SPEED 2 Month 2015 Day 10: Upkeep on the 47 Other Things

The keeper of A Leaf on the Wind has been somewhat under the weather of late, hence the brief lapse in daily topics for SPEED 2 Month. That hasn’t meant I haven’t been able to watch some truly lackluster film projects, of which will be covered over the next few days.

First, the Day 10 edition will cover a brief foray into something that should never, ever be seen by anyone. Sadly, it was never released to the big screen so it cannot defrock SPEED 2 from being King of the Hill, here. I picked it up after posting the retrospective of the lovely Sandra Bullock’s career, thinking it’d be a fun comparison to the titular focus of the month. It has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with the film she appeared in, but it had no problems using name recognition to try and get a few bucks out of it.

THE NET 2.0 is one direct-to-dvd mess that only the most foolhardy or brainless need waste their time with, as the plot make not one lick of sense, nor does much of the acting. It’s got nice scenery, when it’s not being reused to keep costs down on this turkey, but stay the hell away from this thing. It’s the dumbest, worst, most inept thing I’ve seen since someone made me watch FRINGE season 3.

Once I recovered from watching the atrocity that was THE NET 2.0, I plunked in a film I’d seen before, but was brought up on a recent From the Hip podcast as being one of the costliest movies produced. Starring the hero of SPEED himself, Keanu Reeves, 47 RONIN made waves all through Hollyweird because of the length of time it took to be released, reshot, rewritten, redubbed, re-edited, re… well, you get the idea.

 

Finally released for the last week of 2013, 47 RONIN quickly disappeared from screens across the country as Universal Pictures refused to have anything to do with their 175 million dollar baby. A loss-leader this giant anchor wasn’t, as even the trade press had nothing but incongruous things to say about it, including before the release. I’m not sure what they think could have been wrong with it; it’s a fine experience in filmmaking. Of what not to do.

Let’s take a look at the general plot of the movie, which is based on a Japanese historical event during the days of feudal Shogunates. The movie takes actual events, of which some are likely not completely known, skews it to fit their own ‘mystical’ land of Japan, rife with witches, dragons and other creatures, then to add a not-so-small insult, tacks on the half-white character that Keanu plays, just to get the stupid Americans to be able to watch the movie without having Lite Beer offered up as incentive to sit in the theatre. Is that harsh? It’s obviously what Universal thought, as they needed to make a great story even greater, in their eyes. Are you that insipid, you movie-going American public? Do you need a white guy to play a completely fictional role when there are at least 50 other characters in the movie that could be even more exciting to watch? What’s happened between 2000, when CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON was released, and now? Stories set in Japan are not as good as those set in China? Has the American film watcher forgotten about the great Akira Kurosawa? Universal Pictures, what the hell is wrong with you? If I was a Japanese citizen and had some knowledge of country history, I’d be offended and appalled at just the addition of Keanu, besides the other hideous story elements added for more “punch”.

 I’ll put it in perspective. Take the Boston Tea Party incident of 1773, an incredibly important historical event in the formation of the United States. Instead of colonists boarding a ship in Boston harbor, let’s move the entire story to San Francisco in say, 1900, make the ship a clandestine invading force of Chinese monkey-people and the hero is a Mexican bandito with a dubious Mexican background played by, oh, let’s say Clive Owen. Why not Clive Owen, he’s big and strong and masculine and can play everything that he’s told to play. I’ve seen him perform as a Roman soldier and as Ernest Hemingway, so there’s nothing he can’t do, right? He could probably know Kung-Fu too, if he was paid to.

See the righteous nonsense there? Blah, Universal Pictures, you bloody suck.

The story of the 47 Ronin is a fairly simple one, with all the gloriousness of Japanese feudal society and as much swordplay as can be imagined. The Shogun is holding a reception with two other daimyo’s, Asano and Kira. During the reception, Asano assaults Kira and is sentenced to seppuku by the Shogun. The samurai of Asano are now ronin and are not allowed retribution until one year is up. After the year, the ronin gather together and kill the daimyo Kira, fulfilling their code and honoring their former lord. The Shogun allows them all to commit seppuku, in accordance with the code of the samurai, allowing them all to die with honor.

