Axe Cop

This makes me happy beyond belief. Here's an absolutely charming comic written by five year old Malachai Nicolle, clearly a genius, and drawn by his brother Ethan, who had the incredible talent and sense to bring his little brother's creation to the internet hordes. I was immediately hooked by this animatic of episode 1. Watch it and marvel.

You can find all the comix at Axecop.com.

Also check out the 'Ask Axe Cop' section of the site - a few of them have also been turned into an animatic. :3

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #33: Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire - Season 1 (2009)

For a fantasy junkie such as myself, the prospect of a heroic fantasy-inspired TV comedy is very, very enticing. So enticing that I've been working on my own web series for about two years. Here's a shameless plug. I thought I might have been the first to offer such a thing to people, but it turns out that at the exact same time, in some dank Comedy Central dungeon, a show entitled Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire was being produced, which, jealousy aside, only manages, sadly, to hit the 'OK' mark.

While there are some good and clever gags, the show's humour relies far too much on penis jokes and homophobia. Sometimes both hitting you at once for a dual-tech of stupid. There's also a lot of the show's sole female character showing skin and having frequent sex. The show is very clearly written by men, and, more importantly, men into the kind of male wish fulfillment you can find in the most boring fantasy writing. The characters on a whole aren't terribly likable, save for the bad guys. Indeed, the most entertaining stuff is found when you can watch the fickle and evil Chancellor Dongalor (chancellor's always seem to be evil) and his painfully more competent and wonderfully polite attendant Barnabus. They're a real treat, and in Dongalor the series eventually comes to present a character that calls for some genuine emotional investment. So kudos to the writing there.

So: I suspect that as the series goes on and the writers abandon their more basic strategies for the stuff that really works best it'll really become something worth watching.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #32: Muriel's Wedding (1994)

This one's an Australian film directed by Paul Hogan. Sorry, it's not the Paul Hogan, it's a different and perhaps lesser man. For the rest of this review, right up until the end, I will imagine that Crocodile Dundee directed Muriel's Wedding, not a guy who isn't Crocodile Dundee. There's nothing you can do to stop me.

Boy, was I in shock when Paul Hogan's name hit the screen! Mick Dundee himself, stepping up to the plate and producing a really enjoyable film like Muriel's Wedding. I didn't know he had it in him! But now that I know it seems only logical. Have you seen his movies, where he's Crocodile Dundee? What a hoot they are!

Anyway, Muriel's Wedding is one of those films like American Beauty, where someone stuck in a blase life, ruled by the status quo and by the expectations of bad friends and bad family, transforms through a series of hard-won epiphanies. The humour is good, the turns in fortune heartbreaking and/or triumphant, and the commentary is sobering. I will say, though, that it suffers a bit from a lengthy runtime. There are a handful of sequences where the effect is quickly communicated, but the movie is indulging too much to cut away. Or a scene following another scene is too emotionally similar to its fellow. This leads to some pacing trouble.

So: A cool Aussie film with a large amount of charm, though not directed by Dundee. If you're by any chance reading this, P. J Hogan, no hard feelings.

Celebrities Upside Down

Came across this nightmare today. There's a lot more on the website. A lot more.

I have to imagine some awful world of dark wet caves where upside down celebrities walk across the ceilings whispering to each other.

Canadian Fantasy Writer Guy Gavriel Kay to Appear in Waterloo!

So you see, it was actually eating their souls all along. I like stories that turn out that way.

I do too, Kay. I do too. And I'll tell you that when I see you at Wordsworth Books in Uptown Waterloo this Wednesday, the 27th. It's located across from Waterloo Town Square.

Guy Gavriel Kay, famed canuck fantasy writer, will be at a book signing for the release of his latest - Under Heaven. It's either 10 bucks to get in or the purchase of his book. If you dig Kay, you may want to sashay that way.

Ok. So far I've read his beloved Fionavar Tapestry series and a book of his poetry. Decent shtuff.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #30: Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008)

So I saw this for its Canadian debut with London Colin and Mission ImPoseable at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto last night, and it was beyond my wildest dreams.

In case you might not have come across this phenomenon of a film before in your journeys through the interwebs, Birdemic: Shock and Terror is this independent film written, directed, and produced by James Nguyen for about 10 grand. Styled by James as a "romantic thriller" of the same school as Hitchcock's cinema, Birdemic presents audiences with one of the most hilariously inept films ever made and asks them a very serious question. The question is as follows. When global warming drives eagles and vultures mad, who will survive? The answer can be found somewhere amidst the terrible cast and terrible dialogue, ridiculous special effects, piss-poor sound work, laughable camera handling, and hamfisted politics.

Birds divebomb the pumps, exploding on impact.

