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TMNT: Mutant Mayhem hits Streaming Today

TMNT: Mutant Mayhem hits Streaming Today

The wildly entertaining and action-packed hit TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM will be available to buy or rent on Digital for fans to watch at home starting today from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Certified Fresh with a 97% critic score* on Rotten Tomatoes® and acclaimed by both audiences and critics alike, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM has been called “a vibrant, hilarious adventure” (Tom Jorgensen, IGN), “action-packed, exciting, abnormal, and humorous in equal measure” (Ross Bonaime, Collider) and “the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie we always dreamed of” (Brian Truitt, USA Today).

Fans who purchase the film on Digital can delve into the making of the movie with over 40 minutes of bonus content! Join the young new voice cast as they explore the “teen” in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, then go behind-the-scenes with the all-star voice cast, including Jackie Chan, Ice Cube, and many more! Explore the film’s unique animation style, plus learn to draw the leader of the Ninja Turtles, Leonardo.  Bonus content is detailed below:

• TEENage Mutant Ninja Turtles— For the first time the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are voiced by actual teenagers! Hear how each Turtle was cast and how having all four boys record together helped create the authentic camaraderie seen on screen. 

• The Mutant Uprising— Get to know the Turtles’ mutant antagonists, led by the wild and original character Superfly, voiced by Ice Cube.

• New York, New York: The Visual World of MUTANT MAYHEM— Take a deep dive into the breakthrough visual style of the film’s characters and environments and how they evolved over time.  

• Learn to Draw Leo—Try your hand at drawing the Turtle leader with this fun tutorial!

Synopsis
After years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers through heroic acts. Their new friend April O’Neil helps them take on a mysterious crime syndicate, but they soon get in over their heads when an army of mutants is unleashed upon them.

The Agency by Katie Skelly

The Agency by Katie Skelly

Katie Skelly is a fun, interesting cartoonist whose work hasn’t quite connected with me. I knew that from her My Pretty Vampire , but the “fun, interesting” thing got me to come back for another run.

The Agency  is a 2018 book, collecting a loose series of webcomics that came out over the three previous years. It doesn’t tell a single story, but there is a through-line, and – as I’m coming to think is standard for Skelly – there’s a core viewpoint and style that unifies the whole thing.

(I wonder where these stories appeared, since they’re quite sexy – and my sense is that the webcomics world has usually been divided into the “no nudity! we’re family-friendly” world and the “all sex! all the time!” world. This isn’t all sex, but it’s mostly sex: there’s a lot of nudity, casual and specifically sexy, and basically all of the stories have have some sexual activity, though not as central and overwhelming as it usually is in a sex webcomic. I may here be circling the fact that this is by a woman, and so it’s about things that this woman found sexy and wanted to put into a comic – therefore it’s not as male-gaze-y and relentlessly focused on sticking penises into things as the typical sexcomics by a man.)

Skelly doesn’t tell us what “the agency” is. But her main characters are all women, all introduced as “Agent ” starting with 8 and running up, sometimes jumping numbers. They have sexy adventures in which they explore things, are glamorous, and have vaguely portentous dialogues. They are in vaguely genre-fiction settings that don’t entirely cohere together: a Barbarella-ish spacewoman, a model, a spy – maybe several model/spies. As I’m thinking is usual for Skelly, there’s a ’60s movie vibe, in the situations and the costumes and hair and the bright vibrant overlays of color.

These are sex stories, but generally positive ones. These women are getting sex they want, with themselves or other people or odder things (vibrating alien flora? octopuses!). The agents tend to disappear suddenly, as Skelly’s attention shifts for the next story – they’re signposts rather than people, characters who can be in the next situation for the next sexy idea. But they’re mostly happy, and all self-motivated – they’re doing what they want, getting mostly what they want, and enjoying themselves.

Again, there’s no overall story. Each piece is basically separate, like we’re watching some sexy short-film festival from 1968, far more woman-focused and sex-positive than would have been likely at the time. Their stories are vibrant and visually interesting – Skelly has a flat style, with quick lines and big eyes and ruled panel borders under those big slabs of glorious color – at times psychedelic, always distinctive.

Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

The Muppets Take Manhattan gets 4K Disc in Oct.

The Muppets Take Manhattan gets 4K Disc in Oct.

SYNOPSIS

Broadway bound, the Muppets take Manhattan by storm in this magical musical about breaking into show business! Fresh out of college, Kermit, Fozzie, and the entire cast of Kermit’s musical “Manhattan Melodies” head for the Big Apple with plans to turn their small play into a big hit! All they need now is someone to produce their show! But when no one in town will even meet with them, it’s up to Kermit to believe hard enough for all of his friends that the show WILL go on! Family entertainment has never been more fun than this comedy marking Frank Oz’s solo directorial debut.


DISC DETAILS & BONUS MATERIALS 
4K ULTRA HD DISC

  • Feature remastered in 4K resolution from the original camera negative with Dolby Vision, plus all-new Dolby Atmos immersive audio
    • 4K picture and Atmos sound mix approved by director Frank Oz
  • Also includes English 5.1 + mono
  • Special Feature:
    • NEW: Feature Commentary with Director Frank Oz

BLU-RAY DISC

  • Feature presented in High Definition
  • 5.1 audio
  • Special Features:
    • Interview with Jim Henson
    • Muppetisms: Miss Piggy™ & Kermit the Frog™, Pepe™ and Fozzie Bear™


CAST AND CREW

Directed By: Frank Oz
Produced By: David Lazer
Executive Producer: Jim Henson
Story By: Tom Patchett & Jay Tarses
Screenplay By: Frank Oz and Tom Patchett & Jay Tarses
Starring the Muppet Performers: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Richard Hunt, Jerry Nelson
Cameo Guest Stars: Art Carney, James Coco, Dabney Coleman, Gregory Hines, Linda Lavin, Joan Rivers

SPECS

Runtime: Approx. 94 minutes
Rating: G 
4K Ultra HD Feature Picture: 4K Ultra HD: 2160p Ultra High Definition, 1.85:1
4K Ultra HD Feature Audio: English Dolby Atmos, English DTS-HD MA 5.1, English Mono

REVIEW: The Flash: The Complete Ninth and Final Season

REVIEW: The Flash: The Complete Ninth and Final Season

The Flash arrived on the CW as an antidote to the heavy, bleak world of Arrow. Our Scarlet Speedster was going to be a bright, upbeat superhero series and it was—at first. With each successive season, it grew bleaker and more chaotic as an overstuffed cast all demanded screentime and the writing staff never seemed to grasp that there were other villains than those connected to the Speed Force.

The 2022-23 television season brought us The Flash’s ninth and final season, providing a chance to give closure to the core characters. Tomorrow, Warner Home Entertainment releases The Flash: The Complete Ninth and Final Season.

Across the truncated season, everyone had a moment to shine, get their due, take a bow and move aside so the Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Nora West Allen (Candice Patton) center got to have the last word as they finally welcomed Nora to the preset. We’d already seen more than enough of her adult self (Jessica Patrick Kennedy) in previous seasons.

A distracting plot line was the arrival of a new character in a familiar form, that of Khione (Danielle Panabaker), created because they wrote Frost and Caitlin Snow out at the end of the eighth season. There was little need for that, and their absence was keenly felt since this new person was a deus ex machina. It also meant Chillblaine (Jon Cor) spend most of the season moping.

The supporting players show some growth, notably Cecile Horton (Danielle Nicolet), becoming a hero in her own right, although the costume felt superfluous. The Allega (Kayla Compton)/Chester (Brandon McKnight) romance, which always felt like juvenile high school stuff, finally got them together, ending some painful moments for the actors.

It was certainly nice seeing recurring players get their curtain call, notably John Wesley Shipp. More than a few speedsters and villains came but, but it all felt overly stuff and some, such as Dreamer (Nicole Maines) felt rather superfluous. And the series couldn’t leave without Stephen Amell coming back one final time and his appearance was perhaps the best use of a character.

