It's our very own day after Halloween scary movie kinda boxing day, filled with murder and Motown musical styling, tonight at 9:20pm.

It's a busy day of Halloween themed activity today. First I'm off to get a Doctor Who haircut to match my Doctor Who costume. My girlfriend has what you would call imagination and talent, hence she made herself a Dalek dress costume to dress-up in. I do not like dressing up in costumes, so when I do have to dress up I go for the easiest thing possible. So her choice of costume easily allowed for me to pair up to her and costume up as the 10th Doctor Who. The character dresses quite close to my usual attire anyhow, so it really wasn't that much of a stretch for my lazy costuming self.

Tonight we're going trick or treating with three of my fake nieces (real kids, just no blood relation). Wherein I will help to make sure that they safely partake in the receiving delicious candy from strangers, and then I will eat all the vegan friendly treats (I will eat all the gummi peaches and life savers!). After that it's out for a costumed night on the town to watch some Halloween themed burlesque. Somewhere in there I have to fit in my annual viewing of Charlie Brown and Thriller.

Then it's off to the pumpkin patch to await the arrival of the Great Pumpkin. I hope that your Halloween is equally action packed as mine is planned out to be. And that you get to steal much candy from children, what the holiday is truly all about.

Every other geek on the internet is talking about the exact same thing today, Disney has bought Lucasfilm and hence there are more Star Wars film on our horizon. I'm sure that you can go to countless other websites featuring folks of actual journalistic skill to learn about the importance of the event and facts and money matters and consequences.

When I read the headline "Disney Buys Lucasfilm For $4 Billion! STAR WARS EPISODE VII Scheduled For 2015 Release!" over on the exclamation point loving Ain't It Cool News, my first thought that it was some kind of April's Fools prank. That was genuinely the initial thought to pop up in my brain, I of course then realized that it was October 30th, a date not usually associated with online pranks.

Some folks seemed to think that I would be upset at the idea of Disney taking over the Lucasfilm and Star Wars reigns. That couldn't be further from the truth, yesterday I lived in a world with no new Star Wars movies to watch in my future, and now there will be at least one more trilogy produced. And they will be produced by Kathleen Kennedy, who has a long and successful resume working alongside none other than George Lucas' best friend Steven Spielberg.

I'm also far removed from the angry anonymous internet nerds who are happy that George has passed along the torch to allow other filmmakers to play in the Star Wars sandbox. I enjoyed the prequels just fine, anyone who thinks that they are the worst things ever made in motion picture history clearly haven't seen enough movies, especially say anything with giant robots as directed by Michael Bay. My controversial stance is that the original Star Wars films aren't as perfect as you think they are, and the prequels aren't as horrible as you think they are. They are all just fun sci-fi serial matinee calibre escapism, and if you take them too seriously or put them too high up on a pedestal, you are missing the point of the series. You also need to get out more if disliking a movie gets you that upset. I hated Batman and Robin, but I didn't devote my life to telling everyone how much I hated it. I hated and moved on. Star Trek V was not what one would call a great movie, but I'm not going to spend all my days hating William Shatner for directing it. I'm going to look on the bright side and remember that Star Trek VI came out after it and it was great.

There also seems to be much teasing over the concept that Star Wars will now be Disney-fied, and that that is a bad thing. I remind people that Muppets has treated very well since becoming part of the Disney family, as was Marvel, and they've maintained a great relationship with Pixar for ages.

There will be a new Star Wars movie in theatres in two and a half years or so, and that makes me a very excited geek indeed.

Grant Morrison's Action Comics #13 is another prime example of the powerful storytelling ability possible in mainstream super-hero comics when in the right hands. Excellent super-hero comics are few and far in-between, about the same odd's as excellent network television or Hollywood movies. Luckily, for the time being at least, Grant is hanging around the DC Universe; meaning we get some great Superman and Batman stories for the next few months at least.

