Comic-Con 2013 Badge Resale Drawing

For those not on their mailing list, here is some info on how to score some San Diego Comic Con re-sale tickets. Good Luck to those hunting!

-N3rdlink Crew

 

 

Comic-Con International is pleased to announce that because of returned/cancelled badges we will once again be able to offer those badges for resale. This year we have also reduced the allotment of reserved badges for certain departments. Comic-Con has decided to add these badges to the resale for our attendees. We currently have several thousand single day badges available for resale, only 3,100 of which are Saturday badges. 4-Day badges are sold out.

Due to the very limited number of badges available and our vendor EPIC Registration being focused on coordinating onsite registration, the Comic-Con 2013 badge resale will be conducted utilizing a random drawing.

To enter the Comic-Con 2013 Resale Drawing, login to your Member ID account now and click the blue notice that says “Click Here to Enter a Drawing to be Eligible for the Comic-Con 2013 Badge Resale!”

The drawing entry period will remain open for 48 hours only, and will close June 12, 2013 at 10:59:59 AM Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). Late entries will not be accepted.

You must have a valid and confirmed Comic-Con Member ID to enter the drawing.
Anyone who has already registered for or purchased a 4-Day badge (with or without Preview Night) or a single day Saturday badge will not be eligible to enter the drawing.

Those selected to participate in the Comic-Con 2013 badge resale may purchase their own badges, as well as badges for one additional guest. You may purchase for any guest who has a confirmed Member ID (as of June 7, 2013) and does not have a 4-Day badge (with or without Preview Night) or a single day Saturday badge. Your guest does not need to be selected from the drawing pool to be eligible to purchase.

Comic-Con will notify everyone who is selected to participate by email on or before June 17, 2013.

Sincerely,

Attendee Registration
Comic-Con International

R3view: The Internship

Another Vince Vaugh & Owen Wilson movie is upon.  This one called Wedding Cra….sorry, The Internship.  I was able to see an advance screening so if you would like to know if you should spend your money on it here are my thoughts.

The Plot:

Two middle aged, long-time friends and sales partners find out that the watch company they work for goes out of business and they are out of jobs, have no money and their significant other leave them for not being mature.  So they decide to take their talents and move to Palo Alto to work as interns (or Noogler as they referred to themselves) for Google.  The interns are told they will be split into teams and a competition will take place to determine who will receive permanent jobs at the tech company…Guess what, Owen and Vince’s team is comprised of the “misfits” that no one wanted on their team including Tiya Sircar (I don’t know why anybody wouldn’t want her character on their team…a girl in a tech company I’d assume guys would flock to her.)

So here are my two cents:

The Good:

-The comedy;  It’s not amazing but I was laughing at a good chunk of the movie.

-A look into the Googleplex;  it was cool to see a little bit of what the campus looks like and what is available to its employees.  I don’t know exactly how accurate it is but from what I have heard it’s not a far stretch.

The Bad:

-Character development; As with any group projects you work on you introduce yourself to each other.  During this scene that’s about all the real development for the characters

-The Plot; It’s a very run of the mill underdog competition story.  If you are looking for something that’s going to surprise you…look somewhere else

-The Comedy; I put this here as well because it seemed the movie relied too much of Owen and Vince’s “chemistry” too much and tried to force things.  Think Wedding Crashers x2-3

-The “My noogle” joke.  I get what they were trying to do with it but I mostly just rolled my eyes at it.

Final Words:

The movie was entertaining.  A good portion of the jokes were funny and the movie didn’t seem to drag on.  I doubt it will win any awards, but I enjoyed it for what it was…a subpar Wedding Crashers.  So should you see it?  If you like Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson or  If you get free passes or matinée pricing go for it.  If you would rather wait for it to come to Netflix or be able to watch it at home, I wouldn’t blame you.

R3view: Fast & Furious 6

The original cast comes back for Fast & Furious 6, out this Friday.  Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez (wait didn’t she die in #4?!), Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Sung Kang as well as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson return to drive fast and blow up cars.

The Plot:

Mastermind Shaw (Luke Evans), is working  to collect parts to build a weapon that can cut off electricity.  Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) finds Dom (Vin Diesel) and encourages him to get the crew back together to take down shaw and his cronies.  Their prize if they help?  Everyone gets their records wiped clean and they can return to the United States.  Oh yea Letty (Michelle Rodrizguez) is alive too…and works for Shaw. Say Whaaaaaaat?!  *For those that may not remember she supposedly died in Fast & Furious (forth released movie.)