Of course, it was all coming down to a finale between Cobalt Blue/Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett) and Eobard Thawne (Tom Cavanagh). But before that, we had to deal with the Red Death (Javica Leslie), alternate reality’s warped version of Batwoman Ryan Wilder. While it was nice to see Leslie, this didn’t advance the story or characters and felt more like filler than anything tasty.

With a finite number of episodes and an ending to reach, one would have hoped that the creative staff more carefully choreographed the events so we were left with a far more satisfying conclusion.

The final season is out on a Blu-ray-only box set without a Digital HD code. All the episodes look fine in their 1080p, 1.78:1 aspect transfer. The colors and special effects play quite nicely. The DTS lossless audio track is a fine compliment.

There are just a few special features this time around, including The Flash: The Saga of the Scarlett Speedster (touching on both the comics and TV series) ; Deleted Scenes, and the Gag Reel.

2023 was not kind to the Flash, with a whimper of a TV ending and a box office disaster with the feature film. One hopes that, in time, we’ll see creators do the fastest man alive some justice.

Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen, Part Two Arrives in Oct.

Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen, Part Two Arrives in Oct.

BURBANK, CA – The Justice League and Team RWBY take on their biggest adventure yet in Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen, Part Two available to purchase Digitally on October 17, 2023 and on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray October 31, 2023.

Following Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen, Part One, the new animated film from Rooster Teeth Animation, DC and Warner Bros. Animation, will see the Justice League and Team RWBY team up again in a whole new environment to take on Grimm, who has arrived on earth with even more powers.

Joining the voice cast in this second go around are Jamie Chung (Big Hero 6, Batman: Soul of the Dragon) as Black Canary, David Dastmalchian (Dune, The Suicide Squad, Ant-Man) as The Flash, Laura Bailey (The Legend of Vox Machina, Naruto: Shippûden) as Wonder Woman, Troy Baker (The Last of Us, BioShock Infinite) as Batman and Travis Willingham (Critical Role, Sofia The First) as Superman. Returning from Part One are Ozioma Akagha (Teen Titans Go!) as Vixen, Jeannie Tirado (Soul, Saints Row) as Green Lantern and Tru Valentino (The Rookie, The Cuphead Show!) as Cyborg alongside RWBY mainstays Lindsay Jones ​​(Camp Camp) as Ruby, Kara Eberle ​(​​RWBY: Ice Queendom​​)​ as Weiss, Arryn Zech ​(The Detective is Already Dead) as Blake, and Barbara Dunkelman (Blood Fest) as Yang.​​ The film also features the voices of Maxwell Friedman (AEW Dynamite, The Iron Claw), Christopher Sabat (Dragon Ball Z) and J. Michael Tatum (My Hero Academia).

The film was co-directed by Yssa Badiola (Camp Camp) and Dustin Matthews (RWBY franchise) from a script penned by Meghan Fitzmartin (Supernatural, Justice Society: World War II). Producers are Kimberly S. Moreau (Legion of Super Heroes), Ethan Spaulding (Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge) and Jim Krieg (Batman: Gotham by Gaslight) with Laura Yates ​(​​Boyhood, RWBY, Red vs. Blue​​) as supervising producer; and Sam Register and Michael Uslan executive producing.

Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen, Part Two be available October 17 to purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more.  4K Ultra HD and Blu-Ray Discs will be available on October 31 to purchase online and in-store at major retailers.  

SYNOPSIS

On the heels of successfully escaping a deadly digital trap, the members of the Justice League emerge in their own world to discover that Grimm, ravenous creatures from Remnant, have overtaken Earth! In order to defeat the monsters, they must call on their new friends – Team RWBY – for help!

SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE:

  • You look…Different: RWBY on Earth – Earth is not exactly the same as Remnant, the world where Team RWBY live. The enemies are different. The Justice League heroes are different. And Team RWBY’s powers? They’re all extremely different. In this featurette, we get a closer look at Team RWBY on Earth.
  • I’ve Got Your Back – In Part One, Justice League and RWBY members had to work together to save Remnant. Now in Part Two, on Earth, they all must work together to save each other. In this featurette, we get into the story behind so many of the characters saving each other both physically and emotionally.

