I Made a Movie AND NOW YOU CAN BUY IT!

I'm sure you noticed the significant drop off in posts around here circa 2012.  I assure you it wasn't due to a lack of love for comics, lack of desire to write, or a passing interest in blogging, but rather because my time was being taken up by something else.  That something else was a movie.  And now you can buy it on DVD and/or VOD.

Crazypants, right?

The movie is LOVE IN THE TIME OF MONSTERS, and I'm super proud of it.  The epitome of a passion project, it's something that my cohorts and I have been working on for a LONG time.  It's a tribute to not only to the power of hard work, but also the grueling realities of independent filmmaking.

"So, yeah yeah, hard work and all that.  What's this thing about?" I can hear you asking (BTW, you really should stop talking to yourself)

LOVE IN THE TIME OF MONSTERS is a horror comedy in the grand tradition of Evil Dead 2 and Slither, full of gags, gore, and girls.  It's fun for everyone!  Assuming everyone is over at least 16.

The movie follows sisters Carla and Marla as they travel to a kitchy roadside lodge to surprise Carla's fiance who works as a costumed bigfoot performer.  But wouldn't you know it, as the girls arrive the fiancé and his coworkers fall into a lake of toxic waste only to emerge as murderous monsters (underneath their bigfoot suits, 'natch).  Now the sisters, trapped at the lodge with other colorful employees, have to fight the monsters while saving the one they love.

As Best Horror Movies put it: "It is the very definition of a highly entertaining film.”  

And Fanboy planet continued:  "Once you think it’s gonna stop, it doesn’t. It literally doesn’t stop until the credits roll."

Excited yet?

What if I told you, in addition to this killer concept, the cast included Kane Hodder (Jason from Friday the 13th 7-X and Victor Crowley from Hatchet), Doug Jones (Abe Sapien from Hellboy, Fauna from Pan's Labyrinth, and just about everything), Mike McShane (Friar Tuck from Prince of Thieves and as himself in the British Who's Line Is It Anyway?), and Heather Rae Young (Playboy's Miss February 2010)?  Not to mention the slew of fantastic up-and-coming actors I'm sure you'll be hearing from more like Gena Shaw, Marissa Skell, Paula Rhodes, Ben Palacios, Hugo Armstrong, Alex Sanborn, and more!  I dare you to find a bad performance in the bunch.  Hint, you won't be able to, that's how great everyone is.

Don't take my word for it though, just check out what Doug had to say about Gena in particular when he was talking to Dread Central:  "She is a total movie star,”Jones said. “She is a screen presence that we’re going to be dealing with for years to come. She reminds me of a young Jamie Gertz, who I recently worked with on ‘The Neighbors.'"

Can you feel the excitement bubbling up inside?

How about our big official trailer.  Courtesy of our distributor, Indican Pictures:

Pretty cool, right?

"Okay, okay. Where can I see this thing?" I hear you asking (seriously though, you need to stop talking to your computer).

Well, if you're one of those modern kids who don't need a DVD, you can buy/rent a copy via most of the big sites like iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, and more.  We're also available on some cable providers, so make sure to give them a look if that's all you got.

Alternately, if you're like me and like to own DVDs, we're listed on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Best Buy.  I don't know if we'll make it into the stores (blame the weird economics of selling DVDs for that) but I'll let you know if/when we find out.

You can go for either one, but I suggest going for the DVD if only because it comes with the added benefits of a Blooper Reel, Deleted Scenes, BTS videos, and a commentary by me, the producer, and the writer.  We tried to make it full of as much material we had because we, like you, hate bare bones DVDs.

Now you know why I'm excited.

If you're curious, but not quite hooked or totally hooked and want to know more, then I'd like to turn you towards the official LOVE IN THE TIME OF MONSTERS web presence.  You can read about everything from our start to now at the official site, LoveInTheTimeOfMonsters.com.  You can keep up on the day to day at our Facebook page.  Or you can get little snippets of stuff via our Twitter, @UncleSlavko.