Especially if you like dogs, Action Comics #13 will likely emotionally wreck you a little more than your average guys in spandex punching each other in face epic. If you don't like dogs, there is something wrong with you, and it probably means that you don't like comics or other things that bring joy to one's life either. Well, then maybe you don't deserve to read Action Comics #13! Go read a math text book or something.

The Mayfair countdown to Halloween continues with more frightfully awesome programming...

Leatherface takes claim on it's poster that it is "The Most Controversial Horror Film Ever". That's quite a heady statement to make, especially in a world in which various slasher, cannibal and revenge grindhouse movies exist. They wrote this on their poster because the sequel was the final horror film threatened with an X before the NC-17 rating was instigated.

This third film in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise comes from director Jeff Burr (whose filmography is strangely top-heavy with sequels: Stepfather II, Puppet Master 4, Pumpkinhead II, Puppetmaster 5). Writer David J Schow worked on the 1990's super-hero goth classic The Crow, but is strangely enough also horror sequel inclined with the likes of Nightmare on Elm Street 5, Critters 3 & Critters 4 on his resume.

The film stars geek genre veteran Ken Foree...go look at his imdb page, he's been in everything from Dawn of the Dead to X-Files to Devil's Rejects. Although I'm sure he'd rather you neglected this part of his resume, TCMIII also features future Oscar nominee, Lord of the Rings icon and David Cronenberg mainstay, Viggo Mortensen. And of course this cinematic treasure also features a really big scary guy with a chainsaw killing people.

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III - Monday October 29th - 9:30pm at the Mayfair

Tomorrow night marks the première of the seventh annual Killer63 short horror film festival at the Mayfair. Time does have a tendency to fly, and it blows my mind a bit that all of a sudden we're up to our seventh Killer63 event. I don't have the exact statistics on hand, but I bet that we've probably screened nearly 100 short films in that time. The one night mini-fest began with a 63 day time-frame to produce the short, and was all local Ottawa filmmakers. It has since dropped the 63 day rule, and now screens films from accross Canada and the States, international offerings, and of course we continue to screen local talent as well.

Tomorrow night we'll screen fourteen shorts in all, ranging from under a minute in length to 13 minutes. We'll have shorts on hand from Ottawa filmmakers of course, some from elsewhere in Canada, and one from Italy. One is Total Fury from Quebec (pictured above), it is a few years old, but we've never screened it and it is awesome (awesome in a hilariously offensive girl-power kinda way).

Killer63 year seven - Sunday October 28th at the Mayfair - One night only!

This weekend we have two matinees of one of my favourite movies of the year, Paranorman. The more I think about this movie the more I think that it's truly destined to become a Halloween cinematic classic. Besides for being a beautifully produced piece of animation filled with great characters and an impressive script, it also has cool monsters in it and some fun kid friendly scares. Also, in a rare twist when it comes to movies now-a-days, Paranorman is an actual original. It's not a remake, reimagining or reboot, it's not based on a book, comic, tv show, video game, toy line, board game or pre-existing movie. Shocking I know, but this is actually a brand new original piece of filmmaking.

Do yourself a Halloween themed favour and come out and watch Paranorman on October 26th or 27th at 1:30pm. Unless you don't live in Ottawa, then you should find some other means to watch it.

The insanity and madness that is the annual Halloween screenings of possibly the most successful cult movie of all time - The Rocky Horror Picture Show - is upon us yet again! Tomorrow night at 9:30pm and Midnight, Saturday October 27th at 9:15pm and Midnight and on Halloween at 7:00pm and 9:45pm.

As per usual, our Rocky Horror events are hosted by the amazing Absent Friends shadow cast, whom I will proclaim as the greatest shadow cast on the entire planet. Please, no rice or confetti; use bubbles! Yes...we know that rice and confetti are part of the tradition, but they are an incredible pain to clean up. Throw a bunch of rice and confetti around your living room...see how messy that is? Now multiply that by a couple hundred people doing that same thing. Not a pretty sight.