There have been at least two other filmed versions of the 47 Ronin, one in 1941 and one in 1994. I guarantee that both are better in numerous ways than this version, which is not entirely a terrible film, just a terrible version of a great tale that doesn’t need much to embellish it, even for today’s moviegoers. Even so, it fits within what the Japanese call Chushingura, fictionalized stories of the 47 Ronin. So, where I may find effrontery and insult, it may not actually be seen as such by fans of Chushingura.

47 RONIN betters SPEED 2 in so many ways I had a hard time picking it to make the comparison. It’s not a bad movie, just not a very good one. It’s completely watchable, but it misses too many cues to be a great film, sadly. While I have no plans to ever view it again, I wouldn’t be abject to watching it again if it popped on the boob tube.

For Day 11, a Kevin Smith film of ill repute.

SPEED 2 Month 2015 Day 5: The Rim Shot

Let’s not say I don’t do anything for this month of extreme ecstasy in anger. Two days have passed by where I barely swore, cursed the life of certain people or screamed in rage. That is now over as I swallowed all my natural instincts to watch a movie just for this web log. Just for today. Just for a good, fired up discussion of what makes a good movie and what makes a bad one. Today I compare to the illustrious king of the shitheap SPEED 2, Guillermo Del Toro’s 2013 bank-breaker, PACIFIC RIM. 

 

I’ll get two things out of the way first. I watched this movie for the first time at some point after it was released on Blu-ray disc and gradually began to grow an intense dislike of it as it progressed. I may have had too-high hopes for it, as many of my friends and contemporaries that watched it in the theatre either loved it or were very fond of it in certain ways, imploring people to see it, since it was not sparking much heat at the box office. Also, John “Speed 2” Amenta likes PACIFIC RIM, making this a doubly fun mudsling for me today.

I will admit that PACIFIC RIM fits a strange bill when it comes to comparing it to SPEED 2. It’s not completely vilified in film circles (regardless of The Amenta View, SPEED 2 is that 99 and 44/100ths percent out of 100 shit, statistically) and it’s its own story. Even so, it had an inflated budget and slid out of interest quickly, just like SPEED 2. Similar to A.I. and INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, this overpriced clunker pushed a lot of my anger buttons. I had never intended to waste the time watching it again. I guess breaking an ankle does a lot of good when it comes to watching shit films for review – and for SPEED 2 Month. Yes, to watch this movie and feel like I wasn’t wasting precious time elsewhere, I had to break an ankle. Fuck you, del Toro, for that.

PACIFIC RIM is a giant comic book, for those of you that are unaware. Del Toro had a good idea of doing a massive action movie in a similar vein to the Godzilla flicks of ages gone by, while not having anything to do with the big, green lizard itself. It was ostentatious, it was bold, it was a big risk for the Warner Brothers Studio and it fell as flat as a cow pie in a pasture. The plot, in short, follows a military program of giant robots created to fight off just as giant monsters that have been appearing through a rift at the bottom of the Pacific Sea floor, attacking various coastlines with progressively ardent aggression. The robots are piloted by tandem soldiers, sharing the powerful system load of these massive machines. Within a few years, the monsters destroy most of the robots; the governments get scared and try to wall off every coastline, while the last of the robots try to destroy the rift at the bottom of the ocean. It’s a fairly cut-and-dry plot for a cheesy action movie, or at least a cartoon. Except, it fucking sucks flattened pasture cow pie.

When I was a teen, I watched a cartoon (or anime) called TRANZOR Z. While the story followed giant robots bashing other giant robots, there are so many similar features of the show that are in PACIFIC RIM, it was all I could do to wonder where the Aphrodite X robot with her tit missiles was. When a movie reminds me so much of a cartoon (AVATAR) that I’d rather watch the cartoon, you aren’t helping yourself.

