Free Comic Book Day 2014 is Today

National Free Comic Book Day Hits Comic Book Specialty Shops May 3rd

Over 4.6 million comics to be given away free to comic shop customers

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On May 3rd, over two thousand comic book shops across North America and around the world will share the magic of comic books with their communities when they give out over 4.6 million comic books—free of charge—during Free Comic Book Day, which marks its thirteenth anniversary this year. Comic Book Specialty Retailers expect record breaking attendance and have been preparing their shops for this event for months.

    “Free Comic Book Day is a perfect occasion for fans to discover new types of comic books”

There’s literally a free comic book available for everyone’s taste, including Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, DC’s The New 52: Futures End, Archie, SpongeBob, Transformers vs GI Joe, Hello Kitty, The Simpsons and more to choose from!

Comic book publishing heavyweights Dark Horse Comics, DC Entertainment, IDW Publishing, Image Comics, and Marvel Comics are among the many sponsors who created 60 special titles for Free Comic Book Day 2014. The free books are designed to appeal to a broad range of tastes, including:

    Action-Packed Super-Hero Stories
        DC’s The New 52: Futures End
        DC’s Teen Titans
    Stories Featuring Classic Characters
        Archie
        Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck
        Buck Rogers
        The Smurfs
        The Tick
    Sci-Fi Adventures
        Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
        Marvel’s Rocket Raccoon
        Project Black Sky
    Stories for Kids
        Avata: The Last Airbender
        Hello Kitty
        Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
        SpongeBob SquarePants

“Free Comic Book Day is a perfect occasion for fans to discover new types of comic books,” said FCBD spokesperson Jason Blanchard, “especially if they’re new to the wide variety of titles that are being published today. On May 3rd, we encourage new and current readers to use Free Comic Book Day as an opportunity to learn about the great comic books and pop-culture merchandise to be found at their local comic book shop. Hopefully, they’ll walk away with free comics they can't wait to read, and then keep coming back to their local shop for more!”

Along with free comics, many comic book shops will feature events during the day including creator signings, appearances of favorite super-heroes or cosplayers and great deals on exclusives and sale items.

Customers can check out the full list of all 60 titles on the Free Comic Book Day website, http://www.freecomicbookday.com/comics, and use the FCBD Store Locator to find a participating comic book shop in their area http://www.freecomicbookday.com/storelocator.

Legendary comic creator Stan Lee promotes Free Comic Book Day in a special video message to comic fans, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbdCVF7I3rc.

Reading Activist, actor, producer, director and host of Reading Rainbow LeVar Burton encourages people to participate in Free Comic Book Day in a special video message. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi8HNxiIsEk


ABOUT FREE COMIC BOOK DAY— Celebrating its thirteenth year, Free Comic Book Day is an annual event where participating comic book specialty shops across North America and around the world give away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their shops. The event is held the first Saturday in May and is the perfect opportunity to introduce friends and family to the many worlds of wonder available at local comic book shops. From super-heroes to slice of life to action/adventure and beyond, Free Comic Book Day has a comic book for everyone!

© 2014 Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. and Free Comic Book Day, Inc. All rights reserved.

Star Wars 7 Cast Revealed

PHOTO CREDITS: April 29th, Pinewood Studios, UK - Writer/Director/Producer J.J Abrams (top center right) at the cast read-through of Star Wars Episode VII at Pinewood Studios with (clockwise from right) Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Producer Bryan Burk, Lucasfilm President and Producer Kathleen Kennedy, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Andy Serkis, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Adam Driver and Writer Lawrence Kasdan. Copyright and Photo Credit: David James.

Of course, dear readers, you are already aware that Lucasfilm has announced (Tuesday, April 29, 2014) the main cast for the next Star Wars film, the as-yet-untitled Episode VII.  Click on link below to see a bigger version of the above photo.

The press release:

Star Wars: Episode VII Cast Announced
April 29, 2014

The Star Wars team is thrilled to announce the cast of Star Wars: Episode VII.

Actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow will join the original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker in the new film.

Director J.J. Abrams says, "We are so excited to finally share the cast of Star Wars: Episode VII. It is both thrilling and surreal to watch the beloved original cast and these brilliant new performers come together to bring this world to life, once again. We start shooting in a couple of weeks, and everyone is doing their best to make the fans proud."

Star Wars: Episode VII is being directed by J.J. Abrams from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and Abrams. Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk are producing, and John Williams returns as the composer. The movie opens worldwide on December 18, 2015.

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May the Fourth Negromancer Be with You

Here comes May 2014.  Welcome to Negromancer 2.0.  This is the rebirth of Negromancer, the former movie review website as a new movie review and movie news site.

