Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

BEACH BLANKET BINGO Part 2

No, you didn't miss a post...
...the first part appeared in our "brother" blog, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™!
To catch up, check it out HERE, then continue with the story.
Or, you could just continue from this point, since the story doesn't really make a lot of sense, anyway...
Well, now's as good a place as any to say...
To Be Concluded...
...tomorrow at
where we'll also be presenting some kool background info and pix!

Next week:
We haven't decided yet what it'll be, but we can guarantee that...
You'll Cry Your Eyes Out if You Miss It!
(Oh, you've heard that, eh?)
And now a word from out sponsor...
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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Dark Shadows: the Movie

It's not a comedy or a spoof...
 ...though it does have a lot of humor!
We're doing a slightly-different entry this week.
No comic book story, instead, a spoiler-free review of the new Dark Shadows film by Tim Burton.
I watched the original series during it's 1980s late-night re-run on NBC and enjoyed it tremendously.
And while I liked House of Dark Shadows (1970), I  didn't care for the Barnabas-less Night of Dark Shadows (1971).
I liked the 1991 prime-time reboot and the way it condensed the original series' plotline up to the first time-travel sequence into it's too-short 1/2 season run.
And I haven't seen the 2004 WB unsold pilot, so I can't comment on it.
I went to a screening on Monday, and was pleasantly-surprised to see how close they did hew to the original show's concepts.
Consider Burton's new flick in the same vein (pun intended) as the recent Star Trek reboot by JJ Abrams.
It takes a helluva lot of plot elements from the original soap (and first feature film), tweaks them a bit, and plays up the fish-out-of water aspect of Barnabas' adjusting to a world almost two hundred years after his own time that they never really dealt with on the soap*.
But, the core story is still the Angelique-Barnabas-Josette/Maggie romantic triangle.
(There's a kool reason you haven't seen a Maggie Evans poster among the individual character posters all over billboards and the Net, but she is in the movie...)
Besides Barnabas the vampire and Angelique the witch, there's a Collins family werewolf (but not who you think) and a Collins family ghost!
In terms of performances, Johnny Depp as Barnabas and Helena Bonham Carter as Dr Hoffman manage to evoke Jonathan Frid and Grayson Hall without being mere imitations of the originals.
The rest of the cast are good as new incarnations of the characters, and there's a cool cameo scene featuring Frid, David Selby, Lara Parker, and Kathryn Leigh Scott with Depp.

If you liked the original show, approach this with an open mind and you'll probably enjoy it.
I did.
*Right before Dark Shadows debuted on ABC, there was a BBC series called Adam Adamant Lives! about an Edwardian-era crimefighter frozen by his nemesis in 1902 and thawed out in the late 1960s.
The show featured lots of culture-shock involving the repressed Adamant adjusting to the Swinging '60s.
While it's still unavailable on American VHS or DVD/Blu-Ray, there are British releases you can get on Amazon and play if you have a region-free DVD player (like me).

Thursday, October 20, 2011

DARK SHADOWS "Touchy Situation" Conclusion

It's almost Christmas at Collinswood and with most of the Collins family away, Victoria Winters visits Barnabas at his home tucked away at the edge of the property.
But there are others around Collinswood...others who don't belong!
One is an itinerant wanderer who, desperate for food, enters thru an unlocked window.
And, the empty mansion proves to be a tempting target for two recently-released convicts who plan to take everything they can carry.
Victoria encounters the criminals, who chase her to the edge of the cliff, where she now hangs precariously...
That's a story for another time...
This was #1 of the second four-issue miniseries based on the 1991 revival.
There was one more mini-series in the works, but it ended after only one issue was printed as the publisher abruptly went out of business.

Next week:
More Gothic Romance!
You'll Cry Your Eyes Out if You Miss It!
(Oh, you've heard that, eh?)
And now a word from our sponsor...

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

DARK SHADOWS "Touchy Situation" Part 1

Remember the gothic tv soap opera Dark Shadows?
This is it...but it's not it!
Confused?
Read on, and all will be explained...
 This is why we call these chapter endings "cliffhangers".
Story by Maggie Thompson, art by Jose Pimentel.
This comic series from 1993 presented new stories based on the prime-time revival that ran for half a season in 1991. (Despite excellent ratings for the first couple of episodes, later eps were constantly pre-empted by news coverage of the first Gulf War, and the show never regained the audience.)
The tv series revival adapted the original soap opera's storyline from the point where Barnabas was freed from his coffin to the first time-travel story featuring Victoria witnessing how Barnabas became a vampire in 1795 Collinsport.
The comic presented sequel stories that went in a different direction than the later tales in the original tv series, creating a new continuity, much like the 2009 Star Trek movie did.

Before we forget, be here tomorrow for the conclusion to this issue!


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