In our Mystery Science Theater 3000 and internet meme savvy world, this is of course exactly the kind of film that many would be pay to see, and Birdemic seems to be a hit - as The Room and Troll 2 was. It was a pretty amazing experience to laugh and clap along with a crowd of people indulging in the lowest dregs of cinema, and just as amazing to meet James Nguyen himself in the Q&A session that occurred afterwards. Heartbreakingly, he's an earnest man who seems completely unaware that his film is popular for none of the reasons he'd intended.

So: Catch the film while you can before Birdemic 2: The Resurrection hits our faces!

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #29: House of the Devil (2009)

When I first saw the case on the shelves, I imagined the entire movie in my brain - it was going to be cheesy, poorly made, filled with awful dialogue, and a waste of time. I tend not to give new horror films much of a chance, and usually judge a genre flick by its cover. If it hadn't been for the two or three customers that made a point to say "Hey, have you watched House of the Devil? It's actually pretty good," I'd have missed out and become a serious Nicky No-Watch. That's about the worst thing I could be, apart from a Neddy No-Review.

House of the Devil was fantastic. What's absolutely amazing from the get-go is just how believably 80s they make the film feel - and not in such a way as to diminish the film and make it seem kitschy. It just looks, sounds, and plays out like a lost film from the early 80s. From the hair to the camera work, fashion to body type, body posture to soundtrack, to the yellow coloured credit sequences and to the film's overall cadence, you're really served a good portion of the kind of old horror-film-watching feeling you might have been craving for some time. It feels at points like a Kubrick film, which is very high praise in my world, and wields a quiet, drifting, tension-filled camera extremely effectively. House of the Devil takes itself very seriously, and presents you with some serious fear. Not a cheap scare to be found.

So: The best horror film I've seen since The Descent.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #27: Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dr. Frankenstein (1973)

Having taken care of Frankenstein's Daughter already in a previous film, Dr. Frankenstein must now be dealt with. Dr. Irving Frankenstein, that is.


After a snappy title sequence with a swingin' and funky soundtrack we're shown a city where beautiful women are vanishing and returning as zombies to murder their friends and family in their homes. It's clear to authorities that this is the work of Dr. Frankenstein, and true enough, it's the good doctor's attempt to garner fear and respect, which clashes quite a bit with his want and need to live in secret and conduct his dubious research. He is of course attempting to unlock the mysteries of immortality, and thus far, his greatest Frankensteinian work is in Golem, a tall and ripped black man immune to bullets and to the screams of his victims. He's powerful, but he's slow and not very bright (such a racially sensitive film!), and Frankenstein surmises that to create the ultimate reanimated warrior he will need the superior brain of El Santo. Both Santo and Blue Demon aren't quite going to give him what he wants. Interestingly, Blue Demon actually has to come to Santo's rescue at one point, finally proving to be more than just El Santo's sidekick. He seems much more like his own entity in this film, whereas before he was more like an extension of Santo's good will.


Of the Santo films I've seen, this one has the most action, as it seems to be chock full of car chases, gun play, and thugs in dark warehouses and on dark streets just asking for a pounding. In addition, as always, we're given awesome introductory wrestling matches between Santo and Blue Demon and their various lucha libre opponents. Which reminds me: something I really like about this Santo installment is that more than any of the others I've watched, you're reminded the most frequently that Santo and Blue Demon are professional wrestlers, and have wrestling careers to maintain when they're not tangling with the evil forces of Mexico. The plot actually ends off at a wrestling auditorium with a wrestling match between the disguised and remote-controlled Golem and Santo and Blue Demon in the fucking ring. Way cool.

That's right, just sign here and this strangely familiar and massive horror will kick your ass in the ring, Santo.

So: A really fascinating Santo flick. Lots of cool action and wrestling sequences, and a Blue Demon with a bit more attitude.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #26: Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolfman (1972)

I told you I'd be back Santo. I brought a friend.

Here it is, my favourite of the Santo films that I've seen. If you're going to deny yourself the heady pleasures of El Santo and indulge only in one of his films, let this be the one.

While it doesn't have the degree of characterisation that Frankenstein's Daughter (also directed by Miguel M. Delgado) holds, for sheer cool factor you really can't beat Santo and Blue Demon teaming up against monster heavy-weights like Dracula and the Wolfman. The only thing that could propel this movie to the tip of the Olympus Mons of b-movie greatness would have been to put Dracula and the Wolfman into an actual tag team match against Santo and Blue Demon so that they could wrestle out their differences on the mat with the dignity befitting a luchadore. We don't get that. That bubble burst, on with my praise.

Aldo Monti reprises his role from Treasure of Dracula and takes up the vampire's cape once again, this time recruiting a master of seduction - the Wolfman - to finally achieve his big dream. His big dream is, of course, to cover the world in satanic darkness. A dream we all share.

