WIP Wednesday: Bad Girls (Chadwick, McManus, Gallagher, 1999-2006)

Two years after Oz launched in the US the British got a show called Bad Girls. Oz ran for six seasons, Bad Girls for eight. There are a lot of similarities, and notable differences. Bad Girls looks at many prisoners and prisoner groups, and it also looks at the staff quite a bit. There's a rapey/philandering guard, concerned guards, a warden whose intent is not always clear, an old couple that do not participate in the factions. All similar to Oz, but this is not a female version of the same show. Not exactly. It does follow the same WIP soap opera format, and since WIP is a formulaic enterprise to begin with the two are going to be superficially similar.

The show takes place in HMP Larkhall Womens Prison. Thus far, our good girl is Rachel Hicks (Joanne Froggatt), though she has yet to display the toughness which the good girl typically achieves. Our HBIC is Shell Dockley (Debra Stephenson), a lifer who runs the prison's drug trade. Her right hand is Denny Blood (Alicya Eyo). Our hardened veteran is Nikki Wade (Mandana Jones), who received a life sentence after killing a policeman who was attempting to rape her girlfriend. Our warden is Helen Stewart (Simone Lahbib), and the sadistic guard role is currently split between the annoying/uncaring Sylvia Hollamby (Helen Fraser) and the conniving/rapey Jim Fenner (Jack Ellis).

I have only seen a few episodes from season (series) one thus far, and it certainly appears to be building a bigger story. Whether it will also be similar to Oz in splitting off the main arc for several episodes is not clear; though it would be hard to hold a single arc for eight seasons.

Season one is available in the US on DVD from Netflix, and appears to be available at some expense through Amazon. The DVD set appears to have launched in 2006, so there seems little chance of later seasons being released here. Many of the seasons are available in the UK at various prices, most appear to still be in print.

Easily my favorite character is Denny Blood. Alicya Eyo does a lot of great acting with her, adding odd little character traits that really bring her to life. In the scene below, Denny is trying to write to her mother. Denny is just learning to read and write, so needs a little assistance.


FreeVideoCoding.com

Find out more about the show at the official homepage.

HBIC Shell Dockley and Enforcer Denny Blood

Nerd Girl of Note #127: Starina Johnson (@starinajohnson)

So, I am looking through the Nerd Girl of Note list and I see two things that trouble me. One, I did Elizabeth Kaitan twice. Two, I have neglected to profile my Twitter buddy Starina Johnson.

I first saw Starina in Steven Balderson's Stuck!, a retro-styled WIP film which takes the rather tawdry genre and adds some class to it (available on DVD from Netflix now, btw). Starina stars as Daisy, a good girl who finds herself wrongly convicted of murdering her mother. She also appears in Balderson's Watch Out, the story of a maddeningly narcissistic serial killer. Starina is also in Balderson's Casserole Club as "Kitty Bloom" - this one I have yet to see.

I talk to Starina on Twitter every now and then, and she is always pleasant and fun. The profile picture here is her doing some Dolly Parton modeling, which she said was just for fun. She is also on the Speed Demons team for Bowling for Boobies, which supports the Busted Foundation. Read my post on how they operate and how you can contribute here. Check her out and look for her movies.

Links:

• Home Page
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Myspace
• IMDb

Mercy Sparx is the story of a devil girl in Hell's slums who gets an offer to go to Earth to take care of some business for a divine rather than infernal agency. The artwork is fair, if a tad garishly colored. The dialogue is not so bad. Might be an interesting story.

Free at comiXology

Dark Mists takes place in pre-1941 Japan. A group of Geisha have been assembled by a secret Imperial agency to act as spies to help control the Yakuza. They are expected only to listen and report, but that wouldn't be much of a comic book, would it?

Free at comiXology

Bronco Pinball for iPad

There are free applications, and there are free applications worth having. Gottlieb's Bronco pinball for the iPad is the former. It is free until the flipper speed is corrected, according to the developers. Well, they have a few other issues to iron out as well.

The physics on the game are pretty terrible. Direction tends to be ok, but the ball speed seems uncannily uniform. Even the plunger seems to only send the ball at one speed regardless of how far it is pulled, and it it very wonky on when it wants to release. Beside the flipper speed, there is also an issue with the right flipper sticking.

I really wish this was a better application. It is beautifully rendered, and lets face it, looks like a real machine. Below is not a photograph of the real thing, it is a screen capture from the game. Unfortunately, even for free it is not worth having.