Tickets are $10 for members / $15 for non-members. These screenings have a history of selling out, so be sure to arrive early (or drop by and buy your tickets in advance), and don't be too shy to dress for the occasion!

Tomorrow night the Rideau Valley Roller Girls unveil their hot-off-the-presses 2013 calendar at Patty's Pub (1186 Bank Street) at 7:00pm. After that, the festivities move over to the Mayfair for a 9:00pm screening of east coast comedy troupe Picnic Face's big screen debut, Roller Town. Come out and see a genuinely hilarious new Canadian film, hang out with derby girls, and buy a calendar from 'em too. It's your chance to participate with a triple dose of Canadian content support at the Mayfair...and yes, as per usual with out RVRG events, there will indeed be pizza and beer for sale too. What more could you possibly want from a night out at the cinema!?

I don't want to alarm anybody, but mainstream Hollywood seems to have actually produced an awesome movie poster. If you look at the evidence put forward in such posters such as The Avenegers, X-Men: First Class, or the Transformers movies, to name a few from the countless many, I thought that maybe Hollywood had actually lost a dare and had to produce only terrible one-sheets. Almost everything made in the past decade or so seems to make use of junior high levels of skill at photoshop, and looks like it was produced in about 15 or 20 minutes by someone distracted with another chore. Good job whoever did the Iron Man 3 poster, it's not quite a Drew Struzan painting, but a very fine bit of effort none-the-less.

Watched the HBO film The Girl. It was ok, but I can't help but think it's just the Snakes on a Train version of a behind-the-scene's filmmaking biography, which will likely be told better in upcoming Hitchcock starring Anthony Hopkins (even though this one was about The Birds and the next one is about Psycho). Toby Jones plays Hitchcock in the tv movie, in the shadow of Anthony Hopkins portraying the icon just in time for Oscar season. Interesting since he played Truman Capote as well, in the shadow of Philip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar winning performance of the same bio-pic role.

The real stand out though is Sienna Miller in her portrayal of Tippi Hedren, up and coming model turned actress and Hitchcock's mental punching bag. I was only familiar with her work in the Alfie remake, and gaining love and admiration from geeks for if not the GI Joe movie, at least for her Baroness poster from the movie. She does a great job as the only person gutsy enough to stand up to the director's insanity, and her film within a film moments are even more impressive if you are familiar with The Birds and Marnie.

The Girl is alright, but if looking for a truly memorable movie about Hitchcock, you're likely fine to wait for the next version.

If you are looking for a movie to watch in honour of the Halloween season, you can't get much better than a comic book inspired anthology from Tom Savini, Stephen King and George A Romero. If you were too tired to stay up for the late late show of the 1980's horror classic a couple of nights ago, you can catch the encore presentation of Creepshow tonight at 8:30pm at the Mayfair. It just may indeed be the most fun you'll ever have being scared.

Today and tomorrow at the Mayfair we're having a poster sale, where-at you can get your hands on hundreds (mayhaps even thousands) of movie posters. And then you can purchase them for a mere $7 dollars and then bring them home and put them up on your very own walls! Complete madness! There's a wide range of posters available, including amongst other offerings, the fabulous Best Worst Movie poster as displayed here. Doors open at 12:30pm, be sure to get their in a punctual manner if you want to snatch up the really good stuff.

The Mayfair's 80th birthday / the DCP projector fundraiser event continues this weekend with the selection for the best of the 1940's - Casablanca.

Casablana is one of those movies that I can just watch over and over again and never get tired of, made even better when viewed on a big screen in an 80 year old single screen theatre. At seventy years old the movie is still dramatic, exciting, filled with incredible acting, and what many forget about the film, immensely funny.

Catch one of the greatest films ever made, and multitask a kind charitable deed towards the Mayfair whilst doing so, tomorrow night at 6:30pm and Sunday October 21st at 3:00pm.

