Pfangirl Through the Looking Glass

When all you want this Christmas is justice... and a big ass sniper's rifle...

Although very few people watched the new film ( my review ), it was a good year for British comic book icon Judge Dredd . Fans were pleased by the movie, which in turn introduced new enthusiasts to the grim, masked lawman of the future.

For all the Festive Season haters, let's introduce a bit of craziness and cynicism to this Advent Calendar for the next few days. Starting now...

Bond is back, and in top form in Skyfall . Although not quite reaching the consistently gratifying levels of 2006’s Casino Royale , Daniel Craig ’s third outing as British secret agent James Bond is leagues ahead of disjointed previous effort, Quantum of Solace . Coherent action scenes. A fun villain. An intensified focus on character. And the most stunning cinematography of any Bond film. All of these make the twenty-third official 007 flick well worth watching on the big screen. Plot-wise, Skyfall avoids the brain-straining twists and betrayals of so many other espionage actioners. Things are kept simple and individual focused. A cyberterrorist has acquired a list of undercover agent names and is gradually revealing them on YouTube. The thing is, his actions seem driven less by a desire for political destabilisation, and more about the public disgrace of veteran MI6 head M ( Judi Dench ). Still shaken by a near fatal mission, Bond accepts the task of tracking down the maste...

The Twilight Saga may be over, but that doesn't mean Hollywood won't try to replicate the success of the Young Adult fantasy franchise. In fact, next year we can watch the film adaptation of another Stephenie Meyer novel. The angsty love triangles - or is that quadrangles? - of young people receive a sci-fi, instead of supernatural, tweak in The Host . In The Host, the human race is almost extinct, having had their bodies taken over by perfectly composed parasitic aliens known as "Souls." Human rebel Melanie ( Saoirse Ronan ) is one of the last to fall, but she resists the efforts of a Soul called Wanderer to possess her completely, and the two consciousnesses end up sharing Melanie's body. With access to Melanie's memories and emotions, Wanderer comes to sympathise with the young women's family, friends and boyfriend Jared ( Max Irons ), while developing her own unexpected affections for another human, Ian ( Jake Abel ). Frances Fisher , Diane ...

Scrounge around the Internet and you'll find that when it comes to Christmas Batman is so often the scowling Ebenezer Scrooge of the DC Universe . Today is no different... [ Source ]

I haven't done one of these recap posts in a while, so, heading into the last month of 2012, here are all the significant posts of the last 2 months: Comic book stuff: Girlz 'N' Games Comic #106: Shifting Goal Posts Girlz 'N' Games comic #105: 60 Seconds of Black Comic book memoirs - Revisiting Batman: Year Two Film reviews: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 ParaNorman (3D) Frankenweenie (3D) Cloud Atlas Hotel Transylvania Dredd (3D) Ruby Sparks Total Recall Beasts of the Southern Wild The Raven, Safe, The Covenant Trailer profiles: World War Z Warm Bodies The Lone Ranger Iron Man 3 Cloud Atlas Hitchcock Vamps Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters Miscellaneous fun: Happy Halloween cosplay Comic con style The BAMF Girls Club

Today it's all about happier, uncomplicated days gone by... The Golden Age .

The pre-New 52 Justice League  happily lend Santa and his elves a "super" hand in the run-up to Christmas...

The countdown to Christmas is on! Repeating last year's Advent Calendar of Comic Awesomenes s, for the next 24 days you can enjoy some festive frivolity featuring some of comicdom's greatest characters - both official and fan-created. To tart with, here's the Avengers receiving some rather misguided gifts. [ Source ]

And so the festive season glut of blockbusters begins, starting with one film that - with the widest cinema opening in South African history - is likely to break local box office records. Skyfall : After the fantastic franchise-rebooting Casino Royale and less impressive Quantum of Solace , Daniel Craig is back in the tuxedo of Ian Fleming 's deadly MI6 agent, James Bond . This time the increasingly despondent Bond must come to the aid of M ( Judi Dench ) when she's targeted by cyber-terrorist Raoul Silva ( Javier Bardem ). Fortunately Ben Whishaw 's Q is around to kit out the suave spy with some effective new gadgetry. Meanwhile, Naomie Harris and Bérénice Lim Marlohe are Skyfall's requisite Bond girls. Every time a new 007 film comes out, it's proclaimed as the best ever made (yes, even Die Another Day )... so take these claims with a pinch of salt. Skyfall is no different. This said, with Sam (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) Mendes in the directo...

