Star Wars

ANNOUNCEMENT: I’m Going to Rhode Island Comic Con 2017!

Posted on by Jack Drees

 

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Hey everyone, Jack Drees here! Before we begin this post, I’d like to give a little free promotion to something I personally feel, needs promoting. You see, I live in New England, and I like bowling. For those of you who don’t know where I’m going with this, I should inform you we here in New England don’t have as much traditional tenpin bowling as opposed to another form of bowling. In New England, candlepin is king. And on YouTube you can watch a web series dedicated to professionals competing against each other in the sport. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, “King of the Palace.”

“King of the Palace” is a show that takes place at a candlepin bowling alley known as New Palace Lanes in Fitchburg, MA, it features skilled bowlers showing their stuff as they compete against each other. It’s intense, it’s got people who know what they’re doing, and it definitely gets the ball rolling. Whether you’re from New England and want to watch your traditional bowling, or you’re not from New England and want to dive deeper into “weird bowling,” or you just want some moments of entertainment, this show is for you. The show is hosted by Steve Bronchuk, Dave Maatala, and Dennis Nuzzo and they definitely got some fascinating words to say as the bowlers duke it out. “King of the Palace” is shown on TV on some local stations in Massachusetts, however if you want to look at the YouTube channel for it, click the link down below and check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/user/NewPalaceLanes

Now bowling is not the only thing I’m interested in, I’m into a lot of other cool stuff, including conventions. On that note, I’d like to break to you all that I’m going to Rhode Island Comic Con this year! Now what is Rhode Island Comic Con? Rhode Island Comic Con is a convention which takes place in Providence, RI. It will be in two locations which are connected, the Rhode Island Convention Center, and the Dunkin Donuts Center. I’ve been to this convention for two years in a row and now this will be my third. This is one of the conventions done by Altered Reality, who also do ComiCONN, Colorado Springs Comic Con, Southcoast Toy and Comic Show, and Terror Con, another convention that takes place in Providence, RI. Rhode Island Comic Con markets itself as the biggest show in the smallest state. I haven’t been to many shows in Rhode Island, but I can guarantee you, this is big. Both years I’ve gone there have been tons of celebrity guests from TV, movies, etc. Last year this show had guests including the cameo master himself, Stan Lee, Billy Dee Williams (The Empire Strikes Back, Batman), Alice Cooper, Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite, Monster House), Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things), and surprisingly, Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot. This year we have another enormous lineup of guests, and we’re about to talk some of the guests who have actually been announced thus far.

This con has a number of guests that fall into a category of “special” guests, otherwise known as headliners. This is something that happened last year too. Guests like Gal Gadot, Stan Lee, Millie Bobby Brown, and Ray Fisher all fell into this category. These guests were all located in the Dunkin Donuts Center, specifically on the stadium floor, which is kind of a good idea. The lines for some of these guests were long as hell, in fact Gal Gadot’s and Stan Lee’s lines were almost too long. Although my dad only waited seconds to talk to Alice Cooper, another headliner from last year, but then again this was on the last day of the con and everybody was getting ready to head home. If my head isn’t messing with me, the layout in the Dunkin Donuts Center probably won’t change this year. Regardless of where these guests end up, here are this year’s headliners:

Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy, Riddick)
Elizabeth Olsen (Avengers: Age of Ultron, Godzilla)
Val Kilmer (Batman Forever, Top Gun)
Norman Reedus (Boondock Saints, The Walking Dead)
Paul Bettany (Iron Man, A Beautiful Mind)
Michael Colter (Luke Cage, The Good Wife)
“Weird Al” Yankovic (Musician)
Gene Simmons (Musician, KISS)
Billie Piper (Doctor Who, Collateral)
Sting (Wrestler)
Jason David Frank (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers)
John Cusack (Better Off Dead, 2012)
Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead, The Punisher)
Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter, Peter Pan)
Dolph Lundgren (The Punisher, The Expendables)
Freddie Prinze Jr. (Scooby-Doo, She’s All That)
Beverly D’Angelo (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Entourage)
Justin Roiland (Rick and Morty, Gravity Falls)
Carl Weathers (Predator, Arrested Development)
Robert Englund (Nightmare on Elm Street, Regular Show)
William Shatner (Star Trek, Boston Legal)

When it comes to these headliners, a number of them do intrigue me. If I were to meet any and talk with them, it would probably be Weird Al and John Cusack. Weird Al isn’t really an artist I listen to but I do want to talk about his appearance on “Last Week Tonight” with him. As far as John Cusack goes, that’s another person whose work I don’t follow, but part of me is somewhat intrigued to engage in a conversation with him. I haven’t seen “Better Off Dead,” I’m making an attempt to get my hands on a copy though, but I heard Cusack himself hated the movie. I also heard somewhere that Cusack’s despise diminished, I’m curious to know how this happened. I’d probably have time to ask this depending on the lines, both guests will be at the con for multiple days. Weird Al will be there longer, but still. The idea of having Dave Bautista and Elizabeth Olsen as guests does somewhat excite me, but I have a feeling their lines will be long and all they’ll be doing is signing autographs and won’t have any sort of time for conversation. But who knows really? Not to mention, when it comes to those guests, I had no absolute desire to meet them as opposed to Gal Gadot last year. I fanboyed hard when I found out she was going to be there!

This con also has a number of guests appearing which happen to be affiliated with various groups. There are plenty more on the way, but there have been a good number who have already been announced.