If you've read all that AND you love everything then I urge you to spread the word.  Tell your friends, your twitter feed, your Facebook, your barber, whatever.  We're doing what we can to get the word out, but any way you can add to the noise not only helps but is greatly appreciated.

I hope you end up enjoying it as much as I enjoyed making it.  Now, back to griping about comics... 

About That Man of Steel Ending...

I'm sure most of you, being that this is a comics blog, watched that new Superman movie that hit theaters last week.  And if you did, I'm sure you came away with some opinions.  To say that it's a movie that invites debate is putting it mildly.  

My short, non-spoilery take on the movie is thusly:  At least it was better than Superman Returns.  Then again, it's not hard to be better than a movie that turned the godfather of all superheroes into a creepy date rapist; the bar wasn't that high to begin with.  

As to why I didn't enjoy this new take on Supes, you'll have to cross the desert of knowledge into Spoiler territory.  I got a jet plane, I'll meet you there.

Oh, and no, this isn't about the amount of destruction during those fights.  That's just kinda whatever.

Okay, so, at the big epic (and kinda boring) battle between Zod and Superman ends with Supes straight up killing Zod.  Snapping his neck, in fact, while Zod threatens to incinerate some screaming family.  And that's when the movie lost me.

You see, the whole movie had pretty explicitly set up the idea that Superman was some kind of Space Jesus here to give us an example to look up to and save us from ourselves.  I think the line from Jor-El (the defacto Space-God, I suppose) is something like: "You will give the people an ideal to strive towards."

So by killing Zod in front of everyone, the 'ideal to strive towards' Superman has given the people writ large is that it's cool to kill.  Nice message there, Space Jesus.

And you know, it didn't have to be that way.  In fact, they still could have had Zod die at Superman's hands, but not make it as mundane and altogether awful as a neck snap.  In fact, I really thought they were going to do it there for a second too.

Let's take a step back to talk about Zod for a second.  He's established in the movie as putting the prosperity of his people above his own well being, which is a pretty cool motivation.  The reason he tries to overthrow Krypton in the first place is because he feels like the powers that be are driving the society into a new dark age.  We've all been there, I get it.  Then, after he escapes from prison (to put it simply), he's in search of two things to ensure his people survive: a new home world and the genetic macguffin that ensures proper Kryptonian births that was stolen and jettisoned by Jor El.  Later, when Zod finds Superman he learns that the macguffin was encoded into Supes' DNA, making him the be-all-end-all of Krypton.  And, you know, the fight ensues.

Fast forward to the end of the movie, Superman (along with some military friends) have defeated the marauding Kryptonians, leaving Zod alone with a pile of ash.  As he runs his hands through that pile of destroyed dreams, he screams something like "This was all we were.  This was all that was left of Krypton, the thing I was sworn to protect, and now it's gone.  I have nothing to live for!"  Or something like that.

Now, here's the thing.  In the movie as it plays, Zod rushes Superman and they proceed to punch the shit out of each other for twenty (long) minutes.  However, it struck me that it would make more sense for Superman to point out that, in fact, Superman represents the entirety of the Kryptonian people and therefore Zod should not freak out.

Don't get me wrong, in this fantasy scenario, I still see a big fight occurring, but instead of it just being a verbal tennis match of "I'll stop you", it could have been Superman trying to be the bigger man and trying to stop Zod from hurting himself.

Like, you know, show Superman using his brains and compassion to end the situation instead of just his fists.  Or, to put it another way, to give us an example of how to fight someone that doesn't involve physical superiority.  Or you know, like Jor El said: "Give [us] an ideal to strive towards"

To me, that's the biggest sin of Man of Steel: they spend so much time telling me he's supposed to inspire us, but they never show him doing anything worthy of inspiration.  Sure, he saved some people, but that's just common decency.  What makes someone worthy of idolization is not how they do the simple things, but how they handle the tough problems.  And what Man of Steel told me is that when put in a tough situation, Superman will solve it the easiest way possible:  By killing.

And that is not what Superman is about.