PACIFIC RIM is filled with more fucking cliché’s than a bad satire. If this movie was supposed to be satire, it missed the mark by a wide margin. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t even topical. It’s just boring, unless you’ve never watched a movie before, just woke up out of a coma or were kidnapped by aliens for a few generations. It’s got the daddy issue characters. It’s got daddy not wanting the heroine to serve because it’s a risk. It’s got the cocky “other guy” and the requisite fight between the hero and him. It’s got the old hero that comes out of retirement to sacrifice himself. It’s got the “big speech” moment. It’s got too fucking many to count! I gave up after the rousing speech, really. I’m sure I missed a few on purpose.

Idris Elba, a fine actor, plays a major part in the film. He was so bad he felt he had to shout almost all of his lines. Scenes where he’s face to face with the hero? Shouting. Even his whispers sounded like shouts. In truth, many of the lines are shouted by the rest of the cast, too. Is that the making of a Guillermo del Toro film? Everyone needs to shout most of their lines? I’ll have to watch the Hellboy movies again to see if that’s so.

The dialogue in this movie is so rancid it makes you cringe every time a line is shouted at you. There has to be thousands of feet of outtakes of these actors saying their lines and stopping mid-sentence because they can’t make themselves say them. The patter between characters is even worse, seeming as if it were trying to channel much better films, like ALIENS. Sorry Guillermo, watching BLACK SHEEP SQUADRON on the Rerun Network isn’t dialogue research. Get away from the desk, stop listening to your Rosetta Stone discs and turn the fucking lights on.

I understand that the movie had a budget of 190 million dollars. It makes sense, considering the sheer amount of CGI and SFX work that was needed to make this stinker. What I don’t understand is what happened between making it and releasing it. The film is so lighted so poorly you can barely make out who is saying what and when, or what’s happening during the incredibly slow and boring action sequences. Top that with most of the battles happening in water and you’ve got a great way to make it look like the director and producers spent the 190 million but likely pocketed the majority for their increasing coke habit. If it was done in slow motion it might have seemed like something was happening rather than the piss-poor scenes of the tandem pilots walking their giant machines out into the ocean to battle wacky invaders from another dimension.

I get that this movie is trying to be something that it’s not. It wants so bad to be a live action anime tale that it forgets to stop trying. It stumbles and fumbles through from disconnected scene to scene hoping that the big flashing light in the corner captures and entrances you enough for you to not notice there isn’t enough lit up to see what’s going on. I can’t say it’s plagiarized, but I can say that it took so many cues from other stories and movies that you can’t help but notice, unless you’re incredibly drunk. Well, even that won’t help you; you’d have to be passed out to not notice.

I really, really wanted to like this flick. One of my favorite comic artists of all time, Guy Davis, designed a large number of the giant monsters for del Toro to use. As I watched it for the second time, it’s hard for me to say that he didn’t create them all, his fingerprints are so noticeable. If you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re more than welcome to go read any of the B.P.R.D. comics from Dark Horse he worked on to see what I mean. You’ll get more bang for your buck out of those anyway; they’re extremely good and worth every single penny that isn’t part of a 190 million dollar budget. Speaking of the B.P.R.D, which is part of the Hellboy tales, Ron Perlman, who plays Hellboy in both features, appears in PACIFIC RIM as well. Because of this and the Guy Davis work, the movie can’t come close to beating SPEED 2 as the worst piece of shit on screen. It’s still an unwatchable, eye-gouging, hair pulling film, but it isn’t nearly as bad as all that. I don’t know what happy juice was in Amenta’s water when he saw either of these movies, but he’s got something to answer for now that I had to watch the fucking thing a second time.

I wonder if they made the giant robots to be a 2 pilot system so they could show they were spending some of that 190 million on actors? That might explain the dumb reason for all the technobabble that drags the movie down for the first thirty minutes.

