Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 141 is brought to you by Cure For the Run MMX. SomaCow’s second annual charity event is just a few days away now, but it’s not too late to get involved. If you’re interested in “running” in the event, if you’re a local business and you’d like to contribute something to the raffle, or if you’d just like to make a donation, go to curefortherun.com and you’ll find all the information you need. It’s going to be a day of great memories, for earning a year’s worth of bragging rights, and for brief athletic achievement followed by copious amounts of eating and drinking. But most of all it’s going to be a day for doing something good for children who need it. All proceeds and donations will go to New Hope for Kids, a Central Florida-based charity whose goal is “to bring health, healing, and happiness to children and families suffering from grief, loss, or life-threatening illnesses.” So please, come on out this Saturday to Wall Street Plaza, get registered to run (starts at 2pm), come meet the hosts from all the shows at the SomaCow Media Network, as well as Slacker and the Man, the Talk Nerdy Show, the Orlando Ghostbusters, and more, eat, drink, and when the time comes, RUN!

In this episode we review a HECKUVA lot of stuff, but perhaps most interestingly we review a pair of movies that came out last weekend that couldn’t be more different in terms of tone, style, and target audience. About the only thing that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and The Expendables have in common is that they both feature martial arts fighting and choreography. One of these films enjoyed considerable movie critic love, overwhelming approval from fans, and tremendous social networking buzz going into the weekend. The other movie, however, proved to be the more palatable to mainstream audiences (despite lousy reviews) because they knew what they would be getting, and therefore actually made money, winning the box office competition by a WIDE margin. Of course, if you didn’t know already, that box office winner was The Expendables. Shows how much I know about predicting the box office; as you’ll hear during the podcast, I actually said I’d be very surprised if Scott Pilgrim didn’t come out on top this weekend.

It’s just another in a series of box office flops by films made from lesser-known, niche or cult-favorite comic book properties. The Hero Complex blog at the LA Times this week features a great article by show business reporter Ben Fritz about why films such as Watchmen, The Losers, Kick-Ass, and now Scott Pilgrim vs. the World have floundered on opening weekend after riding huge waves of fan approval and hype generated by previews and screenings at Comic-Con. It’s a very interesting analysis, and the conclusions are hard to refute. Enjoy!

[EDITOR'S NOTE: During my review of Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #1 in the final segment of this episode, I erroneously credited John Byrne as the writer of the DC crossover event "Legends", as well as mistakenly giving its publication years as 1989-1990. "Legends" was published in 1986-1987, plotted by John Ostrander, scripted by Len Wein, and penciled by Byrne. Apologies for the confusion.]

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 137 is brought to you by Vindictus, the eagerly-anticipated upcoming fantasy MMORPG from Nexon nominated for “Best MMO” at this year’s E3. Once again, we want to thank Assistant Producer Chris Gyselinck for spending some time talking to us about Vindictus and all it has in store for the avid online role-player and gamer. The interview has lots of great information about the game if you weren’t aware of it before now, so if you’re into MMORPGs or action-adventure games do give it a listen, because Vindictus sounds like quite a different gaming experience compared to other games in this genre. We’ve posted the trailer for the game below, which shows extensive scenes of actual game play, so check that out, too! We also wish to thank Joanne Sibug, Public Relations Associate for Nexon, for making this interview with Chris possible. We hope to hear more about the game as it gets closer to its 4th quarter 2010 release.

In this episode, our second with Mitsugi and Chiaki of the Anime Addicts Anonymous Podcast, we focus almost exclusively on video games. In addition to our interview with Chris, Mitsugi weighs in the brand-new Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty from Blizzard Entertainment, which StarCraft fans have been waiting for now for a decade, and has much to live up to in terms of the fun its predecessor brought. Chiaki brings her own review of Final Fantasy XIII from Square Enix, measuring it up against its predecessors as well as assessing its strengths and weaknesses in its own right. And me? Well, I just listen, comment, and note the names of yet MORE games I hope to try out soon. Hey, I’m still playing Bioshock 2 and God of War III, so I’m a bit behind the times, I know, but at least they’re good games!