Starting off with “Star Trek,” we have a good number of guests there. So far we have a plethora of guests from “The Next Generation” such as Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, Marina Sitris, LeVar Burton, Jonathan Frakes, and Gates McFadden. Just a fun fact, I’ve actually met Michael Dorn before. I haven’t chatted with him much, but I got his signature for a good friend of mine. Also, for LeVar Burton, I actually heard he’s been doing this series where he reads short stories and he gives his thoughts on them. It’s called “LeVar Burton Reads,” I actually haven’t checked out yet, I might sometime. However if you know me as a member of the Knights of Nerdvana, our challenge for July 2017 was to take a gander at this series. The members who did check it out thought it was worth witnessing, so I might take a look at it before I go and possibly talk to Burton about the series. Also we have a guest from “The Original Series.” Ladies and gentlemen, the one, the only… William Shatner. He will, as recently mentioned, be a headliner, and he’ll also moderate the “Star Trek” panel at the convention.

Next up we have “Star Wars” and when it comes to the “Star Wars” guests, many of them are people I wouldn’t exactly know, but there are a couple that stick out to me. The guests are Freddie Prinze Jr., who also happens to be one of the headliners, Jason Isaacs, another headliner, Julian Glover, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Joonas Suotamo, Steve Blum, Spencer Wilding, and Ian. F*cking. McDiarmid. Based on what you just read, you can tell I have extreme excitement for Ian McDiarmid, we’ll get to him in a minute, however one guest I feel like talking about is Spencer Wilding. Some of you might not know who this guy is, although if you look at his IMDb page, you may know him from “Guardians of the Galaxy” as one of the guards, and he was also in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” Which character does he play? Only the best character in the entire movie, Darth Vader! You may know that James Earl Jones does the voice, but you may or may not know that someone else is walking around inside the costume. For “Rogue One” in particular, the one walking around is Wilding, which means he’s the one who gave the best scene in the film towards the end! Now let’s talk about Ian McDiarmid. If you don’t know who Ian McDiarmid is, you may know him better as The Emperor, otherwise known as Palpatine, or that crazy maniac who laughs a lot, or the “Star Wars” character most likely to be a mascot for the Tampa Bay Lightning. I admire The Emperor as a character, and when McDiarmid was referred to as Palpatine in the prequels, he was one of the best parts of the entire thing. Just watch “Revenge of the Sith” to see what I mean. Alan Tudyk, who you may know as K-2SO in “Rogue One” was going to show up at one point, but unfortunately ended up cancelling his appearance.

Next up we have “Power Rangers” guests. And for those of you who are waiting for me to tell you Amy Jo Johnson is here, sorry, her name has not been announced. She has been to this convention both years I went, so who knows what could happen? However when it comes to the original series, we have Jason David Frank (Green Ranger), and Steve Cardenas (Red Ranger). We also have cast members from other series’ in the franchise too. These include: Blake Foster, Hilary Shepard, Catherine Sutherland, Selwyn Ward, Nakia Burrise, and Michael Copon.

For those of you who are familiar with the “Rocky” franchise and have watched “Rocky 4,” that’s one reunion taking place here. This is between cast members Carl Weathers, who you may know as Apollo Creed, and Dolph Lundgren, who you may know as Drago. By the way, both of these folks are headliners.

Another reunion is for the movie “The Boondock Saints.” The cast members associated with this reunion are Norman Reedus, who you may know as Murphy MacManus, Sean Patrick Flanery, who you may know as Conner MacManus, and David Della Rocco, who you may know as Rocco. By the way, Norman Reedus is a headliner.

Speaking of Norman Reedus, he’s also one of the many guests from “The Walking Dead” that will show up at the convention. The other guests include: David Morrissey, Jon Bernthal, another headliner, Jeremy Palko, Khary Payton, Tom Payne, Michael Koske, Michael Cudlitz, and Lennie James. By the way, Jeffery Dean Morgan was here last year, and it’s very likely he won’t be back this year due to his complaints about the con.

For wrestlers, this con is currently featuring six, and there are more to be announced in the future. So far we have Dave Bautista, one of the headliners, Rey Mysterio, Sting, another headliner, Brooke Adams, Bret Hart, and a duo who refer to themselves using the hashtag #TeamBestie, Trish Stratus and Amy Dumas.

The last of the reunions the con is currently showing on their website is one I’m highly anticipating, and that is the “Revenge of the Nerds” reunion. This con is going to feature eight cast members from the “Revenge of the Nerds” franchise including: Julia Montgomery (Betty Childs), Brian Tochi (Takashi), Larry Scott (Lamar), Ted McGinley (Stan Gable), Andrew Cassese (Wormser), Donald Gibb (Ogre), Robert Carradine (Lewis), and Curtis Armstrong (Booger). I consider to be “Revenge of the Nerds” to be one of my favorite comedies, it’s not technically perfect, it’s not a masterpiece, but it’s funny and relatable. Not only does it excite me that the cast is coming to the con, but I’m also excited for Curtis Armstrong and Robert Carradine, probably more than any of the other cast members. If you know me in real life, I’m a huge fan of “King of the Nerds,” the two hosted that show and I consider it to be my favorite show of all time based on what it did for me and other people. I’ve met Curtis before, in fact I met him twice, but I’ve yet to meet Bobby. I’d love to go here, meet Curtis once more, talk with him for a bit, and also chat with Robert. I barely go to panels at cons, but once I see a “Revenge of the Nerds” panel, the con has me running for it! By the way, Curtis, if you’re reading this, I’ll be sure to bring “the shirt” when I go to the con. And for those of you wondering, no, I didn’t meet Curtis topless without having an idea what a shirt is, I met him twice wearing the same “King of the Nerds” t-shirt I owned since March 2015, for good reason. Oh yeah, Bobby will get to see it too!

That’s all for group guests, although I’m gonna do some separate paragraphs on guests I’m particularly interested in that don’t belong in any of these groups.

