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So this is a thing I’ve never done here.

I’ve listened to the new Black Sabbath album – “13” – a couple times. It’s the reunion album of Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne, their first full album of new material in over 30 years. They’ve reunited a few times in the past, and on their 1999 (?!) live album, there were two brand new tracks, which were just okay. Since then, Iommi and Butler reunited with the late former Sabbath frontman Ronnie James Dio as Heaven and Hell and managed to sound pretty much like their Sabbath stuff. But here we have the (mostly) original line-up back together (no Bill Ward, instead Rage Against the Machine’s Brad Wilk on drums).

And it’s just okay. Admittedly, there’s a lot of hype, build-up and expectation with this album, and honestly, the only thing it can do is disappoint. And it does. They’re not going to be the same band that made “Paranoid”, but it’s hard not to want them to be. The album mostly sounds like an Ozzy solo outing – which I am not a fan of. I’ve never enjoyed a solo Ozzy. There’s a few good songs, sure, but nothing I’ve ever really enjoyed. I think I’m not a fan of Ozzy in direct proportion to how much I love the first six Sabbath albums.

An Ozzy solo effort usually has a memorable song or two, something really catchy that can stick in your head. “13” is not able to achieve even that. On all eight of the original Sabbath’s albums, the songs are infectious, groovy and heavy – songs that live inside of you after you hear them. Even the bad songs. “13” is sadly generic all the way through. When I saw This is End, one of the tracks from this album played during the credits. I couldn’t tell you which one. I mean, I could look it up, but while listening to it I couldn’t have picked it out.

But that said, it’s heavy. It’s an Ozzy solo album, with Ozzy being Ozzy – but with a better backing band than he has ever had. Iommi may not be able to write the memorable riffs from yesteryear, but he can certainly play the hell out of what he does write. It’s not imaginative or original or memorable, but holy crap it’s done so well. Geezer is a stand-out on this album, playing as hard and as crazy as he always has, and it’s amazing. Together, they are fantastic and really drive everything forward. They are playing and trying as hard as they can. But in the end, 40 years of perception throws up a pretty big brick wall. On the other hand, for a couple dudes in their 60s who hadn’t really played together regularly in decades, it’s pretty good achievement.

By no means is the album bad. It’s actually quite good, but it’s a Black Sabbath venture in name only. Worth a listen if you’re a die-hard Sabbath fan, or even if you’re just interested in the curiosity of it. But buy it used. I imagine there’ll be plenty copies available at second-hand stores in the near future.

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Trailer Park of Terror. Hoo, boy. With a title like that, I expected something ridiculous and over-the-top with a good sense of humor about itself. I expected tons of gore and comedy. What I got was an overtly serious movie with music video style editing, unlikeable characters – heroes and villains – and villains with zero motivation. Basically, the Redneck Zombie Family from Cabin in the Woods, but with less personality. Every cliche is present and plays out exactly as you think it will. The kills, the creature effects, the plot, all by-the-numbers, unmemorable, unimaginative and illogical. Waste of time.

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Got my monthly comics shipment yesterday. It’s like Christmas once a month, and I’ll never get around to reading 60% of them. That stupid thing in my head that makes me not stop buying a comic.

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Just want to give a thanks to Jason Young and Jim Purcell for their response to the triple digit comics inquisition from yesterday. Also to Keith Callbeck, Dragon Fan Blog & Erik Larsen himself over on Twitter for throwing out some titles that hadn’t been mentioned here, like Witchblade, The Darkness and Usagi Yojimbo.

It seems there are definitely more than I thought, but it’s still depressing. I get why Marvel and DC have done away with it (for now – as Jason mentioned, at any moment, they all could just revert to original numbering, or dual numbering again). It’s a business, and new #1’s give a (temporary) boost to books with sagging sales. But it also seems like there’s this weird stigma for books with high issue counts, like it scares off new readers. I think that’s a load of crap. When I was first getting into comics, the high issue numbers excited me. If I was getting into X-Men, holy crap, there’s 230-some other issues of this thing I’m beginning to love. New comics – first issues – were exciting too, because you could jump in from the beginning, but there was something special about realizing you had an entire history you could track down and read. 260 more issues of Daredevil exist? Yes, please, thank you (hey gang, guess when I started getting into comics?). As I got older and my tastes got more discerning (questionable), and started following creators rather than characters, you could realize “Oh fuck, John Byrne wrote and drew something like 60 issues of Fantastic Four! I gotta get those!”

