The 2020s are seeing a significant resurgence in Bela Lugosi’s Dracula. Tod Browning’s film is just over 90 years old, and Lugosi’s performance is still looked upon as iconic. Over the past two years, we’ve covered the announcement of several action figures based on said film. And here’s another one!
Make that two! X-Plus via the Big Bad Toy Store delivers “Normal” and “Deluxe” 1/4 scale Dracula statues during the 2nd quarter of 2023. The statues of Bela Lugosi in his classic Dracula costume are made of polystone and fabric. Both versions are 18.9″ tall, but the major difference is that the Deluxe one comes with LED effects in both Dracula’s eyes and the base’s tree. Drac’s eyes glow red and there’s an eerie blue glow terminating from inside the dead old tree. The vampire’s ring also comes with the more expensive statue.
Speaking of price, there’s quite an upcharge for the added features. While the Normal statue is $569.99, the one with all the bells and whistles is $624.99. What the ring is made of, its size, and if the gem in the middle is some type of cultured ruby are unknown, unfortunately.
Although I admire the attention to detail as far as the soft goods go, the face is not Bela’s. It’s way too long, his eyes are wrong, and he looks too old. Sure, Lugosi was in his late 40s during the filming of Universal’s Dracula, but he still had an almost ageless face then. So I’ll give X-Plus credit for including Drac’s ring in the Deluxe version. But I’d rather spend $355 and get the stellar Infinite Statue’s 1/6 scale figure from Sideshow.
Cold? Yeah, this December was a right pain. But, do you know what would make everything better? Minions. Seriously. If you can’t be in a sunny climate like I am, the next best thing is to buy Summer vacation-themed Minions figures from Mighty Jaxx.
Artist Jason Freeny designed these new Dissectibles figures. We last covered his art style when the Garfield Dissectibleswere announced last December. This guy really likes skeletons, and it sells because a lot of his designs are sold out.
Series 1 features the following characters:
King Bob
Evil minion
Hula Dave
Vacation Phil
Fruit Hat Stuart
DJ Carl
Beach Party Jerry
A single box containing (1) Minion figure is $12.99. A whole tray consisting of (6) boxes is 74.99. Since these are blind boxes, who knows how many you’ll need to buy before collecting the entire set? If you want to roll those dice, head on over to Mighty Jaxx’s storefront and get ordering.
“It’s vacay time for our favorite yellow henchmen and they’re ready to party by the beach! Carl’s got the music, Jerry’s got the balloons, and Dave… is just being Dave. But wait, the party’s been infiltrated by Evil Minion! It’s a good thing Phil and Stuart are ready to distract him with Cola and fruits. And while all this is going on, ultra-rare King Bob himself is just rolling in laughter at the side!”
If you forgot to buy that one aunt a Minions gift for Christmas, now’s the time. You know the person I’m talking about. That relative who constantly posts cringy Minions memes non-stop like it’s 2016. Maybe that will satiate the desire to unfriend or block them.
HiDive is continuing to expand its anime library with more animated series and even a co-production that the streaming service is working on. They are bringing sci-fi romances, isekais, and sports anime to fans of North America with both subbed versions and some with dubs.
Here are the announcements so far:
Tsurune Season 2 (January 4, 2023)
“Protagonist Minato Narumiya has reignited his passion for kyudo, the Japanese martial art of archery. Along with his friends in the school kyudo club, he returns for an all-new second season and feature-length film of Kyoto Animation’s beloved Tsurune. Based on the three volume sports light novel series Tsurune -Kazemai High School Archery Club- written by Kotoko Ayano and illustrated by Chinatsu Morimoto. The first novel won a Special Judge Award in the Kyoto Animation Award competition in 2016 and was published by Kyoto Animation later that same year in December.” – HiDive
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Season 4 Cour 2 (January 5, 2023)
“Season 4 of DanMachi is going to adapt the “Labyrinth Arc.” In this section, we are going to give you a brief synopsis of the arc so that you can know what to expect.
