My Top 30 Favourite Movies: Part 3

By Geeky Gem

When last we meet I was just finishing a list of 20 movies I love. The problem there was I couldn’t stop and I came up another 10 but after this list that it I will add no more. Again these are just an add-on to the 20 you have already seen and are in no real order.

Harry Potter

While working on my top 20 before I made it 30, I came to notice I left off a series of movies that had me going to cinema once a year for a good number of years. Harry Potter, I will not say much as I have not much else to say about them other than brilliant.

 

Shaun of the Dead

The first part of the Cornetto trilogy never fails to bring a smile to my face. I can watch this movie over and over again plus it has zombies, this way I feel I can say no more on this movie. If you haven’t seen it go watch it now.

 

Gladiator

In a quest for epicness it would be rude to leave this movie off of any list. Brilliant and it has some of the best dialogue ever. On my signal unleash hell, stunning set and fights mixed with a simple story makes for a good watch.

 

Star Wars

The trilogy that made people go, Oooo lookie space battles. With a theme tune you can’t help but hum along too even if sometimes it ends up sounding like Superman and vice a versa. A fantastic story, amazing characters and stuff blows up what’s not to like.

Labyrinth

This is another of m all time favourite, movies, so much so a few years ago I bought the soundtrack on CD. Something I do for lots of movies I like. I often wanted the Goblin King to take my brother away just so I could go to the Labyrinth. Sadly this never happened, no matter how many times I stood in my brother’s room and said the words. Sorry Dan.

 

The Princess Bride

If haven’t seen the Princess Bride then I feel bad for you and you must now hand in your geek card and go watch it. Then and only then may you have your geek card back. It’s a brilliant movie, fun for all the family and the fight between Westley and Inigo is awesome. Don’t believe me go back to Sumer Knights and look for my Sword Fights article.

 

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

This was Square’s first full length future and it fitted perfectly into the world of Final Fantasy. It was beautiful to look at and amazing to watch. The story is simple and cast is rich. If you haven’t seen it but like Final Fantasy then go check it out.

 

Spirited Away

As many of you know I love Studio Ghibli movies and this one is frankly my favourite. Another simple story line of a girl trying to find her parents in a mythical land is brought to life in this animation in a way that only Ghibli can do.

 

The Dark Crystal

The first time I saw this movie, I didn’t like it. I was young and the Skeksis vulture-like tyrants scared me. As I got older I watched it again as I love Jim Henson and found that I loved it almost as much as Labyrinth. A brilliantly dark movie, with lots of action for Gelfling Jen, as he tries to save his planet.

 Iron Man

Now The Avengers was on my first list but my favourite member of The Avengers is Iron Man, This is an awesome movie and it put not only The Avengers on the map but brought Robert Downey Jr back to us. He is brilliant as Tony Stark; he just brings something to him that I can’t picture anyone else playing him.

That’s it we have come to end of my journey to pick 30 movies I love. I so could have gone on and on but then that would be too much. Like 30 wasn’t? Ha ha.

Summer Knights: My Favorite Comic Book Guys

By Geeky Gem

We here at All Geek like our comics, which at times can cause a debate over the best writers, artists and story arcs. However, there is one thing we do agree on, and that is comic books on a whole are a great way to spend some time. This got me thinking, just who do I spend my time reading? It would appear just looking at my loans from the library this past year that I have already started picking my comics by certain people. That brings me to this article and the list of the writers I enjoy the most in no real order.

Frank Miller

Frank Miller is a comic book artist, writer and movie director. He is best known for his dark, film-noire comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns along with Sin City and 300. The latter two both being turned into movies and reaching even more fans all over the world. I like Miller’s style; it’s just so rich and reaches the dark side of any subject matter he looks into. When you look at 300 and then watch the movie his pages are right there on the screen, which always look fantastic.

