Out this week we have four DVDs to feature:  Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Ghost Hunters: Season Five, Part One, LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers,  Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant.  Do we Love It, Rent it, or Avoid Like Plague?

Owner

• Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths:  In a parallel Earth ruled by the crime syndicate, the Justice League must fight their evil doppelgangers in a battle that would be dead even, except that their malicious counterparts are willing to do the one thing Batman and Superman never would… kill.  The special features include over 2 hours of bonus content!  I've really enjoyed DC's direct to DVD projects like  Green Lantern: First Flight, Wonder Woman 2009, Justice League - The New Frontier.  Because of their past successes I would  buy this one sight unseen.
  
  
  
  • Buy it / Rent it
  
  
  
  

• Ghost Hunters: Season Five, Part One:  Always a great show.  This set includes episodes: Betsy Ross House, Star Island, Edith Wharton Estate, Club Dead, Soul Searching, Titanic Terror, Crossing Over, Garden State Asylum, Inhuman Entity, I am Not Guilty, Civil Wars Spirits, Essex County Penitentiary.
  
  
  
  • Buy it / Rent it
  
  
  • More Ghost Hunters on dashPunk
  
  
  
  

Renter

• LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers:  This one is so weird that I couldn't pass it by without mentioning it.  I get the feel that this will watch like the lego games will play which means I will at least laugh at it.  Clutch Powers and his team of LEGO experts on their adventure from LEGO City to the Space Police prison planet to the medieval world of Ashlar where they must help the rightful heir to the King’s throne find the courage to regain the kingdom from the evil wizard Mallock the Malign. Their brick-building skills will be put to the ultimate test as they face off against Mallock’s skeleton army. Get ready for an action-packed adventure like nothing you have ever seen before, The Adventures of Clutch Powers!
  
  
  
  • Buy it / Rent it
  
  
  
  

• Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant: Based on the first three books of the book series The Saga of Darren Shan by author Darren Shan.  A fantasy-adventure about a teenager who unknowingly breaks a 200-year-old truce between two warring factions of vampires. Pulled into a fantastic life of misunderstood sideshow freaks and grotesque creatures of the night, one teen will vanish from the safety of a boring existence and fulfill his destiny in a place drawn from nightmares.  Still a renter, I've heard mixed reviews of the movie and even netflix thinks I will give it a 3.6 which is in the wild card part of the rating.
  
  
  
  • Buy it / Rent it
  
  
  • Theater or Renter: October 2009
  
  
  
  

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[reus id="11"]

DC Comics is trying to encourage people who have read Watchmen Graphic novel to discover other graphic novels:

Five “AFTER WATCHMEN, WHAT’S NEXT?” Specials featuring a cover price of just $1.00:

• SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #21 SPECIAL EDITION

• TRANSMETROPOLITAN #1 SPECIAL EDITION

• PLANETARY #1 SPECIAL EDITION

• PREACHER #1 SPECIAL

• IDENTITY CRISIS #1 SPECIAL (Newsarama)

Don't get too excited, these are not full graphic novels, they are promotional issues to wet readers appetites.

Identity Crisis

If you enjoyed Watchmen, I would recomend Identity Crisis:

When the spouse of a JLA [Justice League of America] member is brutally murdered, the entire super-hero community searches for the killer, fearing their own loved ones may be the next targets! But before the mystery is fully solved, a number of long-buried secrets rise to the surface, threatening to tear apart and divide the heroes before they can bring the mysterious killer to justice (DC Comics).

I loved this graphic novel.  The superhero murder mystery is very well written.  It would make a great movie to follow the Watchmen.

With the conversation and buzz building up over who will be in the next Batman Movie I thought we should take a moment to point out what should be the obvious.  The DC Comics Encyclopedia is a must have for any writer of DC comics movie.

This book is a wonderful reference full of heroes and villains from the DC Universe.  For each character they give at basic bio sheet, what comics they appear in and a couple of paragraphs with some basic information.  They also cover the different organizations like The Justice League and The Justice Society.  As a fan I love this book and use it often as a quick reference sometimes to refresh my memory and with the more obscure characters like Bat-Mite a good starting source of information.

If only they would have used this when writing Batman Begins they would have at least got some of the basic setting and character facts correct.   Is that too much to ask?

The DC Comics Encyclopedia

This is just a quick note to ask a little favor from you and all of your brilliant writers, directors and producers. If you could, please start treating Comics like books.

I know this might come as a surprise to many of you, but comics are not just collections of pretty pictures of men and women in tights. They have stories, characters and depth. Well not all of them. Some of them are pretty bad, but like novels, there are good ones. There are some that are classic.

If you want to do a Batman film, may I suggest The Killing Joke, A Death in the Family, or even The Dark Knight Returns. All of them would make great movies. They are action packed and full of emotional touch tones. If you want to do another X-men film, why not try the Dark Phoenix Saga, it has superheroes, space battles and magic.

I know what I am suggesting is radical. I know that none of you have ever thought about mining stories for sources of screenplays but they are there. Consider V for Vendetta, Sin City and the forthcoming Watchmen films, you found your stories there even though they do not have any big names. I really hope you can get over need to recreate beloved characters, telling stories about them that do not make sense at all.