While typing this up, I listened to the latest From the Hip release, where PACIFIC RIM was discussed in detail. You may find it an additional bit of fun to accent Day 5 of SPEED 2 Month. You may also find it irritating, which I would enjoy greatly. You lovers of PACIFIC RIM can suck it, for all I care. The movie is more leaden than any tall ship anchor. Go watch giant robot or kaiju anime if you want a better story with better action and better lighting. Also, you should probably watch this video from Screen Junkies. It’s their Honest Trailer for PACIFIC RIM, and it’s a laugh fest.

I also want it known I spelled Guillermo six different ways before spellcheck, and I didn’t care at any point.

Other subheadings for Day 5 were: The Rim Job, Rimmed, I’ve Been Rimmed Again, Dirty Sanchez.

SPEED 2 Month 2015 Day 4: Bollocks

In all the years I’ve spent pushing my vendetta against SPEED 2, I have rarely given Sandra Bullock much guff for getting involved with this picture. I do recall much being played out in the “Entertainment Press” at the time, partly because she wasn’t all that willing to do it without Keanu Reeves. He refused and she seemed to get pressured into making this turkey with no real thought to consequences. I’m sure I could find quotes as to how little she wanted to do it before being signed, but really, who cares. What’s done is done and let the sack of doorknobs hit hard as they may.

Ms. Bullock made her film debut in 1987, playing a role in HANGMEN, alongside such esteemed actors as Jake LaMotta. If anyone saw this movie, please let me know. I’ve never had the pleasure. Between then and 1993, she meandered through television, telefilm and a few stinkers that were probably never released to the silver screen. She struck the eye of many a fanboy and critic alike in the Sylvester Stallone/Wesley Snipes action mashup, DEMOLITION MAN. She was cute, perky and could deliver a line. She got really lucky with SPEED in ’94, the surprise hit of the summer. She got pretty busy at this point, doing a large number of flicks in a short period of time. Some were good and made good money (WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING and THE NET) while others… well, let’s take a look at those.

Anyone remember LOVE POTION #9? No? Too bad, it didn’t suck completely. It wasn’t good by any means, but what do you expect for a movie that made more money as a VHS rental than at the box office. It was also made before Sandra Bullock was a household name, so I don’t really hold this in the same regard as a 160 million dollar waste of expense. Post-SPEED and pre-SPEED 2, she co-starred in TWO IF BY SEA with Dennis Leary, who was trying to break away from his embittered comedy act and feed his family. TWO IF BY SEA was again, not a terribly bad movie. It also seemed to find an audience in rentals where it didn’t at the theatre. I think it was the mismatch of these two that did this movie injustice rather than the bizarre plot. Feel like a night of Bullock misfires that won’t melt your brain? Put in LOVE POTION #9, TWO IF BY SEA and the 2000 runaway snoozer, 28 DAYS, where she plays a drunk thrown into rehab. If it weren’t for supporting cast members in 28 DAYS, it might be just enough to be used as a sleep aid.

In ’98 she co-starred (again) in PRACTICAL MAGIC, a really girly flick with Nicole Kidman. I’m not sure if studios thought that she wasn’t good enough to hold a movie by herself or that they thought more than one star would bring in more money at this point in her career. PRACTICAL MAGIC was no flop, but it was no hit either, making critics question her “star power”. I wouldn’t have said that with this movie, which holds no interest at all for me. Bullock and Kidman play sisters that are also witches and apothecaries. Yeah. Guess which one was the “bad witch”? When THE CRAFT came out in ’96, everyone had to do something with witches, to the chagrin of the 700 CLUB viewers and donation junkies. PRACTICAL MAGIC was the flip side of THE CRAFT, in some ways. Since no movie ever gets Wicca or witches or magic ever done right, I’ll move on to something more interesting before someone throws another curse on me.

