"Don't Tase Me, Bro!"

Last night was something! First good food and company at Pinche Tacos, then a beer at a sushi bar right next to the Laemmle's while peering over my shoulder to see the cast sitting in the main part. Other fans were preaching the word of Repo! to the bartenders who laughed and seemed a little interested.

Everyone was in the theater by midnight.
Darren Lynn Bousman introduced the Shadowcast and again told the audience to give it their all.

We sure as Hell did not disappoint. The Shadowcast was really impressive. They were even mostly accurately cast. I have to say they were much better than the Rocky troupe I saw here. My friend, Tasha, and I laughed so hard. The Sunset 5 is going to be holding these midnight showings once a month so go down there and support the Shadowcast or even go if you don't have anything fun planned. This is a guaranteed fun night.

At the Opera Tonight!

I will be at the Sunset 5 tonight for the midnight screening of "Repo! The Genetic Opera." It's the "Shadowcast" premiere, so good luck to all those folks. Director Darren Lynn Bousman will be there with all us crazy people. Still no clue on who these "Special Guests" are, but I guess we will find out.

I am a total "Repo!" supporter, so if you're in the Southern California region, take a trip to Hollywood. You won't regret it, especially if you love horror and eccentric films. The creators and actors need the support especially if we want to see the rumored prequel. Let's show Tinseltown we won't take mediocrity and unimaginative films anymore.

For Tickets and more information, go HERE.

Oh Crickey, Batman!

Damn it! When you say "Special Guests" does that include main cast? How about the actor who plays the main character? And why, in all that is holy, are you such a bloody tease?

Darren Lynn Bousman is evil. He leaves these very vague statuses on Facebook or messages on the Repo! boards, hinting at unseen treasures... He'll be at the Sunset 5 in Hollywood on Friday for a midnight showing, with special guests. Who are the special guests?! The only two people I have not seen of the main cast are Paul Sorvino and Anthony Head. Terrence Zdunich is an awesome guy so I'll go if he's there, too. Hearing the jeers and cat-calls will liven up a night that looks to be a dead one for me.

So quick POLL: Do I go to the Sunset 5?

A) YES. You never know what will happen or who will be there. You have run into interesting people before.
B) Sure. At least you can hang out with the other deviants of the Repo! crowd.
C) Curse Bousman for his inability to be clear and just be around the area just in case...

I hate being indecisive.

On Being a Vegetarian.

I'm not a hardcore vegetarian (at least, not yet) but I gave up meat for Lent. It's been tough especially coming from a family where beef and chicken is always the main entree. I miss carne asada and ribs and steak... well, you get the picture. I've always liked duck, lamb, venison, and even alligator. I'm not a picky eater. For Lent it came down to a choice between coffee and meat. I shot down the coffee choice because of finals. It wouldn't do me any good to be going through caffeine withdrawals while trying to concentrate and study. It's bad for me, too, since I've winged myself off coffee once. Shakes, headaches, bad moods are just some of the symptoms. I've gotten down to about a cup and a half a day and supplement the rest with tea and water.

Anyway, like the good Catholic that I am, please, hold those snickers, I gave up the next best thing: Meat. I feel pretty good about it. The hardest thing is actually eating enough veggies. Do you realize how much veggies you have to eat in order to get a full days nutrition? It's crazy! Anything less than that though and your body will start to think you're starving it so then you'll start gaining weight (ie. why starving yourself will ultimately backfire and you'll gain more weight than ever). I'm taking vitamins and making sure I lay off the cheeses and breads so I don't get an overload of sugar into my system. Cold and Hot soups are a Godsend. I do love veggies plain and snack on mushrooms, carrots, and even cauliflower.

But man, just planning meals is tough. I'm trying to loose more weight for the Sheriff's department and think I plateaued. IT sucks and its making me a bit stressed. I'm suppose to be a young, cute 21 year old who can loose weight just by thinking about it! I feel like I'm working much harder than I did in HS. If this is growing old, may I please stop now?

I'm off work in an hour so I'll this griping has now made me motivated to do an extra hard work out later on this evening. Need to get extra fit by August because at 5'4" I need to be able to handle a 6'4" guy. Hmm... I think I should go running on the beach again.

Comics *Very Spoilery*

During this quarter I ended up reading the "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" Season 8 comics. I really can't read full novels (since I choose books more than 500 pages most of the time) because of time and class restraints. One of my classes had four books alone. I hate stopping in the middle of a novel and leaving it for a couple days or even whole weeks. I'd rather wait and read it when I have oodles of time to enjoy it. Such as now and summer break.


Anyway, the first comic is called "Long Way Home," and was written by creator Joss Whedon and George Jentry. Of course, it is a semi-introduction comic, starting with Buffy explaining how she changed the world. 1800 Slayers now exist with her closest friends the leaders of the squadrons. Buffy, as usual, is alone, feared and revered by the world. The new big bad of the series is a character called "Twilight." He only makes cameos throughout the series and has an intricate plan involving pitting slayers against each other, the governments of the world, and the demons that haven't fled underground.