We wrap up the hour with reviews of new comics last week: Wonder Woman #601 (Stracynszki, Kramer) begins the new Diana-in-Pants Era of the Amazon Princess’ comic with a tale of legendary bravery and sacrifice, as Diana sees with her own eyes the destruction of Paradise Island and sets out in search of those responsible; while over in Marvel, Thor continues his battle with the soul-eating Disir (think Zombie Valkyries!) threatening Hela and the Asgardian dead in Thor #612 (Gillen, Braithwaite). Enjoy the show!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 127 is brought to you by The Talk Nerdy Show. We’ll be having the guys from Talk Nerdy Show live in studio this Saturday night, so don’t miss our live broadcast starting at 8PM. The guys are also teaming with our friends over at Heroes Landing to host a BBQ on Friday, July 2nd right in the Heroes Landing parking lot! They’ll be there all day, and so will we AND Slacker and the Man, so come out for burgers and beer, have your head sketched by uber-awesome Talk Nerdy artist Joe Carbonell, and hang out with the hosts of the best geek podcasts in Central Florida (well, we think we are, anyway.)!

In this hour, our second recorded down in Miami in the aftermath of Florida SuperCon, we focus our attention on that OTHER mega-geek event that went on all of last week in L.A., the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which featured Sony and Microsoft unveiling their new motion controllers and Nintendo showing off the forthcoming Nintendo 3DS. We focus on what we thought were the top 10 stories coming out of E3, or rather, what IGN thought were the top 10 stories coming out of E3, and if you’d like to know more about any of these topics, head over to games.ign.com and check out the various stories for yourself. Speaking just for myself, I’m not big on the whole motion controller thing, but then again, I’ve only ever tried it on the Wii, and I have yet to see it applied to a game I would really want to play. I reserve the right to do an “about face” with my opinion if that should change and either the Sony Playstation Move or the Microsoft Kinect completely blows me away.

In addition, we bring you our review of Jonah Hex, the new DC Comics-inspired film starring Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, and John Malkovich. E-yeah, this one really bombed at the box office last weekend, and it serves them right for opening against Toy Story 3, which I saw last Tuesday and which I daresay is a better, more satisfying sequel than Toy Story 2 and a wonderful conclusion to the series. It’s safe to say that in the battle of cinema cowboys, Woody left Jonah Hex dead and in the dust. But one thing I do want to say about Hex that I didn’t mention during the podcast: This movie has far too many similarities to 2007’s Ghost Rider : both films feature similar visual effects and actor Wes Bentley, albeit in a far smaller role in Hex. Both films also truly misfire in terms of their interpretations of the character and overall tone: Ghost Rider tried to frame Johnny Blaze’s story as a monster movie, while Jonah Hex plays up a supernatural angle to Hex’s story while utter failing to create any sense of authenticity in terms of depicting a post-Civil War “western” story. I’ll say this for Ghost Rider, though–it has far more laughable moments to move it into true “guilty pleasure” territory, while Hex is simply a dull bore that feels a whole HELLUVA lot longer than its meager 80 minute running time.

We wrap up this hour by spotlighting two comic book releases from last week, Birds of Prey #2 (Simone, Benes) from DC Comics and New Avengers #1 (Bendis, Immomen) from Marvel. Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 126 is brought to you by the Anime Addicts Anonymous (A.A.A.) Podcast. If you’re into anime of any genre and you’re not listening to this show, you’re really missing out. Chiaki, Mitsugi, Kimiko, Hatake, and Roukou are very passionate about anime, they know their stuff, and they have a lot of fun recording their show each week, and we here at PTG are hoping to bring some of that fun onto our program as well. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for announcements of some cool collaborations between PTG and AAA in the very near future, including the addition of a long-overdue anime review segment to PTG!

As you might have guessed from the title, this episode is all about my adventures at Florida SuperCon this past weekend, and basically serves as one big shout-out to all the great people I had a chance to hang out with or meet for the first time. Rather than try to encapsulate all of that into a written blog, I’d rather let you listen to the episode and instead use this space to provide website links for all the great people and groups we met and spoke to. Please do pay these links a visit, and tell them PTG sent you!