WIP Wednesday: Jungle Warriors (Ernst R. von Theumer, 1984)

Jungle Warriors is sold as a WIP film and a Sybil Danning vehicle. Frankly, it is neither. For the most part it is a Marjoe Gortner (Food of the Gods, Starcrash) movie with lots of window dressing. It does have the awesome John "Dean Wormer" Vernon as the awesomely yet inappropriately named "Vito Mastranga."

Frankly, this movie is so bad I am surprised Andy Sidaris did not make it. I spent several sittings trying to complete it, and just could not. There is the bad guy's head thug who uses a bow and arrow, yet it is not a recurve bow and he only carries two arrows. Also, I don't remember him shooting it once. If he did, it certainly wasn't memorable enough to show him with it every time he appears on camera. Danning has a few minutes to try out her Dyanne Thorne impersonation, but to little effect. BTW, don't get me wrong. I like Andy Sidaris and Sybil Danning, but the comparisons here are, I believe, justified.

To the best of my knowledge, the only way to get a hold of this one is in a triple feature DVD partnered with the awesome Chained Heat (Linda Blair, Sybil Danning, Tamara Dobson, Jill St. John) and Red Heat (Linda Blair, Sylvia Kristel). If WIP is your thing, it is a set worth getting. Skip Jungle Warriors though, unless you want to see Marjoe Gortner bite it. And who doesn't?

I Want to be a Creepy Uncle, but in a Good Way

So, we had a family gathering at my folks' house this weekend. One sister was in town from DC, and the other was there with husband and kids in tow. My nieces are seven and four, and finally becoming interesting after years of being scared to death of me. Kids...

Anyway, I discovered that the four year old loves zombies. OK, I am thinking, someone is watching Scooby-Doo. Does she really like zombies, or is this a put on? So, I showed her a game on my iPad, Zombie Dice from Steve Jackson Games.

The link above takes you to my Zombie Dice review.

She stared at it in fascination. The zombie face in the game moves a bit and talks. I looked back at her and asked, "do you like zombies?" Still staring, I received a silent nod of the head. "Do you watch Scooby-Doo?" Another nod.

Well, then I find out that she scares her sister by making her zombie face. I think it is my sworn duty to encourage, nay expand upon this trait. Here is idea number one...

A plush toy from the game Plants vs Zombies. Approximately 10".

I have two uncles, one a fairly smart douche bag, the other a very smart nerd. I was not around either too much, but both shaped the way I look at things. Grown ups tend to do that to kids. I think it would be awesome for her to know that she likes this sort of thing at a young age, and have an adult that does not think it is silly. Of course, one must weigh the parental point-of-view in such decisions. My sister already knows I am weird, but how weird is she willing to let me make her kid? The road to perdition can be a hard one, but a fun journey all the same.

Any thoughts from you beautiful people? I am torn between asking my sister if getting the kid a zombie toy is acceptable and just mailing her one. If there is one thing a zombie loving kid loves more than zombies, it is getting a zombie in the mail (or at least, that is my hope). Discuss, if you like :-)

Femforce (AC Comics, 1985)

Shon Richards hepped me to Femforce from AC Comics, which purports to be the first all female superhero team. It ran for over 150 issues (20 years), which is quite good for an independent comic book. The book has some original characters, and some are revamped characters from the forties and fifties that had fallen into the public domain.

The first several issues are pretty straight-forward comic book material with an old serial feel to them. I was expecting it to be mostly cheesecake and parody. Certainly as the run continues it will get to be more of a T&A comic and start making fun of itself, but that happens with anything that has a long lifespan.

The main characters thus far are Ms. Victory, The Blue Bulleteer/Night Veil, She-Cat, Rita Rio, and Tara the Jungle Girl. While all have some male counterparts in other comics, they are still pretty solid characters on their own. Ms. Victory is a bit like Captain America, She-Cat is perhaps a bit Wolverine-like, Tara the Jungle Girl is similar to many jungle characters like Tarzan. The oddest of the lot, perhaps, is The Blue Bulleteer. She is like many pulp heroes (The Shadow, perhaps) before becoming Night Veil, who is like Doctor Strange or Doctor Fate.A recurring character who appears in Femforce is Colt, a take on western comics, but with a more modern twist.

There were numerous spin-offs and team-ups with other AC Comics characters, and even a Femforce role playing game called Superbabes by Tri-City Games. Well worth looking into for comic book fans.


You can find more information, and see some of the issues, at Cosmo Bell's blog.