At the Hestia Familia home, Hestia gleefully updated Bell’s status, feeling like she was filling blank pages of a storybook with each update and witnessing any changes firsthand. Once she finished, she informed her child that she had leveled up. While the members of Bell’s group were in the dungeon, the maids at the Hostess of Fertility were busy looking for Ryuu, who had disappeared after leaving a letter.” – Fiction Horizon
Urusei Yatsura Season 2 (January 5, 2023)
“When an alien race known as the Oni invade Earth, the chronically unlucky and unapologetically lecherous Ataru Moroboshi is selected as humanity’s representative in a duel for the fate of the planet! His opponent is Princess Lum, and it’s only thanks to Ataru’s dodgy behavior that he’s able to win a treacherous game of tag against her. Ataru thinks he’s had his lucky break at last, but the conflict follows him home as Lum invades both planet Earth AND the womanizing Ataru’s love life!” – HiDive
“The great beasts created the land, but humans stole it. Angered, the beasts began eating humans, who in turn called upon the gods to fight the beasts. In the age of the sword, heroes and mythology, giant beasts are hunted by humans for profit. Jiro, who makes his living hunting beasts, encounters Kuumi, who is being chased by someone, and in that moment decides to save her. As rumors spread regarding humanity and a mysterious experiment, together they seek to discover the world’s secrets.” – HiDive
Farming Life in Another World (January 6, 2023)
“Life cut short by illness at just 39 years old, Machio Hiraku knows not to take simple blessings for granted. When a godlike figure gives him given a chance to live again, Hiraku has only the simplest of wishes for his new life: to be healthy, to live peacefully, to speak the local language, and to spend his days on an idyllic farm. Fresh air, sunshine, honest work, and good company combine to form the happy, peaceful existence Hiraku has always dreamed of.” – HiDive
Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte (January 6, 2023)
“Endo and Kobayashi just decided to play A Magical Romance, an otome game featuring a devious villainess named Lieselotte. Kobayashi thinks Lieselotte is a traditionally dastardly villain but Endo insists Lieselotte is just misunderstood. The pair bicker and argue about Lieselotte’s character and motivations. But little do they know that Lieselotte’s in-game fiancé can hear their every word, and their colorful chatter will lead him down a completely different path than his character is supposed to tread! Based upon a fantasy light novel series written by Suzu Enoshima and illustrated by Eihi.” – HiDive
“After one last tournament and an embarrassing loss in the final round, Michi decides to call it quits on the sport of judo. Between high school social activities and entrance exams, she’ll have no time to compete in the martial art she loves most, but putting aside old hobbies is a normal part of growing up. Still, the love of judo lingers—and it comes back full force when she meets her new classmate Towa, the girl who bested Michi in her final match! Towa wants to form a judo club at their school, but she’ll need new members to get it up and running. United by their love of judo, they’ll throw in their passions into the ring together and score ippon again!” – HiDive
HiDive and Sentai Filmworks have hinted that there are more announcements to come.
The sports anime ‘Tsurune’ is returning for a second season in 2023 following a four-year hiatus after the first season’s finale in 2019. The follow-up will be subtitled ‘The Linking Shot’ with Takuya Yamamura returning as the director for the animated series produced by Kyoto Animation.
Sentai Filmworks announced that they had acquired the rights to release the second season and will stream it to the HiDive app starting in 2023.
“Want an anime with beautiful animation? Three words: Kyoto Animation’s Tsurune. You read that right, Tsurune season 2 is coming to HIDIVE,” the streaming service said on their website.
The renewed interest in the series seemed to come from a 2022 film prequel titled ‘Tsurune the Movie: The First Shot’ which featured most of the returning staff from the first season.
The first season had an unreleased fourteenth episode that was finally released on a special edition DVD followed by an OVA.
You can watch the trailer for the upcoming season below:
Wikipedia describes the synopsis as follows,
“Minato Narumiya used to be in his middle school’s kyūdō (archery) club until a certain incident in his last tournament caused him to resolve to quit archery for good. When he attends high school, his childhood friends Seiya Takehaya and Ryōhei Yamanouchi try to rope him into joining the high school’s kyūdō club again, but he refuses. However, an encounter with a mysterious man at an archery range in a forest inspires Minato to take up archery once more. Minato joins the Kazemai High School Kyūdō Club and along with his old friends and new teammates, Nanao Kisaragi and Kaito Onogi, they aim for winning the prefectural tournament.”