An amazing thing about a well made feature documentary (or any story) is that even if the subject is completely out of your wheel-house, you can still be completely enthralled by the film. Not that I'm opposed at all, but ballet is pretty far out of my normal entertainment place of interest. None-the-less, I thoroughly enjoyed First Position. Whether the story is about a spelling bee or a cake baking competition or ballet, I find doc's have the ability to mesmerize and keep you on the edge of your seat (and other such complementary cliches) more than any form of sporting event. So, if you are a fan of the NHL and have an empty places in your soul missing due to a lack of hockey watching, maybe you could go for a dose of ballet.

First Position screens for three nights at the Mayfair - Friday October 19th at 7pm, Sunday 21st at 6:30pm and Monday 22nd at 7pm.

Re-watched Batman: Year One, this time with audio commentary accompanying the viewing. The latest DTV film (which means direct to video...which doesn't quite fit as a title for these things anymore) is yet another great cartoon and story from the Warner Bros animation division. Even in this golden age of comic books being adapted into film and television entertainment, I think that DC's animation output has put most everything else to shame. My only wish with the series is that they were released theatrically first, seeing a movie like Year One on the big screen would be a great sight to see for comic geeks and cinema goers alike. Best of all, amongst other reasons that they are worth watching, in the DC animation world Batman doesn't sound like cookie monster and Green Lantern is played by Nathan Fillion. Doesn't that world sound like a better place?

Late to the game on viewing these of course, but finally watched the last two movies based on the final novel in the Harry Potter series, The Deathly Hallows. I am not what you might call a super-fan of the series, I've only read the first book and it didn't entice me enough to continue along with the series. With a few exceptions I'm just not into the swords and sorcery genre most of the time, I could hardly get through the Lord of the Rings even. I have seen all of the Harry Potter movies, but that is just thanks to free passes, friends who had the DVD's, and Mayfair screenings. There are holes and bits of non-worshipfulness in every geeks basket of obsessions, and Harry Potter is just outside of my wheel-house of interest.

None-the-less, I think that all of the films are well crafted and filled with an impressive cache of actors and a talented behind the scenes crew who have cobbled together an impressive eight decent movies in a row that the fan base seemed to adore. My issue with the films is that they seem to be for the fans without an interest in shaping them to be enjoyed as equally by someone who has never read the book.

Every single movie in the series just feels like it's missing giant pieces of important story, and even characters. I know this as a fact actually, having seen Craig Ferguson rant about it on his show. I understand that some of the books were pretty enormous, but that's not excuse to have a script cobbled together that leaves a portion of the audience feeling like they've just watched a movie with whole scenes missing from it. The Harry Potter movies always seem like their sprinting to catch up with their 2.5 hour running time, and in doing so they have to leave giant portions of their story left out.

Maybe in retrospect they realize it might have been a better idea to split up more of their movies into two parts the way they did with their finale. I can't help but look at Scott Pilgrim vs the World as a film that handled this predicament of a source material with too many pages to fit into two hours much more successfully. The six Scott Pilgrim comic books when combined tally in somewhere around a whopping 1100 pages. Yet, Edgar Wright and company managed to whittle that page count to an excellent and completely followable 2 hour movie. To be fair, it tanked at the box office and Harry Potter did not...so in this case I might fall under the umbrella of annoyed guy uselessly screaming into a thunderstorm.

Plus, it's not like any of my critiques matter in the aftermath of a film franchise that its fans gushed over, was nominated for and won a stack of awards, and made over seven billion dollars worldwide in box office ticket sales alone. Those witchcraft loving nerds were quite content with what was dished out to them I guess.

After a couple of months of sitting ignored on my book rack, I finally got around to reading Tara McPherson's third collection of her art into book form, Bunny in the Moon. I guess it would be more fair to say looked at than read, since the book is more picture than word themed.

She might be my favourite modern pop-artist, I never get tired of looking at her mesmerizing rock and roll poster style images of mysterious mythical and sci-fi women and creepy cute animals.

