What’s this? Another brand new comic feature here on Grizzly Bomb? But Supascoot, we already have Hero Express and The Griz Bin, why on earth would we need another one? Well, why not? Hero Express covers the movies, The Griz Bin covers the web, so we need something to cover the actual comics!
Welcome to Comic Rack! Your weekly look at all the comic news from across the industry!
An analysis of strength of schedule, player injuries, home/away matchups, and performance revealed the nation’s top defensive units in college football.
Teams with impressive statistics, but lighter competition were commonly knocked down the list, while teams that fought through brutal schedules and significant injuries were not wholly penalized for their slightly lower numbers.
Separate from the pack, Big Ten and Southeastern Conference squads dominate the rankings, filling eight of the top 10 spots.
In the end, only two teams remain in the conversation for “best defense in college football”.
Ranking eighth in the nation in points allowed (17.2 points/game), Defensive Coordinator Bud Foster led his rag tag bunch through an injury-plagued campaign. The Hokies lost multiple players in each level of the defense this season, but somehow managed to net a 11-2 record. Starring on defense, 2010 All-American CB Jayron Hosley registered three interceptions and 59 tackles despite suffering a hamstring injury early this season. He will consider leaping to the NFL in the upcoming draft.
Senior S Eddie Whitley helped hold the secondary together, providing leadership, stability, and 78 tackles. Redshirt sophomore safety Antone Exum filled in more than admirably in his first year as a full-time starter, leading all Hokies with 10 pass break-ups and 85 tackles.
The Hokies landed four players on the All-ACC second team- Hosley, Whitley, CB Kyle Fuller, and DE James Gayle.
Freshman sensation Jadeveon Clowney brought a welcomed level of nastiness to the Gamecocks. The 18-year-old defensive end has already met lofty expectations with six sacks and 10 tackles for loss. Equally impressive, his senior adviser on the defensive line Melvin Ingram led the team in tackles for loss (13.5), sacks (8.5), and defensive touchdowns (2).He also helped secure a win against Georgia by running a fake punt 68 yards for a score.
These two monsters in the middle allowed the Gamecock defense to clamp down opposing wide receivers. South Carolina ranked second nationally in pass defense (133 yards/game), behind only Alabama. They also forced 18 interceptions, fifth in the nation.
Impressively, the Gamecocks held in-state rival and ACC champ Clemson 20 points under their season average in a 34-13 victory November 26.
On December 18th, 1966, CBS debuted How the Grinch Stole Christmas on televisions everywhere. Since this was the year that my dad was born, I had to wait a few years to see it. When I did finally watch this hilarious cartoon, I loved it, and have ever since.
Narrated by horror legend Boris Karloff, this timeless movie (based off the 1957 book) tells the story of a grumpy recluse who hates Christmas. Not only does the Grinch hate Christmas, but all the singing and happiness that goes along with it. For this reason, he wants to get rid of it all together. So he does what any self-respecting Grinch would do, he decides to steal Christmas!
So Mr. Grinch goes around to all of the houses in the town of Whoville at night dressed as Santa Claus, and with his dog dressed like a reindeer, and he steals everything from Christmas trees to cans of ‘Who Hash’.
The next morning, as the Grinch awakes to witness the aftermath of his evening of cruelty, he instead hears every Who in Whoville singing. Despite the disappearance of their Christmas dinners and tress and presents and lights, the Whos were still singing.
This is when he realized that even though they didn’t have Christmas gifts or Christmas dinner, the Whos were still filled with love and the Christmas spirit. His heart which was once two sizes too small grew three times larger and he was filled up with the spirit of the holiday, at which point he then returns all of the Christmas gifts, and is even invited to carve the roast beast at dinner. He is a changed man. Er…Grinch.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas is, and always will be, one of the greatest Christmas movies to watch. It is a classic, and deserves a 5/5.
RECAP: Episode 10 begins where episode 9 left off. Dexter is underground where he found Gellar and discovered that Travis is the only killer.
Travis runs outside and sees Gellar, who tells Travis that he did kill him. Dexter watches from downstairs through a window. Harry pops in behind Dexter for a little humor, seeing someone who isn’t there.Dexter cuts off Gellar’s hand to keep the police focused on him and not Travis. This is the dark Dexter I’ve missed.
Miami Metro circles in on the abandoned church where Travis has been taking victims and where Dexter found Gellar. They also found Travis’ psych evaluation, saying that he has been a sociopath since he was young, and probably killed his parents. It is in his blood… sound familiar?
Travis finds two of his loyal followers, a husband and wife, and visits them. They found Holly, a potential victim of Travis who he mistakenly let free. They kidnapped her on her boyfriend’s yacht. Dexter found a photo of the yacht, the ricochet rabbit, and left for the marina. Too late… Travis and his disciples already got to her.They also got wormwood… what I am assuming is the poison they are going to unleash to end the world.
Deb is still investigating the call girl case. She finds a flower delivery note, and calls the flower company. She finds out that Matthews sent the call girl flowers the day that she died.
Angel showed up at the house of the disciples. He interrogated the wife, but she said the posts were a joke. Angel notices the books by Gellar on the bookshelf, and Travis hits him over the head. Travis says that it is a sign and that they should unleash wormwood at the Miami Metro police department. Dexter found the poison gas on the yacht and called 9-1-1.