This is just a thought. You don't have to take my advice. I mean what are the odd you are going to make another film as bad as Spiderman 3, X-men 3, Batman Begins, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin... wow, I suppose it isn't that hard to make a really bad superhero flick.

Give it a try. Justice League: A New Frontier and Superman: Doomsday both turned out pretty good. Maybe you should continue to follow that model.

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Review of: Justice League - The New Frontier

Average Overall Rating: 9.9

Brian: Technical Rating: 9.7

Gut Rating: 10

I was excited about watching Justice League The New Frontier from the moment I heard it was in production. Warner Brothers has had a long history of doing a great job with translating the DC Comic Universe into animated tales from their TV series in the 90's to their direct to DVD movies. Couple that history with the all-star voice cast and so my expectations were high. I was ecstatic to see that they delivered.

I absolutely loved this movie. They really captured the political social message that the Justice League stands for. The art style, setting, and time period really gave the movie a nostalgic feeling with an accurate depiction of a more classic DC look. This movie is defiantly an owner. I will proudly display it on my shelf and watch it over and over again.

Justice League The New Frontier is a direct to DVD animated movie that was inspired by Darwyn Cooke's graphic novel. The story is set in the 1950's during McCarthy's American witch hunt where the U.S. gave into their darker nature and fear. The Justice Society of America has recently been disbanded and most of the Hero's have moved back into hiding amongst the citizenry. When a concerned ancient creature decided that humanity is too much of a threat to the planet it moves to remove earth of all humanity. Everyone puts aside their paranoia, differences, and fear to unite together to stop it.

The superhero's that appeared in the move are: Hal Jordan (David Boreanaz), Martian Manhunter (Miguel Ferrer), The Flash (Neil Patrick Harris), Wonder Woman (Lucy Lawless), Superman (Kyle MacLachlan), Aquaman (Alan Ritchson), Batman (Jeremy Sisto), Robin, Green Arrow, Black Canary,

Likes

• They captured the look, feel, and sound of each character well.


• Had a nice message of moving past our fears of what makes us different and focusing on what makes us alike.


• Wonder Woman was taller than Superman


• Artwork and drawing style really complimented the setting giving the movie a classic feel with out making it look outdated.


• setting the story in the 50's after the end of the Justice Society and before the formation of the Justice League

Dislikes / Concerns

• Needed more Green Lantern in it :D


• there are some very graphic scenes in it: no guts but a fair amount of blood. The graphic scenes were not bad but they could be disturbing if an immature child were to see it.

Get you copy from: Amazon (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Amazon Blu-ray

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• Horton Hears a Who


• The Weinstein Co. to Release Two Versions of Fanboys (via Superhero Flix)


• Dragonball Movie Wraps Filming (via Superhero Hype)

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• BBC, Ask Tom Baker Nicely (P:S Symposium)


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• Justice Department approves Sirius-XM merger (via Dvice)


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• New Album ’Has Started Taking Shape’ (via Lacuna Coil)


• New April Dates Added! (via State Radio)

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• Rock Band For Wii Officially Official (via Gay Gamer)


• Wii-kly Update (via Crave)
  
  
  
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Common put out a plea to the fans to help keep the new Justice League movie alive. Now let us think about that...

My first reaction was, that is awesome to see a studio turn to the fans in a time of need. That is the power of fandom. We are the ones supporting them, we are the target demographic that the advertisers want to reach, and in the end we are the ones who will buy the merchandise and games. It's nice to see a studio... oh wait it was not the studio it was Common who called out to the fans and recognized our importance and impact on the project.

That is when I remembered that the studio were the one who put together a piece of crap and called it a script. They were the ones who rushed the piece of crap to production instead of waiting for the writers strike end to edit it.

It was the studio who was so impatient that they did not want to bring back Brandon Routh the best superman they have had since Christopher Reeve.

I think Common is a great, nay I would go out on a limb and say perfect (I have faith) casting for Green Lantern. I want so badly to see him on the big screen but I would not wish for him to have to try to save this travesty. Maybe he could get a Green Lantern project to move forward with.

The funny thing was while reading the article on MTV Movies Blog my eyes wandered down to the comments. Aaron put it as:

"They have a model with zero acting talent or experience playing Wonder Woman, they have a 21 year old kid playing batman, they have Seth from the OC as The Flash, Whoever is playing Superman they aren’t Brandon Routh or Tom Welling. Common is a great choice for John Stewart. He really is. But with the majority of the cast being THAT awful, do I REALLY want to see this justice league movie go forward?"

Guille also sums it up:

Sorry Common. But with the current casting, plot and director I don’t want this movie to happen any time soon. Warner is making a huge mistake with this project. It has “train wreck” written all over it.

If you want the fan's support here are a few good guidelines to follow:

1. Don't treat the fans like surplus until you get into trouble then expect us to bail you out.


2. Don't use a beloved franchise name if you are not going to stick to the story and setting already established. I'm glaring at you Warner Bros. Pictures who ruined Batman Begins. If you had only used Night wing instead of Batman that could have been a good movie.


3. Listen to the fans, we are the target audience and our voice will be heard.

I can wait. In the mean time I will continue to enjoy watching my collection of Justice League on DVD: Justice League - Season One, Justice League - Season Two, Justice League Unlimited - Season One, Justice League Unlimited - Season Two

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