• Lisa Corrao – stand-up comedienne, producer of “Bad Movie Night” at the Ft. Lauderdale Improv Comedy Club, July 22nd!
• Ghost Shadow Studio – creators of the upcoming comic Torpidity
• B-Ru – illustrator extraordinaire
• Sci-Fried
• Cosplay Deviants – (NSFW!!!)
• The Channel Project and Stand Up Orlando
• Boundless Comics (New Home of Lady Death!)
• Miracole Burns – model, make-up artist, costume designer, stunt performer, cosplayer, uber nerd
• That Sci-Fi Show – Geekiness on Terrestrial Radio!
• Super Sidekick Records (producers of The Pursuit)
• Cosmic Times – writer/publisher of “Arthur: The Legend Continues”, “Souled”
• Top Cow Productions – publisher of Witchblade, Magdelena, Angelus, The Darkness, Artifacts
• Ancient City Con 2010, Jacksonville, FL, July 10-11

Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 104 is brought to you by Talk Nerdy Show. The recording of their latest episode, Episode 5, is now available, so give them a listen, and you may want to do it BEFORE you listen to this podcast, as they talk a little about getting ready for their appearance on PTG and the sketch that Joe Carbonell was preparing for me as a gift. Joe worked on the sketch all throughout the first hour of the show, and as you can see from the final product below, the man’s got talent!

If only I could get my hair to do that in real life. Anyway, many thanks to Ryan, Josh, and Joe for the sketch and for sitting in on this hour and in Episode 105!

In this episode we’re honored to have Paul Wenglowsky, Curator of Education for the Orange County Regional History Center, on the phone to talk about the museum’s ongoing “Out of this World” exhibit and their upcoming “Cosmic Comic Connection” event on April 10th. The event will feature special guest Alan Bellman and panels throughout the day focused on the history and creation comics and film. Our good friend Terry Cronin of Students of the Unusual will be there hosting two discussions, one on independent film and the other on writing independent comics. For more information on the event and the exhibit, visit the website at thehistorycenter.org. Many thanks once again to Paul for spending some time with us on Saturday night talking up the event, and also to Jennifer Cipolla, Marketing Manager for the History Center, for all her help in facilitating the interview. All of us in the studio enjoyed the chat and we look forward to spending some time at the event this weekend.

Also in this episode, we bring you our thoughts on Clash of the Titans, the remake of the Clash of the Titans from director Louis Leterrier and starring Sam Worthington and Liam Neeson. The reviews from critics across the country have not been kind, nor should they be–Leterrier and screenwriters Travis Beacham, Phil Hay, and Matt Manfredi have “streamlined” and altered the story from the original film to such an extent that it’s now little better than what you’d find in a mediocre fantasy video game. Indeed, the God of War video game series treats Greek Mythology with more reverence and understanding of its spirit and themes. Kudos to the production designers for the look of the Kraken, Medusa, and all the other monsters, who all show the influence of Ray Harryhausen’s original designs, and also for the look of the Olympians. But that’s as far as any praise should go for this mess. Enjoy! (NOTE: During the podcast I mistakenly refer to director Louis Leterrier as “Paul Leterrier”. No idea where I got the name “Paul”. I apologize for the confusion!)

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 98 is brought to you by MegaCon. We’re now less than a week away from the big show here in Orlando, and PTG will be there all three days this weekend to get as much coverage of the show as we can before our next broadcast, which will be Sunday, March 14th, from 6-8PM. The Man from Slacker and the Man will be in studio with me to help break down the weekend’s events, including the Wolf Pack Elite’s MegaCon Attendees After-Party, from which there are sure to be some good stories! It’s been a while since we’ve done a Sunday show, so for those folks who are regulars to our Saturday night live broadcasts, be sure to remember the change!

In this episode, in addition to our usual headlines and top comic picks segments, Mad Mario, our Highlord of Gaming, calls in to bring us up to speed on the games he’s been binging on lately. He reviews Mass Effect 2 for XBox 360 and Heavy Rain, Dante’s Inferno, and God of War: Collection for PS3. His reviews incorporate a new rating system for games that we hope to include in his future visits, the 1-5 “Pants Tightness” scale. What more could you ask for in terms of a quality scale? Yes, I thought so. Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 81 is brought to you by 2010. According to the Wikipedia entry for 2010, we’ve got a lot to look forward to this year. Of particular interest to me is the Total Lunar Eclipse we’re supposed to have on my birthday, December 21st. It will actually be visible in North America right after midnight of the 21st, so I’d say that’s good reason for me to stay up late, wouldn’t you? Might even throw a party and make sure it runs nice and late so we can all see it. I think I’ve got lots of time to plan.