Pricing and film information:

PRODUCT                                                                              SRP

4K Ultra HD + Digital                                                              $39.99 US

4K Ultra HD                                                                            $44.98 Canada

Blu-ray + Digital*                                                                     $29.98 US

Blu-ray                                                                                     $39.99 Canada

Audio: English Spanish

Subtitles: English, Spanish & French

Running Time: 74.45

Rating: PG for action/violence throughout and some language

*Digital version only available in the USA

Captain Marvel gets a new Villain

Captain Marvel gets a new Villain

New York, NY — This October, Carol Danvers flies higher, further, and faster into an all-new era written by Alyssa Wong and drawn by Marvel’s Stormbreaker artist Jan Bazaldua! In addition to a brand-new costume, CAPTAIN MARVEL #1 will also debut Carol Danvers’ deadly new archenemy as well as her surprising new ally!

The epic new run will kick off when a horrific cosmic entity known as the Undone realizes that Captain Marvel is the only hero mighty enough to stop it from devouring Earth whole and sends its mysterious herald, the Omen, ahead to take Carol off the board! When the Omen’s plan to imprison Captain Marvel goes awry, Carol finds herself linked to a street-smart young thief named Yuna. Yuna represents the only chance Carol has to escape the Omen’s trap, but Yuna is no hero, and they’ll have to learn from each other if they have a chance even confronting the Undone! Fans can meet both the Omen and Yuna now in Stephen Segovia’s CAPTAIN MARVEL #2 cover as well as Jan Bazaldua’s original design sheets!

BOUND BY THE NEGA-BANDS! When cat burglar Yuna Yang set out to steal the legendary Nega-Bands, she was looking for a quick paycheck. What she got was a free ticket to the Negative Zone and permanent entanglement with Captain Marvel! Permanent until death, that is. And it doesn’t look like Yuna’s gonna make it to old age – not with new villain, the Omen, hot on her tail and hungry for the Bands’ power!

On the characters, Wong shared: “The Omen is a villain with corruptive magic, a mysterious connection to the Negative Zone, and the ability to devour energy. She’s been looking forward to meeting Carol for a hot minute. Yuna Yang is a full-time college student and recreational cat burglar, morally flexible with a heart of… gold? Her hunt for the Nega-Bands leads her straight to Carol–and into trouble. I love a good reluctant team-up story. Pairing the leader of the Avengers with a casual, cheerful criminal leads to a fun dynamic and all kinds of shenanigans. As for the Omen… well, turns out Carol and Yuna’s lives might intersect more than they think.”

Meet Wyn, Avatar of the Powers-That-Be in Marvel’s G.O.D.S.

Meet Wyn, Avatar of the Powers-That-Be in Marvel’s G.O.D.S.

New York, NY— August 25, 2023 — At the crossroads of science and magic, agents of opposing factions operate on the behest of the pantheon of abstract cosmic beings such as Eternity, Infinity, and the Living Tribunal. This October, they emerge from the shadows as their war erupts into the wider Marvel Universe in Jonathan Hickman and Valerio Schiti’s G.O.D.S.!

The highly-anticipated series will introduce fans to an exciting new cast of characters, some of whom readers have already met this summer in special bonus pages in select titles. From powerful mystics to daring scientists to chaos bringers, these characters exist outside the fight between good and evil and devote their time to upholding the very building blocks of creation. They may be new to readers, but they’ve been scheming and clashing with each other for eons and are privy to startling truths your favorite heroes and villains wish they knew!  Over the next week, some of the major players of G.O.D.S. will be spotlighted in special teasers and concept art. First up is Wyn, Avatar of THE-POWERS-THAT-BE!

Titans: The Fourth and Final Season Arrives on Disc in Oct.

Titans: The Fourth and Final Season Arrives on Disc in Oct.

