Comic Con 2011

If any one reads this and think we are bitching about Comic Con that's not the case, we are pointing out our observations we have been to previous Comic Con's and by far this year in our opinion was the weakest.

This year's Comic Con wasn't as good as it has been in previous years.   Let's start with the online ticket fiasco with their partnership with ticket leap that whole thing was a complete cluster-fuck.

The online process is generally suppose to be easier, well purchasing tickets for the 2011San Diego Comic Con was as bad as standing online for a must see panel.  Here was the process: Try to register.....finally register...get kicked offline.....system crash....wait for them to fix their system.....refresh....another system crash....finally place order.....refresh....yet another system crash.....again input your order....refresh.....wait.....wait....wait....refresh.....wait in online hell.....pay for your tickets.......refresh I think you get our point.

To our dismay the best panels this year were stacked on Thursday and Friday and in previous years they have been on Saturday.  The panels on Saturday in Hall H, were interesting to say the least.  Seeing legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola  and Val Kilmer talk about TWIXT which was interesting however it was very uninteresting it reminded us of yet another tween vampire movie and you know what we are talking about.

The next big event was Director Kevin Smith and every year we have gone his panel has had maybe 1,500-2,000 people but this year Hall H was packed with almost 6,000 people to see Kevin.  First let us say this we are fans of Kevin Smith, but goes to show how much the major studios have had an impact on recent Comic Con's.  Since some of the major studios chose to skip the 2011 SDCC the programming was extremely weak.  We knew of a couple major blockbusters that are due to hit theaters later this year Warner Bros. Sherlock Holmes-Game of Shadows, Paramount's Mission Impossible-Ghost Protocol they were noticeably absent. 

To pre-register for the 2012 San Diego Comic Con you had to purchased offsite.....WTH!!!!  OFFSITE!!  Yes kiddies Comic Con has stuck it to us yet again.  I guess the organizers think they are doing us a favor well you're not!  Here was that process it was as we said it's offsite at the Douglas Pavilion Manchester Grand Hyatt and it was for only 3 hours 8am-11am Thursday-Sunday....WHAT!!! 3 hours Ugh!  Okay we went there and the line there was worse than waiting in line for any panel and then they had the nerve to raise the prices......Yep these are the new prices for the 2012 SDCC:
                                                                         Adult    Junior Military/Senior

4-DAY WITH Preview Night	$175*	$87*	$87*
4-DAY WITHOUT Preview Night	$150*	$75*	$75*
SINGLE DAY Thurs - Sat	$40	$20	$20
SINGLE DAY Sunday	$23	$11	$1

Now how bad do you want to go the SDCC?  Look in previous years they had the registration onsite and it was close but if you got the next years tixs early it was one less headache you had to deal with and you could enjoy the panels you wanted to see.

Ok now that we have vented, we did have a good time.   Comic Con has evolved and that we are proud of however the name should be changed to Entertainment Con.....catchy name huh.