Just one hour of PTG recorded this past week, so this will be this week’s only podcast, but we’ll be back to our regular 2 hour time span this upcoming Saturday. It’s been slow as far as geek news these past few weeks, but that’s certainly going to change by the end of the month. Dollhouse rolls on this week, Smallville returns on January 22nd, 24 begins Season 8 on January 17th, as does Fox’s new series Human Target, based on the DC Comics series of the same name. In terms of movies, we have Daybreakers, the vampire thriller starring Ethan Hawke and Sam Neill, debuting this week, The Book of Eli, the very promising-looking post-apocalyptic drama starring Denzel Washington, coming January 15th, and Legion, the “angels are coming to destroy us” movie starring Paul Bettany and Dennis Quaid, coming January 22nd. Lots out there in the many realms of geek to cover and review, so do stick with us!

In this episode we run down PTG’s New Year’s Resolutions for 2010, which is basically a list of all the things we hope to bring to you this coming year in terms of changes and improvements to the show, so you’ll want to give that a listen and maybe give us some feedback on what we’re hoping to do. Also we bring you reviews of a few really fun path board games, last year’s Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year-Germany) winner, Dominion, from Rio Grande Games, and Smallworld, from Days of Wonder. We wrap the show with a Blackest Night Spotlight on last week’s only new comic book release, Blackest Night #6 by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis. No spoilers, in case you haven’t read it yet, but seriously, if you’ve been reading this series and you haven’t read this issue yet, what the heck are you waiting for? Read the issue, THEN listen to this episode! Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 73 is brought to you by video game addiction. No, I don’t think I’m quite there yet when it comes to Dragon Age: Origins–I’ve only put in about 16 hours of playing time since I started playing the game in earnest last Friday night. But I’m certainly getting there. Back in Episode 69 Mad Mario made it very clear that I should avoid the game, not because it wasn’t a great game (which he said it was), but rather because I’m such a sporadic, inconsistent gamer that I could spend YEARS on that game and not get very far at all, compared to gamers who play with more regularity or completely surrender all their time, free and not-so-free, to video games. He was certainly correct about the quality of the game, but perhaps he overestimated my ability to resist the temptation to surrender LOTS more time to my PS3 when confronted with such a quality game. So yes, I anticipate spending LOTS more time slaying Darkspawn Hurlocks, rogue bandits, and other beasties I may encounter in the game while trying to manage the politics within the adventuring party so that I don’t find myself abandoned in the wilderness or killed in my sleep (yes, it is possible to piss off the NPCs in your party to an extent where they will betray you!), especially once all my non-PTG work-related commitments are done for the year in just two short weeks. You’ll know the game has taken over my life completely when I’m no longer posting regularly to the site–that’s when one of you loyal fans needs to send an email to SomaCow and tell them that an intervention is necessary.

Also in this episode, we review the new Wachowski-Brothers-produced martial-arts gorefest Ninja Assassin, starring Korean pop star-turned-actor Rain (you might recall him also performing martial-arts moves in Speed Racer, if, in fact, you actually saw that movie in theaters. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t–few people did) and ninja-film veteran Shô Kosugi. We wrap the hour with a Blackest Night Spotlight on last week’s three new tie-in titles: Blackest Night #5 (Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis), Green Lantern #48 (Johns, Doug Mahnke), and Justice League of America #39 (James Robinson, Mark Bagley). The main books, Blackest Night and Green Lantern, really kick it up a notch in terms of the action and character development, and lead to a cliffhanger that will leave you screaming about the fact that we don’t get a new issue of the main Blackest Night book until January. Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 72 is brought to you by Black Friday. I woke up at 5:35AM this morning, not because I set my alarm for that time, as so many other Americans with a stronger drive than I to get a big part of their holiday shopping done in one day probably did, but because my phone buzzed to tell me I’d gotten new email, an email about Black Friday deals going on over at Entertainment Earth. I promptly went back to sleep. Yes, I could have hopped online and purchased a copy of Dragon Age: Origins from BestBuy.com for $34.99, thereby saving $30. OR I could have gotten dressed and ventured out to the Best Buy down the street to witness firsthand the line of shoppers stretched out the door, people queued up to save lots of money on fun stuff. Wouldn’t have been tough–get up, throw some clothes on, hit 7-Eleven for some coffee on the way over, and get in line.

As I said, I went back to sleep.