"No Future for You" is my favorite so far in the season 8 comics ("Tales of the Vampires" is my favorite overall, but as a spinoff, it doesn't really count in this section). "NFU" brings back badass dark Slayer, Faith, with all her trashy talk and self-loathing. Faith, I have to admit, is one of my favorite characters. She doesn't bitch and complain as much as Buffy does. We find out that she's the "go-to girl" for dirty deeds in the new slayer order. You have little kids turned into vampires? No prob, just get Faith to kill the little buggers. No need to burden new slayers with such a difficult job. Faith lives in a shabby apartment in Cleveland (the other Hellmouth) by herself and its there where she finds Giles waiting for her. Giles gives her a mission that involves killing a rogue slayer. That starts off the story with Giles teaching her everything there is to know of the English aristocracy in order for Faith to go undercover and get close to this dangerous slayer. All in all, Twilight's symbol makes an appearance and Faith and Giles team up to help other slayers who are going down the wrong path, "a slayer's social work program" as Faith says. The next comic out this May continues this story line.


"Wolves at the Gate" brings back Dracula! A group of Japanese vampires steals Dracula's secrets of turning into fog, animals, etc, and plans to elimanate the slayers by using Buffy's scythe to return the girls to normal. Buffy get Xander to visit the Dark Prince and they set off to Tokoyo to stop these new vampires' plan. The only thing I didn't like about the story? Buffy's sudden interest in Satsu and their sleeping together. Really? After Faith, Buffy was the straightest person on the show! Oh well, I guess they had to in order for Buffy to realize how alone she really is, again.


Now onto the spin-offs...


I absolutely love "Tales of the Vampires." You could know nothing about Buffy and enjoy the stories interwoven throughout. The stories flip back and forth from the past to the future. An elder vampire tells the tales to a group of young watchers-in-training. I love how the writers included stories about Spike and Drusilla's time in Prague and Angel's nightmares of his past victims (including Season 2 favorite, Jenny Calendar). The main story of the young watchers is frought with anxiety when one of the watchers, Edna Fairweather, becomes aware that another vampire is in their mist. In between the stories, she pieces together who it is and ultimately faces off with the sire of the elder vampire. My favorite line as Edna blacks out is "He was right. I am in love with the Baker's boy." Edna then wakes up and tells off all the adult watchers for being stupid. One of the Watcher's remarks that she'll be running the Council in no time with her attitude. The next set of frames shows Edna letting off steam with a walk through London. It shows her going into the Baker's shop. The last frame is the hook. The name of the shop is Giles's. (Which if you don't get it, the whole story was about Rupert Giles's [Buffy's current watcher] Grandmother! Ok, I'm a nerd for getting spazzed out about that.)

The next comics are the Omibuses which are stories that are "inbetween" the seasons. The first one is a preseason one and then the others follow suit with explaining what Buffy does during the summers. Interesting and Entertaining. I think they have one more before they catch up with the Season 8 comics.

"Fray" was a pleasant surprise. I was leery reading about a totally futuristic slayer, but Wheadon doesn't disappoint. Since there is only one anthology out there, I'm not going to go too into it. The next one should be out soon so I'm looking forward to it.

So that's it for now on comics. I can't wait to get my hands on the next season 8 one. I should have more blogs up soon with movie reviews, news, etc. Dark Shadows has been more "active" so I'll be posting about that. Cheers!

SPRING BREAK

"Spring Break" are the key words every college kid has on their lips at the moment. Mine started last night. I have almost two weeks of no school to worry about. Well, I do have one thing I have to do over the next week, but it's not going to be very hard at all.

Anyway, as an "anglophile" and theater lover, I am shocked and saddened by the very sudden passing of Natasha Richardson. Everyone has probably read over her career highlights in other publications so I'm not going to be repetitive. I just feel for her poor family.

The weather here in Orange County seems to be reflecting my mood. It's foggy, dark, and a bit cold. The ocean breezes are icy. I hope it clears up so I can go walk along Newport again or even go a bit farther into Huntington (that way I'd make a stop at DVD Planet). I must be bored if I'm musing on the weather. I'm dying for my hot as hell summer.

100 Posts! Whoa! Spoiler Warning for Watchmen.

So this will be short and sweet. Well, maybe. Writers are liars and you can't trust the lot of us when it comes to our passion. The Spoilers for "Watchmen" will be the last paragraph so if you haven't read/seen it, skip the last paragraph if you are sensitive to being spoiled.

First off, I always say I'm going to post photos for events and hardly ever do because Blogger's photo uploader takes forever and then I get lazy since I write most of these entries at work. So I'm going to be an attention whore and post the link to my photo gallery that I have on DeviantArt.

http://acollinsvampire.deviantart.com/

You can see larger photos of people like Alan Rickman, Ray Bradbury, Gillian Anderson, David Selby, and a lot more from the events and places I've gone to. I've posted Repo! cast photos there but they are not very good. I bought a new camera last week and am already extremely happy with it. PaleyFest is in April this year and I will be attending the "True Blood" Panel. The whole main cast will be there so stay tuned for blogs and photos on that.

Now onto "Watchmen."

I liked it more than I thought I would but I still hated the ending. Zack Snyder, the director, went for the happy ending and killed the sense of hopeless the comic portrayed. I thought he had just taken out the Squid Monster (which in my opinion would have been cool to see) but he did more than that. He or the studios thought about the effect it would have on the "general" audience. The "general" audience are a bunch of morons; I won't even go into that more. Anyway, the effects, sets, and CGI were perfect. I must say the music was the best soundtrack I've heard in a while for a film. Having Nat King Cole sing while the Comedian was being beaten to a pulp just made the beating that much more brutal. Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, and Jimi Hendrix all have their music threaded throughout the film. It really helped explain the time periods. The story did have some trouble shifting and moving on, but they were able to keep the integrity of it. Overall, it was good, but not the great film every fanboy was wetting his pants for.