Christmas Special Countdown #21

A Chipmunk Christmas

Alvin, Simon, and Theodore are working hard in the recording studio practicing for their Christmas program that they are performing at Carnegie Hall on Christmas Eve. Alvin spends most of the time distracted by the thoughts of presents and wants nothing more than to go Christmas shopping. While Dave is setting up the studio Alvin and his brothers set out to see what wonderful items are in stores this year. Alvin makes his way to a music store and overhears a mother talking about her ill son, Tommy, to her daughter. The two are looking at the Golden Echo Harmonica, and thinking about how much better Tommy would feel if they could get it for him, but sadly the price was too high. Alvin, getting into the spirit of Christmas decides to give his Golden Echo Harmonica to Tommy as a gift. Returning home, Alvin and the Chipmunks are greeted by Dave, who has wonderful news for Alvin. Carnegie Hall wants him to do a Harmonica solo during the program and they want him to use his Golden Echo Harmonica. Now Alvin sets out to try and raise enough money to purchase the music stores harmonica before Christmas Eve. This special has a few tear jerk moments but overall is a wonderful and happy Christmas special with awesome music. I highly recommend checking this out this year, right Alvin?......Alvin?...... ALLLVVIIIINN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christmas Countdown Special #22

Ernest Saves Christmas

A magical story about a kindhearted, loving, caring, idiot who only has other peoples well being in mind. Christmas is hours away from being destroyed and Santa has only hours to find a worthy successor to take his magical powers and take up the mantel of Santa Clause. Santa befriends Ernest, a carefree taxi driver, and together with Pamela, their teenage friend whom Ernest picked up off the street, set out on a mission to save Christmas. Santa has until 7:00pm on Christmas Eve to transfer his powers to his successor and before that can happen he must convenes Joe Carruthers that he is the next Santa Clause. Meanwhile, Pamela (you remember her; the teenager Ernest befriends and then takes on a road trip and offers her to stay at his house. You could never get away with this in a movie today, and still call it a family holiday special) decides to steal Santa’s sack (minds out of the gutter people). So here we are, Santa has to convince some one he just met to become Santa Clause, his magic sack has been stolen, and his reindeer and sleigh are locked up at the airport (which is where Ernest comes in.) This is one of my favorite Christmas movies to watch this time of year and it’s a film that doesn’t get the love it deserves. If you haven’t watched Ernest Saves Christmas this holiday season…or even this week, then do yourselves a favor and check it out. Know What I Mean?

Christmas Countdown Special #23

A Garfield Christmas Special

This is a classic Christmas tale about everyone’s favorite fat cat, Garfield.  I love this special and it still holds up pretty well after so many years. The musical intro at the beginning is pretty great and I wish I had that present machine. This special is about Garfield, Odie, and Jon heading to Jon’s parent’s house for the holiday. Here we get to see Garfield get in to some trouble, we get to meet Jon’s awesome grandmother, and the scene between Garfield and Odie’s gift exchange is great.  Grab some lasagna and check out this holiday classic.

Christmas Specials Countdown #24

Holiday in Handcuffs

This is my Christmas special countdown. For the next 24 days I'll be talking about Christmas specials I think should be seen by all. Let's begin. Holiday in Handcuffs is a fun little Christmas movie that my wife and I watch every year at the beginning of the holiday season. The movie is about Trudie (Melissa Joan Heart), whose family is expecting her to finally bring a boyfriend with her to Christmas dinner. When Trudie is dumped just hours before leaving for her family’s holiday cabin, she panics and kidnaps David (Mario Lopez) at gun point and forces him to attend her families Christmas dinner as her boyfriend. Things get better when David decides to play along so that when he is finally rescued by the police, Trudies humiliation will be even greater. This is a funny, stupid, awesome ABC Family original movie that is great to watch with family and friends. Enjoy and Happy Holidays.

Indy Pop Con 2014

Another weekend came and went in a blink of an eye, but for the people of Indianapolis, it was an amazing weekend. The folks who brought us the Indy Pop Con did a fantastic job of delivering a con that was entertaining, fun, action packed, and left you with only great memories. This was the first year for the con and it was one of the best that I, personally, have been to.

When I arrived at 8:30am on Saturday, an hour and a half before the show floor opened; there was already plenty to do. Once you picked up your tickets you could go and have your picture taken next to a Pikachu car or a Star Gate. There was a gaming floor you could sit and play table top as well as pay to play video games as well. Across the hall from the show floor was a nice doctor who experience, which had one of my favorite parts of the con, a whole room that played Doctor Who episodes the entire day. Fantastic!

The show floor opened without any kind of confusion. There was a nice line for everyone to get in and a wide enough opening that once the line started to move it was a smooth process to get into the show floor. One of my favorite parts about this con was that all of the booths were spaced out nicely. There were many people at the Pop Con, but unlike the last con I attended, there was plenty of breathing room. You could navigate the show floor easily without running into everyone.

One other aspect of the Indy Pop Con that stood out to me was their main panel room. Some of the other panels I’ve attended at cons in the past have been too small for the panelist and for that reason, not everyone got to see the panels they wanted. That was not the case for Indy Pop Con and for that reason I’d like to thank them greatly.