While investigating Sandra Bullocks’ career, I discovered two things. One, she had co-starred in a 1999 movie with the incredibly wooden Ben Affleck. Two, she had three movies released in 2000, one I had never even heard of, much less seen. To not have seen her debut film is one thing, but not to know about a movie with Liam Neeson and Oliver Platt as the headliners? Odd. The Affleck mess I’ve seen; it’s called FORCES OF NATURE. The less said about it the better, because it reeked worse than the week-old hamburger in my fridge. Ben Affleck… he’s just so bad! I mean, if I have to, I’ll watch it again for this month if a copy still exists somewhere. It’s not GIGLI bad, but I had put it out of my mind so much I had to read the synopsis to remember it… and try not to scream out in the library. FORCES OF NATURE is sort of a ‘comedy of errors’ with no laughs. Its PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES with no charm, spark or intelligence. Tack on a romance to anchor the whole story and you’ve got yourself a real bomb. It’s not as bad as SPEED 2 largely due to the supporting cast, but it was just about as big of a flop. GUN SHY I never heard of – have you? Neeson. Platt. The resonant movie voiceover just kills with those two names, no? If it weren’t for MISS CONGENIALITY, the third film of her 2000 releases, I think studios would have started to blacklist her. Not that MISS CONGENIALITY was great stuff, but it made money and that’s really what matters to them at the end of the day.

Over all, as I look at her entire career, she has very few duds. Sure, a lot of them are not great, thought inducing material, but they’re popcorn entertainment at the very least. I couldn’t find another clunker on the list until THE PROPOSAL of 2009. I didn’t hate this movie when I watched it but it did not break new ground. It felt like a rewrite of WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING set in Washington State. It also co-stars Ryan Reynolds who looks to be Sandra Bullocks’ 20 year junior. It was a strange film of an even stranger romance and if you haven’t seen it, I can’t really recommend it. I wouldn’t even put it in the same realm as the trio of her movies I listed earlier for a night of Bullock. She does have quite a few films of the last ten years I have not seen yet, so maybe there might be another nearly as bad as SPEED 2 or FORCE OF NATURE. Your suggestions are welcome.

Prepare yourselves for a volatile day 5 as I visit a specific Guillermo Del Toro movie of recent vintage. It’s going to make the interwebs blush.

For more movie vitriol, head on over to From the Hip and listen to the latest podcast where host Vinnie, myself and John “Speed 2” Amenta discuss terrible, terrible films we’ve seen.

SPEED 2 Month 2015 Day 1: Projecting

June is the official SPEED 2 Month of a Leaf on the Wind, thirty days of disseminating all sorts of movies to conclude irrevocably that SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL is the worst film ever released to the silver screen. As many visitors to A Leaf on the Wind are likely new and unaware of SPEED 2 Month, I’ll explain a little of the history of how this became an annual event.

Some years past, while discussing films and comic books and other geek nation topics at a nearby comic and game store, I happened to mention SPEED 2 and the horrifying displeasure this movie impressed upon me. It, to be blunt, was a ridiculous mess of a story, with acting better suited for a Junior High School setting. This apparently was somewhat upsetting to a friend of mine who was there at the time, Mr. John Amenta. John claimed to have enjoyed the movie, disagreeing with me that it was the worst he’d ever seen. I took umbrage to the fact that he, a man of esteemed good taste, could even find a minutes worth of entertainment in the 122 that made up the waste of celluloid. SPEED 2 became a running gag for me, particularly in response to anything that John made claim to enjoy. For myself, I took immense pleasure not only in teasing John, but in discovering how many movies, no matter how bad, are not nearly on the low level of SPEED 2.

This… celebration of inadequacy… began as an oft-mentioned topic when A Leaf on the Wind began as a weblog at Myspace. It became a daily event through the month of June a few years back, though only being fully realized last year. If you’re of stout mind, you can go through the archives and read what was done last year in conjunction with this year, which may prove to be a landmark thirty days.

What will be seen here over the next few weeks will be movie versus movie comparisons, in-depth explorations of movie making and historical research into the films of the stars of SPEED 2, the director and producers. By June 30^th, A Leaf on the Wind hopes to impress that this movie is the worst Hollywood had yet pressured upon the viewing public.