The Good:

-The driving.  It’s crazy the different action shots that are created for this movie.  Supposedly they wrecked 239 cars for this movie and most of the scenes are actual drivers and not CG.

-I will say that I do enjoy Dwayne Johnson, Ludacris and Sung Kang’s characters in the movie.

The Bad:

-Paul Walker’s acting.  He is not the best actor but after multiple installments it’s hard to see anyone else playing his character Bryan.

-The whole Letty plot line.  Seems like a stretch to bring her back into the fold of the movie.

-The Franchise’s time line.  Though Tokyo Drift was the third released movie, it takes place after Fast & Furious 6.

The Conclusion:

It’s exactly what you would expect from the Fast & the Furious franchise.  Fast cars, explosions, fight scenes, and this time a tank.  If you have seen any other in the series movies and are expecting a well thought out, well acted movie you are going to have a bad time.  It’s not going to win Oscars but take it for face value and enjoy it.

And remember don’t try the stunts out in real life.  After seeing the original movie some kid decided to test out some of his moves while leaving the movie parking lot and ran his car over a curb tossing the people inside his car around and doing a ton of damage to his ride.  It was quite funny.

R3view: Marlon Wayans A Haunted House!

Monday  night I was able to see an advance screening of A Haunted House, Marlon Wayans’ (Requiem for a Dream, Scary Movie 1 & 2, Wayans Bros. Show) and his first big movie project with his Baby Way production company.  The movie is scheduled to be officially released on January 11, 2013.  Not only did the audience get to see the movie but Marlon was in attendance to answer questions after the screening.

A Haunted house, is a found film comedy that resolves around Malcolm and Keisha (played by Marlon and Essence Atkins) a couple who have decided to move in together but a demon decides to move in as well.  Malcolm’s new found love of his video camera and security system allows him to document their lives and the “Paranormal Activity” that takes place in their home.

I would classify this movie as a spoof comedy.  There are already a plethora of them that have been created; Not Another Teen Movie, Scary Movie 1-3, Date Movie, Epic Movie etc.  This one is a found film style movie that has many elements taken from Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project and The Exorcist.  In sea of spoof movies that have come out in the recent years, I believe A Haunted House sets itself apart from some of its predecessors.  The main reason for that is that the characters are a small recognizable cast.  Not only are Marlon and Essence part of the ensemble but Nick Swardson (psychic), David Koechner (Surveillance/Ghost hunter expert) and course Cedric the Entertainer (Convicted felon/priest) help to round out the main set of players in the movie.  The other main reason in my opinion is that there wasn’t a new movie reference every 2 seconds which can get overwhelming and boring

Overall the movie was pretty entertaining.  There are plenty of funny as well as startling scenes throughout the movie that can keep you laughing.  Many of the scenes involve sex either with a ghost, stuffed animal(s), or a group of black men.  One reason I liked the movie was because of the Q&A Marlon had after the screening.  He seemed like a very down to earth person that wanted to create a movie that made people laugh and kept them entertained.  He wasn’t trying to make the “next big thing” or “groundbreaking” or anything like that but he found a genre of film that hasn’t really had a comedy made of it and decided to make one.

If you are headed to the movies in January I suggest to give A Haunted House a try.  You may leave the theater asking people if they have “ever been with a man.”

*I recorded part of the Q&A and uploaded it below.  Feel free to take a listen (recording was from the Birmingham, Michigan show) My Apologies for the poor recordings.  I had to split this into 3 parts.  It is unedited

• Play
• Pause
• Mute
• Unmute
• Max Volume

• Shuffle
• Shuffle Off
• Repeat
• Repeat Off

Update Required To Play MediaUpdate your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.

Feel free to leave some comments below or hit us up on twitter @n3rdlink if you are excited to see the movie or what you thought of it if you saw it too!

 

R3view: Tom Whalen x Acid Free Gallery NYCC Transformers Prints

Acid Free Gallery recently was granted the license to produce a line of Transformer and GI Joe prints.  The first release came out during NYCC a couple weeks ago.

Tom Whalen was the first artist in the Transformers series and with the help of fellow N3rd Link team member Mawuli I was able to get the set of standard prints as well the more limited silver variant print.  With the regular prints having an edition size of 375 ($100 for the set of 2 each 18”x24”) and the variant edition of 150 ($65 36”x24”) the prints are now sold out but can be bought on the secondary market for about $200 for the regular set and $150-200 for the variant.

Here are my general impressions of the prints as well as some more detailed pics below.

If you have bought any prints from Mondotees or have been to a show at Gallery you probably are familiar with Whalen’s work.  He has a distinct style that works extremely well with cartoons and animated features.  He recently created a series of prints based on some of the old Mickey Mouse cartoons like Steamboat Mickey and the Mad Doctor.