Sure, you can still do all that, but how cool would it be to know that Action Comics is gonna reach issue # 1,000? And again, who knows? DC could completely dissolve this New52 thing and go back to the original numbering system and continuity in a few years (I hear your boner, Fanboy, go away). But it’s still an element of Marvel and DC comics that I’m gonna miss.

And I’m sure that a lot of those feelings are just part of the collector mentality that – at their core – all comic fans have.

But hey. How awesome is it that most of the books in the triple digits are creator-owned and independent comics? As I am whittling down my Marvel and DC purchases in general and trying to support more and more creator-owned fare, it’s pretty awesome that these books are surviving and thriving in today’s economy and comic market. Savage Dragon may not be the icon Superman is, but it’s been going for 20+ years and nearing issue 200 – every issue done by it’s original creator, no less – you can’t deny it’s longevity and staying power. If I were just getting into that book now, “Hey, there’s 180 some more of these things! Awesome!”

By the way, I’m not sure what “scribulous” means, but this might be an example.

UPDATE: Apparently “Scribulous” is already a thing. Fuck.

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I had a thought question. Bear with me.

Journey into Mystery has been cancelled. This is the title that eventually became Thor. Thor ended and JiM returned. A couple times that I recall. Both books have existed concurrently at times. It is ending with #655, I believe. And with that, I think, is also the end of any comic from the Big Two Publishers with issue numbers in the triple digits. In fact, I want to say the only comics AT ALL that have triple digit numbering are some of the Archie comics, Spawn and Savage Dragon. Am I right in thinking that’s true?

If I am, that makes me a lot sadder than it probably should.

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Fear. It.

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For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you why I would ever think of the band Cracker, ever.

So. I love big dumb action movies. The dumber and more ‘splodey they are, the better I like ’em. But apparently, there is a limit to how dumb a big dumb action movie can get before it’s just a terrible movie. A Good Day to Die Hard not only crossed that line, but shat on it too. I’m not entirely sure how or why, though, because I enjoyed the previous Die Hard movie, which is just as dumb and ridiculous. I think this one just pushes McClane too far into SuperHuman territory, which is the opposite of what a Die Hard movie should be. He’s basically the character from Unbreakable in this, if he got a bad-ass overhaul. Plus, we’re introduced to McClane’s son who’s just as unkillably bad-ass. There’s tension between the two, but no reason for it. It doesn’t help that the two actors have zero chemistry with each other. There’s a key supporting character with a daughter, but unfortunately the two actors there have too much chemistry, and I kept expecting a creepy father/daughter make-out session to reveal some twisty plot twist that they’re not really father and daughter. It was weird. Lessee, McClane keeps saying he’s on vacation (in Russia) even though he is not. I don’t think it was supposed to be a joke that he keeps saying it. At least, not in the way the writer thought it was. Russian characters switch back and forth between speaking Russian and English, even if there are no American characters around. It’s just a big illogical mess with a dumb “Die Hard” title slapped on it. And the two McClanes also spend the entire movie trying to get around a way to make a titular line of dialogue. It’s a just a clunk of shit. I did watch it with my Dad though, so, y’know, Father’s Day.

On the other hand, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is equally as dumb and illogical, but I enjoyed it a lot more. Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton (?) have a lot of charisma and are great as the siblings. This movie is a bunch of fun, visually enticing with some great sets and monsters. It totally knows what it is and doesn’t care. It’s not one thing pretending to be another. Plus, Peter Stormare is in it, and he makes everything better than it should be.

136. Happy Father's Day

136. Happy Father's Day

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Checked out This is the End. Absolutely hilarious horror movie about friendship.

134. Daredevil

134. Daredevil
I watched Friday the 13th Part III while killing time until Hannibal was on. This was the very first Friday the 13th movie I have ever seen (I don’t count Freddy vs. Jason). Last night’s episode of Hannibal was far scarier and more intense than F13III ever wished it could be. Hell, in the first five minutes alone, Hannibal trumped Jason.

Anyway.

Not a good movie and I’m pretty sure that if I had seen the first two, it wouldn’t have helped at all. This is the one that introduced “classic” hockey mask Jason to the world. It also had a ton of really forced 1982 3-D scenes. I started with Part III, because Netlfix (3 through 8 are available on streaming).

I’m not sure how there are 11 of these movies out in the world.