Jeph Loeb

Joseph “Jeph” Loeb III is a film and television writer, producer and award winning comic book writer. Loeb was a producer/writer on the TV series Smallville and Lost.  He was also the writer for the films Commando and Teen Wolf he was also a writer and Co-Executive Producer on the show Heroes from its premiere in 2006 to November 2008. In 2010, Loeb became Head of Television for Marvel in charge of drama, comedy and animation.

Loeb is a four-time Eisner Award winner and five time Wizard Fan Award winner, Loeb’s comic book work  on many major characters, including Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Hulk, Captain America, Cable, Iron Man, Daredevil, Supergirl, The Avengers and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Many of these works he has done with artist Tim Sale.  I like Jeph’s style as well, I can really get lost in one of story’s it’s that easy.  Some of the work he has done is that good I just couldn’t put it down.

Alan Moore

Now Alan Moore penned one of my all time favorite Batman graphic novels so to me it was a crime to leave him off the list. The graphic novel in question is The Killing Joke if you didn’t know. Alan Oswald Moore is a writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchman, V for Vendetta and From Hell. He is frequently described as the best graphic novel writer in history, he has also been described as “one of the most important British writers of the last fifty years”. He has occasionally used such pseudonyms as Curt Vile, Jill de Ray, and Translucia Baboon.

Alan Moore was picked up by DC Comics and became the one of the first comic writers living in Britain to do prominent work in America; he worked on big name characters such as Batman in which he wrote the Killing Joke and Superman in which he wrote Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? The Killing Joke was one of the first Batman graphic novels I read and it will stay with me forever because it was frankly fantastic. I have since read more of Moore’s work and I just can’t get over how much he brings to the characters he writes for.

　

Mike Mignola

Many people may know that I have a bit of thing for Hellboy and that I think he totally rocks. The gentleman I’m about to tell you about now created Hellboy. Michael Joseph “Mike” Mignola again as are the rest of the people on this list is a comic book artist and writer who as I mentioned created the comic book series Hellboy for Dark Horse Comics. He has worked for animation projects such as Atlantis: The Lost Empire and the adaptation of his one shot comic book The Amazing Screw-On Head.

Up until 1994 Mignola had only ever illustrated the work of others. In 1994 he illustrated his own work, his first Hellboy story, The Seed of Destruction, which was scripted by John Byrne, and published by Dark  Horse Comics, followed by further stories, with associated merchandise. The Hellboy story Wolves of St. August and later stories were scripted by Mignola, though other writers and artists have also worked on the character. All major story arcs were drawn by Mike Mignola, but in 2007 artist Duncan Fegredo took over drawing, with Mignola remaining on as writer and cover artist. He also writes the spin-off BPRD with John Arcudi which is drawn by Guy Davis with Mignola as cover artist. The 2008 one -shot In the Chapel of Moloch was the first Hellboy comic he provided the script and art for since The Island in 2005. The reason I like Mignola so much was that he took the risk in creating Hellboy and running with it. All comic book writers take risks with their characters and its one thing I admire about them. Hellboy is just so rich and deep with elements of darkness. It’s a great read.

Robert Kirkman

If you know me at all, and I hope some of you do by now. Then you’ll know not only do I like things that go bump in the night but I like zombies. A little too much some people may say but I can’t help it. There is just something about the end of the world being bought on by the reanimated corpses’ of the dead that I find fascinating.  That being said, it seems only right that I tell you little about the man who is in the zombie spot light right now.

Robert Kirkman is a comic book writer best known for his work on The Waking Dead and Invincible which are published by Image Comics. He is also known for his work on Ultimate X-Men and Marvel Zombies which he did for Marvel Comics. He has also collaborated with Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane on the series Haunt. He is one of the five partners of Image Comics, and the only one of the five who was not one of its co-founders.

Although The Walking Dead has zombies in, they are not the main focus of the comic it is all about the characters. It’s about how they cope with trying to live day to day in a world no overrun with the dead. I have touched n this subject in other articles about The Waking Dead which can be found on the site.

