The Philly Kid

Listen to Opie Cunningham

The Fall Movie Season

That's what I have to metaphorically give the wave of Oscar baiting pretentious-depressing crap coming my way.

GO PHILLIES GO !!!!

Congrats to a great team and a wonderful city!









PS- The Dodger FANS can Kiss my ass!

Dirk Diggler talks to the Animals.

This made me laugh my ass off.

John Carpenter's "THE THING" in LEGORAMA

I saw this movie in the 5th grade. I don't quite know why my dad took me but it scared the shit outta me.

Quite frankly it's now classical narrative style runs circles and scares over the more modern torture -porn squirm fests of today like "Turistas" or "The Saw" series. Although I did like the first one.

Japanese AFV

This is some funny ass stuff.

The Watchmen Online Comic

So this is where I've been for the last month holed up at home working on. It's not this particular episode, but Chapter 09 and part of Chapter 8 which will further down the pipeline. The coolest part about it, is that I finally accomplished a long intended goal of working on an animated feature.

15 years and a badass Mac G5 Tower computer, with the program After Effects, I can finally give Ralph Bakshi a run for his money.

Ironically I got the paperback edition of The Watchmen 20 years ago when I was a Senior in HS. I had various parts of the 12 part Maxi series (mini series in comics were 4-6 issues) but since it was a Direct Sales book it was hard to find at my corner newsstand, and my initial response was that I was reading something more substantial that your average comic book. (I still refer to them as comics because I still feel they're counter culture material)

This was the best part of "The Watchmen" and the worst; because it lifted the Comic genre into a bigger plateau. It created the label such as "Graphic Novel" and for me it wasn't a 50/50 symbiotic split between artist and writer, it became more 25/75 and flooded the market with pretentious wanna bees like "Maus" "Sandman" and from then on all superheroes had "real" problems.

Plots became more complex and the price went from 60 cents in 1989 to $4.00 in 2008.... Long gone where the Hostess Twinkie ads, and the box of 1,000 soldiers I could buy for $3.00.

Whoever said you can never go back, wasn't completely right, you can take parts of it and with some help, piece it together for the future.

Or as Rorschach would say, "Hurrrmmmmmm."

ELECTION 2008... IT'S ON!

Please God, World Peace....

....if just to not have crap like this made.

The Montauk MONSTER

This thing washed up on a Long Island shore. Talk about nasty.

Sneaking In the Movies....

Ah, yes, summer season is upon us and so far "IRON MAN" is the movie to beat.

I did like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Sure it had it's fair share of problems and I'm sure the killer geek squad is chomping at the bit to tear it to pieces, but the purpose of that movie was just to have fun for 2 hours.

I think I'm at a point where : yeah, I got it a while ago that you can never go back an catch lightning in a bottle twice. (Star Wars I-II)

They'll never be another Raiders of the Lost Ark so why try bitching about the current one. Quite frankly I' don't mind that they tried, and frankly floods in Iowa, Darfur, the fact that the evil Republican party stands a chance in this fall election makes me cringe more than going over old arguments as to why Georgie Lucas and Stevie Spielberg rejected Frank Darabount's script.

Were there cringeworthy moments? Absolutely. But it was all worth it just to see Harrison Ford run around as Indy again. Denial? Probably, but I'll stick to simple pleasures with an inferior sequel and enjoy it as is.

Hell if RAMBO came back and kicked ass why not Indy?

IRON MAN on the other hand sure makes me wish that BATMAN could loosen up and be a little happier with his life as IRON MAN was pure eye candy for 2 hours. For a character I never fully got into as a kid (I read Daredevil, The Punisher, and Power Man and Iron Fist) this movie was right on the money.



PS Congratulations to Joey Rocco and Dave Ramos on their new kids, Christian Lampone and Julia Ramos !

Lampone WORLD Order

Taaa reeeeet yo'selves !

The McLovin Fund. Please give.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The poster for the new Indy movie as drawn by Lucas' one stop artist shop Drew Struzan.

Movie's out later in May after the bottleneck of H'wood Tent pole releases such as Speed Racer, Iron Man, Prince Caspian and probably two others I forgot about. This movie's making feel like a 12 year old again.