Waiting for Satan's forces to attack.

But this is more like a problem for Santo. You see Santo has a hot new girlfriend named Lina, and this girlfriend is a descendant of the wizard that stopped Dracula's machinations in the distant past using some ancient weapon called the Dagger of Boidros. The same Dagger of Boidros sitting on Lina's dad's shelf. Her dad knows that shit's about to get real, so he tells her to get Santo involved. Santo, no doubt knowing that Dracula and the Wolfman are serious business, promptly recruits his old luchadore friend the Blue Demon to help keep Lina's family safe.

The game of luchadores.

A few words about Blue Demon. Where El Santo is a boyscout, and friend to all children, Blue Demon is more like Thor, and friend to all children. He's less inclined to show mercy to two-bit thugs, and would care little for the due process of law if it weren't for Santo's guiding moral sensibilities. Also, his mask is cooler, his body more sculpted, and, quite frankly, his wrestling prowess greater than Santo's. In fact, the two luchadores didn't like each other outside of movie-making, and when pitted against the other in some films would be notorious for laying the punches on a bit thick. They were rivals, and Blue Demon was no doubt unhappy about the strange and enormous gap between Santo's popularity and Santo's wrestling skill. Blue Demon starred in a number of his own films, but was known by the public by and large for being a sidekick of El Santo.

Let the Wolfman seduction begin.

So an evil hunchback has reawakened Dracula's forces, and more than any of the characters in the film, presents the most interesting bit of character drama. There's a touch of ambiguousness to him, and he's not altogether when you'd expect. Our two heroic luchadores defend the family from both him, the seductions of the Wolfman, and the hypnotic power of Dracula, but fair poorly. People are taken, and Santo and Blue Demon must take the fight to Dracula's lair. You'd think they'd use the Dagger of Boidros, but Chekhov's famous rule is ignored and a much more ridiculous strategy is used to defeat the monsters. You really must take great care when designing an evil lair.

So: B-movie awesomeness. Get some Mexican drinks and some pizza and some friends.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #28: Iron Man 2 (2010)

Robert Downey Jr. returns as Tony Stark, roguish playboy billionaire turned superguy (I'll say superguy since he never quite reaches hero status in the films - he just owns up to negligence and cleans up his own messes). He's Iron Man of course, and this was the big summer action sequel many people were waiting for.

And it's really fucking boring. Not since Transformers 2 have I sat in a theatre to watch a blockbuster and suddenly realised that I was completely, utterly bored. That I didn't care about anything that was happening on the screen, and that when there was a glitzy CGI sequence, couldn't anchor it to any kind of sense of emotional import. But I don't want to lead you too astray by bringing up one of the worst movies I've ever seen - Iron Man 2 isn't anywhere near as vapid as Transformers 2 because there's only one dick joke in it, if I remember rightly.

Sadly I can only think of one or two action sequences that are somewhat satisfying, and one is close to the beginning and the other not quite at the end, and short. Everything else is annoying quip. A glib talk back and forth that goes nowhere and isn't funny, instead of, say, illuminating the audience as to what's going with either plot or character. In regards to character, there isn't much present. We get a Tony Stark who's a dick and a fantasy of wealth without redeeming quality that I can find, and a Paltrow/Pepperpot that gets mad sometimes about how careless Stark is. Oh, and Don Cheadle getting mad about that too, to the point where he dons a suit of robo-armour for a really ridiculous fight scene at a party. Apart from that there's a lot of time spent trying to sell you on secondary characters. Scarlett Johansson and Sammy J were somewhat fun to watch, but Mickey Rourke's grizzled Russian antagonist was really the only thing I actually found entertaining. Or justifiable.

At least after the credits we see Thor's hammer in an impact crater unrelated to anything we saw in Iron Man 2.

So: A movie as careless and self-serving as Tony Stark. Save your money.

Deathproof Hardcore Wrestling Event is TOMORROW!

Ever wanted to see a bonafide wrastlin' show? Pro-wrestling too glam for you? How's about some hardcore wrestling, the sort where people do some really crazy things to each other in the name of getting very hurt?

YOU'RE IN LUCK!

Deathproof Wrestling has a show coming up tomorrow night, on Friday, in Guelph at Cowboys.

It's fans bring the weapons, which means you can bring something you want to see smashed across the backs of our Canadian youth. You can catch the full write up on the event here! It looks pretty gawdammed awesome.



Apparently there's going to be a match between two wrestling gamers - one an oldschool nintendo fanatic, and the other a World of Warcraft addict. This should be highly entertaining. :3

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #25: Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter (1971)

What gives El Santo, "the multitude's idol", his amazing power? How is he able to get up so quickly after being thrown down so violently? How can he recover so expertly after a receiving a flurry of strong blows? The answer is in his blood, and Dr. Frankenstein knows it.