The anime is based on a light novel series written by Kotoko Ayano, illustrated by Chinatsu Morimoto, and published by Kyoto Animation since 2016.
One Take News has exclusive info regarding just how long Salem’s Lot will be from opening credits to closing credits. It’s pretty short. If this news is accurate, the upcoming vampire feature will only run for 113 minutes. Less than two hours is a relatively short amount of time. Considering the number of characters and set up in Stephen King’s novel, this means a lot of content is cut or condensed to make for a fast-moving story.
The new Salem’s Lot was written and directed by Gary Dauberman, the same gentleman who wrote the screenplay for IT Chapter One and IT Chapter Two. The new shorter runtime makes sense if we take how much Dauberman changed and condensed IT’s source material. Is less than two hours enough to set up an entire town, a centuries-old vampire, and a story worth remembering? Luckily, IMDB shows many characters from the original novel appearing in the film.
This will mark the fourth time an adaptation of Stephen King’s 1975 novel has been attempted. The first time was via a TV mini-series in ’79, which was pretty good. The two-episode series was directed by Tobe Hooper and starred David Soul [Starsky and Hutch] as Ben Mears. It’s a straightforward adventure that does a pretty good job of capturing the novel’s setting and most of the characters, except for Kurt Barlow. In the TV series, he is depicted as a mute Nosferatu-like vampire, a massive departure from his depiction in the book. Regardless of that change, Barlow’s appearance became synonymous with Hooper’s adaptation.
The next time we would return to Salem’s Lot would be in … well … Larry Cohen’s A Return to Salem’s Lot in 1987. This theatrical venture had little to do with King’s original story aside from the setting. Michael Moriarty [The Stuff] plays Joe Weber, who journies back to the vampire-infested town with his son. It’s a silly film.
Until recently, it was hard to imagine a feature of the Marvel Cinematic Universe flopping. That includes the 2008 movie ‘Iron Man’ which would become a box office success as well as launch the MCU.
During an interview with the Directors Guild of America, Iron Man actor Robert Downey, Jr. revealed that Marvel Studios thought that the film was going to be a flop.
“Well, I mean, first of all, not too many people were thinking Iron Man was going to have an opening weekend or do much of anything, so we were a little bit left alone,” he said according to a Digital Spy report.
“I find out more every day about how that thing was financed, it was basically ready to be written off if it tanked,” the ‘Avengers: Endgame’ star continued. “It was the perfect thing where there were not a lot of creatively aggressive eyes on us. And by the time they gave it to us, it was like United Artists, like the lunatics took over the asylum. “
He added, “I remember [co-star] Jeff Bridges too, he was like, ‘man, we’re doing a $200 million independent movie, man.’ And there was just that sense that, of course, it was much more organized.”
‘Iron Man’ was released by Paramount Pictures prior to Marvel Studios receiving the rights. Robert Downey Jr. would go on to appear in a trilogy based on the character as well as multiple films including ‘Avengers,’ ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron,’ and ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming.’
The 2008 film was recently entered into The Library of Congress’s National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Co-created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the film starred RDJ as Tony Stark, Gwyneth Paltrow as love interest Pepper Potts, Jon Favreau as assistant Happy Hogan, Terrence Howard as James Rhodes, and Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane.
Warner Bros. Discovery might be expanding their HBO Max library, but they are also about to condense it in January 2023. Popular television shows and films from several franchises will soon be removed from the streaming app’s content.