Originally posted on my web comic, Girlz 'N' Games . Last week or so, comic creator Tony Harris took to Facebook to rant about “fake geek girls” – more specifically female cosplayers who pop up in revealing outfits at cons and bask in the slobber-flecked nerd attention... despite the fact that the majority of these “superheroines” have little comic knowledge. For the most part, online outrage was the response to Harris’s outburst. “Boo hoo, poor socially inept white men, preyed on mercilessly by succubi masquerading as geek girls.” My 2 cents? I don’t disagree that there are cosplayers out there who are more interested in dressing up and feeling good about their bodies than grappling with the headache-inducing minutiae of comic book continuity. But fuck it, these women are having fun. They’re not doing it with any insidious intention. They’re not trying to bait anyone. They’re not there to snicker and demean. They’re not hurting anyone… Put more simply: it’s ...

I haven't read Max Brooks ' genre-redefining novel (yet), but I haven't been deaf to the anguished cries of fans concerning the upcoming film adaptation, World War Z . In literary form, World War Z is one of the definitive zombie apocalypse tales. In fact, it could be argued the book is the ultimate Man Vs. Undead Saga. Attempting to be as realistic as possible, the story follows a UN agent who is travelling the globe and collecting personal accounts from survivors of a decade-long struggle between the living and the dead. The War has led to the near extermination of the human race, and the novel examines the socio-political changes it has forced on humanity. Some nations and cultures have dealt with the undead uprising more effectively than others.  Judging by its first trailer, World War Z has certainly got the scope of the story right. It looks epic and global. Unfortunately though, there's something about the blatantly CGI-zombie tidal waves that grat...

Right South African moviegoers, this is evidently your weekend off. It's time to relax and build up your strength because from next Friday the end of year blockbuster season kicks off. Skyfall , The Hobbit , Rise of the Guardians , Looper , Life of Pi ... they're all coming out in quick succession. Today, though, the new releases aren't really appealing at all. Freelancers : 50 Cent stars in this crime drama about the revenge-minded son of a murdered New York policeman. Eventually our hero and his 2 buddies find themselves among a band of rogue cops - headed up by his father's corrupt former partner ( Robert De Niro ). Forest Whitaker also stars. Shame. 50 Cent has a tendency to appear in these mediocre, essentially straight-to-DVD efforts. Despite the presence of De Niro and Whitaker (both on autopilot), Freelancers is apparently a listless, poorly scripted genre entry. And 50 Cent still doesn't have the acting chops to carry a film. Fun Size : You can n...

Kudos to director Bill Condon and everyone involved in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 . Although the film is far from excellent, its makers have managed to end this supernatural romance series on a high note. Coming across – at least in its second half – like a cross between Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 and X-Men: The Last Stand, Breaking Dawn 2 does away with the monotonous love triangle angst of its predecessors and focuses on action instead. The filmmakers let rip, toying with fan expectation in a way that vastly improves on the movie’s literary source material. Just to clarify upfront: the plot for the Breaking Dawn film adaptation is convoluted tosh, as per Stephenie Meyer ’s book . It’s also entirely inaccessible for anyone who has (amazingly) managed to avoid the franchise over the past four years. With no recaps or character introductions, Part 2 is clearly meant to be watched immediately after Breaking Dawn – Part 1 ( my review ). The fir...