That brings us to the end of this list I hope you had a good time looking at just some of the guys that keep me reading comics.

Wednesday Whimsy: My Latest Obsession

By @hmsbeefnuts

 

As a child, I was never into comics. Sure I knew who all the main guys were, from Captain America to Wonder Woman, I watched all the TV shows and cartoons, played with the toys, but I never really read comic books. As I grew a little older, I was introduced to Batman and Superman comics with Knightfall and The Death and Return of Superman, which I enjoyed, but I didn’t really have the ready cash to really get into comics in a big way. It wasn’t until after university that I really began to collect graphic novels, and my tastes were, shall we say, rather limited.

As a huge Batman fan, I delved into the most renowned adventures of the Caped Crusader, Year One, The Long Halloween, The Dark Knight Returns, loving them all I began to delve deeper, and right now, I have quite a large collection of Batman adventures, with a few stragglers here and there from Marvel or other properties. However, recently, things have changed, and my tastes have become far more eclectic. It started with a random visit to a budget book shop, where I found three Marvel Pocket Books. At first I dismissed them, but on closer inspection I realised that they were small page versions of the comic books, around half size, they reprint original runs of the most famous Marvel Characters. The shop had a Spider-Man and two Fantastic Four books, and the best thing was, they cost £1.99 each, make mine Marvel.

I devoured the first two Fantastic Four books which collected comic runs. It was interesting to read them in this way, as in normal graphic novels, the story is somewhat separated, but reading an extended run of the comics is very interesting. With the FF done, I reached for the Spider-Man one, The Night Captain Stacy Died, which was quite apt with the new movie coming out and everything. Out of comics, I turned to Amazon, and umm, well, lets just say, my credit card took another hit.

Searching on Amazon is very dangerous, they had around 20 more of these Pocket Books, including Spider-Man, Silver Surfer, X-Men, Iron Man, Captain America, Avengers, I was in hog heaven. I now have a very extended run of original Amazing Spider-Man comics to delve into, and all for under £4.00 each. The paper quality is good in these books, the covers nice, and although smaller than regular comics, it isn’t a disadvantage that they are, certainly not when one considers the price. However, these things often start small, but have a way of expanding a little out of control.

£3.99 is not very much money to spend on 6 + issues of a comic series, but £3.99’s add up, and even then I wasn’t finished. I had wanted to find out who the mysterious villain at the end of The Avengers movie was, was I added The Infinity Gauntlet to my basket, then Civil War, Platinum Avengers, a Wolverine novel, and a few Batman ones, just to prove I had never forgotten my first true love. Things were getting sillier. The comic podcasts I listened to had mentioned a Wolverine G.N. (graphic novel) called Old Man Logan, everyone raved about it, it was added to my basket. By this time, and remember, this was a virtual basket, the thing could barely contain the comic awesomeness contained within, I clicked buy, and thought, I’ll worry about the consequences later.

Now obviously, I haven’t even looked at some of the things Mr. Amazon sent me, but I am working my way through them. Currently I’m reading Captain America, and really loving it. It seems an odd time for someone to get heavily into comics, at the age of 31, but it feels right. The atmosphere is crackling with comic energy, the film world is obsessed, and to be honest, so am I. Recent Comic Con news hasn’t helped matters, it has just added petrol to a fire that was already burning way out of control.

But I think sometimes it does one good to indulge in a new obsession. It feels good, and doesn’t feel like I have wasted money, at least not yet. We can all geek out about stuff from time to time, at least I hope you can, you are reading this on a website called All Geek To Me. At the moment, I’m into all things comic book, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

As I type this, we are 3 days away from The Dark Knight Rises, and I am very excited to see how Chris Nolan has rounded off his trilogy. I’m sure it will be great, but until I finally get to see it Friday morning, I shall have to sate my desires by plunging into more and more comics. These things won’t read themselves you know. Till next Wednesday, so long folks.