She-Cat, Ms. Victory, and The Blue Bulleteer

Nerd Girl of Note #126: Nina Hagen

It might be a trait of the MTV generation to love people you know nothing about. German artist Nina Hagen used to pop up on MTV back in the '80s, and despite not knowing a thing about her music I was convinced she was relevant to my interests. Like Wendy O. Williams she has clung to my consciousness without actually entering my inner musical library. In the 7th and/or 8th grade the young Darius had MTV for a brief but glorious period and Hagen along with Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons are most strongly imprinted on my psyche. Hagen was like a scary, fetishy version of Cyndi Lauper, and to this viewer, sexier than Madonna without trying as hard.



'Wir Leben Immer ... Noch"



Somewhat recently with Apocalyptica, "Seemann"



"Naturträne"

The Adventures of Savior (David LeVack, 2009) @levack

The Adventures of Savior, written by David LeVack, is a extraterrestrial invasion story which will pit Earth against a space prison's escaped inmates. That is, all but one.

It is a cool story. The prison is a space ship, and to prevent the prisoners from taking over during a coup attempt, the crew decides to destroy the ship, but things do not go as planned and they find themselves on a little blue and green planet which you and I call home.

Check it out sometime. You can get it at Wowio for free and the creators get a taste from DirecTV.

Thursday Timewaster: 8tracks

The totally rad Tenebrous Kate hepped me to 8tracks.com, a site that lets you share music, theoretically without fear of copyright violations. You start an account and upload songs to their server. You can then place eight songs into a mix which you can share. I believe you can only have one song by an artist and one song from the same album. You can arrange the songs in the order you want. When you listen to a mix it is always in that order, but when another user listens more than once the order is shuffled. You can pause and skip songs, but not replay them immediately. When you create a mix you can give it a title and description, as well as a mix image. You can either upload an image or use a URL.

The upload process seems to be a tad slow, and the first time you use it it appears nothing is happening. Look to the bottom right, below your mix list, and you will see upload progress. They have an iOS application, which is a little flaky, and their website works similarly on iOS. Both are just for playing. There does not appear to be a BlackBerry application. Unsure about Android.

I have done three mixes so far. Nothing great, but mixtapes were not quite my specialty. These have some decent songs, and tend to stick to a theme nicely. The "Strange Love" mix is my favorite. NSFW, by the way. Find my profile here.

WIP Wednesday: St. Trinian's School for Bad Girls (Oliver Parker, 2007)

A lighter entry in this column, St. Trinian's School for Bad Girls is of course not a typical WIP entry, but as it is a boarding school for delinquent girls it certainly warrants some attention here. Originally this was a British comic by Ronald Searle who said, "A St. Trinian's girl would be sadistic, cunning, dissolute, crooked, sordid, lacking morals of any sort and capable of any excess. She would also be well-spoken, even well-mannered and polite. Sardonic, witty and very amusing. She would be good company. In short: typically human and, despite everything, endearing."

It is an oddity of sorts, as it stars Colin Firth (Brigitte Jones' Diary, The King's Speech) in the sort-of role of wicked warden, Rupert Everett (My Best Friend's Wedding, The Madness of King George) in drag as the school's headmistress, Russell Brand (Get Him to the Greek, Katy Perry's vagina) as a second rate criminal, and a flock of girls some of which are known to American audiences. There is model Lily Cole (Doctor Who, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus), Gemma Arterton (Prince of Persia, Quantum of Solace), and Mischa Barton (The Sixth Sense, The O.C.). Also, we have an appearance by Stephen Fry (Blackadder the Second, V for Vendetta, The Hobbit)

Annabelle Fritton (Talulah Riley) is our good girl. Her father places her in St. Trinian's after some trouble at her previous school, and for nefarious reasons of his own. She is well aware of St. Trinian's reputation and not at all happy about attending.

Pikeys

Our HBIC by default is Kelly (Gemma Arterton), a striking brunette with a serious dominatrix vibe going at all times. She is head girl and the only one no one messes with.

Gemma Arterton

The school is full of various miscreants of various stripes, and like Mean Girls (not to mention real life), the school is divided into cliques who are rivals, though generally get along. Think of it (again) as Hogwarts but without Slitherin.

Paloma Faith, Kathryn Drysdale and Gemma Arterton

The film has a very Animal House tone to it. The rival school (oddly enough, the one Annabelle left) are the Omega Theta Pis (ΩΘΠ) to St. Trinian's Delta Tau Chi (ΔΤΧ), not to mention Firth's Geoffrey Thwaites, Minister of Education, who is determined to shut the school down.