May 22nd here I come!

Farewell Omega Man...

RIP Charlton Heston.

As a Catholic kid growing up it was hard not to pass Easter without watching DeMille's TEN COMMANDMENTS with the family on ABC from 6:30 pm to 12:30am.

I'd usually fall asleep right after the Red Sea sequence when Yul Brenner get his pagan ass handed to him by Moses and Disney's EFX crew at the time. Furthermore when I went to Universal Studios and saw their version of it on the tour, I remember thinking how crummy it looked in real life, and that the tour was full of shit.

The other drama of the week was if Franco Zefferelli's JESUS of NAZARETH was being shown as a mini series on NBC and the Climatic final 7th episode was on Sunday night, when Moses was kicking Egyptian butt on NBC. So there'd be the switching back and forth or generally Jesus won since Ten C. was shown every year. That bummed me out because Moses's movie had better special effects and a better ending - Egypt and Idol worshippers got thrown unmercifully into the SMACKDOWN hotel. Jesus got beaten to pulp, nailed and died. Ugh. Oh yeah he delivered us from evil.

Back to Heston though. Also as kid I saw that futuristic monkey movie he did on the 4:30 movie after school when each week would have a theme, so I watched all the Planet of the Apes series in a week not doing my homework, and growing up in NYC the ending always made me look at the Statue of Liberty way differently.

I also loved BEN HUR, but the OMEGA MAN always had a soft spot in my heart because watching that as a kid living in the city and seeing him battle wacky druid types every night creeped me out because that could happen if I got off on the wrong exit on the Subway system.....

Having seen the Remake or updated Version in I AM LEGEND, I will say that Will Smith channelled some of the desperation that Heston had in the '70's version and shot it into the stratosphere because he was dynamite; my only real complaint is that those Zombies looked really crappy. They should've just used real people.

Yo Chuck,

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!

PLEASE STAND BY

Here's SPEED RACER until classes and lab time slow down a bit,,,,Cheers suckas!

BACK FOR THE ATTACK!

HOORAY!!!!

The Retro Metal Future

Meet my new favorite band: BLACK TIDE. A bunch of Teenagers who play 1980's power metal like there's no tomorrow.
The sons of Randi Rhodes, Yngwie Malmsteen and early Metallica live on in these teen wunderkinds who know when to stage a power guitar solo and shrieking vocals that came from the gates of Valhalla.

None of that shitty Incubus / K-ROQ Nu Metal either. It's 1982 all over again. This time I might just grow a f*ckin mullet.

Animation with BALLS

I watched HEAVY METAL again recently...and yeah I still dig it. For all it's flaws and immaturity. It's what made me really want at one point in my career to be an animator in the vein of Ralph Bakshi, and any other animation that was willing to go against the grain and give Disney's singing animal schlock the finger.

Blame my mom for this one as she took me to see the Bakshi version of "Lord of the Rings" back in 1978(?) and after watching an animated bloodbath like that, The Rescuers weren't going to cut the mustard.

Furthermore I had started collecting comics at the time and Frank Miller's DAREDEVIL struck a nerve with me. It's violent, frenetic pulpy atmosphere took place in my hometown of NYC, and it's underworld overtones of good, and evil seemed to be torn straight from the headlines of the New York Post. Daredevil didn't fight Super villains, he fought Serial Killers, Organized Crime, The Yakuza, and assorted wackos, and street undesireables, So it felt real since it wasn't so far from the truth (NYC was pretty scary and dangerous in the late 70's and early 80's).


So when HEAVY METAL opened in 1982 I tried like hell to either one of my parents to take me to see this. But it was no go. Ironic since they took me to every other type of wacky flick since I was a kid. So I had to wait for a bootleg VHS tape to fall into my lap in 1987, and I watched that movie all the time.

Yeah sure, it's dated, the animation's not up to snuff by today's standards, but it still makes me feel like a 15 year old dork, which kicks ass.

Vice President CHUCK NORRIS?

So Super Tuesday's over. For whatever reason the although I'm an Independent the Imperial Republican Regime currently in power moved me over to their side so I had to vote for one of those dudes.

