Dennis Finocchiaro

Geekscape Movie Reviews: ‘Marvel Knights: Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk’

by Dennis FinocchiaroSeptember 5, 2013

Warning: The following review contains spoilers!

Marvel Knights’ new release, Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk, based on the comic series of the same name, is a highly entertaining variation of the storyline. Writer Damon Lindelof (Lost, Star Trek: Into Darkness) brings the plot to film with the help of artist Leinil Francis Yu (Secret Invasion) and colorist Dave McCaig.

The story is simple. The Hulk was sentenced to death for murdering over 600 people, 60+ of them being children, so Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. killed him with a nuclear bomb. The problem is, it turns out that’s not enough to kill Hulk. Fury then enlists Wolverine to find Bruce Banner and kill him.

The catch? There’s a little bit more going on behind the scenes, as usual with S.H.I.E.L.D. The Hulk’s ex, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, just might still be in love with him, and her coworker may have just solved the problem with Banner’s Hulk Formula.

http://youtu.be/CThLutcEr-M

As Wolverine tries to track him down, the storyline jumps from him to Fury to Hulk/Banner’s points of view, which at times can begin to get a little frustrating. And the episode that focuses on Banner’s travels and struggles with anger is a bit slow-moving. Other than that, the film is fun. The addition of humor to the storyline really helped, with small quips and jokes that are reminiscent of The Avengers. If for no other reason, it’s worth watching just to find out the answer to the age-old joke, “What does Wolverine do to get through the metal detectors at the airport?”

And if that’s not enough, no matter how badass you thought Wolverine was in the past, the opening of this film will prove you wrong when he is torn in half by Hulk and crawls four miles to the top of a mountain to get back his legs. Intense!

Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine incorporates a few other fan-favorites, such as Tony Stark, Captain America and a certain female who is large an green as well. The references to pop culture and films (Star Wars, for example) add some fun to the storyline.

This is part of a series of comic adaptations Shout! Factory and Marvel Knights has released. The only other one I’ve personally seen was Astonishing X-Men: Unstoppable, which was decent. It definitely does take some time to get used to the limited movement in the artwork, especially when compared to everyday cartoons and animated films.

Marvel Knights: Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk, is available September 10th and can be preordered on Amazon. Or, you could always enter to win a copy!

Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine scores a worthy 4/5.

School’s Open! A New Zombie Survival School, That Is…

by Dennis FinocchiaroSeptember 4, 2013

…and the best part is: it’s FREE!

With the upcoming season of The Walking Dead just around the corner, AMC has partnered with University of California, Irvine to offer a new class called Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMC’s The Walking Dead.

Faculty members of the university will take turns lecturing students virtually, including experts in the Social Sciences, Physics, Astronomy, Public Health, and Mathematics. Each professor will combine their knowledge with what would really happen in an apocalyptic setting.

Each class will take place the Monday after each The Walking Dead episode, and will include discussion of the show as well. The lecturers will have access to the cast of the series to add another twist on the classes.

While tied into the show, this class will tackle real-life scenarios that include lessons on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, social order and structure, public health and the CDC, and many other topics.

Here is the course description from their website:

“From understanding social identities to modeling the spread of disease, this eight-week course will span key science and survival themes using AMC’s The Walking Dead as its basis. Four faculty members from the University of California, Irvine will take you on an inter-disciplinary academic journey deep into the world of AMC’s The Walking Dead…”

This program is serious. It even comes with student standards:

At the end of this course, you will be able to:
• Describe how infectious diseases—like a zombie epidemic—spread and are managed
• Apply various models of society and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to existing and emerging societies as a means for understanding human behavior
• Analyze existing social roles and stereotypes as they exist today and in an emerging world
• Debate the role of public health organizations in society
• Describe how mathematical equations for population dynamics can be used to study disease spread and interventions
• Apply concepts of energy and momentum appropriately when analyzing collisions and other activities that either inflict or prevent damage
• Summarize multiple methods for managing stress in disaster situations

I, for one, have already signed up for the class, which starts October 14th, the day after the season premiere, and ends December 20th. And if you don’t really enjoy school, you might be happy to learn the class isn’t graded.
Come back for updates from Dennis on the class and what they’re learning, starting October 15th.

‘It’s Always Sunny’: Philadelphia Phillies’ Chase Utley Replies to Mac’s Letter!

by Dennis FinocchiaroSeptember 3, 2013

Briefly: For those of you who watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you know of Mac’s obsession with Philadelphia Phillies player Chase Utley. Well, just now (five years later) he’s finally gotten a response from Chase. It’s hilarious.