All images and text appearing on this blog are © copyright and/or trademark their respective owners.

Also, Leroy's Indiegogo campaign for Grumble #2 continues:

Oscar-nominated Actor Bob Hoskins Dies at 71

The actor Bob Hoskins has died of pneumonia at the age of 71.  Hoskins died in a hospital on Tuesday, April 29, 2014, and his agent made the announcement of his passing today (Wednesday, April 30, 2014).

Born Robert William Hoskins, Jr. on October 26, 1942, Bob Hoskins began his acting career on stage in 1969.  He began appear in film and on television in 1972.  Go to Screen Daily and Wikipedia for more about Hoskins passing and his career, respectively.

Hoskins is one of my favorite actors.  I first heard of him when he earned an Oscar nomination for his role in the 1986 film, Mona Lisa.  However, it was his role in 1988's Oscar-winning Who Framed Roger Rabbit that made me a fan of his.  I also admired his work in Heart Condition (1990) and Hook (1991), to name a few.  I send my condolences to Hoskins' family and friends.  Rest in Peace, Mr. Hoskins.

Review: Supporting Actresses Shine on "Beerfest" (Happy B'day, Cloris Leachman)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 20 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Beerfest (2006)
Running time:  110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)
MPAA – R for pervasive crude and sexual content, language, nudity, and substance abuse
DIRECTOR:  Jay Chandrasekhar
WRITERS:  Broken Lizard (Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske)
PRODUCERS:  Bill Gerber and Richard Perello
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Frank G. DeMarco (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Lee Haxall
COMPOSER:  Nathan Barr

COMEDY

Starring:  Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Will Forte, Ralf Moeller, Nat Faxon, Gunter Schlierkamp, and Mo’Nique with Jurgen Prochnow and Cloris Leachman

The subject of this movie review is Beerfest, a 2006 comedy directed by Jay Chandrasekhar.  The film stars the comedy troupe, Broken Lizard, of which Chandrasekhar is a member.  Beerfest focuses on two brothers who discover a secret, underground beer-drinking tournament in Germany.

When German-American brothers, Todd (Erik Stolhanske) and Jan Wolfhouse (Paul Soter), travel to Germany to spread their grandfather Johan’s ashes at Oktoberfest, they stumble upon a secret, centuries old underground beer drinking competition called “Beerfest.”  They also discover long lost German relatives, the von Wolfhausens, who hold an old grudge against their American relatives over a lost beer recipe.  Led by the family patriarch, Baron von Wolfhausen (Jurgen Prochnow), the von Wolfhausens humiliate Todd and Jan, and sneer at their chances of ever winning Beerfest, this Olympics of beer drinking.  The rude Germans even sneer at Todd and Jan’s grandmother, Great Gam Gam (Cloris Leachman).

Todd and Jan return to American and prepare for another Beerfest showdown the following year.  The brothers recruit three friends to join their team:  the one-man bear-drinking machine, Phil Krundel aka “Landfill” (Kevin Heffernan); the nerdy lab tech, Charlie Finklestein aka “Fink” (Steve Lemme); and Barry Badrinath (Jay Chandrasekhar), a talented skills player who has fallen to street-level prostitution.   The quintet’s year of training, however, is marred by tragedy and hardships, and the five beer-chugging friends begin to doubt they’ll ever win Beerfest.

Beerfest is the fourth feature film from the five-man sketch comedy troupe, Broken Lizard, which is comprised of Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, and Jay Chandrasekhar.  Chandrasekhar directs the Broken Lizard films (including Super Troopers and Club Dread), and also directed the 2005 The Dukes of Hazzard film.  With Chandrasekhar at the helm, Beerfest looks like the other Broken Lizard films.  There are scenes in Beerfest that are as funny as anything in Super Troopers (what I consider to be their best feature).  However, whereas Super Trooper was smooth, Beerfest is uneven, though not as uneven as Club Dread.

Beerfest is truly a ribald comedy, and in some ways it reminds me of the bawdiest Mel Brooks movies.  Still, there’s lots of Beerfest that amounts to little more than simple, immature, juvenile humor.  Luckily, the film is blessed with a great supporting cast.  Jurgen Prochnow is fine as the spicy menace, Baron von Wolfhausen, and Mo’Nique throws herself fully into the role of the duplicitous and randy Cherry; her sex scene with Chandrasekhar is priceless.  Cloris Leachman’s turn as Todd and Jan’s Great Gam Gam, is a testament to her skill as both a comedienne and an actress, and lovers of comedy must and should not miss her performance.

