Staff Picks of the Week – October 28th, 2016
It has been a fast week, people! Friday is here and so are our staff picks of the week for October 28th, 2016! Each week a select few of our staff share with you their recommendations to keep you entertained. And week after week, if you continue to read the various ways I try to word that, then you should stop right now and reward yourself with a cookie! Feel free to bring me one too! If you haven’t seen what we have been up to this week, I will share with you some of the highlights! Check out our exclusive Rogues Portal web comic Sunny and Owl Girl: Owlcopter. We have reviews for Serenity: No Power in the Verse #1, London Horror Comic #7, and Postal #16. Billy and Amelia watch Black Christmas, Poltergeist, and other scary films in their series 31 Spooky Nights. Michael continues his History of Hammer Horror with part 4, this week is about non-horror Hammer movies. And don’t forget our podcasts, Comicsbound and Scooby Dos or Scooby Don’ts! Have a good weekend everyone and check out the picks below!
Amelia’s Pick of the Week – My staff pick of the week is the Chinese action/comedy film Kung Fu Hustle! The movie takes place in Shanghai, China in the 1940s, as a wannabe gangster aspires to join the notorious “Axe Gang”. Wackiness ensues as the residents of an apartment complex defend themselves from the Axe Gang with extraordinary kung fu powers. There’s not much I can say about Kung Fu Hustle that will make sense out of context, but the best way I’ve found to tell people about it is describing it as Kill Bill meets Looney Tunes. It’s hilarious, it’s original, it’s touching, and it’s written and directed by the amazing Stephen Chow. There’s no losing with Kung Fu Hustle!
Rhian’s Pick of the Week – My pick of the week is an anime that I haven’t seen in a long long, LONG time, by the name of Junjou Romantica! This was the first yaoi anime I watched and I fell in love with it. I haven’t watched it in a few years, but by chance I found out that they have produced season three and I’ve been binge watching it all week! I’ve missed Usami and Misaki so it was nice to see what they’ve been up to since! After living together for three years, Misaki Takahashi and Akihiko “Usagi” Usami’s relationship has been progressing smoothly. However, all great relationships have problems, and theirs is just beginning. With a new rival on the horizon, Usagi worries about Misaki’s feelings towards him. It’s so cute how much they’ve progressed since season two! As well as our side characters! I might watch all three series in one sitting, especially since season four might be coming out soon!
Billy’s Pick of the Week – My Pick of the Week is 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. British TV is something else, gang, and this surreal mash up of two British institutions is… well, it’s just magical. Countdown is a long-running British game show where contestants try to solve “simple” word and math problems. 8 Out of 10 Cats is a celebrity-based comedy panel show hosted by Jimmy Carr. We don’t really have panel shows on this side of the pond but let me tell you: we are poorer for it. This is a show with so much nonsense going on within 40+ minutes that it took 15 minutes just to introduce the guests, which also took longer than it should have because each celebrity contestant got a mascot? And when I say “mascot” I mean things like… a cake. Or a thesaurus. Or a soccer referee. Nobody really takes it seriously, but seeing celebrities actually trying to play these games while also taking the piss out of the whole show pays off with comedy gold. The episode I caught was made especially amazing by the presence of Richard Ayoade. If you know him as Moss from the IT Crowd, dial your expectations up to 11 and then imagine him absolutely at war with his teammate for not taking it seriously. “Sean Bean” was there. Jimmy Carr had a knitted face at one point. I don’t even know how to describe it anymore. Just check it out if you get a chance.
Michael’s Pick of the Week – My staff pick this week is the series Black Mirror, which just dropped its third season on Netflix last weekend. The entire series so far is only 13 episodes, but I would not recommend binging the show. The anthology series by British writer and critic Charlie Brooker can be overwhelming. The show deals with speculative technology that resonates with our daily lives, showing how technology can benefit us and — way more often — bring out the worst in us as a society. The third season’s six episodes are all worth watching but the standouts are “Shut Up and Dance” and “San Junipero”. Both are almost polar opposites in style, theme and content but easily rank among the best episodes the series has ever produced.
Robert’s Pick of the Week – My Pick of the Week is Matthew Rosenberg. His last book out was Kingpin #4. Kingpin has been a really good Civil War tie-in book. I liked it but, the real reason I wanted to show him some love was because I just read the first two issues of 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank. This comic book is spectacular. It has, depending on your preference, Quentin Tarantino or Brian Michael Bendis level dialogue. There are moments in the book that the banter is so good and taps into the root of the human experience that I had to put the book down and actually walk away. Other moments, I was titling my head back and laughing so hard I had to put the book down. Embarrassing story time. I met Rosenberg at Heroes Con this year in Charlotte. My good friend dragged me to his table and put a graphic novel of his, We Can Never Go Home into my hands. He said, ‘You have to read this, you will love it.’ I was reticent, because I had never heard of him and never read his books. My friend was actually really generous and bought the trade for me. After reading it myself and being blown away, I have been forcing it into the hands of other friends of mine and forcing them to read it. Matthew Rosenberg is a talent and is a star in the making. Get on the bandwagon before his ongoing Kingpin comic comes out next year. 