The first one I’m gonna talk about is Rob Schneider. I feel like talking about Schneider because I honestly never really expected him to show up at conventions. You may know Rob Schneider from “Grown Ups,” “Saturday Night Live,” “Deuce Bigalow,” and the poorly received “Norm of the North.” I never really imagined Rob Schneider as someone who would show up at an event like this. Although once I researched this I found out he was at some other cons this year. He’s actually going to be here all three days of the con, and I’m willing to bet that meeting his fans may be somewhat exciting to him, but I’m willing to bet he’s in it for the money a little more. Although I will say, having Rob Schneider at Comic Con is probably a better idea than “Grown Ups 3” so that’s a plus.

One guest I admire, but don’t necessarily plan on meeting, is Gene Simmons. I feel like bringing him up because he’s actually doing something that I think some of you might be interested in. This year, he’ll be there and the website is also promoting a concert at the VETS Memorial Auditorium which he’ll be performing at. The concert will be happening on Sunday at 8PM so if you want tickets to this concert for Gene Simmons Band, go to the link down below!

http://www.thevetsri.com/events/detail/gene-simmons-band

Another unique guest showing up to Rhode Island will be Geekfest. Geekfest does film festivals and right now they are touring at multiple cons. They are marketing this stop, based on one of their tweets, as the “World’s Largest in New England!” I’m not exactly sure if I’ll be familiar with the films they’ll be showing, but this is unique and it is kind of interesting to me to have a film festival in a convention like this.

One more guest I’m gonna talk about is one I’m undoubtedly stoked to meet, and that is Doug Walker. I’m willing to bet some of you are thinking right now, who the f*ck is Doug Walker? Allow me to say, Doug Walker is one of the greatest people I’ve ever seen on YouTube. You may also know him from That Guy With Glasses or Channel Awesome as the Nostalgia Critic. He remembers things so you don’t have to. I may be a little biased since he reviews movies just like me, but he’s mainly focused on anything that has any sort of nostalgic connection. A lot of Doug’s reviews are mainly for various films highly regarded as some of the biggest abominations known to man including “Batman & Robin,” “Superman IV: The Quest For Peace,” and the 2003 live-action movie version of “The Cat in the Hat.” As a fellow movie reviewer, I’ve actually, well, I wouldn’t say I copied him, but he may have inspired me to take on a certain writing style. You’d see it in my reviews for “Moonlight” and “xXx: Return of Xander Cage.” In recent years, Doug’s reviews have altered, he traditionally still follows the same formula that he does in his older reviews, but we’ve seen more sketches that are basically parodies on the movies he’s reviewing. In fact, he’s now doing movies once they come out in theaters. This is where Doug utilizes his “clipless” technique, which is basically not using actual footage from the movie, and instead, recreating it with his own actors, including himself in order to poke fun at it. You can see this in his reviews for “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” and “Wonder Woman.” I’ve also been exposed to Doug’s panels on YouTube, and one thing I love about them is that people ask him, sometimes in a literal sense, sometimes with subtle hints, to do his “Bat credit card” gag. In “Batman & Robin,” the two heroes are together, we are witnessing a scene where an auction takes place, and there’s minutes dedicated to men bidding on women, and at one point, one of the film’s villains, Poison Ivy, played horribly by Uma Thurman (Pulp Fiction, Gattaca) uses her powers to make men fall in love with her, then Batman and Robin start bidding on her. They’re going back and forth, bidding millions of dollars, then Batman, says “7 million,” he whips out a credit card, allowing us, the audience to hear a cha-ching sound effect, by the way, the card is good “forever.” Doug spent some of the review freaking out about the credit card like a boy who got nothing for his birthday. During the panels, when this whole gag goes down, Doug will get out of his chair, and chase down whoever made him freak out. This is one of the few occasions in somebody’s life when one would say “I’m really glad that dude beat me up.”

I just realized how long I went on talking about the guests, it was long indeed, but let’s move onto something else. As fun as cons are, they’re not always perfect. This con has had a number of issues over the years.

In 2014 for example, there was an issue regarding the number of people who showed up to the convention. At the time, Rhode Island Comic Con only took place in the Rhode Island Convention Center. The center has a maximum occupancy of 17,000 people, but 20,000 people turned out to be in the building. This caused the convention center to close for hours, making people turned off by crowds and some not wanting to go to this convention again.

In 2015, more issues came along. The show expanded itself to put some of its guests and vendors in the Dunkin Donuts Center, but the show still experienced unfortunate crowd issues. There’s a walkway that can take you from one building to another located indoors between the two. It turns out that year, there was clogging in the walkway, which if I remember correctly, is a reason there was such an enormous line to get from one center to another at one point.

In 2016, they had a little spin on what people would normally do in order to meet certain guests. As mentioned, during this year in particular, the Dunkin Donuts Center arena was dedicated to headliner guests such as Stan Lee and Millie Bobby Brown. This didn’t stop the long lines, which isn’t necessarily the issue. The issue here is that being able to get an autograph or photo op from these guests is a little bit tedious. I got an autograph from Gal Gadot, and instead of paying my money during the process of signing, I had to pay at a box office. I didn’t even realize this. Let me tell you what happened. So I was staying at a hotel with my dad, it’s morning, it’s almost the time for the convention to open, so I figured we grab a quick breakfast. We grab something to eat at Dunkin Donuts inside the Providence Place mall, we get in line for the convention, I get inside, I knew where my first stop was, Gal Gadot’s table. I get in line, eventually I find out I’m in the VIP line, I’m not a VIP ticket holder, so I’m taken to another line. The line eventually kept on moving, and once I get to five spots away in my line from Gal, she leaves. To be fair, she was only there Sunday, and she also had photo ops and a panel to do, but it kind of left me somewhat disappointed. I waited probably over five hours until she came back. Then when it was my turn to get an autograph, it turns out that I’m missing something, a punch card. I didn’t even realize I have to pay beforehand. This is something I can kind of understand for photo ops, but not autographs. I have a feeling a reason why they did this is in order to make more money. A lot of people didn’t get to meet Stan Lee like they wanted from what I could tell and I doubt the con gave any refunds for that reason. From what I can tell, I believe they’ll be doing that again this year. (Sigh) Although then again I probably won’t be focused too much on headliners this year anyway so it won’t matter.