I am not a huge Whalen collector but his Transformers and Toy Story prints quickly landed on my “must own” list and I have been lucky enough to add them to my collection.

Whalen’s standard edition comes in a set of two prints.  One is a group shot of the Autobots has a  blue/red color scheme and the other a group shot of the Decepticons with a purple/orange scheme.   The main focus of the prints are the leaders of the two factions Optimus Prime and Megatron.  You only see the left side of Megatron’s face and the right side of Optimus Prime’s face.  This gives a cool effect when you display the two prints next to each other.

The variant edition combines both images into one large print and has a monochrome feel to it and uses black and silver metallic ink.  In person the sliver ink gives the print that something extra that puts it over the top.

Acid Free Gallery also created trading card style “certificates of authenticity,” which I guess was a nice touch but I really don’t think it was necessary.  I haven’t seen any boot legged Tom Whalen prints and don’t think I will in the near future.

Overall I think this was a great start to AFG’s Transformers line.

R3view: NBC’s Revolution…Stream it Now or watch the premier 9/17!!

Revolution NBC’s upcoming TV show produced by John Favreau and J.J. Abrams officially premiers September 17^th but For those that are subscribed to Hulu Plus you now have the opportunity to watch the pilot episode.  I took the time to watch it last night…here are my thoughts (I’ll try to be as spoiler free as possible.)

Summary:

The show begins in the year 2012 and within the first couple minutes the “incident” happens.  What is this incident you ask?  For no apparent reason to the viewer everything that is powered by a battery or electricity stops working.  This includes cell phones, laptops, cars, airplanes, homes, everything and anything that uses some sort of electrical current shuts off and is unusable.  The show then jumps to 15 years into the future…governments have crumbled, militias have raised up, people have died but the world seems to be at some sort of equilibrium.  The main characters are all happy and living in a makeshift community.  That is until one of the militia groups raids the camp looking Ben who they feel has something to do that caused the incident.  The rest of the story looks like it will center around Ben’s family and understanding why the incident happened and to possibly keep the information from the wrong people.

Thoughts:

So far so good.  The show has some familiar situations…an independent girl that uses a cross bow  (hunger games), an overgrown landscape (lost), something happens the world that is unexplainable (The Event.)  After watching the first episode people may be thinking ahead and ask how could the writers ever make a good explanation of why an incident like this happened.  I enjoyed the first episode and look forward to the rest of the season.  It’s definitely something I suggest to check out at least the first few episodes before making a final decision.  So for those out there with a Hulu account go stream it or wait for the premier this Monday on NBC.

Huge Sale at Kidrobot.com

We just got this email, and thought we would share with those who might want to take advantage of the sale. Act fast, because the 75% off deal is only good for 10 hours!

Otakon 2012 is upon us!

Never heard of it? Well, if you are reading this blog in the 1st place, then you probably like animae or manga. Well this is an annual convention to celebrate just that! Annually close to 30,000 fans descend upon the Baltimore inner harbor to participate in the three day convention which features animae related, cosplay, workshops, panels, games, movies, and more.

The convention begins today and will run from July 27 – July 29, 2012 at the Baltimore Convention Center Baltimore, Maryland, USA. You can register on the spot, and since they do not offer daily passes, $80 will gain you access to all of the activities all weekend long. Registration details can be found here.

The Otakon website says this about the convention:

Otakon is the convention of the otaku generation: by fans, for fans; and we’re back for our 19th year in 2012!

Join thousands of your fellow fans as we descend on Baltimore to celebrate all anime, manga, and all facets of Asian pop culture!

Ever since 1999, we’ve taken over a sizable chunk of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor for a 3-day festival celebrating the pop culture that’s brought us everything from Astroboy to Yu-Gi-Oh, from the Seven Samurai to Spirited Away.

We can’t wait to see you there!

The convention even has its own mascots: Hiroko-chan, and her brother Hiroshi-kun who each have a distinct personality profile (I love that they put this much time into developing the background of the mascots!).

If you are in the Baltimore area this weekend I would highly recommend at least driving by the convention center to see all of the people in costume.

You can learn more about the convention on their website, or by follwiing the

website:
http://www.otakon.com

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Otakon

twitter:  @otakon

-Mawuli

The Raid Redemption Review *no spoilers*

I’ll keep this simple:

If you like gun-bustin’ action, then go see this movie.

If you like martial arts a$$-kickery, then go see this movie.

I saw it TWICE last week in the theaters, and would go see it again.