Annabelle gets a St. Trinian's Makeover

Not only that, but remember that nefarious plot I mentioned regarding Annabelle's father? Well, he is Carnaby Fritton, the brother of the headmistress, Camilla Fritton (both played by Rupert Everett). He wants to take over the school to make a hotel, and is increasing bank pressure to collect on old debts. As is typical with teen school/camp stories, they need to raise some money to save their beloved home. Rather than a flamboyant bake sale or some such, they go the criminal route and attempt to steal the famous painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Vermeer (Firth had already portrayed Vermeer in the film Girl with a Pearl Earring, something they do not fail to make into a joke).

In all, this is a fun, silly movie. Don't look for anything too magical. It has some good jokes, lots of hot girls, and a twist on a classic premise. Well worth checking out. No serious nudity or language issues that I remember, as it is rated PG-13.

Watched on DVD.

Premature Game Review: Slayer Pinball Rocks for iPad

Sometimes I say I am not a gamer, and in some ways this is true. Once in a while a game comes along I love, but for the most part video games are not my thing. Pinball, on the other hand... I love pinball, and unless a table really, really sucks (or is broken) I will play a pile of tokens away. Problem is, pinball machines are few and far between in many areas; notably mine. What's a pinball nerd to do? How about this:

click to enlarge

Now, I did not get this because it was Slayer related, though that is not such a bad thing. It was pretty well reviewed at the iTunes store, and seems worthy of the praise.

The biggest problem I have had in the past with video pinball is the poor physics, but I have to say this one almost feels like the real thing. One thing I tend to rate video pinball on is the ability to catch a moving ball with the flippers. I don't know if there is a pinball term for this, but it is a great skill to have on a real table, and is actually possible on this game. I'm not talking about catching a ball from the side chutes, I am talking about a ball speeding directly to the flipper, and with just the right touch you stop it without returning it up the table. It is a finesse move, and this is the first video pinball game I have been able to do it on.

Now, I have not figured it out completely, and like a real pinball table it takes some getting used to. I am not sure how to accomplish some of the objectives, but there is a bit of a guide included. One thing I have avoided is the auto-view, which follows the ball more closely. This gets a little too move-y for me, and I prefer the full table so far, but who knows what the future holds?

Overall, it is a fun game which if it were not so good as video pinball I would love to play it on a real table.

Tech Tuesday: comiXology (@comixology)

You have likely noticed more comic book posting from me of late. Blame comiXology for that. ComiXology is a comic book distributor that deals in print and digital media, and the digital is what we will be looking at here. You can view their comics in your computer's web browser or get their applications for iPhone/iPad or Android.

There are a lot of cool things with digital comics. For one, you don't have to deal with the comic book store, if like me your only comic book store is full of aging tools who think they are special because they work in a comic book store. Second, there are many free comics or preview issues to help you get a feel for lesser known titles and publishers. Third is hardest to get used to, but the point of this post; comiXology's "Guided View Technology."

What the guided tour does is walk you through the comic bit by bit rather than a page at a time. Double tap a panel, and it will fill the screen, then rather than advance page by page it will advance panel by panel (or portions of panels, depending on panel size). You can also set the preferences to display the full page before going to panels and afterwards, so you could set it up to show the entire page, then panel, panel, panel, then the entire page and so on. It is a fairly neat feature, but is not forced on you.Some comics seem to make better use of this. The panel advance with at times help build the tension by hiding part of the panel for dramatic effect. Others do a fairly straight walk-through.

ComiXology appears to be the major digital distributor, and their application will provide the big three (Marvel, DC, Image) as well as less prominent publishers like Dynamite. The only major publisher that seems to be off their system is Dark Horse (comiXology does have a few DH titles). Also, it appears that Marvel is only available on the iPhone/iPad applications.

When you look for digital comics applications, you will likely see all the various publishers listed, but as far as I have seen all (save for Dark Horse) are run by comiXology, so having an application for each publisher is for the most part unnecessary. However, it is likely that some titles or issues may only be available through the publisher applications. Yet another failing of the application-centric way of doing business these days.

Fearless Dawn (Steve Mannion, 2009) (@AsylumPress)

Fearless Dawn from Steve Mannion and Asylum Press is a way-out comic with the artistic view of R. Crumb and the action style that reminds this reader of Frank Thorne's post-Marvel work (Ribit [Comico, 1989] in particular). There is also a great deal of styling that reminds one of early Justice Society, Dick Tracy and perhaps Flash Gordon comics.

Fearless Dawn is an agent of The Syndicate, along with Number 7 and Agent Betty. While on a job for The Syndicate, Fearless Dawn falls into the hands of the evil Nazi Helga Von Kraus and her army of juiced up soldiers. After her rescue by Number 7 and Agent Betty they decide to take the war to Helga.