Beerfest isn’t great, but it has great moments of laugh-out-loud and laugh-till-you-cry comedy, and tolerating the missteps is worth such hilarity.

5 of 10
B-

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Updated:  Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

2014 Cannes Film Festival Jury Announced

On Monday (April 28, 2014), the 2014 Cannes Film Festival (Festival de Cannes 2014) announced the names of jury members for the 2014 edition of the festival.  Jane Campion, who previously won the festival’s highest honor, the Palme d’Or (the Golden Palm), is jury president.

The 2014 Cannes Film Festival runs from Wednesday, May 14, 2014 to Sunday, May 25, 2014, with the closing ceremony and awards handed out Saturday, May 24, 2014.

2014 Cannes Film Festival: THE JURY

• Jane CAMPION – President
• (Director, Screenwriter, Producer – New Zealand)

• Carole BOUQUET (Actress – France)

• Sofia COPPOLA (Director, Screenwriter, Producer – United States)

• Leila HATAMI (Actress – Iran)

• JEON Do-yeon (Actress – South Korea)

• Willem DAFOE (Actor – United States)

• Gael GARCIA BERNAL (Actor, Director, Producer – Mexico)

• JIA Zhangke (Director, Screenwriter, Producer – China)

• Nicolas Winding REFN (Director, Screenwriter, Producer – Denmark)

Jury Member biographies are provided courtesy of the festival:

Carole Bouquet, Actress (France)
After her film debut in 1977 with Luis Buñuel in That Obscure Object of Desire, Bouquet alternated between arthouse and blockbuster productions. A Bond Girl in 1981 in For Your Eyes Only, she worked with Bertrand Blier on Buffet Froid (1979) and Too Beautiful For You (1989) for which she won the César for Best Actress. She appeared in Le jour des idiots by Werner Schroeter, Michel Blanc’s Dead Tired and Embrassez qui vous voudrez, Lucie Aubrac by Claude Berri, L’Enfer by Danis Tanovic, Nordeste by Juan Diego Solanas (Festival de Cannes 2005) and Unforgivable by André Téchiné.

Sofia Coppola, Director and screenwriter (United States)
Coppola’s first feature film, The Virgin Suicides (1999) was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, where it met with international critical acclaim. Four years later, after several Oscar nominations for Lost in Translation, including Best Director, she walked off with the Best Screenplay award. Her third film, Marie-Antoinette was selected in Competition at Cannes in 2006. After picking up a Golden Lion in Venice for Somewhere (2010), Sofia Coppola opened Un Certain Regard with her last film The Bling Ring at the Festival de Cannes in 2013.

Leila Hatami, Actress (Iran)
Born in Tehran into a family of filmmakers, she started out acting in films directed by her father, Ali Hatami, before starring in Dariush Mehrjui’s Leila (1998) which brought her to national attention. It was Asghar Farhadi who established her on the world stage with A Separation (Golden Bear at the 2011 Berlin Festival). She picked up the Best Actress award in Karlovy Vary for her role in Ali Mosaffa’s Last Step in 2012.

Jeon Do-yeon, Actress (South Korea)
The first Korean actress to receive the Best Actress award at the Festival de Cannes for her role in Secret Sunshine by Lee Chang-dong (2007), Jeon Do-yeon started out as a television actress before turning exclusively to cinema. Her major films include I Wish I Had a Wife by Ryoo Seung, My Mother, The Mermaid by Park Jin-pyo and The Housemaid by Im Sang-soo, presented at Cannes in 2010. A massive celebrity in her country, she has just finished shooting Memories of the Sword by Park Heung-sik.

Willem Dafoe, Actor (United States)
Twice nominated for an Oscar, for Oliver Stone’s Platoon and Shadow of the Vampire, Dafoe has appeared in 80 films including Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson, Light Sleeper by Paul Schrader, The Last Temptation of Christ by Martin Scorsese, Antichrist by Lars von Trier and The English Patient by Anthony Minghella. He will soon be appearing in A Most Wanted Man by Anton Corbijn and Pasolini by Abel Ferrara. A co-founder of the Wooster Group – an experimental theatre collective – he is currently on tour with Bob Wilson’s play The Old Woman.

Gael García Bernal, Actor, director and producer (Mexico)
Bernal first came to public attention in Iñárritu’s Amorres Perros, soon followed by Y Tu Mamá También by Alfonso Cuarón. He then featured in films directed by some of the greats of international cinema, such as The Motorcycle Diaries by Walter Salles, Pedro Almodóvar’s Bad Education, The Science of Sleep by Michel Gondry, Babel by Gonzalez Iñárritu, and The Limits of Control by Jim Jarmusch. In 2005, he founded his Canana production company with Diego Luna and in 2010, after a few short films, directed his first feature film, Deficit, selected at La Semaine de la Critique at Cannes.