If you have no idea what i’m talking about then check out this trailer on youtube.

Its not in all theaters so you may have to hunt for it, but its completely worth it.

-Mawuli

R3view: Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope

In its debut, Morgan Spurlock brings his newest film Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope to a limited number of movie screens and accessible on video on demand through most cable providers.

Filmed during the 2010 San Diego Comic Con, Spurlock tries to explain the magnitude the Con has on the geek/nerd population.  Along with following the fans journey to the Con there are a lot of interviews and perspectives from celebrities like Seth Rogen, Seth Green, Joss Whedon, Kevin Smith, Stan Lee and others. 

A main point of the movie is that there are different types of people that attend Comic-Con and the documentary follows the trials and tribulations of fans that are attending the con. 

Here are the types of people that were covered:

The Cosplayer: This type of person walks around the Convention floor (and/or in the Masquerade) dressed as their favorite comic/video game/anime character.  Costumes at SDCC range from horrible to elaborate professional grade, that can take hundreds of hours to create.  It is amazing the lengths some fans will go to create costumes.  For the movie Jessica and her cosplay crew created some pretty crazy Mass Effect costumes.

The Comic Artist: This type of fan brings his art portfolio, in hopes of becoming a professional and breaking into the comic industry.  Many companies will hold portfolio reviews to critique artist’s skills.  It’s a tough industry to break into, but if you have the talent Comic-Con is a great placed to get noticed.  The movie shows the highs and lows of 2 artists as they try to break into the scene.

 The Comic Vendor: This fan runs one of the many thousands of booths on the convention floor.  The vendor featured in the movies is the owner of Mile High Comics.  The proclaimed largest comic vendor in the world.  The focus is on the decline of interest of actual comics at the Con which the vendor feels has been taken over by the huge production companies.  He is trying to sell a Red Raven #1 with a price tag of $500,000 to help pay off his debt.  (From experience Mile High has one of the largest booths for selling comics. I purchased some comics from this vendor at last year’s Con.) 

The Panel Camper:  “Panel Camping” refers to fans that go to Comic-Con and sit in a specific Hall and stay there the entire day.  This happens with the rooms that host the most popular panels (usually Hall H or Ballroom 20).  Due to limited space and since they do not remove people from the halls, if you want to see a specific panel you need to be in line hours beforehand which can take up the majority of your day.  This can be annoying especially if there is other stuff you would like to do at the Con.  Some people begin to camp right after the con closes for that day.  The couple in the movie started dating at Comic-Con and the guy is planning to propose to her during a Kevin Smith panel.

The Collector:  This type of fan spends most of his time on the convention floor at different vendor booths standing in line and purchasing the different Comic-Con exclusives to add to their collections.  The movie follows one such collector in his quest to purchase his exclusive toys (We at N3rd Link fall into this category.) 

So here are my thoughts on the movie and if it’s worth your hard earned $6-8 to rent.

The Good:

The movie does a good job of giving an overview of the convention, and how the convention has evolved from a “comic-centered” convention visited by a couple hundred people to a pop-culture mecca with over 140,000 visitors and now sells out almost instantly.  I also believe it did a good job portraying the different types of people that attend the Con.  There are so many different types of fans that attend Comic-Con and I was glad to see that Morgan Spurlock made that known.  One important theme the movie shared was, that  although it is called the San Diego “Comic-Con” comics definitely take a back seat to the movies and TV production companies.  If you have attended Comic-Con recently you probably know that if you want a break from all the pushing and crowds you walk over to the comic section.  There you won’t find people shoving each other to get whatever free thing that is being passed out.  It’s a little sad that comics get overshadowed at the Con even though the many of the blockbusters that have been coming out lately are comic related.

The Bad:

Understanding that this movie is more about getting understanding what the San Diego Comic-Con is…the love of pop culture and the newly accepted celebration of your inner nerd/geek, there isn’t a ton I would change.  I wish they had gone a little more in depth with the process.  Whether it’s the behind the scenes of putting on the Con or a more realistic perspective of the steps fans go through to get to the con and what they put up with to attend (Although if that happened half the movie would be standing in lines.)

The Verdict:  If you are a fan of Comic-Con or interested in what the big fuss is about then it’s definitely something to check out.  If you have been to Comic-Con you probably won’t learn a lot of new information much but you will recognize a lot of what you see in it and it can help tide you over for the 3 month wait for SDCC 2012 to start.  Go check it out! 

It’s available now on your VOD cable provider, itunes.  Morgan Spurlock is taking his movie on tour to select cities with a Q&A after the screening.  Click here for more information.