I really want to get a Tara McPherson tattoo, just don't know where I might squeeze one in. I might have to settle for an expensive print to put up on the wall.

I love Pixar. Have ever since I was a lil kid and saw a cartoon that they produced starring a couple lamps. Now remember that this was long before computer animation was commonplace and familiar to one and all, so at first I was genuinely confused for a moment and thought that it was stop-motion or some kind of lamp puppetry.

The animation company had an incredible run of films that were the impossible to achieve impressive combo of financially successful, critically acclaimed, award winning and well liked. Most movies are lucky to achieve one or two of those factors, but to achieve all four is a staggering cinematic accomplishment.

Then came Cars. Which I did not like. I didn't hate it, but something felt off. It got mixed reviews, still made a ton of money and won some awards. It was followed up by three much more impressive works in Ratatouille, Wall-E and Up...so I forgave Pixar and moved on. Cars 2 was another matter. It was the first Pixar film that truly felt like it was just done for the merchandising revenue. It made me sad.

Evidently it also made a lot of people at Pixar sad too, and the hundreds of millions of dollars that the film made didn't ease the crushed morale that they had taken a major misstep off of their usual high quality path. The result of the failure of Cars 2 may be the rousing success of Brave. It's a beautifully crafted fairy tale, with all elements of technology and storytelling amazingly meshing together the way a Pixar movie should. It also happens to feature a central princess character unlike any seen before in animation, one that not only leads the adventure, but one that does not pine after or need a prince on her arm to win the day. I have always put Pixar up on a pedestal above their computer animation competition, and Brave puts them back up in that rightful place.

I got to watch Brave this-afternoon in a packed with kids Mayfair Theatre on a gloomy, rainy afternoon and it was a perfect movie watching time. We even had a bow and arrow set to give away thanks to Mrs Tiggy Winkles, which I hope doesn't get the prize winning kid into too much trouble. It appropriately enough went to a lovely little girl who correctly answered the Pixar themed trivia question.

We have the film for two more nights at the Mayfair before it's hauled off and locked away in the mythical and movie fan dreaded Disney vaults forever. Or at least locked away until it's re-released in 4D bow-o-vision in ten years.

Brave - Wednesday October 17th and Thurs October 18th at 7:00pm.

It is Auntie Loo's Treats third birthday party today. One of the things that puts Ottawa on the map and makes it a great place to live are amazing indie businesses like this one. If you haven't experienced the cupcakes or nanaimo bars or whoopie pies or anything else made there, do yourself a favour and go. Today there will be the extra fun bonus of numerous special events: my friends from Rideau Valley Roller Girls will be on hand, raffles, bbq, free stuff, and of course various amazing addictive baked delicacies.

The last episode of Doctor Who before the break leading up to the annual Christmas episode was of course another piece of Brit science fiction television genius. As often happens when I watch Doctor Who, it was an emotional roller coaster of a viewing experience that left me in tears. Getting choked up is not a horribly rare happening whilst I watch the show, which is a compliment of course at how emotionally attached to the series I've become.

The following contains spoilers about The Angels Take Manhattan, but I can't imagine that anyone reading this blog is not up to date on Doctor Who. I'm sure that you, like me, put life on hold and drop everything as soon as a new episode of the series becomes available to watch. If your priories are messed up and you have not watched it yet, and for some reason are still reading this, do feel free to go away now.

Doctor Who is never afraid to switch things up, hence there being 11 different actors playing the same character in the past 50 years, and this latest episode marked the finale for a couple of beloved characters. I took the ending of the episode as bitter-sweet, a good-bye to Amy and Rory, but at least they get to live together happily ever after in NYC. Unbeknownst to me, not everyone took the ending as I did. Evidently most thought that it was a tragic ending the left Amy and Rory stuck living in a hotel room captured by the evil alien statue monsters for the rest of their days.