Many films have already been mentioned or viewed in previous writs. During the month there may be links to earlier postings, or “reprinting’s” of those no longer on the web. The coming month will have all new areas to explore, bringing surprises, laughs and outrage to more than just one. Feel free to contact the page or post a comment following, or even make suggestions. Nothing is set in stone at A Leaf on the Wind, even SPEED 2 Month.

Day 2 will have the first comparison of a recently viewed film that was an ungodly mess and now sits in the lowest levels of movie hell: A.I. Yet, it’s still better than SPEED 2.

Last minute plug – if A Leaf on the Wind is enjoyable, or just SPEED 2 Month itself, search out From the Hip on the web, Facebook or ITunes. From the Hip is a podcast of pop culture fun and topics that relate to it, hosted by Vinnie Agosta, with the aforementioned John Amenta and myself guesting at times. Recommended, especially if you just want to know that Amenta owns a copy of SPEED 2 but not of the previous SPEED.

Closing Sunday

On the last day of the New York Comic Con I had one event scheduled and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it on time. I had to pack up all my stuff, finish and send off a few more articles to Bleeding Cool and then hop the bus. I chose to go easy and not push it because, really, it wasn’t a big deal to miss the panel on the first New York comic convention from the sixties. The armchair historian in me was interested, but I was already a smidge disillusioned in both the editing and practices of running articles on Bleeding Cool and didn’t think there’d be many readers for said topic. Considering the large amount of my submitted topics that didn’t run, I think I made the right choice.

I ran an hour later than I wanted, then the bus ran late due to traffic headed into the city. I was overburdened with my baggage and walked slowly to the show, enjoying the sunny weather after a dreary, drippy Saturday. As is usual in Hell’s Kitchen, the weekend has a flea market that takes over a couple of blocks near the convention center. Walking through it, I noticed a number of smart vendors selling comics, as well as a number of convention attendees shopping at their tables. I didn’t stop to shop, I wanted to dump my bags off at the check area and go about my loosely organized day. Well, I should say that I didn’t intend to shop. While walking through the market, I spotted on a high display, a copy of the Milton Bradley American Heritage Series game, Broadside. A simple battle game of naval combat, it hit my “want” list earlier in the year when playing a similar game. As it was originally produced in the Sixties and reprinted in the Seventies, I didn’t think I’d find a complete copy in good condition. I also certainly didn’t think I’d be finding it at the Hell’s Kitchen flea market on my way to the New York Comic Con. Yet, there it was, beckoning me. So, I swung into the booth and called out to the grubby little guy there. 20 bucks was not an unreasonable price, but the damned box was huge and I contemplated how I was to carry it home in one piece. The box was not crushed, and it looked reasonably decent for its age. The grubby little guy decided to show it to me while another “customer”, a bent character with a motor mouth, went on about howgreatthegamewasandhowhehaditwhenhewasakidandtheothergameswithitandIshouldgetitbecauseit’singreatshapeandhewisheshecouldgetitagainandplayitisn’titnice? What was worse is that the game sat underneath two other MB American Heritage Series games, Hit the Beach and Battle Cry, both of which I took a look at, too. All three were complete, the boxes uncrushed and even reinforced to keep from crushing. Someone took care of these games for some time before selling them. Then grubby little flea market guy offered all three of them to me for 50 bucks. Jeebus, what a deal. I really, really wanted them but, running low on funds and the ability to haul them around was daunting me. I wanted that Broadside, though. So, as I am wont to do now, I take the chance when I can. I bought Broadside and added it to my pile of baggage.