1. HOLY SHIT! Angel got knocked the F out by Travis.
2. Travis is going to see that Dexter works at Miami Metro. He would undoubtedly out him.
3. Will 911 matter at this point? They might be able to keep the poison that was on the boat from getting out, but Travis obviously would have more at his disposal.
4. Dexter was being a badass again… and then he called the police. He has been so sloppy this season that this episode made me think that he was getting back to his old ways. He was entertaining me until he called the cops. I guess it is the safer thing to do, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing. I was sure he’d take care of things by himself.
5. I still think that Louis is somehow linked to Brian Moser. From the moment I saw him, I thought that it looked like they picked someone who looked like Dexter’s late brother. Add the fact that he is obsessed with Dexter’s approval and also secretly has the ice truck killer’s prosthetic in his home, and I am almost sure of it.
As always, I will barely be able to breathe until the next episode of Deter. Until then, I will tack a rating of a big fat 4.5/5 on this episode. Absolutely well done. The only real problem I have is that Dexter is wishy washy. He acts like he is taking everything into his own hands, but then turns things over to the police. And no, I am not letting that go. I loved episode 10!
I feel like the entire film industry is beginning to revolve around pop culture. Now, this isn’t anything new, I know, but that doesn’t mean that it still isn’t frightening, with franchises that run for anywhere from five years (Twilight Saga) to 50 years (James Bond films). The surprising thing, though, is how much money these franchises make. Franchises like the Harry Potter films are in the multi-billions, as are franchises like Twilight and the James Bond movies.
Continue reading Grizzly Review: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1
The era of found footage films is in full flux right now. The surprisingly successful Paranormal Activity series, which has grossed almost $300 million dollars domestically, or The Blair Witch Project that grossed over $154 million dollars are both prime examples of this phenomena (no pun intended). Found footage films are successful because to be honest, they’re scary as hell, whether you want to believe it or not. It’s not always such a conscious recognition of the fear, but you have to admit that after you watch a Paranormal Activity movie, you tend to find yourself double-taking a little more than you usually do.
Recently, a film called Grave Encounters, which garnered positive reception at the Tribeca Film Festival, hit On-Demand as well as video stores soon after its initial festival run. The film, which was directed by The Vicious Brothers (who are neither brothers nor have the last name Vicious) for under $500,000, follows a camera crew who host a show called Grave Encounters, an intentional spoof of the popular show, Ghost Adventures. They decide to do what’s called a lock-down, a familiar procedure among fans of Ghost Adventures. The location? An abandoned mental institution that still maintains upkeep for some unknown reason. I presumed tours at first, but since there was no mention of this, I had nothing to go off.
The show, which is hosted by ghost expert Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson) and teched by his crew T.C. (Merwin Mondesir), Matt (Juan Riedinger), and Sasha (Ashleigh Gryzko), was in the middle of filming its first season when they decided to shoot in the location. Accompanied by “ghost expert” Houston Gray (Mackenzie Gray), the crew gets ready to go nowhere for an entire night of the hauntings that await them.
Grave Encounters makes it very clear that the entire “paranormal television” era is completely a sham, and that even the cast and crew don’t believe what they’re filming, which makes what they’re encountering that much more surprising. For the first 45 or so minutes, nothing too crazy happens. Tension is built amateurishly and then given up on just as quickly. If you decide to go and watch this movie, get used to the whole “so-much-tension-for-nothing” feel of the movie, because that’s the entire movie. In fact, anything resembling a good scare happens in the last half hour, and if you watched the first twenty minutes, and then skipped it to about 55 minutes, you really wouldn’t miss anything, I promise.
At 95 minutes, Grave Encounters is actually a tad longer than most other found-footage films, but half as scary, and most of the time, twice as boring. As I mentioned before, nothing scary happens until the last 30 minutes, and even then, it’s not the kind of scary that stays with you for weeks and weeks upon end, but rather a more instant jump followed by possibly a nervous giggle, and then it’s completely forgotten mere minutes later. The directors, who also penned the script, set up every scare so uniformly that when the punchline to this bad joke finally comes, you feel like it’s something you’ve heard, or in this case, seen, a million times before.
That’s not to say that Grave Encounters doesn’t have its moments. The surprisingly committed performance by the lead, Sean Rogerson, drives the film very well. He plays the part of the “ghost expert” perfectly, investing us into the story as he would in an episode of his show. The rest of the cast falters in comparison, though, except for Juan Riedenger, who plays Matt, the most Canadian character in this horror film made north of the border. His eventual slip into deep psychosis is enough reason to watch this movie for just that alone.
The lack of believable acting is what sets this film and other films like it (Paranormal Entity) apart from great found footage films. The acting is what turns the film from entertaining into believable. For months after seeing movies like The Fourth Kind and the Blair Witch Project, I was absolutely convinced that the things I was seeing on screen were as real as it could get. I honestly thought that Blair Witch was a documentary.
As a horror film, Grave Encounters fails, and almost miserably at that. I’m the type of person who s**** their pants when they see one of those scary videos on YouTube, and not even the barrage of stuff popping out during the last 30 minutes could scare me, let alone entertain me. It’s almost depressing that in a genre of film that is so easy to scare with, Grave Encounters can’t even do its one job right, which is a shame considering the massive amount of potential it had.
2/5 Bears
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