Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has announced that MAD MAX: FURY ROAD on Blu-Ray is on it's way!

It will be available as a BLU-RAY 3D COMBO PACK, BLU-RAY, DVD and DIGITAL HD with over 90 minutes of additional high-octane special features! The 3D combo pack will retail for $44.95.

The official press release states:

Disney has released the first official trailer for it’s latest Pixar Animation Studios film titled: THE GOOD DINOSAUR.

The movie asks the question: “What if the asteroid that forever changed life on Earth missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct?” The story centers around a young Apatosaurus named Arlo who befriends the most unlikely of creatures...

A human.

Last month I read an interview with Aaron Ashmore (Warehouse 13) by Geek Girl Diva over at Entertainment Weekly. For those who aren't aware, Aaron is the identical twin of Shawn (Iceman from the X-Men franchise). The interview focused around the new Syfy show titled KILLJOYS, where he plays a bounty hunter.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!  

Comics shipping this week

I have a lot coming out this week, but not a lot jumping out at me in terms of exciting books to talk about.

Carol Burnett – comedic trailblazer, actor, singer, dancer, producer and author – has been named the 52nd recipient of SAG-AFTRA's highest tribute: the SAG Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment. Burnett will be presented the performers union's top accolade at the 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®, which will be simulcast live on TNT and TBS on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016 at 8 p.m. (ET), 7 p.m. (CT), 6 p.m. (MT) and 5 p.m. (PT). Given annually to an actor who fosters the "finest ideals of the acting profession," the SAG Life Achievement Award will join Burnett's exceptional catal og of preeminent industry and public honors, which includes multiple Emmys®, a special Tony®, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and both a Kennedy Center Honor and its Mark Twain Prize for Humor.

Cheap Pops - July 19, 2015

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

- NXT Invasion - Women's edition
- Chair shots and Erective Dysfunction...
- Battleground Prediction
- NXT Results
- Lucha Underground Results

NXT Invades Raw

Over the years, I've picked up more than my share of books at science fiction conventions -- usually the only place you could find them, because they were books being promoted by their authors. And, more often than not, there was a good, evident reason why the works weren't picked up by major distributors.

In the case of David J. Pedersen's ANGST, it's the distributors who are the ones losing out.

by Mike Maillaro and Mike Weaver

Book of Death #1

When Kate Hood is beset by a pack of wolves while taking a weekly load of groceries to her Nan's isolated house in the woods, it's just the beginning of a very creepy adventure. Narrowly escaping the creatures, she finds Nan's house empty, save for four tapestries of exquisite craftsmanship but showing surreal tortures: a girl in chains, holding a comb, her hair shaved; a boy and girl, huddled in a cell, sweating from surrounding heat; a young maiden huddled on the floor to avoid being pricked by walls lined with needles; and a quickly scrawled message: It should have been you!

Respected director Bill Condon and beloved actor Sir Ian McKellan have a history of success, having worked together previously on GODS AND MONSTERS. So when Condon reached out to his friend about playing  Sherlock Holmes late in life, struggling to put the pieces of his unsolved final case to rest before his faculties leave him unable to do so, McKellan jumped at the chance. After all, who wouldn’t want to play Sherlock Holmes? After all, so many other English luminaries have done it: Basil Rathbone, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer, and, currently on BBC television, Benedict Cumberbatch.

I’ve decided to quit doubting Marvel. They clearly have a plan. At this point they could do films for comics like Power Pack or The Adventures of Young Aunt May—I just made that up—and they’d gross a quarter of a billion dollars. Disney paid $4 billion dollars for Marvel and has nearly made their money back at this point strictly on box office, never mind the merchandise. Their latest entry in the mighty Marvel movie mythos is ANT-MAN.

Saw an interesting story in the New York Post this morning:

Back in 2006, comic book and toy dealer John Cimino bought a collection from a seller who needed money for a new hot-water heater. Within the assortment of pop-culture oddities for which Cimino paid $500 was a cheap, rayon-and-cotton Halloween costume from the 1960s featuring Spider-Man.

“I didn’t think twice about it,” Cimino tells The Post. He tossed it in his basement.