Getting into the show was horrendous. I had to walk the length of the building three times right off the bat. Once to get to the gate for Press and Pros, back to the other end to baggage check because the one near my entrance was full, then back in the other direction to meet with people I’d meant to search out and chat with for the website. I also wanted to find a large enough bag to carry around the game I purchased, since the plastic shopping bag given to me by little grubby flea market guy wasn’t large enough by any means. While trying to find all those people I wanted to chat with, I picked up one of the giant shoulder strap bags I’d seen all over the con during the weekend. One was a Walking Dead TV show bag, the other a Star Trek bag with a huge delta symbol on it. Yeah, after asking some kid where he got his, I went right to the Star Trek booth to pick one up. It was perfect for that game – a carrying strap, large enough to completely contain the box and with Velcro fasteners to seal it shut! Here’s a pic of the game and the bag. 

 The day progressed slowly and I kept missing everyone I was looking for. By mid-day I chose to take off, making the rounds to say goodbye to all my friends and compadres, including the new ones met at the show this year. I picked up a copy of Action Johnson at the Mythopoeia booth, intending to email the creator since we kept missing each other, and beat feet out of Manhattan as quick as I could. I was not unhappy to leave. I was tired. I was broke. I wanted to be in my own house, if that’s to be believed. I had a lot to think about when it came to conventions: how they’re perceived, promoted and written about. I had a lot of information and a lot of new contacts. Would it be worth the time and energy this year? I still haven’t decided if it was. It’s a big show. It’s comics, but it’s more of a splotchy, explosive hype with no streamlined focus. It’s all about the now and less about the what-made-the-now. You were a star artist in 1990? You’re likely a forgotten commodity at a show like this. You’re a third-string actor on a top-rated television show and you’re not charging for signatures? You’re probably going to get a line longer than a New York city block. You’re wearing a costume? You’re going to have your picture taken, sometimes by people making money off of it. You’re a woman in a costume? You’re going to have terribly sexist comments made either at you, or after you’ve walked by. A show can go as far as “Cosplay is not consent”, but what does it encompass? Tell me how that gets enforced, if it does at all.

I can’t not recommend going to the show if you never have, and feel it’s something you really want to do. It is an experience. It may not be exactly what you expect and it may not be what you hoped. It’s expensive. It’s crowded. It seems to always suffer from some weird situation at least once every year (like this one), but you may enjoy it. You may have fun. You may get some great deals at vendors for whatever you’re looking for. You will probably meet some great people, particularly if you’re social. You will find some great new products. You will find smaller press comics that never get the recognition they deserve and you will hopefully support them and buy. In fact, I insist you do. Find that comic or game or movie or book that really strikes your fancy and buy it. Support it and promote it when you can. Word of mouth is a great tool and you know you want to be “that guy”. You know which, the one that was there on the ground floor of something spectacular.

One last plug for everything and then I’m done with this hideous recollection.

Read EGOs by Stuart Moore and Gus Storms from Image Comics.

Read The Seven Scrolls of Shitorio by J.J. Kirton and Tristan Powell from Walk on Water Productions.

Read FUBAR by the various writers and artists that work on it, FUBAR Press.

Play the many games from Steve Jackson Games, including the popular Munchkin series and the recently re-released Car Wars.

Play the games being released from the new, solid IDW Games.

Try out the new Castle Assault game from Momentum Volsk.

Read Nathaniel Burney's books, The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law and The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Procedure.

Check out the art of Dave Wenzel.

Read the great volume of titles from Action Lab, which run the gamut from books for kids to blood and guts.

Search out and play Legends of the Three Kingdoms from Ziko Games.

Look for more art from Michael Montenat.

Read Skies of Fire from Mythopoeia and Action Johnson from writer Nic Shaw.

Try out one of the series from Big Dog Ink.

You want the coins from Rare Elements Foundry.

Read Looking for Group and then play the game!

For information on next year’s NYCC, stop by their site.

Lastly, Stay Cool with all your pop culture and detailed news at Bleeding Cool.

Thanks to Bryan for the ride down, Gail for the place to crash and Cliff for the ride home. Good to see you again Tara, Chris, Stuart, Amenta and Miriam. To all of you that I met this year, don’t disappear on me as I’ve plans afoot for a convention of my own. Franchesco, I’ll find you next time, you crazy artist guy. And finally, Mark Smylie, where are youuuuuuuuuu...