The fun continued after the show floor closed, with the Indy Pop Con Cosplay Contest. Over 300 people entered the contest and as the day went on those 300 were reduced down to seventy-seven finalists. The contest was awesome to see and the costumes were very well done.  All of the contestants did a wonderful job on their cosplay and I hope to see another fantastic cosplay competition next year.

In closing, Indy Pop Con was a huge amount of fun and I highly recommend attending the next one. They can only get bigger and better from here, and they have already set the bar pretty high. I’m looking forward to the announcement of when next year’s con will be.

By Matt Miller

Follow on twitter @2themattcave

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ended its first season recently, and with that I’d like to take a moment to look back on the season from a fan's perspective. I’ve been into comic books for most of my life, and it was fantastic when comic book movies started to explode onto the big screen. It only got better, however, when Marvel began their Cinematic Universe and interconnected all their movies. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better than this, Marvel began releasing comic books that filled gaps between movies as well as One-Shots that appeared on the Blu-rays. As most of my friends know, I was very excited about this.

Last September Marvel took it to the next level and introduced Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., a television series that connected with the movie universe that Marvel had been building for years. This was a gutsy move from Marvel, since nothing like this had ever really been done before and at the beginning it was unclear if it would work or not.

A lot of people felt like the show started off a bit slow, but after a few episodes it picked up the pace and even got to the point where even the naysayers were beginning to see how fantastic the show was. At the beginning I really enjoyed Agent May’s character, and by the end of season one I cared about all the Agents. They did a wonderful job at building up every character and their relationship with one another and by the finale you really felt for them and what they had been through.

The fact that Marvel was able to build up S.H.I.E.L.D. and then in the course of one week air an episode that sets up all sorts of plot points for The Winter Soldier, and then just days later have The Winter Soldier released in theaters, and follow up days after that with an episode of AoS that ran parallel with the movie was amazing. The planning and timing that had to go into that had to be crazy and they pulled it off flawlessly.

 

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episodes were always fun to watch, but I really started to geek out hardcore when all the twists started happening every week.  I enjoyed Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. more than any other show on TV and it’s because it’s different in that it’s not just a TV show, but  part of a huge interconnecting universe that is always changing and growing. If you gave up on AoS or never watched it, I HIGHLY recommend that you go back and give it a shot. 

With the success of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Marvel is once again upping the stakes. In a few months, the year of Marvel will begin. We’ll get another season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the beginning of Marvel’s new show Agent Carter, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and Avengers 2 hitting the big screen, and Marvels Netflix programs begging their run. I’m a huge fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it looks like it’s about to explode into territory that no other franchise has done before. I can’t wait.

It's Morphin Time!

Saturday, February 15, Nickelodeon will begin airing the 21st season of Power Rangers. This season is called Super Megaforce and centers around the team from last season tapping into the powers of every ranger from the past twenty years. Super Megaforce is adapted from the Japanese Super Sentai Series Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger.

The season picks up where last season left off. There is an alien armada invading Earth and the Rangers have to unlock new powers in order to save the day. When they activate their new Super Mega Mode the rangers transform into their new suits. Once Super Mega Mode is activated they can use their legendary powers to become any ranger from the past. This is very similar to Gokaiger except that the Gokaigers were pirates. This explains why Super Megaforce has a pirate Megazord. This is explained away in Super Megaforce by calling it a flying air ship. It works for this type of show but I feel like they could have come up with something better. 

The episode was enjoyable and was one of the strongest episodes Power Rangers has had in a long time. One thing that was a bit of a stretch, even with a show about multicolored heroes fighting giant space aliens, was that after the huge invasion was defeated, everything went right back to normal and school was in session the next day.

One of the funnier moments happened during the reveal of the Ranger Keys. Jake, the Black Megaforce Ranger, asked if there was a reason his power up key was green instead of black. In response to the question, Gosei said there was a simple explanation to that. An attack occurred right after this and the explanation has yet to be revealed. 

One problem I had with the episode was that it was a bit fast paced. They cover two episodes of Gokaiger in this one episode. It wasn’t a big problem but I don’t think they should have two monster fights each episode.

Super Megaforce finally beginning means that it is time for the legend war. Later this season, Rangers from the past will be returning and I can’t wait. Tommy will be back as the Green Ranger and I don’t care how the episode turns out, I know I’ll love it. 

On a side note, it seems Saban has revealed the title for next year's season before this season even begins. The odd thing is that it seams that Saban will skip adapting a season of Super Sentai, for the first time since the show began, and move forward with adapting the Dinosaur themed Sentai, Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger, that finished airing in Japan this weekend.

Final thoughts, I really enjoyed watching Gokaiger and I’m a huge Power Rangers fan. I’m looking forward to watching Super Megaforce and seeing the legend war, but I hope they step up the writing a little as well as getting a few scenes inside the pirate ship. Not a bad episode, if you enjoy watching Power Rangers this is more of the awesome. Check it out Saturday, February 15 on Nickelodeon.

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