Pfangirl Through the Looking Glass

Two Thursdays ago, I posted up a loooong blog post on the various Marvel superhero films coming to cinemas in the next three or so years. Well, since then there have been a number of developments and announcements with regard to these movies. Probably the most exciting revelation of the last fortnight was the online debut of concept art depicting Chris Hemsworth as Scandinavian god-superhero Thor , and Chris Evans as Captain America. These pics are the real deal, folks, and appeared first at Collider and Ain't It Cool News, respectively. Fan reception of these images has apparently been mixed, but frankly I love the look in both cases - subdued and more "realistic" in comparison to the original comic costumes, without completely losing the flavour of the source material. The concept artists (and presumably costume designers) have found that perfect balance between credibility and fantasy as far as I'm concerned. For the record, Thor releases on 6 May next...

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I must be one of the few people in the world who has never watched the first 2 Toy Story films from Pixar and Disney. The first Toy Story , in particular, was a game changer as far as animated family films are concerned. Although looking a tad dated now, the original film - depicting the rivalries between a young boy's sentient toys - led the CGI-animation revolution... which may have explained my resistance to the franchise at the time (1995). After years of aspiring to become a pencil and paper animator, I was horrified to see 2D going the way of the dodo. Anyway, over the years I seem to have developed nostalgic feelings for the Toy Story franchise by association, and I know there are many, many people out there - of all ages - whose hearts fill with joy and affection at the thought of Woody, Buzz Lightyear, the Potato Heads, Rex, Hamm, Slinky Dog, the toy soldiers and the various other inhabitants of Andy's toy box. Now, Toy Story fans ca...

A few Mondays ago, I posted up the first 3 of 6 True Blood minisodes - short 2 to 5 minute clips released on the Internet to stir up fan excitement in preparation for the start of TV show True Blood's Season 3 on Sunday, 13 June on HBO (in the United States; not South Africa of course). Now, you can watch the final 3 minisodes below, which focus on the characters of shape shifting bar owner Sam Merlotte, 19th Century vampire Bill Compton and manslut Jason Stackhouse. All 3 clips are set in the time period around the Season 2 finale. And, yup, in the final clip, viewers get their first fleeting glimpse of a werepanther. True Blood, for those who don't know, is a supernatural-mystery-romance TV series for open minded adults. There's sex, there's violence and there are all kinds of monstrous creatures - including vampires, shape shifters, maenads and werewolves - that mix with the kooky (and typically not too bright) human inhabitants of a small town in the backwoods of ...

It's a big day at the movies today, with 9 new movies hitting South African cinema screens. These include Chris Rock comedy documentary Good Hair ( 94% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes ); Bollywood political thriller Raajneeti ; Christian-themed high school drama To Save a Life ( 29% Fresh ); The Limits of Control , a Spain-set crime drama from indie director Jim Jarmusch ( 41% Fresh ); Irish child runaway film Kisses ( 82% Fresh ); and a recording of theatrical production The Tsarina's Slippers , as performed by Britain's Royal Opera and Royal Ballet. Finally, before I get to my 2 movie picks of the weekend, there's Antichrist , which is screening locally in very limited release. This divisive, and very graphic film was my favourite horror film of last year . Basically torture porn for adults, the exceptionally well acted Antichrist is 48% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes . Watch it if you dare. Moving on though, my top 2 filmic picks from today's new releases are as follows:...

Robin Hood is the fifth time director Ridley Scott has teamed up with his Gladiator star Russell Crowe. This time they tackle the legend of Britain’s favourite archer-bandit, who is celebrated for stealing from the corrupt rich to give to the poor and downtrodden. Scott’s Robin Hood, however, isn’t based on the well known tales of Nottingham Forest’s most famous resident. Although the film lifts elements and characters from the old stories, the new Robin Hood is essentially a reality-tinged origin story – explaining how Robin Longstride/Loxley came to be a hero of the people, and a despised enemy of English authorities. Robin Hood is better than its trailers led viewers to believe, but at the same time the movie doesn’t quite achieve a comfortable balance between fantasy and gritty reality. The end result is a film that is entertaining, but marred by some jarring aspects. Of all the things that can be said about Robin Hood, one of the most immediately obvious is that it is never borin...

Well, depending on your favourite category of pop culture geekery, you can choose to view this new Girlz 'N' Games comic as referring to the new movie, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (based, of course on the 2003 video game ), or, alternatively, the new non movie tie-in game Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands . It was kind of inevitable that a Prince of Persia-themed GNG comic was on the way. If you've been reading this strip for a while now, you'll know that over the past *gulp* 6 years I've drawn more POP comics than even World of WarCraft ones. The "reimagined" Prince of Persia games released from 2003 - 2005, with their heavy emphasis on acrobatics to survive combats, avoid booby-traps and solve puzzles, are amongst my favourite game titles of all time. In Girlz 'N' Games #68, I simply took POP's trademark wall running and back flips - as well as a line or so from the new fantasy-adventure film - and merged them with geeky bedro...

Joining the lengthy list of remakes and reimaginings hitting cinema screens in 2010 is The Karate Kid - which no doubt hopes to break the string of remake mediocrity that is Alice in Wonderland , Clash of the Titans , A Nightmare on Elm Street and Robin Hood . Judging by the trailer though, The Karate Kid 2010 could easily be another misguided attempt at revamping a classic movie (these days typically from the 1980s) for contemporary audiences too apparently lazy to hire/download the original. The plot for The Karate Kid 2010 is as follows: In The Karate Kid, 12-year-old Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) could've been the most popular kid in Detroit, but his mother's (Taraji P. Henson) latest career move has landed him in China. Dre immediately falls for his classmate Mei Ying - and the feeling is mutual - but cultural differences make such a friendship impossible. Even worse, Dre's feelings make an enemy of the class bully, Cheng. In the land of kung fu, Dre knows only a little ...