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The con itself, as mentioned, is massive. As mentioned in the name, it’s partially dedicated to comics. As you can also tell, it has a major focus on providing tons of celebrity guests, but it also focuses on providing artist guests, games, panels, cars, wedding ceremonies, exclusive items, and something called “Sci-Fi Speed Dating.”

The con also has a number of discounts available for those staying overnight, if you want to stay at a certain hotel, I’d recommend going to the Rhode Island Comic Con website, click on the section labeled “Hotels” (link down below), that way you can check out the discounts you can get on a certain hotel. A number of these are conveniently located near the convention center, but there are also a few that are away from it, specifically in the town of Warwick. These discounts won’t last forever so get them while you can!

http://www.ricomiccon.com/hotels

Alright, that basically is everything I need to say so far about Rhode Island Comic Con, I hope to see you there, I’ll be there ALL THREE DAYS, so you might run into me at least once. So I want to know, are YOU going to Rhode Island Comic Con? What days are you going? What do you plan to do there? Or, what is a con that you think I should attend in the future? It can be far away, and if you actually happen to be working for a convention I’d love to visit your con to review it as long as I don’t have to pay for much of anything, maybe except for food and definitely anything inside the convention center. Also guys, I mentioned before that the hosts of “King of the Nerds” will be at this con, and in honor of that, I’d like to leave a link here that will take you toward a post I made on September 4 about “King of the Nerds” detailing why I’m not done with the show, and what I’d like to hopefully see in the future regarding the show itself. I put a lot of effort into it, and I don’t know why I wouldn’t, I love the show probably more than I love pizza, and that’s kind of saying something. Please look into that post, also stay tuned for more posts, including my series of Tom Cruise related movie reviews! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

“KING OF THE NERDS”: Two Years Since Cancellation Was Announced To Public, Why I Am Not Done with the Show: https://scenebefore.wordpress.com/2017/09/04/king-of-the-nerds-two-years-since-cancellation-was-announced-to-public-why-i-am-not-done-with-the-show/

Terrificon 2017 Review and Haul

Posted on by Jack Drees

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Hey everyone, Jack Drees here! If you have followed this blog recently, you may be aware of me going to a convention called Terrificon, it is a convention dedicated to comics, superheroes, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and to the world’s misfortune, fidget spinners. The convention went from Friday, which was August 18, to Sunday, which was August 20. I was there Friday and Saturday, I had quite a bit of fun and I can’t really say I have many complaints about it.

As far as guests go, it’s your usual situation there, you’ve got your celebrities, your artists, and your vendors. I didn’t really see too many artists, however I recall my sister interacting with a number of them. When it comes to celebrities, the convention had people such as Burt Ward (TV Batman, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders), Lee Merriweather (TV Batman, Barnaby Jones), Sean Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, Gilmore Girls), Chris Sullivan (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, This is Us), Shannon Purser (Riverdale, Stranger Things), Finn Jones (The Defenders, Game of Thrones), Jessica Henwick (The Defenders, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), and Benedict Samuel (Gotham, The Walk). A number of the vendors were local, the ones I bought items from were NY Collectibles from Bronx, NY, The Dragon’s Lair from Wallingford, CT, Festival Flea Market Mall from Pompano Beach, FL, Greg White Comics from Kissimmee, FL (believe that’s the correct info), and Fuzzy Fish Inc from an unknown location (There’s one in Tybee Island, GA but I highly doubt that’s even close to the correct info, who knows I might even have the wrong name.).

Throughout I met three celebrity guests, Chris Sullivan, Shannon Purser, and Violet Beane. For Chris Sullivan, I actually met him alone, we shook hands, and I took a photo with him. The photo cost $30, which I ALMOST forgot to pay because after taking the picture, I got so close to just walking away! I would have likely ended up feeling guilty if I did. I had a good laugh with Chris and a guy near him about it. Also, before we took the photo, I talked to him about “This Is Us,” a show on NBC which he plays the character of Tim. I don’t watch the show, but my grandfather does, we actually talked a bit before I went down to the con, and my grandfather told me to tell him he was angry to never find out something that some viewers may be mad about me saying because it sounds like it is in spoiler territory.

The next celebrity guest I’ll bring up is Violett Beane. My sister watches CW’s “The Flash,” I don’t commit to many TV shows, so I don’t watch it at the moment, heard good things though. She’s on there and she plays the character of Jesse Wells. My sister got an autograph from her and she was asked if she was excited for the new season. She responded saying she was, and I, being the party pooper I was, had to admit I don’t watch the show. I didn’t say I didn’t LIKE it, I said I didn’t WATCH it. I asked Violett if I should start watching, she said yes like I was stupid. I didn’t hate her for the way she said it, she may have been dumbfounded with me, but it was understandable. Plus it was almost like she said it with a hint of swag. Hate that word! For the record, I would watch it, but I’m in the middle of “Star Trek: TOS,” “Firefly,” and I need to also catch up on “The Goldbergs” and “Kevin Can Wait.” I’ll remind you, I review MOVIES, which takes away from TV.

And finally for the celebrities, we’re gonna dive into Shannon Purser, hehe, that kind of sounds like a sexual innuendo. You may know Shannon as Barb from “Stranger Things,” another show I heard good things about and don’t watch. This time I have a better defense, which is the fact that I don’t use Netflix. I went with my sister to Purser’s table, she got some custom art signed, and Purser said a few kind words about my sister’s “Doctor Who” t-shirt.