Senator John McCain - I have a tremendous respect for this guy: 5 years in a POW hell hole in "Nam who STAYED behind with his me even though the 'Cong were going to let him go (that's the way I heard it at least) a respected Senator with a son in Iraq (how many other politicians can say that) but unfortunately even though he's a moderate Republican, his age was a factor in my vote.

4 -8 years ago if I had a gun to my head to vote Republican (mind you that Lincoln and TR Roosevelt were great GOP Leaders of a different era ) I guess I'd vote for Johnny.

Mitt Romney - This guy's a Canadian movie's version of what the American President should look like. So I passed... and he looks like Guy Smiley the Muppet.

So, I had to cast my vote with a Governor from Arkansas who doesn't believe in Creationism continuing the war in Iraq, Gay rights, abortion, and other issues I don't support.

BUT he could possibly make CHUCK NORRIS The Vice President of the United States? OH HELL YEAH!!!!! That I'm on board with.

Chuck Norris would find Bin Landen in a matter of hours, build up the Border fence and his breath would put the ozone layer back to normal....because CHUCK NORRIS IS GOD!

BONUS!

G.W. and U2 LIVE!

GIANT UPSET!!!

GIANTS WIN THE SUPERBOWL!!! I'm not going to pretend that I'm a die hard football fan as I only really watch the playoffs and the Super Bowl, but congratulations to my hometown team in probably the biggest upset in Super Bowl defeating The New England Juggernaut, The Patriots.

Not since Broadway Joe Namath predicted victory over The Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl III back in 1969, and on a sidebar The NY Mets went from worst to first and won The World Series the same year, has a David and Goliath sports battle been this great.

Congrats guys I wish I could hang out in NYC's ticker tape parade on Tuesday....





As if that weren't cool enough The Mets just signed the best pitcher on the market, Johan Santana, a 29 left handed wunderkind Cy Young winning pitcher, in a trade from the Minnesota Twins, for a cool $137 million for 6 years. So now is the time to win the big one.




So The Yankees can kiss my ass.


I saw RAMBO the other night. Best action movie in a long time. Cartoon Action over the top violence, (It makes Saving Private Ryan look like a GI Joe Cartoon) good guys, really bad guys, and shitload of badass action.

No satellite micro managed action men with shades of gray and "problems"; ie Jason Bourne, Jack Bauer, Neo, and all the other crappy action hero wannabes this past decade. Rambo sees, shoots, and makes the bad men pay.

Say what you will about Stallone's other pictures lately, but when it comes to his two beloved iconic characters he's made two really wise moves in dusting them off for one more ride, and true closure for their respective stories. As was the case with ROCKY BALBOA, RAMBO delivers the goods.... and the GORE! yeah!

CLOVERVOMIT

I never walked out of a movie before, until now. Correction, I ran out of theater that was showing a free screening of "Who's Harry Crumb" at a FREE preview screening at The Beekman Theater on 66th and 2nd Avenue when I was living in NYC back in the late '80's..... Until now.

I saw CLOVERFIELD opening night and left about 3/4 into it because I got vertigo. The movie's gimmick a la "Blair Witch Project" is that it's a hand held first person perspective; so there's a swish pan, or shaky run every 2 seconds; So the flick made me sick, and the part where I decided to leave was when they needed to climb 39 floors to rescue this dude's girlfriend.

I knew I wasn't going to make it.... and I felt like a big pussy leaving. But as soon as I exited the theater there were 4 other people there, 2 of which were teenagers who sat in the front row. (ugh)

We exchanged horror stories and within minutes of talking one of them turned green, which passed itself over to me as well, and we both dashed over to the nearest mens room where I got to see how my dinner sandwich looked half digested.

When I finished I could still hear the kid in the stall yakking up his guts...."Bleeechhhhhh...." SPLASH...."ueeeuughhhrarrah...." SPLASH... (repeat)

Unfortunately the movie's not half bad, in regards to a simple B-Movie plot. I just can't watch it that big.

So JJ Abrams you now owe me $8.00 for "Armageddon" and now $12.00 for "Cloverfield"...and LOST is waaay overrated.

Gimme "LAND OF THE LOST" any day of the week.