I think it was an interesting pop-culture experiment in what kind of person you are: glass half empty or glass half full...positive or negative. Well, today the BBC posted an addendum to the episode which sheds a bit more light on what happened to Amy and Rory. It's from the actual BBC, has Rory narration, hence I'm counting it as canon. And most importantly, it proves that I was right in my hopefulness and everyone else was wrong in their negativity. Please enjoy the attached video, and yes, it made me cry.

Bubba Ho-Tep celebrates it's 10th anniversary this year, which makes me feel old. If Bubba Ho-Tep is a decade old that means that Army of Darkness is even older than that, and I remember going to see the one in the theatre when it came out as well.

A movie from Don Coscarelli (director of other legendary genre films such as the quartet of Phantasm films) and Joe R Lansdale (an amazing award winning writer of a diverse batch of books, comics and scripts) is promising with those two factors alone before knowing anything about the plot or who's in it. If told that it's about two old guys in a retirement home who may or may not be Elvis and JFK and their battle with a Mummy who's stealing elderly souls, that makes the prospect of the film being great even more likely. If then told that B-movie King Bruce Campbell is playing Elvis and that legendary acclaimed actor Ossie Davis is playing JFK, well...pretty sure that there's no way that this movie can't be anything but awesome.

And the movie was awesome indeed. I fully admit that I'm a bit biased, like many a geek I grew up worshipping everything and anything that Bruce Campbell did. Bubba Ho-Tep is something more that your average low-budget monster movie though. It's not the kind of trash that should be relegated to cheap DVD bins of middle of the night cable tv. The movie has a great smart script, a couple of brilliant performances, and besides for all the humour and scare, it also has a lot of heart & soul.

Kick off the Halloween movie watching season and help us celebrate the 10th anniversary of this now cult-classic film with us at the Mayfair:

Bubba Ho-Tep - Friday October 12th - 11:30pm - One night only!

The plot of Iron Sky involves a group of bumbling space Nazi's not familiar with the state of the Earth in the near future of 2018, and the massive invasion they undertake after having lived on the moon since World War II. If you look at the posters, or have read up on the film and know that it had a budget of under $10 million, you might easily imagine up a pre-conceived notion of what kind of movie that this is. You would be right if you were thinking that this was low budget indie comedic science fiction. And that usually movies with those factors mixed in together aren't much better than horrible Snakes on a Train calibre knock off's that you find in the discount bins.

I thought that the movie would fall under the classification of so bad that it is good. Here was the surprising turn of events though, the movie isn't so bad that it's good... it's just plain old fashioned good. The film is still a curious beast though. It's not quite the serious / comedic take on a genre the style of something like Shaun of the Dead, but it also isn't a straight up sci-fi spoof the way Spaceballs was. It falls somewhere in the middle, there's gratuitous moments of our central hot Nazi woman losing her clothes, but there is also some very smart political jabs.

It also doesn't look like a movie that was made for under $10 million bucks. Yes, I hate thinking of $10 million dollars as "only"...but considering romantic comedies are made for five times that, it's quite impressive. The production design and imaginative special effects make the film look like a much more expensive undertaking.

If you enjoy B movies or sci-fi or a good laugh at the expense of those pesky Nazi's, do come out and see this impressive lil ambitious and weird movie at the Mayfair:

Iron Sky - Wednesday October 10th and Thursday the 11th at 9:15pm

A year in and the special event to celebrate the anniversary of re-booting the universe from DC Comics is a batch of Zero issues to cover their whole line of books.

For those not in the geeky know, a zero issue serves as a (theoretically) stand-alone story that tells the origin of a comic book character.

The biggest revelation from the event, the question on everyone's mind that has now been answered...yes, Robin has been ret-conned into a costume that has always been accompanied by pants! Considering the decades of teasing, bad press and criticism that the character has taken for his wardrobe choice, this is a long over-due update. Especially when one takes into account that Gotham City is much too cold of a city to not be wearing pants in in the fall and winter months, this is a welcome continuity change indeed. I applaud the decision for Robin to have a slightly more logical choice in attire for a vigilante crime-fighter...but I still think that Superman looks stupid without the red underwear/outerwear.