Nicolas Winding Refn, Director, screenwriter and producer (Denmark)
His first film, Pusher (1996), written and directed at the age of 24, immediately became a cult movie and he shot to fame throughout the world. He then directed Bleeder (1999), Fear X (2003), Pusher II & III (2004 & 2005), Bronson (2008) and Valhalla Rising (2009), all characteristic of the style that came to be dubbed "Refn-esque". In 2011, Drive was presented at the Festival de Cannes and won the Best Direction prize, awarded by the Jury presided by Robert De Niro. His last film, Only God Forgives, featured in Competition at Cannes in 2013.

Jia Zhangke, Director, screenwriter and producer (China)
After first studying art Jia Zhangke, born in 1970, attended the Beijing Film Academy in the 1990s. After the success of his first film, Xao Wu (1998), he directed Platform (Zhantai, 2000) and Unknown Pleasures (Ren xiao yao, 2002) selected for Venice and Cannes respectively. Still Life picked up the Golden Lion in Venice in 2006. He also presented 24 City at the Festival de Cannes, in Competition in 2008 and I Wish I Knew for Un Certain Regard in 2010. Last year, A Touch of Sin garnered the Best Screenplay prize awarded by the Jury presided by Steven Spielberg.

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Review: "My Beautiful Laundrette" Tackles Social Issues (Happy B'day, Daniel Day Lewis)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 16 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  United Kingdom
Running time:  97 minutes (1 hour, 37 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR:  Stephen Frears
WRITER:  Hanif Kureishi
PRODUCERS:  Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Oliver Stapleton
EDITOR:  Mick Audsley
COMPOSER:  Ludus Tonalis
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/ROMANCE with elements of comedy

Starring:  Saeed Jaffrey, Roshan Seth, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gordon Warnecke, Derrick Blanche, Rita Wolf, Souad Faress, Richard Graham, Shirley Ann Field, Dudley Thomas, Winston Graham, and Garry Cooper

The subject of this movie review is My Beautiful Laundrette, a 1985 British comedy-drama directed by Stephen Frears and written by Hanif Kureishi.  The movie, which was originally intended for television, was one of the first films released by Working Title Films.  My Beautiful Laundrette focuses on an ambitious Asian Briton and his white male lover as they strive to find success with a glamorous launderette (Laundromat).

In My Beautiful Laundrette, director Stephen Frears (The Hit) and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi don’t tackle issues, so much as they present a story that involves the entanglement amongst class, economics, family, politics, race, and sex.  My Beautiful Laundrette subtly presents the issues, but presents them nonetheless.  Because the issues of the film tie everyone together, every character is a legitimate player, and the viewer has to always pay attention to all the characters.  That’s heady stuff in a world where the most popular and publicized pictures are glossy films with lots of throwaway appendages.

Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is an ambitious young Asian Briton of Pakistani decent who convinces his uncle to let him manage his uncle’s laundrette.  He convinces Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis, The Bounty), an old school chum and his gay lover, to join him.  They convert the dilapidated business into a colorful and glamorous establishment as they strive for success amidst familial and social politics – Omar’s mostly immigrant family and Johnny’s racist thug friends.

Warnecke and Lewis are excellent as the young businessman who leaps at every opportunity and the disaffected youth at odds with the world respectively.  In this early role, Lewis smolders, as he would so often in the future, showing the audience that there is more, much more, beneath the surface of his character, unseen and real – the window to the character’s soul.  However, the best part belongs to an actor seldom seen in film since My Beautiful Laundrette, Derrick Branche as Omar’s cousin Salim.  Every bit as racist as Johnny’s buddies and as ambitious as any of his relatives, he is the ruthless and blunt looking glass of this story.

My Beautiful Laundrette takes a while to get going, but its documentary approach to storytelling in which the characters are like real people and not actors acting like people is worth the wait.  Much of the love and romance is tepid, probably because the filmmakers wished to convey how difficult love can be amongst people straddling the borders between warring social groups.  Perhaps, the film could have been a bit more emotional, but maybe the filmmakers wanted to play down the passion of love in favor of presenting a broader picture of the societal pressures weighing upon the characters.  The viewer can decide for himself, especially if he likes films that focus on the common everyman.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
1987 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen” (Hanif Kureishi)

1986 BAFTA Awards:  2 nominations: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Saeed Jaffrey) and “Best Screenplay – Original” (Hanif Kureishi)

Updated:  Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.