For the convention itself, this took place in the Mohegan Sun Convention Center in Uncasville, CT. The center itself is nice, and it looks fancier than other convention centers I’ve seen. This was especially noticeable with the floor and ceiling. The venue is a decent size, and there weren’t many crowds pushing each other. While the whole center isn’t exactly big, it’s definitely good enough for a convention like this. Everything seemed to be organized and clean, so I can’t give many complaints there. I didn’t go to the second floor, but there were panels and professional photo ops being done there. The first floor had the ballroom and the pre-function lobby, where a few comic artists and all the celebrity guests were. There were barely lines for anything whatsoever, and the only people that had crowd control barriers leading up to them were Burt Ward, Lee Merriweather, and Dean Cain.

Now, let’s dive into some of stuff I got at the con. First off, I got a couple license plates. They happen to be the original “Ghostbusters” Ecto-1 license plate and a license plate that said “Assman,” which you would know about if you saw “Seinfeld.”

These two license plates came from the shop which I assumed was “Fuzzy Fish Inc,” I currently don’t have any pictures or promotions to prove what I just said. I’m just going from memory and what the program map tells me based on where I remember walking around in the convention center. I mentioned the Ecto-1 license plate from the original “Ghostbusters,” but they also have the Ecto-1 license specifically from “Ghostbusters II” and the one from “Ghostbusters” 2016, or as I like to call it, “Ghostf*ckers” 2016, because the people behind this film f*cked it up so much and may have f*cked up what was so good about the 1984 “Ghostbusters.” OK, that actually sounds like a terrible nickname because that almost sounds like a porno, let’s go with “Ghostsuckers” 2016, because the movie sucks so much that it shouldn’t have been made or even thought of to begin with. Oh wait a darn minute! Sucking is what some people do during sex to a penis! Gah! Forget what I said about Shannon Purser, THOSE, are sexual innuendos! The store also has “Outatime” license plates, which you may recognize from “Back to the Future” as a license plate for the DeLorean. I actually own one of those, it’s in my room, and I’m gonna put these two plates next to it.

I got one video game at the con, it’s “Kingdom Hearts II.” I own the first game, so I figured why not get the sequel. The game cost ten bucks which I wouldn’t consider a bad deal considering how revered this game is by the gaming community. I also saw the first game for twenty bucks, but I already own it, so I saved myself some money there. This came from NY Collectibles in Bronx, NY. I actually talked to a guy who was checking out the game for me, he pointed out how scratched the game disc was, and believe me, it was scratched like hell. The scratches made me somewhat skeptical of whether or not I should actually buy this game, but then he assured me that the disc was playable. I believed him. I haven’t tried it out, but we’ll see what happens in the future. After he gave me his assurance, I said, “Well, you aren’t GameStop.” Granted, I like GameStop and I do shop there occasionally, but I hear gamers sometimes give a lot of crap about them. The guy went on saying he went to a GameStop once and he saw a disc that was so scratched it was unplayable. I said I POSSIBLY could relate, and now that I think about it, I can relate. Because in 2012, I got “The Bigs” for the Xbox 360, it’s a baseball video game and it’s kind of fun. I now own the PS2 version, which I have played occasionally. The disc was so scratched that I returned it the next day and ended up not getting another copy of the game, but instead getting a copy of “The Bigs 2.” Interestingly enough, the disc now has a circular scratch, which is likely to be my fault from once tilting the Xbox 360. I mean, I get why gamers don’t like GameStop, they only carry newer console titles, even though that’s what you find in places like Walmart, Target, or Best Buy, they are extremely corporate, meaning that you can find them everywhere, so it’s basically the McDonald’s of video game stores, and they will literally pay you nothing for selling your games. Speaking of games…

At the con, I purchased my favorite card game of all time, “Cards Against Humanity.” This was purchased at The Dragon’s Lair from Wallingford, CT for a price over $40. For your information, you can get this game for a cheaper price in other stores. Target sells it for $25 for example. For those of you who don’t know what “Cards Against Humanity” is, take “Apples to Apples,” forbid the children from joining in on the fun, and top it off with a vibe you’d find in “Sausage Party.” This game is not for kids, I play it a lot online with friends, and I laugh my ass off every single time. Although another difference between this and “Apples to Apples” is instead of associating the player’s cards with adjectives, these are fill in the blank associations. If you haven’t played the game I highly recommend it. It’s fun with friends, it might be awkward with family though, although my mom actually wanted to play this with me and I’m more than happy to let her play with me if the opportunity ever comes up. I mean, as far as nontraditional mother-son events go, this is one I’d rather do than watch “Fifty Shades of Grey,” not because of the sex and kinky scenes, but because how poorly received it was. I wouldn’t even want to watch “Fifty Shades Darker” either because I heard that’s as much of a s*itshow as “Fifty Shades of Grey.” And no! I’m not reviewing it! I already reviewed “The Emoji Movie” for you all, consider that a favor! We’ll see what happens in the future.