It’s not that I have anything against frugality or bargain shopping. It’s simply that Black Friday craziness is not a part of my holiday habits. I have yet to really start thinking about what to get for whom for Christmas, and that’s simply a must if you’re doing to be doing pre-dawn shopping. A battle plan must be drawn up: specific objectives and locations that must be hit with quick, surgical precision in order to fulfill the mission. I’m sorry, but that’s too hardcore for my holiday spirit. I want to walk the aisles of a store with little pressure and just let the RIGHT gifts call out to me, whether they are bargain-priced or not. It may not be frugal OR efficient, but it seems more in the spirit of giving. It’s not about how much YOU saved, but rather how much THEY love what they get; at least, that’s how it seems to me. Others can certainly disagree, and whatever your method or belief about holiday shopping, if it brings joy to your loved ones AND saves you money, more power to you, and good luck out there today!

Episode 72 starts off by talking about Black Friday and asking the question of you listeners: what’s your holiday shopping routine? Head over to SomaCow.net/forum and the Prime Time Geek message board to answer the question there: we welcome your responses. Also, if you’re in search of deals this morning and don’t want to venture out, but would rather shop online, in addition to the deals I spotlighted in Wednesday’s post post, head over to bfads.net, the Official Black Friday 2009 website, to find hundreds of deals from online retailers all over the web. It’s a pretty comprehensive site, so be prepared to spend time making tough decisions on which deals to take advantage of … Also in this episode we bring you another four-pack of Flash TV reviews covering last week’s new episodes of V, Heroes, Fringe, and FlashForward. We wrap the hour with a set of Top Comic Picks featuring two Geoff Johns-penned books, The Flash: Rebirth #5 and Adventure Comics #4, along with Supergirl #47 by Sterling Gates. Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com

PTG Episode 69 is brought to you by acceptance, the last of the 5 stages of grief, as described by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying. Originally put forth as a theory on the emotional journey human beings experience in face of death or terminal illness, Kübler-Ross later applied the stages to any form of great personal loss, and since then the model has been referenced in a number of different social contexts. It first came to my attention in (of course) a comic book series, Marvel Comics‘ “Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America“, written by Jeph Loeb in five issues/chapters, each one exploring one of the five stages as the heroes of the Marvel Universe came to grips with the fact that Cap had died in the aftermath of the Superhero Civil War. Acceptance is on my mind this week because it’s pretty much where I am in terms of my feelings about the inevitable end of Dollhouse. After all, I’ve been through the other stages: Denial (”It won’t happen again. Everything’s going to be fine, it’s going to really take off this season, and it won’t get canceled.”), Anger (”Damn you, FOX! How could you do this to Whedon AGAIN? Putting them on Friday night, it’s all YOUR fault the Nielsen numbers are horrible!”), Bargaining (”Just let them finish a full second season! The numbers WILL go up!”), and Depression (”What’s the point in even being a fan of anything? If it’s good, they always just take it away!”) have all been a part of my experience with this show since the second season began so inauspiciously, and especially over the past weekend. But now it’s time for Acceptance-there’s no point in yelling about it or fighting it anymore, so let’s just look forward to the time we have left and the good things yet to come before the end, and there really is so much good coming, starting next month. I hope all you Dollhouse fans out there who shared my disappointment last week have come to similar conclusions-its time to focus on the positive, and the fact that now Joss Whedon will have time to bring to the web what many have long been clamoring for: Dr. Horrible 2!

In Episode 69, however, I was still in the midst of my anger, so we start with a “fuming” segment about the bad news but also talk about the good things to come in December and January on Dollhouse. A clarification is necessary about my comments, though: at one point I refer to the decisions FOX makes regarding Whedon-created shows as “something that seems to happen every few years”, when in fact it’s only happened once before, with Firefly. It HAS, however, happened to other Whedon-series alums Eliza Dushku (Tru Calling) and Nathan Fillion (Drive), so it’s easy to think it seems to “regularly” happen to Whedon-created properties. Yup, I misspoke–happens often when I rant, but of course if you’ve been listening to this program throughout the past year, you know that happens from time to time.

Also in this episode, Mad Mario, Destroyer of Worlds, calls in to talk cool stuff in the PS3 world. We break down the new Netflix streaming feature available to PS3 users, as well as talk the merits of two new game releases, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Dragon Age: Origins. Finally, in the Smallville Smackdown segment, we take a look at “Idol”, last week’s new episode that introduces the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, into the Smallville world (it’s not as bad as it sounds). Enjoy!