The Avengers Assemble at D23

The only highlight of the D23 Expo

D23 Expo

Rocky from Sin City Film Review Crew had an opportunity to attend the D23 Expo at the Anaheim Convention Center on Saturday, here is the review.  Hey everyone I'm going to tell you how it went, well it's definitely not Comic Con but if you are a major Disney fan it's the perfect event for you.  Myself and several friends arrived at the convention center about 4:45am and got on line with the other D23 members.   According to the D23 website if you are a D23 member you'll be granted early access to the venue before the general public, well that was somewhat true the main event of the day was the presentation of the Walt Disney Studios featuring Marvel Studios which was bringing The Avengers.   We stood online from 5:00am to 9:00am then we were escorted inside, now once inside we were herded like cattle into these lines where we had surrender.....no wait let rephrase that, they confiscated our cellphones, still cameras and any all recording devices.  Ok I understand the video cameras but still cameras?  Ok fine I had to deal with that headache so they took my still camera, cellphone and ID and they gave a green claim ticket now my friends had different color claim tickets also they had to put up with that headache as well.  Once that was over we were then herded into another line where we waited another hour next to the loudest speaker playing Radio Disney pop music......God the agony.  At approximately 10:00am....I think??   I didn't have my cellphone and I didn't wear a watch so I'm guessing on the time we were escorted into the D23 Arena once inside we were seated about 20 rows from the stage one of the staff member who was really nice and the most honest one there said that we might be able to move up.  Now the seats that were roped off cost about $500-$1000 and sometimes those people don't show up......WRONG!!!  They showed up and we were screwed.....Oh Well.  We sat through the animation stuff and some of it was cool seeing the celebrity voice talent like Sarah Silverman, Jon Cryer, Billy Crystal and others in person was nice, then they celebrated the 25th  Anniversary of Pixar by showing some upcoming projects and giving us cupcakes I won't complain about the taste but at least they were free.  The next presentation was Walt Disney Studios and they brought some footage from upcoming projects like Tim Burton's Frankenweenie, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, and The Muppets.   Seeing The Muppets again was a bright spot also seeing Jason Segel, Kermit and Miss Piggy took me back.  The next presentation was John Carter this a film adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel.  Ok the Director Andrew Stanton basically was reading off a teleprompter and there was a delay so he was sort of flustered at times during his presentation, but what was really bad was the footage.   It was so uninteresting and honestly boring that I tuned it out.  The final presentation was Marvel Studios The Avengers.  Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige talked about sitting in the D23 audience last year and he said that the film had two more weeks of shooting to go and then he presented us 4 minutes of footage of the film.  We all had a complete Nerdgasm seeing that footage, then Feige brought out some of the cast from the film he started with Tom Hiddleston(Loki), Colby Smolders(S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill), Jeremy Renner(Clint Barton/Hawkeye), Scarlett Johansson(Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow), Chris Hemsworth(Thor), and Robert Downey Jr(Tony Stark/Iron Man) who got the biggest, and loudest standing ovation.  Robert made a funny comment about visiting his parents here in Anaheim and said "would we like to see the footage again" the crowd pretty much shouted yes and they showed the footage again.  Once the footage was over they left, the entire time they were there was all of maybe 8 minutes total.   Speaking time 30 seconds.....Priceless.  Now getting out of the arena was a gigantic cluster fuck there was no organization it was everyone for themselves it took me about 40 minutes to get to the table and another 15 minutes to get to the right person and another 5 minutes to get my stuff.  This was the worst experience I have ever been through I will not be attending any other D23 expos because of the complete lack of organization the floor was not enticing as a matter of fact it was boring.  Maybe Disney should learn a thing or two from Comic Con and honestly that one isn't that well organized either.

Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance (2012) Trailer - HD movie

This trailer has potential but we're still skeptical. Well see in Feb 2012.

Rise of the Planet of The Apes

Here we go with another Hollywood abomination. We reluctantly went and saw the here we go again.....remake of Planet of the Apes and was sadly disappointed in the film. Basically it sucked, but at least they had the decency to have the actors looking like apes.

In this latest spit in the face to the original Planet of the Apes series, they used real actors to act out the scenes, but then used computer generated images for the look of the apes.  The trailer didn't look very interesting and did not make us want to go see this film, so we are not going to waste our hard earned money on this film.

Well, days later we broke down and wasted our hard earned money on this crap we just had to see it to see what the paid critics were talking about and we should've followed our first mind and not seen this. Overall this film is horrible and again to beat a dead monkey...lol Hollywood where are the original ideas STOP WITH THE REMAKES!!!!

Dirty Dancing Remake Is in the Works!

DO NOT REMAKE THIS CLASSIC FILM. Please leave this film as the classic it is and do not cheapen it with a sub standard attempt at Hollywoods love for remakes.

Lionsgate has announced plans to remake Dirty Dancing.......For the love God why???  This goes to show that Hollywood's lack of new blood is starting to take it's toll.  With the influx of remakes and reboots where has the originality gone?  We mean there are writer's in Hollywood...right?  So why are we seeing so many remakes and reboots instead of original ideas?  This is really getting old quick why are the studios paying these writers to re-write what's already been done?......We mean you're a writer right, so be creative and come up with new and fresh creations.  And to the studios there is new talent in Hollywood why don't you guys tap it.  In our opinion instead of spending millions on remakes and reboots that may or may not be box office hits why don't you just re-release the original film.  

These Four Walls-Student Short Film

This is a well done student short film that has yet to be given proper credit. Trust us most student films we've seen are really sappy or artsy-fartsy, they have bad sound or camera work overall they just suck and that's why we are generally surprised at the quality of this one. Check this out and show this filmmaker some props because they really deserve it.

Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant - Clip 1

Nice teaser can't wait to see more and we all know who he is talking about....Remember Iron Man 2.....Hmmm

THOR | DVD/Blu-ray Release Sizzle Reel

 This will be awesome it will be out Sept 13, 2011 so pick it up when it hits stores.

The Avengers | Teaser Trailer Sneak Peek

May 2012 will start out with a Bang!!!  We can't wait to see the Avengers.

The Videos

The reason you are seeing our older videos it just shows that we have been doing this for a few years we are just now catching up with the latest stuff.  Stay tuned for our stuff from Comic Con

Sin City Film Review Crew Episode #3

Sin City Film Review Crew Episode #2

Sin City Film Review Crew Episode #1