I also picked up four posters. Where did I pick them up? To my knowledge, I believe the place was Greg White Comics. This place had a ton of small posters, a lot of which I remember were from “Star Wars,” “Spaceballs,” and “Terminator.” Speaking of “Star Wars” and “Spaceballs,” those were two of the posters I picked up. As far as other posters I got, I got one for “Blues Brothers” and “Family Guy,” specifically, one that was a parody of the original “Star Wars” movie. You know how during season 6 the first episode was an hour long parody of the original “Star Wars?” Well this poster is associated with that. By the way, if you haven’t seen that episode, please watch it, even if you aren’t a “Star Wars” fan you’ll laugh. The “Blues Brothers” poster, from what I can tell, is foreign, which I actually didn’t notice until looking at it as I’m writing this. I saw this poster on IMDb, but something weird I noticed about it is that it said the movie was rated PG, and the poster I purchased said the movie was rated PG-13. By the way, I Googled what the rating was, and it was PG. Last but not least is for “Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi,” or in this case, “Revenge of the Jedi.” If you are a hardcore “Star Wars” fan, a collector, or possibly alive during the eighties, you may be aware that before “Return of the Jedi” was released to the public, it was at one point going to be called “Revenge of the Jedi.” The store I got these from had a good deal where you could get four posters for twenty bucks, so why would I NOT get these four posters?!

I also picked up a couple t-shirts, t-shirts which in fact I can’t wait to wear. These were sold by comedian and actress from the Nickelodeon show “Every Witch Way,” Lisa Corrao. Seeing her in person, I had no idea who she was, then I Googled her to find out she was forty-two. I couldn’t even tell she was forty-two, she actually looked like she was in her twenties. It’s kind of like Julia-Louis Dreyfus, the older she gets, the younger she looks, at least to me when looking at her in real life. I purchased two shirts which were twenty bucks each, one which said “Jar Jar Stinks” and another which said “You’re not Groot.” The first shirt, if you can’t tell, is making fun of the obnoxiously horrible “Star Wars” character known as Jar Jar Binks, which may be the worst thing about the prequel trilogy, possibly rivaled by midichlorians, Anakin and Padme’s forced romance, the fact that Samuel L. Jackson never got to scream like crazy, Hayden Christensen’s performance, or Jake Lloyd’s performance. I always thought of the phrase “Jar Jar Stinks” as a nickname in my daily life and I’m glad to a see a shirt that says the same, although at the same time, I wanted to be the one to make it. You’d know what the second would mean if you know what “Guardians of the Galaxy” is, or at the very least, if you know who Groot from “Guardians of the Galaxy” is. You may know the only thing he says is “I am Groot,” and when he says it, it’s in that order. So instead of saying, “I am Groot,” the shirt says “You’re not Groot.”

Corrao also gave me a free autograph, which was also the only autograph I got at the con. I pay for a good number of autographs when I go to cons, so the fact that this was free was awesome. If the autograph was given only because I bought shirts, it’s still worth it in my book.

This con, if you didn’t know was also paying tribute to Adam West, who you may know from TV’s “Batman” as Batman, and from “Family Guy” as Mayor West. There was a lot to see when it came to “Batman.” There was a Batmobile, a Batcopter, the rope you’d see for batclimbing, a Batsignal, a Bat Kiddie Ride, a Batboat, and a Batcycle. Around the area where all of these battacular objects were, the sixtes “Batman” theme was playing in the background. There was also a screening of the 1966 “Batman” movie. I didn’t attend it, I personally I’m fine with not attending it, although I could imagine attending it would have been fun. Not to mention you have Lee Merriweather, who played Catwoman along with Burt Ward, who played Robin. The two of them were also at the screening and they even did a Q&A.

That pretty much completes my review and purchase analysis of Terrrificon 2017, I wouldn’t mind coming back next year when they do this again on August 17-19. One difference between this year and next year is that this is gonna be in a bigger space which is also in Mohegan Sun. Next year, instead of being in the Mohegan Sun Convention Center, this is going to be in the Mohegan Sun Exposition Center, which is cuurrently being built and is set to open in summer 2018. The center will have three times the space of the Mohegan Sun Convention Center, allowing more people to fit in. So I want to know, did you go to Terrificon, how was it? What did you do there? Did you buy anything? Leave a comment below, and I assure you, I do read them. Also, pretty soon I’m hoping to review “The Glass Castle,” but only time will tell when I actually get around to it. Stay tuned for more reviews, and if you guys want me to check out any cons, let me know about that down below! Also, cons, weird request, if you want me at your con either to review it, or less likely, as a guest, notify me! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

Where Are The Original Movies?

Posted on by Jack Drees

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Hey everyone, Jack Drees here! Let me ask you a question. What are some movies you’ve seen recently in the theater? I’m willing to bet some of you might say films like these: “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” “Wonder Woman,” “Fifty Shades Darker,” “The LEGO Batman Movie,” “John Wick: Chapter 2,” “The Mummy,” “Kong: Skull Island,” “Transformers: The Last Knight,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” “War For the Planet of the Apes,” “Annabelle: Creation,” “The Fate of the Furious,” “Ghost in the Shell,” or “Power Rangers.” What do these films have in common? Well, none of them are original, they’re all based on something.

If something has been proven recently, at least from my observations, it’s that Hollywood has a desire for taking ideas which have been done in the past, either as an art form or as a real-life event, maybe in some cases regardless of how interesting they are, and making their own adaptations out of it. Even some of the greatest directors of all time have done this, directors who have come up with BRILLIANT original ideas. Christopher Nolan for example, he did the “The Dark Knight” trilogy and he also did “Insomnia,” which is a 2002 remake of a movie released in 1997 which goes by the same name. Robert Zemeckis, the director of the “Back to the Future” trilogy and “Cast Away” has done films based on true events, including “The Walk” and “Forrest Gump,” which were both well received. Joss Whedon, well known for creating original TV shows which have been well received by various people such as “Firefly” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” has eventually gone on to direct Marvel’s “The Avengers,” released in 2012, along with “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” released in 2015. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of times when unoriginal content can work.

There have been plenty of comic book movies that are making buttloads of money at the box office. If one thing has been proven over the past few years, it’s that people, no matter what age, love superheroes. I love em too. When it comes to superhero movies, I generally find them to be fun movies where I can just munch on popcorn for a couple of hours, enjoy some action, perhaps get a few laughs out of my system, or just simply get completely caught up with whatever is going on in a studio’s “cinematic universe,” which both Marvel and DC have going for them at the moment.