Warner Media revealed the list of what is departing HBO Max in January:
January 3:
Bachelor in Paradise, Seasons 4-6
Bachelor Pad, Season 1
The Bachelor Winter Games
The Bachelor, Season 21
The Bachelor, Season 24
The Bachelor, Season 25
The Bachelorette, Season 11
The Bachelorette, Season 14
The Bachelorette, Season 15
The Bachelorette, Season 16
January 6:
Christmas Eve on Sesame Street
Elmo Saves Christmas
Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas
A Sesame Street Christmas Carol
January 19:
Eve
January 20:
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, 2021 (HBO)
January 21:
Everwood
January 23:
Alvin and the Chipmunks, 2007 (HBO)
January 25:
Babylon 5
What I Like About You, 2002
January 27:
In the Heights, 2021 (HBO)
The Hangover Part III, 2013 (HBO)
January 28:
Person of Interest
January 31:
12 Years A Slave, 2013 (HBO)
Abduction, 2011 (HBO)
Amityville 3-D, 1983 (HBO)
Amityville II: The Possession, 1982 (HBO)
Aquaman (1967)
At Close Range, 1986 (HBO)
At First Sight, 1999 (HBO)
Bananas, 1971 (HBO)
Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Biker Boyz, 2003 (HBO)
Boogie, 2021 (HBO)
Borg vs. Mcenroe, 2018 (HBO)
Care Bears: Unlock the Magic
Cellular, 2004 (HBO)
The Champ, 1979
Chinatown, 1974 (HBO)
Chocolate City, 2015 (HBO)
Chopped: Holiday
Chopped: Thanksgiving
Code of Silence, 1985 (HBO)
Confidence, 2003 (HBO)
Daybreakers, 2010 (HBO)
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, 2016
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, 2018
Fools Rush In, 1997
Gang Related, 1997 (HBO)
Good Deeds, 2012 (HBO)
Head of the Class (1986)
Holiday Baking Championship, Season 7
Holiday Baking Championship, Season 8
Horsemen, 2009 (HBO)
Hyde Park on the Hudson, 2012 (HBO)
I, Robot, 2004 (HBO)
Jeff, Who Lives At Home, 2012 (HBO)
John Wick, 2014
John Wick: Chapter 2, 2017
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, 2017
Jurassic Park, 1993 (HBO)
Jurassic Park III, 2001 (HBO)
Justice League
Justice League Unlimited
Kick-Ass 2, 2013 (HBO)
Land, 2021 (HBO)
Le Divorce, 2003 (HBO)
Life of Pi, 2012 (HBO)
Little Men, 2016 (HBO)
Macbeth, 2015 (HBO)
Much Ado About Nothing, 1993 (HBO)
The New Adventures of Old Christine
The Next Karate Kid, 1994
Nostalgia, 2018 (HBO)
Rango, 2011 (HBO)
Riddick, 2013 (Director’s Cut) (HBO)
Rules of Engagement, 2000 (HBO)
Running Scared, 1986(HBO)
School Ties, 1992 (HBO)
Solaris, 2002(HBO)
Soul Food, 1997 (HBO)
Source Code, 2011
Suite Francaise, 2014 (HBO)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 2007 (HBO)
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, 2005 (HBO)
The Book Thief, 2013 (HBO)
The Care Bears Movie, 1985 (HBO)
The Con is On, 2018 (HBO)
The Core, 2003 (HBO)
The Dead Zone, 1983 (HBO)
The Help, 2011 (HBO)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park, 1997 (HBO)
The Next Three Days, 2010 (HBO)
The One I Love, 2014 (HBO)
The Possession, 2012 (Extended Version) (HBO)
The Untouchables, 1987 (HBO)
Thirteen, 2003 (HBO)
Transcendence, 2014 (HBO)
Two Can Play That Game, 2001
West Side Story, 1961 (HBO)
Zero Dark Thirty, 2012
HBO Max also released a list of features that will be added to the streaming service.
Lost in Space merchandise is a bit of a rarity these days. Robot-B-9 is typically the only member of the Jupiter 2’s crew we see when toys or models pop up. However, we stumbled upon a pair of action figures based on two characters who weren’t the Robinsons, Dr. Smith or the Robot. These two new figures from Executive Replicas are based on the sexy Athena and the dominatrix-like Amazonian Niolani.
Athena from the episodes Wild Adventure and The Girl From the Green Dimension is represented here by a 1/6th scale figure in a screen-accurate sparkly green bodysuit. Like the other figure in this line, Athena has a Phicen seamless body, meaning there are no visible joints. From what we’ve seen from previous figures with these bodies, they tend to have more realistic skin textures.
If you’re a Lost in Space purist, you may take issue with a particular anatomical feature of Athena’s. While Athena’s costume looks spot on, the face doesn’t quite look like Vitina Marcus. The head sculpt is very nice, but the eyes are just slightly the wrong shape. Also, the face is missing Vitina Marcus’s beauty mark by her nose.