Here is his response to Mac:

If you need a refresher on what Mac actually wrote to Chase, check out the original letter Mac wrote to Utley:

Let us know what you think! The new season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia starts this Wednesday at 10 P.M. on the new FXX.

I’ve Got The Transformers Masterpiece Soundwave, And So Should You!

by Dennis FinocchiaroSeptember 2, 2013

I want to scream it from the rooftops. “I’VE GOT THE NEW TRANSFORMERS MASTERPIECE SOUNDWAVE!” But nobody in my neighborhood would care, so I’m sharing the news with you instead.

The wife and I were at Toys R Us and she had to ask customer service a question. As we got the answer and turned to walk away, I noticed giant black boxes with half of a Decepticon symbol showing on the side. “What are those?” I asked innocently.

The woman grabbed the biggest one, turned it around, and said “Oh it’s some new Transformers thing. Soundwave, it’s called.” But when I learned of the price ($119.99) I had to walk away from it. We can’t be spending over $100 on a collectible toy that will adorn a shelf.

Or could we?

After a coupon and a few hours of research/thinking, I decided I should splurge. After all, these toys are so hard to get, I never thought I would ever see one in real life. Plus my birthday is coming. So a few hours later I called and asked them to hold it for me, and since they still had it I took that as a sign.

And now it’s mine. I opened it, because of course I’m going to. Soundwave was easily my favorite (and the coolest) Decepticon. Plus, when I think back to the 1980s, he was my first Transformer, a Christmas gift from my parents. I spent the whole day ignoring people and their questions, changing him from robot to cassette player over and over and over. I’d never seen a toy like it. It was practically two toys. Then the cartoon came out, and I’ve been a huge Transformers fan ever since.

But this toy…wow. Can it even be called a toy? It is truly a masterpiece. It has more detail than any Transformer I’ve ever seen. Plus it comes with five, count ‘em, five cassettes: Buzzsaw, Laserbeak, Rumble, Frenzy and Ravage. All of the classic cassettes. That’s not it though! It has one of the clear Energon Cubes, which we 1980s Transformers geeks all know Soundwave made as they stole energy from humans. Still not enough? It has Megatron in gun form for Soundwave to fire as well!

Negatives? Not many besides the price. Yes, the directions are the usual Hasbro images with no text, and there’s a step or two that is a bit frustrating until you figure them out. Even though he transforms in pretty much the same way as the original, there’s a hidden button or two that, if you don’t notice them, will definitely frustrate you. The cassettes transform in a different manner as well, such as the birds: their weapons are now attached to them and don’t need to be added after.

Hasbro has truly gone above and beyond for us true grown-up Transformers lovers. This is probably the coolest toy/collectible I have ever purchased. Yes, it was a bit expensive, and I’ll never ask for another one again (the child in me laughs at that phrase) but it’s the best.

If you love Transformers, this piece is a must-have.

Wait, Wait, Wait, You Didn’t Watch ‘Orphan Black’ The First Time Around?

by Dennis FinocchiaroAugust 27, 2013

You mean to tell me you missed it? Orphan Black, the story of Sarah Manning, a drifter who finds out the hard way that she’s a clone, is returning for an encore presentation starting Saturday, September 14th on BBC America. What is “finding out the hard way”, you ask? She watches a woman commit suicide at a train station and only after trying to rob her does she realize the woman is her exact duplicate. So what does she do? Steal her identity, of course!

What Sarah doesn’t know (at first) is that she’s stolen the identity of a police officer. She’s then forced into the role as she learns more about her past, herself, and begins meeting more and more of her clones.

Why should you watch? How about to see Tatiana Maslany (Diary of the Dead, The Vow), who was nominated for quite a few awards for the role. She plays multiple characters (she’s a clone, duh), and is rather excellent. She even does a variety of accents, since many of the clones come from different countries.

If her acting and hotness aren’t enough, her brother Felix, played by Jordan Gavaris, adds a level of sarcastic comedy and hilariously negative one-liners that make for guaranteed laughs. He gives Orphan Black a comedic side that at times it needs, with some of the dark characters that viewers eventually learn are pulling the strings.

The best part of watching is trying to decide which clone is the hottest. Yes, it sounds dumb since they’re all played by the same actor, but she is so good, you find yourself forgetting they’re all the same person in real life.

I have to admit, I only caught this show because of the multitude of commercials they aired during last season’s Doctor Who, but I am certainly glad the commercials made me curious.

Of course, if you did catch the show first time around, you likely agree it is absolutely worth seeing again. It airs at 10:00 P.M. on BBC America starting September 14th.