There have also been highly appreciated book-based adaptations, in fact, there are some movies that exist I don’t even think some people realize were based on books, or if they do realize that, they never bothered to read them, including “The Martian,” “Arrival,” “Room,” “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” and the entire “Lord of the Rings” saga. Another set of unoriginal ideas that have usually worked include movies based on true events. You might see a number of these around the Oscar season including “Deepwater Horizon,” “The Lone Survivor,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Ray,” and “The Hurt Locker.” These films are usually powerful, while also paying tribute to someone or something associated with an event of focus shown throughout, and while they might not always be ENTIRELY TRUE bit by bit, they can make for compelling and interesting stories.

When it comes to misses on unoriginal ideas, one thing people often point to, are remakes and reboots. There are a number of comic book adaptations that are getting rebooted left and right, I’m looking at you “Spider-Man” and “Batman.” Although there have been remakes of movies that were done in the past that have been well received as original ideas, but poorly received as unoriginal ideas. These include “Point Break,” “Ghostbusters,” “Psycho,” “The Wicker Man,” and “Poltergeist.” I don’t work for Hollywood in any way, shape, or form, I’d like to, and I have some ideas for movies and TV shows, both original and unoriginal, but there’s no time to get into that. Although as one who doesn’t work for Hollywood, people like me usually assume that people who think remakes, reboots, and other unoriginal content are what studios should be putting out are just “lazy.” And it may be true, after all, people might sometimes go see a movie if it is something they’re familiar with. As a kid, I was familiar with “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” both the books and the original movie, so when I heard “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules” was coming out in 2011, I figured I’d go see that. When “The Amazing Spider-Man” was coming out, I went to see that. I went through this phase for awhile, I barely saw any movies in theaters, although in 2013, that changed, I started getting into other material, and YouTube had an overload of trailers that I checked out and became interested in, therefore intriguing me to see movies involving original ideas such as “The Internship,” otherwise known as, a near 2 hour Google commercial, although not a bad one. “Pacific Rim,” which combines monster movies and “Power Rangers.” and “Gravity,” which might as well be called “The 3D Is So Amazing, You Can’t Even Tell It’s Post Converted!” Now that we’re here in 2017, I think original ideas aren’t happening as often, or, if they are still happening as often, they’re not as successful as I feel they could or should be. Just look at the box office totals for 2017 thus far. I checked Wikipedia’s “2017 in film” page, and the top 10 films in terms of what they earned at the box office are currently all unoriginal.

The movies I found on the list in order from the highest earned total to the lowest happen to be “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Fate of the Furious,” “Despicable Me 3,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” “Wonder Woman,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” “Wolf Warriors 2,” “Logan,” and “Transformers: The Last Knight.” After seeing this, I went to a page on Box Office Mojo dedicated to the box office results of 2017, and the highest grossing movie I saw on the list which was original happened to be “Your Name,” an animation from Studio Ghibli. I’ve heard fantastic things about the film so far, I haven’t watched it, but I heard great things. This film is at the #15 spot on the list, which interested me. The movie didn’t make much money where I live, which is the US, but it did make money in other countries. I noticed it made lots in Japan, which didn’t really shock me considering how Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation company. But I also took into account that it made loads in China and South Korea. It’s easy to see why it would make money in countries like Japan, Studio Ghibli is Japanese, it’s an animation which is going to encourage people to bring younger audiences along for the ride, “Spirited Away,” another piece of work from Studio Ghibli was Japan’s highest grossing film ever when that came out, and Studio Ghibli has an excellent track record with their movies. Don’t understand? Just look up films such as “When Marnie Was There,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Howl’s Moving Castle,” and “Castle in the Sky.” In a way, Studio Ghibli, may as well be viewed by Japanese audiences in a similar way to how American audiences view Pixar.

One time period that interested me when it came to the making of original content is the 1980s. This was something that came to mind after reading Curtis Armstrong’s new memoir, “Revenge of the Nerd.” In case you don’t know who Curtis Armstrong is, he is a famous actor, and in this book, he talks about his days as a stage actor, converting into a film actor, and everything before and after. At multiple points throughout the book, he’s talking about the “Revenge of the Nerds” series, a series which may contain a defining role for Curtis, Dudley “Booger” Dawson. In case you didn’t know, that series has four installments, although it almost didn’t even make it to two. The first installment came out in 1984, and 20th Century Fox, the studio who owns the movie, thought it was a travesty that belonged in movie hell. For the record, this became a cult classic and perhaps one of the most quotable comedies ever. Just the “Nerds!” chant alone is stuck in my head. 20th Century Fox thought that because of this movie, they should put an embargo against any sequels. Armstrong states in a chapter dedicated to “Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise,” “Fox still considered Revenge of the Nerds a misstep and, in addition, had implemented a strict studio-wide no-sequel rule as part of their new “quality-control” policy. As far as quality control went, it was successful in eliminating sequels but it didn’t stop them from continuing to release plenty of inferior product. But it was “original” inferior product, so that was okay.” I’ll say, just be glad that “Return of the Jedi” came out in 1983 or we probably would have less of a chance of seeing that movie come to life, perhaps zero chance even! Although, if the sequel embargo were still around, “The Phantom Menace” would have probably never been made so that’s one disappointment of the embargo going away. Well, as long as prequels count here too and not just sequels. “Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise” was actually the first sequel to be green-lit by Fox once the sequel embargo was no more, as Curtis heard from one of the cast members from the series, Robert Carradine, who’s known for playing the character of Lewis. What people like Curtis and Bobby saw from Fox in the 1980s is pretty much the opposite of what everyone’s seeing today from just about every film studio. Boy have times changed!