I am ever so thankful that my thanksgiving was just as awesome as this DC Comics cover to JSA #54. Well, it wasn't just like that cover...there were less super-hero's at my mum's house and I ate no turkey. Otherwise, it was just as lovely though. And as per holiday tradition dictates, I am so full of food that I think I may never have to consume food ever again. I hope your day was as equally filled with friends, family and overwhelming amounts of gluttony.

Spent the day with frequent collaborator and talented editor Jeremy Kennedy getting all the video finalized and in order that will play behind The Reverb Syndicate for the show at the Mayfair. Lots of weird, awesome, bizarre, cool stuff will be playing behind the boys on the big screen as they rock and roll.

The band is donating their time and talent for this extra special Digital Projector fundraiser event, tickets are regular Mayfair admission price of $6 for members / $10 for non-members. And yes, the event is indeed licensed for alcohol. Hope to see you all there for what will be an excellent and memorable night.

The Reverb Syndicate presents Mondo Mayfair - Saturday October 13th - Doors at 10:30pm

Shockingly enough, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a terrible movie. I wouldn't go so far as to say something like that it's so bad it makes the original Ghost Rider film look good. Both the original and sequel demonic comic book based motion pictures are just terrible.

You wouldn't know this based on any cinematic evidence in the last six or seven years, but once upon a time Nic Cage was a respected and acclaimed actor. Every actor has bad choices or films that didn't quite come together on their filmography, but Nic Cage has been on an impressively terrible marathon of late. If you start with National Treasure in 2004, which to be fair was a giant financial success, and look at his tack record from there it's amazing what he's accomplished in the quality of his movies.

Nic Cage has managed to star in a body of work that includes Wicker Man, Next, National Treasure 2, Bangkok Dangerous, Knowing, G-Force, Season of the Witch, Drive Angry, and Trespass...and that's just since 2006. Not only are they all bad movies, most of them didn't make any money either. And yet Nice Cage bravely soldiers on to the next awful script and the next pay-cheque.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance was directed by the hack duo that go by the combined surname moniker of Neveldine & Taylor. They are a lot like Nic Cage in their directorial track-record, except that they have directed four movies, all of them pretty horrendous: a pair of Crank films, Gamer and this one. There is some hope that after a fourth film of equal merit, that maybe that they would just give up and move on to a different career that they might be a bit better at. I have a feeling that they will be back soon with another train-wreck. The funny thing is that Ghost Rider isn't exactly high-brow, sophisticated, complicated source material. It's a 1970's comic book about a stunt man on a motorbike who becomes a demon with a flaming skull who fights bad guys. Yet they still screw up something that awesome! Shameful.

Good news for me is that one of my best friend recently moved back to town. Bad news for me is that he is a friend with the same habit of watching movies that are knowingly awful. Then we enable each other, even though we know the pain that will follow, and go out of our way to watch bad movies. It is a horrible addiction. That means even though I know better, I will likely be back sooner or later with my thoughts on such high quality motion pictures as Battleship, Cool As Ice or Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies.

Admittedly, although I do genuinely enjoy all forms of cinema, my tastes do lean towards genres featuring super-hero's and zombies and spaceships. Even though complex special effects, dangerous exciting stunts, beautiful cinematography of epic surroundings, and an unforgettable orchestral score can all puzzle-piece together to help make a great motion picture, sometimes you don't need any of that. Sometimes the simplicity of sticking three impressively skilled actors in a room together is all of the movie magic that you need.

Hope Springs, from the Oscar winning director of The Devil Wears Prada, is nothing ground-breaking in terms of a cinematic history. There are no breakthroughs in technology used in the films production, I'm pretty sure that none of the actors had to research their roles in any form of method style, and it's unlikely that any-one had any Christian Bale calibre nervous breakdowns on set. Hope Springs is a nice, calm, memorable little character piece about a pair of characters who have been together for over three decades who visit a marriage councillor.