A few weeks back I posted up a pic of my DVD collection . In keeping with the personal pop culture over share, I thought I'd post up these photos of my old action figures. Right now they're hauled out every time my 3 and half year old cousin comes to visit, but I don't see these guys ever going to charity. Underprivileged kids can have my old stuffed animals, but my action figures... well, these are being saved for my kids one day. Rather the ThunderCats , Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles and late 80s/early 90s Disney animated movies than all that Ben 10 and Hannah Montana rubbish.

So, the past few weeks I've been kept busy. I've been temping, applying for dozens of jobs in Cape Town (with little to zero response), watching Rock Circus's surprisingly entertaining combination of aerial acrobatics and tribute acts at the Gateway Barnyard Theatre , playing my first ever game of Pathfinder (basically Open Source D&D , as I understand it), attending Durban's latest 27dinner , and, yesterday, supporting family and friends as they ran the Comrades Marathon , the oldest, biggest ultra-marathon in the world. May was also a busy month on this blog. In case you missed it, these are some of the highlights of the past 31 days. Blog features: Superhero films coming your way: The Marvel slate Superhero films coming your way: The DC-Warner Bros slate True Blood news and minisodes Girlz 'N' Games webcomic #66: Clash of the... Na'vi?! Girlz 'N' Games webcomic #67: Geek Vs. Geek Free fantasy fiction RIP Frank Frazetta Movie reviews: P...

Something like 7 new movies open in South Africa today. In limited release you can catch a theatrical production of opera Armida recorded for the screen, and French musical drama Paris/Faubourg 36 ( 59% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes ). For the kids there's CGI-animated sequel Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back , full of primate silliness - and now in 3D. It's actually a good weekend for movie silliness, as along with Space Chimps, there's Gentlemen Broncos ( 19% Fresh ), a comedy from the director of Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre about a teenage loner whose fiction writing is plagiarised by a popular fantasy novelist. More importantly, there's a new movie out today from South Africa's very own master of silliness, Leon Schuster . Schuks Tshabalala's Survival Guide to South Africa doesn't mess with the comedic formula that so many undemanding (or brain dead?) South Africans lap up year after year. This time the candid camera tomfoolery is given a Footb...

Two weeks ago, I posted the first of two blog articles about the various superhero films coming our way based on titles from the two major comic book publishers, DC and Marvel . This is the second post. After a decade of massive box office success, the superhero action-fantasy genre is at a crucial turning point. Where to from here? Well, in moving forward, the trend seems to be in two directions: 1) ambitious projects with an epic scope and characters who function at a level beyond the super-human, and 2) reboots and reimaginings of superhero franchises that never quite achieved their potential, or have grown stale. In the latter camp, we can include rumoured reboots of The Fantastic Four , Daredevil and Ghost Rider as well as a few other film projects that will be discussed below. However, this post is less about whisperings and more about the films that are definitely heading to cinemas from Marvel in the next five years - with cast and crew already attached....

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is intended to be Disney and producer-extraordinaire Jerry Bruckheimer’s big follow-up to the ultra-successful Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Instead of being based on a theme park ride, however, this epic fantasy-adventure uses a video game as its source material. But what a video game! Ubisoft’s 2003 Prince of Persia: The Sands of Tim e is arguable one of the greatest puzzle-solving action-adventures of all time – combining likeable characters, gravity-defying acrobatic combat and a nifty time-control premise. Seven years later, the film adaptation is careful to contain these vital elements and the end result is a fairly satisfying big screen translation that, while ultimately forgettable, is still a great deal of fun while the projector is rolling. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time centres on Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), an orphaned street urchin who impresses the Persian king with his courage and nobility as a child, and is promptly ado...

After the Clash Of the Titans 3D debacle , I vowed to only watch 3D films that have been specifically made for the format. No more wasting money on shoddy, cheap conversions from traditional 2D purely so that film studios can squeeze a few more bucks out of viewers. This said, with my "only original 3D" rule in place, I'm still entitled to watch horror remake Piranha 3-D . Based on a cheesy 1978 Jaws rip-off (that was followed by the truly atrocious Piranha II: The Spawning ), Piranha 3-D looks to be a delicious B-grade treat that embraces its ridiculousness. Take the film's premise for example: Each Spring Break, the population of Lake Victoria, Arizona swells from 5,000 to 50,000 as young people flood the town to celebrate, but this year, there is something more to worry about than hangovers and complaints from local old timers. A new type of terror is about to be cut loose on beautiful Lake Victoria, itself the caldera of an ancient volcano. When earth tremors tea...

A little while ago , I posted up the first 2 parts of a fantasy story based on my new Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying character - Elora the half-elf warlock. Well, it took me a little while but I stuck to my personal challenge of producing a my first ever complete piece of fantasy fiction, and I'm proud of my efforts. So here, for your Monday work procrastination pleasure, is the 26-page story for complimentary download: Elora: A character introduction Have a read and then let me know what you think in the Blog Comments below. For the record, in case you are wondering why the character of Elora is so " emo ," well, that was kind of the point. After my last D&D character - a selfless, emotionally simplistic half-elf paladin by the name of Herkon, I wanted to craft and play a character who was entirely self-involved and prone to pity parties.