A Book Fan’s Thoughts On The ‘Divergent’ Trailer

by Dennis FinocchiaroAugust 26, 2013

So the first trailer for Summit’s new film Divergent was released last night, and having read the book, I am pretty excited about the movie adaptation. Here are some of my thoughts after watching those brief few minutes of footage (obviously, there may be some spoilers below!):

http://youtu.be/LUe2chuZVIo

1. The trailer seemed to capture the main character Tris, played by Shailene Woodley (The Descendants, The Spectacular Now), quite well. As I read the novel, I couldn’t help but compare Tris to a certain protagonist of The Hunger Games, plucked from what seemed like a backwards post-apocalyptic society and thrust into a world that looks more similar to our own.

2. Kate Winslet’s character, Jeanine Matthews, seems to have been made more prominent in the film. Again, I am only basing this on the trailer, but it made her look like a major character in the film, while in the book she had a fairly small role. It could be that Winslet is the most recognizable actor in the film, so the trailer focuses on her a bit more than it should. From what I hear she’s much bigger in the sequel, Insurgent, but I haven’t gotten to that one yet.

3. The continuity seems to be fairly consistent with the novel. Some of the quicker scenes in the trailer (Tris jumping from the rooftop, the knife taking the tiny slice of her ear) were pivotal moments in the book, and the emphasis on them in the trailer makes me think they will remain important moments in the storyline.

4. The setting and scenery seem perfect. The story takes place in Chicago after something has happened to most of the world , and the people of the city work together to keep society going. From the few shots of scenery in the trailer, it seems they kept true to the book’s description of the buildings, especially the long, rocky hallways of Tris’ eventual home.

5. Yes, this story has the cheesy romance of Twilight films, but they kept it to a minimum and mostly downplayed it in the book as secondary to the plot. The trailer seems to push the possibility of romance, but that’s probably just to attract a certain demographic.

Overall, this trailer got me more excited for the film, and now I will probably start reading Insurgent tomorrow. It should be a fun film to follow as we get closer to its release in 2014.

Now it’s your turn, what did you think of the trailer!?

Geekscape Geek Out: A Lego DeLorean!?!

by Dennis FinocchiaroJuly 31, 2013

When you are a child of the 80s there are always those memories you look back on and really cherish. We all wanted our own alien to hide from the government, just like we hoped to someday race towards a slowly closing door, just make it through, and then reach back and pull our hat out just in time. And, of course, we hoped to someday feel the wind blow through our hair from atop our very own hoverboard.

When we had a toy battle, it was all out war. Optimus Prime would crash through a Lego wall and destroy not only the Decepticons, but also Skeletor, Gargamel and Cobra Commander.

So when I heard there was a Lego Back to the Future set coming out on August 1^st, my inner child went nuts. I had to have it. The set premiered at SDCC this year, and while those lucky few who found one in their hands were asking $70+ for it on Ebay, I decided as exciting as it is, I could wait until the official release this week. And here it is.

The best part of this set was how it came about. After a bit of research I found it was a Lego CUUSOO set, and I wondered what that meant. Turns out it’s an ongoing project by those clever people over at Lego to give fans the chance to get their own ideas made into sets. It’s simple (no, not really). Fans come up with an idea for a set, create a prototype, and post it over at Lego.CUUSOO.com and see if they can get 10,000 people to support it. Every month, creators look at every set that recieves enough support, and if they like the idea, it gets made. And then the creator gets 1% of the sales!

So getting back to the Back to the Future set, it is outstanding. I expected it to be one of those overpriced sets, somewhere around $49.99 (or even more), but it’s only $35, which is a fair price for such a cool set. It comes with parts to create any of the different versions of the DeLorean, plus the added bonus of seeing Dr. Emmett Brown and Marty McFly as minifigures. It even comes with Marty’s skateboard! Sure, I’d rather the hoverboard, but what can I do, right? The doors open like a real DeLorean and the wheels even fold up for flight mode.

I guess what has me most excited about this isn’t just the fact that they took something from the 1980s instead of all of the high-tech toys coming out today. It’s also the anticipation of the possibility of any other classic 1980s films being picked up and made into official Lego sets. Who wouldn’t want to see a Peter Venkman vs. Slimer set, including all of the other Ghostbusters, the firehouse and of course the Ecto1? And if this can be made, why not a Big set with Tom Hanks playing the giant floor piano? Or even better…Fezzik, Inigo and Vizzini carrying Buttercup up the Cliffs of Insanity with Westley chasing them up the rope? The possibilities become endless when a toy creator like Lego is willing to listen to their fans.

And for those of you who might be wondering, yes, the DeLoreon comes with a flux capacitor.

A native of the Philadelphia area, Dennis Finocchiaro is the author of The Z Word, a collection of flash fiction that takes place during the apocalypse, and is a lover of all things Lego.