The films simplicity does not equate to it being unimpressive or unenjoyable by any means, just the opposite in fact. There are numerous moments between Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones that easily prove that they are deserved in praise of being two of the best actors on the planet. Steve Carrel's supporting role as the marriage councillor proves that unlike other comedian turned diverse actor's out there, he can actually adapt into different roles. He never breaks character, attempts to get a laugh, and never lets Steve Carrel peek through the character. Carell's skillful turn here again proves that he has some real diverse acting chops, the same can't be said for the likes others who attempt the same back-n-fourth career like a Jim Carrey.

Hope Spring's screens tonight at 7pm at the Mayfair, with follow-up screenings on the weekend and Tuesday, ending on Thursday the 11th. Even though there are no millionaires in flying robot armour or climactic battles against monsters or amazing spellbinding computer animation, it is shockingly enough none the less a very impressive motion picture.

There seems to be a trend of kids books that aren't actually kids books. Or books that might not seem appropriate for kids, but that many a kid would read and think are awesome. Go the Fuck to Sleep is a particularly hilarious example of this style of book, especially the audiobook version as read by none other than Samuel L Jackson. And under the same humorously strange literary sub-genre there is also, I Am A Pole (And So Can You!) from Stephen Colbert.

The latest not for kids book in the guise of a kids book to cross my path is Zombie Cat: The Tale of a Decomposing Kitty. A simple little tale of the zombie apocalypse, a cat who gets infected, and the owner who takes his beloved pet back into his home.

Zombie Cat is an enjoyable quick little enjoyable horrific geeky read, perfect for a Halloween night bedtime story as long as the kid being read to isn't too sissy or squeamish. I look forward to the audio-book, I think as read by Simon Pegg or Nick Frost would seem appropriate.

This news is a couple of weeks late, my only excuse is that time flies by when you are busy, and I am always busy. Always busy, always tired, always wishing that there were more hours in the day to watch movies and read comic books. Looking up at the shelf above the TV as I write stuff on the laptop and watch Conan, I can see an item on display that reminds me I neglected to write-up a post that I was meaning to.

The annual Kid Robot / Munny art gallery event put on by Lost Marbles awarded my girlfriend the bestest Munny ever made award for 2012. This may not have been the actual title of the award she received, it might have actually been Best Accessory, but this is my blog so that means that can be even less journalistically professional than the interweb normally is. You can offer to buy the vinyl toy art from her, but I don't think she is going to let it go. She might be able to take a commission to customize you a knit attired Munny for your very own though. Last year another of my bestest female friends was also awarded a grand prize from the powers-that-be from the Lost Marbles judging committee. I am surrounded by talented geeky ladies.

Tonight at 7:00pm at the Mayfair is your last chance to catch Beasts of the Southern Wild. It's one of the most impressive début films that I've ever seen, even more extraordinary when taking into consideration it's very independent nature, stage-play source material roots, low-budget and inexperienced non-Hollywood cast. It's filled with a distinctively different and new vision, an amazing memorable score, and has a fierce ground-breaking performance from the young girl who is central lead and voice of the film. Plus on top of all that gushing praise that I can give the film, there are also these really cool pig-monsters in the movie!

Yesterday I watched the latest Doctor Who episode, The Angels Take Manhattan. I don't want to say too much about it. I don't want to discuss the awesome bit on the building rooftop in New York in the opening scene, or the beloved character who shows up, or the heartbreaking yet romantic twist near the end of the show in fear of playing spoiler. I will say that the show made me cry. To be fair, if you lined up all the modern Doctor Who episodes and separated them into a pile of made me cry vs not cry, Doctor Who making me cry would have the bigger stack of episodes hands down. None-the-less it is my favourite television show and if you are not watching it you are a fool. There is nothing possibly better on tv that you should be spending your valuable time watching...and crying to.