Why look, it's Twilight with zombies... OK, not really. Even though it comes from Summit Entertainment , the same studio responsible for the K-Stew and R-Patz Show of the past 4 years, Warm Bodies seems to be playing is supernatural romance premise almost entirely for laughs. Based on the novel of the same name by Isaac Marion , Warm Bodies centres on shambling undead R ( Nicholas Hoult ) who starts to rediscover his humanity when he encounters, and falls in love with, Julie (the very pretty Teresa Palmer ), a human survivor of the Zombie Apocalypse. John "I'm game for anything right now" Malkovich plays Julie's distrustful general father, and comedian Rob Corddry is R's dead best friend. Granted the trailer above gives away too much about the plot, but Warm Bodies, with its spin on Romeo and Juliet , looks like a lot of fun. Adding further credibility to the mix is that the movie is adapted and directed by up-and-coming filmmaker Jonatha...

First there were the vacationing monsters of Hotel Transylvania ( my review ). Then there were resurrected pets in Frankenweenie ( review) . And now, rounding out 2012’s trio of horror-themed animated comedies, there’s ParaNorman , with its witch curses, zombies and weird kids who see dead people. Of the three, Frankenweenie remains the sweetest and most consistently satisfying, but it’s similarly stop-motion ParaNorman that tops in terms of character creation, wit and visual wizardry. It’s also hands-down the most atmospheric, and genuinely creepy. ParaNorman seems intent on challenging expectation all-round. Opening with a tribute to 70s exploitation slashers, the film quickly establishes its plot while throwing around some audacious one-liners that will sail right over young children in the audience. So we meet young Norman Babcock (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee ), who is misunderstood and bullied by everyone – including his own family – because of his ability to communicate wi...

Four new movies open in South African cinemas today, although it's clear from the outset who the big box office winner will be... The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 : Long-suffering boyfriends and haters can breathe a sigh of relief. Five movies later, the soap opera-styled film franchise based on Stephenie Meyer's supernatural romance novels is finally drawing to a close. For now. In the final installment, Bella ( Kristen Stewart ) enjoys her "rebirth" as a vampire alongside undead hubby Edward ( Robert Pattinson ) and their hybrid vamp-human daughter. Unfortunately, the couple's happiness is short-lived as the powerful Volturi clan finally has an excuse to destroy the Cullen vampires. Time for the ultimate face-off! Personally I find it hard to believe that Breaking Dawn: Part 2 is particularly good. The book was tedious, with an overlong, aborted climax... but perhaps the filmmakers have fixed that? Currently the movie is sitting with an aggregated...

It’s been a while, but director Tim Burton has finally made something really worth watching: not just pretty to look at, or goofy superficial fun that implodes in its final act, but something with heart that entertains all-round. And evidently all this return to form required was for the former Disney artist to revisit his early filmography. With a few other animated films still left to open locally – ParaNorman , Wreck-It Ralph , Rise of the Guardians – Frankenweenie is easily the best animated American release of 2012 so far. Based on Burton’s 1984 live-action short of the same name , Frankenweenie is a black and white stop-motion tale that refreshingly doesn't punt the same limp, family-friendly messages of so many other animated films. Hell, at one point a character explicitly states “Sometimes adults don’t know what they’re talking about.” In essence, Frankenweenie is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein transplanted into retro-styled American suburbia. Victor Frankens...

After languishing in development hell for well over a decade, and then stalling last minute because of budget concerns (this baby costs over $250 million), The Lone Ranger is finally returning to the big screen in the 21st Century. No doubt hoping to duplicate the success of its Pirates of the Caribbean franchise , Disney has re-united the director ( Gore Verbinski ), producer ( Jerry Bruckheimer ) and star ( Johnny Depp ) of that particular series for this boisterous, mega-budget Western. Ascendant heartthrob  Armie Hammer plays the title character, a former Texas Ranger left for dead during an ambush. Saved by Native American spirit warrior Tonto (Depp), our hero dons a mask and fights injustice, riding off on his white stallion with the catchphrase "High-ho Silver, away!" Out of interest, The Lone Ranger started life as a radio serial in the 1930s (with The Green Hornet as its spin-off) before becoming an iconic TV series in the 1950s, starring Clayton ...