When I look at studios today, not to mention people making pitches to studios, I kind of feel bad at times. Part of me imagines a reason why we aren’t seeing original ideas anymore. That reason being, is that studios are afraid. What are they afraid of? Not getting enough money, and they see a movie that has been successful in the past and their brain is directed towards remaking that movie instead of new and fresh movie. Just look at Disney right now!

Here’s a question. When was the last time Disney made an original movie? OK, it actually wasn’t that long ago with films like “Zootopia” and “Moana,” but they’ve released LOTS of unoriginal content over the past few years! Disney seems to have a fetish for live action remakes, with movies like “Cinderella,” “The Jungle Book,” “Pete’s Dragon,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and you even have remakes for “Aladdin” and “The Lion King” currently in the works. Lucasfilm, which has “Star Wars,” was once owned by Fox, but now they’re part of Disney! So you can basically say that Leia is now technically a “Disney Princess!” Disney even owns Marvel, so basically every single movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a Disney movie! Fox still has the rights to “Fantastic Four” and “X-Men,” but Disney has “Iron Man,” “The Avengers,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Captain America,” “Doctor Strange,” “Thor,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Ant-Man,” and part of the rights to “Spider-Man.” They are continuing to make separate stories about superheroes including “Black Panther” and “Captain Marvel.”

Despite what I’m seeing with all of these unoriginal ideas, I still occasionally take a glance at original ideas every once in a while when the opportunity comes up. This year, when it comes to original ideas, I’ve seen movies like “Baby Driver,” “You Can’t Have It,” “Gifted,” “Snatched,” and “Colossal.” Believe it or not, I actually dislike three out of these five films. Although I wouldn’t say they’re absolute atrocities, except for “Snatched.” I walked out of “Baby Driver” and “Colossal” with grades of at least 9/10. This is a sign that original films can still rock. When it comes to the box office, “Baby Driver” was on the higher end of the spectrum this year, not as high as “Your Name,” but so far it’s beating unoriginal content like “Power Rangers,” “The Emoji Movie” if that counts, “Rings,” and “Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie.” For “Colossal,” that film’s in the middle when it comes to the box office as a whole this year, but keep in mind that it’s a film from a studio that’s just starting out and it wasn’t in too many theaters. “Colossal” is an independent film directed by Nacho Vigalondo, and it’s being distributed by Neon, and according to Wikipedia, this is the first film Neon ever distributed. For home video, they have a distribution deal with Universal, which part of me dislikes because they’re owned by Comcast and I hate those psychos right now, but whatever. They haven’t done many films right now, so if you’re perhaps an independent filmmaker and looking for a distributor, try looking into Neon.

Another hope for originality, believe it or not, is Amazon. How do I know? Recently I Googled, “how long does it take for an amazon original movie to become free” because I wanted to check out an Amazon Studios movie called “The Wall,” but I was also curious, as an Amazon Prime member, the average time it takes for a movie under Amazon to become free to Prime members. I clicked on the first result that came up, stating: “Amazon Studios Frequently Asked Questions : Amazon Studios.” Before we get any further into this, Amazon has done original movies including “Manchester by the Sea,” “Paterson,” and “The Neon Demon,” and even done original TV shows including “Transparent,” “Goliath,” and “Sneaky Pete.” When it comes to the process of making something such as a movie or TV show which can be distributed by Amazon, it’s all explained where I checked. This whole process is not for minors, however if you are 18 or over you can submit your ideas to Amazon all you want, which honestly just excites me. Why? I turn 18 in November. So if I have an idea that I feel could make a good script and it’s completed when I’m 18 or older, I can submit it to Amazon! As far as I know, Amazon hasn’t done much unoriginal content whatsoever, they’ve taken content that revolves in one way or another around past events including “The Man in the High Castle,” “The Big Sick,” and “Gleason.” Another part that a lot of consumers might enjoy is one that I somewhat hinted at not long ago, if an Amazon Prime member ends up watching your movie on Amazon once its out of theaters and releases on home video, chances are it might be free, because Amazon has a list of exclusive films and they’re all free for Prime members.

I want to know, do you have an original idea for a movie or TV show? Well, if you do, I recommend pitching it somewhere, probably Amazon, but if you want to leave a comment as to what your original idea is, go ahead! But be careful, because if you don’t pitch it, that idea could be someone else’s, possibly mine! I would give my own ideas, but there could be a chance that some schmuck could see it and possibly steal it in a couple months!

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Thanks for reading this post, I once again want to remind everyone that next weekend I’ll be at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, CT for Terrificon, a three day convention lasting from Friday August 18, to Sunday August 20. I’ll be at the convention center on Friday and Saturday, but I will be in the building all three days, although I won’t be there for long on Sunday. I’m planning on possibly livestreaming for some of the convention on Twitter, so follow my account, @JackDrees, if you want to check some of that out, but that’s if I actually livestream. Also, if you are at Mohegan Sun for the weekend, don’t hesitate to give a hello to me if you know who I am or recognize me. You might just find me somewhere wearing blue sunglasses. And no, not for cosplay purposes. I’m not sure if I want to do any future posts on the convention, like on what I get there or anything like that, but only time will tell. But if you do want to check out my post that I did, exposing some details about the convention itself, I’ll have a link to that down below, and if you want to check out the website for Terrificon, I’ll have a link to that down below as well! Stay tuned for more posts and reviews! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

MY TERRIFICON PREVIEW: https://scenebefore.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/announcement-im-going-to-terrificon-at-mohegan-sun-in-uncasville-ct/

TERRIFICON WEBSITE: http://www.terrificon.com/