Niolani, on the other hand, is most certainly a case of the writers letting their fetishes creep into the storytelling. The Amazonian is clade in a one-piece black “leather” suit and dons a spiked headdress. This may have been taboo back in the 1960s, but I see this every time I am employed as a bouncer at a BDSM club.
The artists at Executive Replicas managed to capture Francine York’s likeness pretty well and improved on her makeup from what we see in the episode The Colonists. If you cannot tell just by the character’s design, Niolani is dominant and uses men as her labor force. You know what? I’d be down for it.
Niolani and Athena are limited to only 500 pieces each worldwide. The figures cost $249.99 a piece and are officially licensed.
Louis Rossmann has advocated for New York to adopt “Right To Repair” legislation allowing third-party repair shops to access individual components, schematics, and passwords required to repair items such as smartphones and laptops for nearly a decade. Initially, the bill was passed by a vast majority, but something happened this week that may have wholly sabotaged all that hard work.
Although Governor Kathy Hochul signed the bill into action, the contents of Senate Bill 1404A were modified, essentially stripping it of the needed power. Thanks to a Reddit post, we could see the exact wording changed. Where the Right To Repair movement wanted repair facilities to have access to individual parts, Governor Hochul had “reached an agreement with the legislature to address” supposed safety and security risks by eliminating “the bill’s original requirement calling for original equipment manufactures to provide to the public any passwords, security codes or materials to override security features and allows for original equipment manufacturers may provide assemblies of parts rather than individual components when the risk for improper installation heightens the risk of injury.”
What risk of injury? How was this quantified? What evidence is there of individual part replacement or repair leading to the technician or customer being injured? Not only that, but the nebulous wording now gives Apple, Samsung, and others a way to opt-out of providing less expensive parts and force repair shops to purchase costly assemblies.
Source: State of New York’s Executive Chamber
Those following the Right To Repair Bill’s advocacy have undoubtedly seen Louis Rossmann’s reaction. If not, check it out below:
If you’ve ever had to get a Macbook repaired, you’ll know that Apple quickly tells you that a considerable chunk of the laptop needs to be replaced because a single feature, button, or function may be faulty. I left my old Macbook with them after a “Genius” Bar employee said a small crack in the case would require me to replace the entire motherboard. A break in the cheap white plastic exterior meant I needed to pay around $1,000. This was back in 2010 when I was still recovering from the recession. It was easier to buy a super inexpensive laptop from HP and start all over.
What are your thoughts on the changes made to this important bill? Let us know below.
‘Looper’ director Rian Johnson’s mystery sequel ‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’ has been making waves since its limited theatrical release and its appearance on Netflix.
Despite the critical success, Johnson has been troubled by one thing about the movie: its extended subtitle. Despite being a sequel to the 2019 mystery ‘Knives Out,’ he was not pleased it was referenced in the title.
“I’ve tried hard to make them self-contained,” Johnson told ‘The Atlantic.’ “Honestly, I’m pissed off that we have ‘A Knives Out Mystery’ in the title. You know? I want it to just be called ‘Glass Onion.'”
He continued, “I get it, and I want everyone who liked the first movie to know this is next in the series. But, also, the whole appeal to me is it’s a new novel off the shelf every time. But there’s a gravity of a thousand suns toward serialized storytelling.”
“I’d love it to be [in cinemas] longer; I’d love it to be in more theaters,” ‘The Last Jedi’ director added. “But also, I appreciate that Netflix has done this because this was a huge effort on their part — and the theater chains — to reach across the aisle and make this happen. I’m hoping it does really well, so we can demonstrate that they can complement each other.”
Fox News notes that, “[e]ven though the movie is technically a sequel to the original 2019 film ‘Knives Out,’ Daniel Craig is the only character from the first movie to return for the second as detective Benoit Blanc.”
‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’ has won Best Ensemble Cast at the New York Film Critics Online Awards and made the Top Ten Films of the Year at the National Board of Review Awards and African-American Film Critics Association Awards.
Johnson has confirmed that a third film in the franchise is being developed.
