Stranger Things fans, have you ever wondered what happened during season one from Will’s point of view? The series of four comics issues by Jody Houser, Stefano Martino, Keith Champagne, Lauren Affe, and Nate Piekos give fans of the show an opportunity to find out. Comic readers experience "the upside down" from Will’s perspective, a narrative strongly influenced by inspiration from gaming, music, and the camaraderie of friends and family. On a deeper sociopolitical level, the comics ask an important question: are we going to help others, or are we only going to save ourselves? (Warning: This blog post contains spoilers). At ICFA (International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts) in Mar

Comedy is hard: Black Comedy is near impossible. Additionally, Black Comedy is also sometimes hard to define. For me, it involves finding humor in characters indulging in their darker nature via crime, usually murder, but it also requires having an audience willing to go there because they have pondered such macabre concepts themselves. In this regard, I believe Black Comedy is a truly symbiotic experience. The successful ones like The War of the Roses, Heathers, and To Die For are diamonds in the rough willing to be uncompromising and risk alienating the audience with just how far they will go. But then are the ones like Very Bad Things and Observe and Report that go beyond being dark into

Title: John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum Genre: Action Stars: Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane, Halle Berry, Lance Reddick, Laurence Fishburne, Asia Kate Dillon, Mark Dacascos, and Angelica Huston Director: Chad Stahelski Bias: I love puppies. Grade: A In A Nutshell: Picking up moments after John Wick 2, John Wick has been excommunicated from the omnipresent community of assassins he had previously been drawn back into. When the hour-long grace period he has been given expires, he must try to survive with a $14 million contract on his head, every hitman and hitwoman around the world looking for him, and none of the services and amenities provided to those in his profession. The Critique: The John W

As a lifelong lover of film, I know have a tendency to get a bit snobbish when it comes to other people’s taste. I have been known to snicker and roll my eyes whenever I hear co-workers or total strangers in public discuss the kind of movies I wouldn’t see if I were getting paid to. The truth of the matter is that I can be just as goofy as the next person. And I don’t mean enjoying the comedic gold of Mel Brooks, or the brilliant satire of Zucker Abrams Zucker (Airplane, The Naked Gun) or the Austin Powers trilogy, I mean truly goofy. Case in point: 1987’s Real Men. From writer-director Dennis Feldman, best known for writing Just One of the Guys, The Golden Child, and Species, comes a truly

I will admit it, the last few weeks have been pretty dark in terms of my film recommendations since it has included two end of the world films (Miracle Mile and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World) and a nuclear threat thriller (The Manhattan Project). Then again, so have a lot of my choices over the past year in this blog. My wife often chides me for my taste in film, but I can’t really help it. I am often drawn to tales of darkness, despair and anything that makes me feel better about my own lot in life. But this week, and the next few weeks, I will try to focus on more favorable fare. There are plenty of films that make me truly happy and I will try my best to share that joy. I’m no

Some movies just can’t be re-made. Whether it’s 1982’s The Entity, which features Barbara Hershey being repeatedly raped by a spirit, 1980’s Cruising (which I wrote about earlier) for being so incredibly politically incorrect and insensitive to the gay community or 1980’s Xanadu because, well, they got it right the first time and it’s just awesome 😊, some films cannot be re-made. And I understand there are filmmakers who want to re-make whatever they want because A) the film spoke to them as a young viewer, B) they believe the film has something to say in modern times, or C) they want to be subversive and play with role reversal and gender identity. But there are just some films that cannot