BURBANK, CA – After three explosive seasons, the hit TV show inspired by DC comic book characters concludes in Titans: The Fourth and Final Season, arriving on Blu-ray and DVD on October 17, 2023. A gritty take on the Teen Titans franchise, Titans follows a group of young superheroes from the DC Universe. As they come of age and try to find where they belong, the Titans must defend against supervillains, dark conspiracies, corrupt laboratories, and demonic possessions – across Metropolis and beyond.​

Also available on October 17, is Titans: The Complete Series on Blu-ray and DVD, which includes all four seasons of the comic-inspired series in one set.

Season four stars Brenton Thwaites as Dick Grayson/Nightwing, Anna Diop as Kory Anders/Starfire, Teagan Croft as Rachel Roth/Raven, Ryan Potter as Gar Logan/Beast Boy, Joshua Orpin as Connor Kent/Superboy, Jay Lycurgo as Tim Drake with Franka Potente as May Bennett/Mother Mayhem and Joseph Morgan as Sebastian Sanger/Brother Blood.

Titans is produced by Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Executive producers for the fourth season of Titans are Akiva Goldsman, Geoff Johns, Greg Walker, Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Richard Hatem

Titans: The Fourth and Final Season and Titans: The Complete Series will be available on Blu-ray and DVD to purchase online and in-store at major retailers on October 17, 2023.

Synopsis:

Having saved Gotham, the Titans hit the road to head back to San Francisco. But after a stop in Metropolis, they find themselves in the crosshairs of a supernatural cult with powers unlike anything they’ve faced before.

Titans: The Fourth and Final Season Special Features Include:

Welcome to Metropolis (featurette) – After escaping the darkness of Gotham, the Titans make a stop in hopeful Metropolis, but what secrets does this new city hide?

Baptism of Blood (featurette) – An inside look at Sebastian Sanger’s evolution into the fearsome foe. Joseph Morgan and Specialty Costume Designer, Laura Jean Shannon, show us what it takes to bring Brother Blood to life on Titans.

Mystical Women (featurette) – Take an in-depth look at what powerful magic Mother Mayhem (Franka Potente) and Jinx (Lisa Ambalavanar) are bringing to the world of the Titans in season four.

Pricing and series information:

Titans: The Fourth and Final Season

Includes 12 one-hour episodes:

  1. Lex Luthor
  2. Mother Mayhem
  3. Jinx
  4. Super Super Mart
  5. Inside Man
  6. Brother Blood
  7. Caul’s Folly
  8. Dick & Carol & Ted & Kory
  9. Dude, Where’s My Gar?
  10. Game Over
  11. Project Starfire
  12. Titans Forever

PRODUCT                                                      SRP

Blu-ray                                                          $29.99 SRP US ($34.99 in Canada)

DVD                                                                $24.98 SRP US ($24.99 in Canada)

DVD Audio: English (5.1) DD

DVD Subtitles: English

Run Time: Approx. 720 minutes

Titans: The Complete Series

Includes 49 one-hour episodes.

PRODUCT                                                      SRP

Blu-ray                                                             $84.99 SRP US ($89.99 in Canada)

DVD                                                                $69.99 SRP US ($79.99 in Canada)

DVD Audio: English (5.1) DD

DVD Subtitles: English

Run Time: Approx. 2940 minutes.

Fortune & Glory by Brian Michael Bendis

Fortune & Glory by Brian Michael Bendis

I went through a Bendis kick, around the time a lot of the hip comics kids did, back in the mid-Aughts. I at first liked Powers, and then thought it ran at high speed away from everything that was originally good about it. I was mostly impressed by Alias. And I think I wandered away about the time he, inevitably, like every other new writer in comics, was fully subsumed into the Wednesday Crowd and started writing sharecropped superheroes all of the time.

{Spongebob Narrator Voice: Fifteen Years Later}

I just re-read Fortune & Glory , his least representative book. It was there in the app I used to find comics, since this spiffy new edition was just published in May, and I’m always up for nonfiction these days – the curse of the middle-aged man.