The daughter of the famous Dr. Frankenstein, alive today because of an age-stopping serum she has developed, needs Santo's regenerative blood to perfect the now failing potion before she ages and dies. She'll get him by nabbing his hot girlfriend and using Truxon to defeat him when Santo comes to the rescue. Truxon is this big half man half gorilla monster created by...well...by injecting gorilla blood into a man. That's really all it takes, people.

It's gorilla time.

So I was amazed to find that there's actual character development in this film, and interesting character development to boot. That utterly blew my mind. Frankenstein's Daughter possesses villains that are actually interesting to watch, who don't serve instead as mere fodder for El Santo's panther-crushing arms. They demand pathos, they suffer, and merely seek to stay alive. Even what's usually just a host of generic henchman are sympathetic and interesting - they live in fear of Dr. Frankenstein's power, and are presented as individual people with differing personalities. The lead henchman seems to have genuine concern for Dr. Frankenstein, and may in fact be in love with her. A more memorable example is the eye-patch wearing henchman that can't take part in Frankenstein's plot to send a freshly hypnotized girlfriend to claw out Santo's eyes. He can't guard Santo because he can remember what it was like to lose his own eye when he was young. It's indicative of the effort that was put into this Santo installment, and it really works to produce what I consider the best kind of B-movie - the sort that takes itself seriously enough to garner emotional investment from its audience.


Most interesting for me was Ursus, a frankensteinian monster that poses a terrible threat to Santo and his compatriots when the gorilla-man Truxon fails. The interesting part is that after Ursus takes a terrible wound and is left for dead, Santo finds him again later, suffering horribly and near death. Santo takes pity and uses his shirt to bandage the monster up. Santo tells the monster that he'll come back for him when Dr. Frankenstein is defeated, and when Santo can't seem to move the heavy gravestone that hides the entrance to Frankenstein's base, the monster, in terrible pain, does it for him. He secretly follows Santo and his companions and gives more aid at an integral moment, at the cost of his face. You'll see why. When Frankenstein's base starts to collapse, Santo doesn't want to leave the monster, but realises that his suffering must come to an end. Fantastic stuff.

Oh, and something I think I keep forgetting to mention is how awesome the soundtracks are in Santo movies. Swingin', ultra groovy tracks that usually kick the film's mood off accompanied by colourful opening credit sequences that really encapsulate the era they come from. Frankenstein's Daughter provides no less.

So: Another really cool Santo film, and the first directed by Miguel M. Delgado. Probably the best of the ones I've watched, though Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolfman (also Delgado) comes a very close second for sheer awesomeness.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #24: Santo in the Vengeance of the Mummy (1970)

Now in colour! Except not this photo.

Influenced heavily by Death Curse of Tartu! (1967), the Hammer horror films, and El Santo being a demigod, Vengeance of the Mummy features Santo joining an expedition into the wild jungle to locate the tomb, and the treasure, of an Olpache prince. What they find of course is a mummy, and a serious bout of vengeance.

Oh, great. A mummy.

We get the mummy's story in flashback, and it's actually done really well. Good costuming and set work that actually surprised me. In it we learn that prince Nonoc, who refused to let his love be sacrificed at the altar, makes a fateful run for it. It's that classic story we all know and have seen ourselves at some point in life: boy meets girl, girl is scheduled to be sacrificed to the gods, boy is unsure he approves of that business, boy elopes with girl, girl is killed, boy is entombed alive in a cave by his pursuers. All awfully romantic.

This is definitely a jungle, friends.

And in general, Vengeance is all pretty thoroughly entertaining. When you note that Santo is actually wrestling - I kid you not - a real fucking panther, you have to acknowledge that you're watching something fairly special. The poor cat ends up getting choked in the air by Santo and thrown, by the neck, a good distance. The panther sensibly flees after that, realising that in the great natural food chain Santo is listed just below 'utah-sized asteroid.' Santo's actually pretty uncharacteristically harsh in this film, as he genuinely threatens to kick the asses of the hired village folk who, legitimately afraid for their lives, want to abandon the expedition after the first mummy-related death. Santo aside, there's a good deal of murder going on in this movie. Old men getting murdered, women, mercenaries, assorted village folk. Everyone's at the mercy of the angry mummy and his decrepit arrows. The Olpache prince's vengeance and the presence of Olpache descendants among the village people actually partially hints at a political significance that bobs up to the surface just barely, one poking a finger at the white man's Imperialism, which lends Vengeance a gravity that most Santo films lack.

So: Good fun, the first Santo film I wholly liked, annoying bumbling professor aside. Ends off with a lame twist for an added bonus.