This comic ran four issues and are available at comiXology digitally (three for 99¢ and the final for $1.99). It appears the "special edition" of #1 is the same price as the standard, so check that one out in case there is additional material.

Fearless Dawn

F.D. and Number 7 attempt an escape.

This plan may have been a bad idea?

While these are rated as "mature" and readers need to be 17 to view them, aside from some language and Nazis there is nothing too offensive. It gets a little gory, but in a rather cartoon fashion. The sexiness comes primarily in the style of the pinup rather than sexual explicity. There was a follow-up series, The Bomb, which has more Fearless Dawn as well as "Jungle Chick" in more adventures.

Helga Von Krause

• Official Site
• Blog
• At comiXology

Fan-Boy Icon #52: John Vernon

One of the most wonderful character actors, in my opinion, is John Vernon. Sure, a lot of his characters wound up being versions of the same guy, but that is pretty common. Vernon is best known as the despicable "Dean Wormer" from Animal House, but was also in many movies and television shows (including quite a bit of voice work for animation, including my favorite Sorcerer Supreme on the Spider-Man animated series).

One of his perhaps best roles, though at times small, was as Fletcher in The Outlaw Josey Wales. He was a sympathetic antagonist to Clint Eastwood's Josey Wales, and got to stretch his acting legs beyond yelling a drunken frat-boys.

Bowling for Boobies

Hello folks. Time for one of my rare donation requests. Several friends of the blog are participating in Bowling for Boobies, a Los Angeles bowling tournament that raises money for the Busted Foundation.

The Busted Foundation grew out of Bowling for Boobies, a tournament to aid Edith Speed with her financial difficulties after a double mastectomy. Edith is no longer with us, but her friends have decided to keep up the effort to help other women with the extreme expense associated with breast cancer treatment. The goal is to create a national index of support, as often the means of financial support are not clear to patients. The Busted Foundation is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization with the IRS, and your donation is tax-deductible within the guidelines of the U.S law.

Three women involved have been highlighted here at AiN, and all have been nice enough to befriend this aging nerd on Twitter. They are all great ladies. If you have a favorite, send them a few bucks if you can afford it. Any donation size is possible. If you like, think of it as buying me a beer. Send three bucks. It all adds up. Now, a bit about some of the participants.

Team: Speed Demons

Darla Crane is one of my longest standing Twitter friends, and was a friend of Edith Speed. A member of the Nerd Girl of Note sisterhood, Darla is an adult star, but loves the things we love. In fact, I first met her on Twitter due to a Star Trek post. Her donation page here.

Starina Johnson is the star of the very cool WIP film Stuck! as well as other Steven Balderson films. Starina is awesomely nice and chats with her fans on Twitter. Her new movie is Caserole Club. Her donation page here.

Other Speed Demons you may know are Go-Gos guitarist/singer Jane Weidlin, Reno 911 and The State's Thomas Lennon.

Team: Horror Starlets

Brooke Lewis is Nerd Girl of Note alum, and a horror star and producer. Brooke does a web series now, Ms. Vampy's Tween Tawk, Teen Tawk and In Between Tawk (or go to the Ms. Vampy site here) which talks to young girls about issues important to them like body image and school problems of all sorts. Brooke is also a great fan communicator and active on Twitter. Her donation page here.

Other Horror Starlets you may know are Cerina Vincent (Cabin Fever, MoniKa), Allison Kyler (Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2), Jacky Belle (fx artist), Carlee Baker (The Woman, Wicked Lake), Ashlynn Yennie (The Human Centipede), Gabby West (VH1's Scream Queens 2, Chillerama), Sarah Butler (I Spit On Your Grave), and Sean Decker (dreadcentral.com).

Nerd Girl of Note #125: Dunia Montenegro (@duniamontenegro)

If you watched any of The Amazing Mask videos I posted you will likely remember "Sugar Brown, la sobrenatural mujer voodoo." That was Madrilenian (via Rio de Janeiro) porn star Dunia Montenegro. Yo he sido fan a primera vista. (Muchas gracias a Dirceu por la ayuda con mi Español)

Unfortunately, I do not know much about Dunia, save that she is a pretty active Tweeter (en Español, principalmente) and has a fairly substantial YouTube Channel. You can also find her homepage here. Aside from staring in films, she was writer/director on three films; two editions of Locuras por Dinero en las Calle ("Money Madness in the Streets"?), and Iniciando Parejas ("Getting Even"?)

For the more adventurous of you, there is a trailer for her new film Predatrix here. It is not for younger viewers or the squeamish. There are also a few pictures inappropriate for this blog here.