I see I didn’t actually review Fortune the first time I read it, back in 2007, so I might as well go into some of the details here. Bendis created this – he started off as a writer-artist, which might be forgotten, since he’s been just writing for a long time now – as a three-issue miniseries back in 1999. He’d done a few comics, mostly self-published, at that point – Goldfish, Jinx, Torso – all of which were dark mysteries and most of which I think were set in his native Cleveland. He was “hot” in the way it usually happens, though I doubt a self-publishing mystery series would pop now: his books were growing in popularity and getting media attention, so the bigger fish were starting to nose around.

In particular, Hollywood studios started reaching out, looking to option his books. Bendis had some loose contacts to actual Hollywood types, and was introduced to a newish producer here called David Spree, who became something of an advisor and also became “attached” to a couple of Bendis projects. Bendis also got a Hollywood agent, and started talking and taking meetings.

Fortune is the story of, basically, how those first three comics projects of his got him in the door to a whole bunch of places, got him a whole lot of meetings, and apparently led to a fair bit of money for options and writing the script for Goldfish…but did not, in the end, lead to any movies being made.

For Hollywood, though, that’s a massive success: Bendis got a new line of income, got taken seriously, and even pitched pretty strongly (with fellow comics writer Marc Andreyko, the idea that became the comic Torso) and successfully. The Torso movie, in particular, seems to have almost happened, though Bendis is vague about how it fell apart – my guess is that it was a “personality conflict,” probably not anywhere near him, and that the real story will only be told in memoirs thirty or so years down the line.

So this is a talking-heads book, heavy on the dialogue. I’m not sure if Bendis has been doing the Mamet-esque rat-tat-tat dialogue in his superhero books, but this is a real-world version of that, full of smiling tanned people lying to each other and Bendis’s cartoony avatar – that’s him on the cover – gamely making his way through the middle of a whole lot of bafflegab and bullshit and blatant lies.

Bendis was always a better writer than artist; I think he says that, in almost exactly those words, somewhere in this book. So it’s not surprising in retrospect that he turned in the drawing board to focus on the word processor. This is, I think, one of the last big projects he drew, and it’s fun and cartoony and full of energy – I don’t think a story this personal and “here’s what happened to me” would work as well drawn by someone else – so it was a suitable way to wind down that part of his career.

And the Hollywood stuff is entertaining, in the vein of a million other Hollywood stories from the past century or so: the names change, but the story is always the same.

Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

Marv Wolfman Returns to Dracula for What If? Dark

Marv Wolfman Returns to Dracula for What If? Dark

New York, NY— August 21, 2023 — Home to some of the most memorable and thought-provoking stories in the Marvel Comics mythos, WHAT IF? was the series where anything could happen! Now it’s back in WHAT IF…? DARK, a new series of special one-shots where the imaginations of comic creators run wild with dark twists on iconic stories! This November, Marvel Comics is proud to welcome back legendary writer Marv Wolfman as he teams up with artist David Cutler in WHAT IF…? DARK: TOMB OF DRACULA #1!

Wolfman redefined comic book horror storytelling in his groundbreaking run of The Tomb of Dracula where he introduced Dracula to the Marvel Universe and co-created Blade and the daughter of Dracula, Lilith Drake. Now decades later, he’ll revisit his mythology-molding work with a new What If…? story that asks the question, “WHAT IF…the legendary Dracula transformed BLADE the vampire slayer…into a vampire?!”

“In 1972, I was a fledgling comics writer who mostly wrote short 2- to 8-page ‘monster’ stories when Editor Roy Thomas asked if I’d like to write Tomb of Dracula, my very first series for Marvel, and the book that would jump-start my career,” Wolfman recollected. “So it is a real thrill now that 50-plus years later Marvel asked me to once again dive into that pool with this very special What If…? story, and to bring back that great cast of characters that artist Gene Colan and I created so many years ago. Thank you, Marvel, for giving me the chance to play with old friends one last time.“

“Getting Marv back on TOMB OF DRACULA is a bucket list check-off,” says Exec. Editor Nick Lowe. “He hasn’t lost a step and the opportunity to pair him with David Cutler and Scott Hanna to make a story that’s both love letter and one of the scariest and creepiest and NEW vampire stories I’ve read made it all the better!”