But Cimino would later give that costume a closer look, and what he discovered has led to one of the more puzzling mysteries in the superhero world, and might muddy the origin story of one of the world’s most well-known — and lucrative — characters

...

Exposure to unfamilair characters is a huge part of the reason I like crossovers so much. For example, ZERO HOUR was pretty much the whole reason I became interested in Starman and the Legion of Super-Heroes. I had never really heard of Jennifer Blood until she showed up in SWORDS OF SORROW, but Nancy Collins did an excellent job explaining the character in a two-page spread in the VAMPIRELLA/JENNIFER BLOOD tie-in.  Because of that comic, I wanted to know more about Jennifer Blood. So when I saw Dynamite was putting out a collection of JENNIFER BLOOD: BORN AGAIN, I had to give is a try.

Deadline is reporting that Disney has begun moving toward a sequel to MALEFICENT. Due to its success, it's no surprise that the studio has reached out to Linda Woolverton to come back and write the planned sequel. Producer Joe Roth is also on-board, however the status of director Robert Stromberg is uncertain.

Given the $180 million budget and $760 million at the box office, it makes sense that Disney would want to keep the same ingredients to the spell it cast on movie-goers.

The biggest question will be if Disney can get Angelina Jolie to reprise her role, as she seldom does. She has expressed her love for the character in the past, so perhaps that provides a little enchantment for the hope of her return:

While Zenescope's WONDERLAND may focus on Calie Liddle, the White Queen, the series began with a lot more horror -- and with the one and only Alice Liddle, who was imprisoned in the madness realm for years as a child.

But Alice wasn't always alone. Over a period of years, she was visited by a young boy, J.W., who was initially rescued by Alice from a pair of cannibal twins. After making a promise to the Jabberwock, young J.W. is sent back to the real world, but he continues to visit little Alice over the years even as he ages into an adult.

My wife and I took our two-year-old son Nathan to the beach today. It was a beautiful day both for weather and general family fun, and memories. Nate played in the sand, wiled away in his little pirate tent, cackled as the waves crashed over him and dad, and he collected some shells for mom. It was the type of perfection that washes away the thoughts of traffic and parking issues in a tide of happiness. The shells will hopefully be the start of a collection that Nate will love for many years.

The mighty creative costume makers over at MorphCostumes, have conjured a clever cameo collage of the one and only Stan Lee.

Having been instrumental in the creation and success of so many of Marvel's mightiest heroes, he has been invited time and again to appear in the movies. Even though movies such as SPIDER-MAN and X-MEN were produced by rival studios, his notoriety transcends the angers over who has rights to what.

His cameos have become so 'meta' that some conspiracy theorists claim that he has a larger role to play in all of these movies as...

The Watcher!

Regardless of why he's there, it's something we've all grown to love about these movies, in a 'Where's Waldo' sort of way. So feast your eyes on this awesome array of appearances!

Front Lines by Mike Maillaro, Mike Weaver, Grey Scherl, and Gina Maillaro

1872 #1 by Gerry Duggan and Nik Virella

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!  

Comics shipping this week

HAWKEYE #22 - I don't really like Matt Fraction's work all that much. To me, HAWKEYE was a bit overrated. I hate that work, but it's the only way I can describe it. Even though ALL-NEW HAWKEYE has been out for months, the last issue of Fraction's HAWKEYE run is just coming out this week. I am not buying this one, but I did think it was worth mentioning, I know a lot of people enjoyed the "Hawkguy" run.

Our parents delighted in the zany, musical, beach party adventures of Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. Started in 1963, with BEACH PARTY, there were a total of 7 movies made in the series. One year and 3 movies later, BIKINI BEACH was released and became the biggest moneymaker of the series and of any beach party genre film, at the time. Eventually Hollywood went on to make over 30 films in the inspired genre known as 'beach party movies'.

In 2013, Disney launched a bodacious new franchise of beach party movies with TEEN BEACH MOVIE. It tells a tale of two kids from high school, who find themselves magically teleported into the (also beach party) film-within-a-film: 'Wet Side Story'. TEEN BEACH 2 is the sequel that reunites main characters Mack (Maia Mitchell) and Brady (Ross Lynch), when Lela (Grace Phipps) and Tanner (Garrett Clayton) drop in from the fictional movie.