If you follow this blog, you know I'm crazy about the DEXTER. As in, "this is the best show in the history of mankind (since MAGNUM P.I. wrapped, that is)" crazy. Season 6 just came out on DVD and Blu-Ray a few days ago, so I thought I'd give you my take.

Note: BREAKING BAD may possibly usurp DEXTER as "best show ever (since MAGNUM, P.I.)," but the jury is still out on that one.

Season 6 was probably the least favorably reviewed of this series' amazing run. Many people flat-out didn't like it. Me? I loved everything about it, save for the plot twist shoe-horned into the last few episodes. That plot twist, which I will not spoil, could be the death of the series depending on what the writers do for Season 7, which begins September 30 on Showtime. 

So is the plot twist at the end of Season 6 a problem? I think so. Does that change how f-ing gripping the rest of Season 6 was? Not in the least. Please refrain from spoilers in the comments! You can talk about "the plot twist," but don't ruin it for the newbies.

First and foremost, the bad guy: Edward James Olmos (Commander Adama from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA). He's just flat-out on another level. I think I could watch an hour of him eating Cheerios and be entertained. Watching E.J.O. play a delusional religious zealot was a total treat. E.J.O. is partnered up with the manipulatable Colin Hanks (KING KONG) as the two inflict much Bible-thumping pain and misery on the not-so-good people of Miami. 

And if you're familiar with this blog you may also know my stance on "American Royalty," also known as actors/authors/musicians having careers gifted to them just because they have a famous & powerful mommy or daddy. Some of us have to build our own careers, not shamelessly cash in on the success of our progenitors. That being said, I thought Colin Hanks (son of Tom Hanks, and pictured at left) did a fantastic job. I did not like his performance through the first 5-6 episodes, but when a mid-series plot twist hits I realized he'd incorporated what looks like bad acting into his character. Would Hanks have got this gig if he wasn't Tom Hanks' kid? We will never know. Did he rock the part? Yes, he did. The last three episodes really showcased Colin's command of the role. 

While E.J.O. and Hanks turn in fantastic efforts, they are still (slightly) second fiddle to Golden Globe winner Michael C. Hall, who continues to set the standard for friendly neightborhood serial killers with his performance as Dexter Morgan. Six seasons in, it's clear the writers are having trouble finding new ground for Hall to mine, but he continues to deliver. His ability to switch from a shy, unassuming blood-splatter analyst into a snarling psycho is really the anchor of the entire series.

So why does DEXTER continue to be such a kick-ass show? Because each season is a 12-hour-long movie, and the writers know how that movie will end before they show you a minute of Episode 1. There is no "let's figure this out as we go" in DEXTER. Everything you see builds up to a logical ending. This is a thriller-style series, so it 's "horror" but there are no supernatural elements, almost no deus ex machina, no using "magic tech" to explain away plot holes. It's clear that the writers, show runners and producers really work their asses off to tell the best, integrated, thought-out story that they can.

As I've posted here before, if you want some really gripping long-form storytelling, check out Seasons I-V on DVD and Blu-Ray. 

When I went to ComicCon 2012, I met a whole heapin' helpin' of new people. It was a creative-types extravaganza. One of the people I met was actress Johanna Watts. After chatting, she wanted to read NOCTURNAL, and I wanted to watch one of her movies, an indie horror flick called IN MEMORIUM, so the ol' "artistic switcheroo" plot was hatched. 

IN MEMORIUM was a 2005 micro-budget flick, so it took me a bit to track it down. If you want to watch it, it's streamable on Vudu for a couple of bucks (and that's Johanna's crying face in the movie poster at right).

I'll get to my question for you in just a moment.

But first, I enjoyed the movie. I've written a one-location screenplay myself, so I understand the challenges of writing a horror plot that can be shot on a low budget, or even no budget at all. You need to justify isolation, so your characters have to stay in that one setting and can't get help from expensive extras. The plot has to incorporate your budget! It was fun to watch what writer/director Amanda Gusack did to achieve that isolation. 

IN MEMORIUM is a variation on the "found footage" style of filmmaking seen in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. The protagonist is dying of cancer. He and his girlfriend (Watts) move into a house and wire it top to bottom with security cameras, so he can make a documentary on his final year of life. Those cameras, of course, catch a lot of other activity, very spooky activity, that no one would have seen without these ever-present (and plot-justified) cameras. Like BLIAR WITCH, the milieu even incoporates low-quality cameras, so footage that looks "bad" still feels "right."

Now, to my question. I finish the movie and see that's poorly rated on Vudu. I can understand why: if you're just watching this movie and not accounting for a non-existent budget, there are a lot of problems with it. If, however, you have any level of experience in making movies (even my tiny amount of knowledge based on writing a couple of screenplays and shooting a few book trailers), you can see the places in the movie where an FX budget would have fixed a ton of issues. But, Gusack didn't have the money hose needed to create an FX-ladden flick. She found a way to write a compelling horror story, cast it, shoot it, and actually get the thing made; that's an amazing accomplishment in itself. 

So, I ask you -- when you're reviewing a movie, do you give it "bonus points" for trying if it is low-budget? Do you bump a 3-star flick up to 3.5, or even 4, if you can see they didn't have the money to make the movie what it should have been? Or, do you simply judge a movie as-is? Do you say to yourself "they knew their budget, they should have written something they could accomplish?"

A low-budget flick can even influence my opinion of the acting. If you've got the money to pay John Malkovitch, you get one product. If you're asking the actors you know to work for free for a week or more, you get another. I know how hard it is to make anything that involves a cast and crew, so I take that into consideration when I'm watching. I thought Watts did a great job. I wasn't as crazy about Erik McDowell's role as the male lead, but the budget limitations made me appreciate the performance whereas if he delivered the same effort on a big-budget flick, I might have felt more critical about it. 

What are your thoughts? Budget: does it affect your perception of an artisitic effort? 

Junkies, I managed my third straight day of morning running. The plan is to be up at 6am, running by 6:30am. Today, I hit snooze until 6:20am but was out on dem streets at 6:40. This week is no big deal; the goal is to just get up and go for seven straight days and run for 20-25 minutes. Next week I'll start worrying about time and distance.

I'm not getting any younger. Smarter? Sure. Even more _sexaayy_ than before? Of course. More eeeevil? Goes without saying. But younger? Nope. I had a gym membership for the past six years and averaged 1-2 trips a month, max. Now I'm dialing back to the ancestral form of cardio: wound a prey animal, chase it for miles and miles until it drops, then finish it off. Only without the prey animal part.

This isn't much -- 30-35 minutes a day, which includes stretching. Hopefully that will make my metabolism burn a little hotter through the day (that strategy worked like gangbusters back when I wrestled in college, so there's some evidence that it works with my body type, although the data is 20+ years old).

How about y'all, Junkies? Are you getting in any kind of basic workout? Pushups and situps? Jogging? Eating smart? If you're in your mid- to late-thirties and forties and beyond, what are you doing to improve your health? I ask my fellow Children of the 80s: what are you doing to stave off the Grim Reaper for a few extra years? 

I ask because I'd rather not see you die. Unless I'm in your will. If so, I'll send you delivery cheese fries for lunch. Also, there might be a gun range accident at SiglerFest, so make sure your insurance premiums are paid up. 

The picture is not me. But that's what I feel like at this exact moment. Someone get the crash cart. 

Junkies, if you're jonesing for those new episodes of THE WALKING DEAD and you can't get enough of random zombies eating good people, then check out the WE'RE ALIVE podcast.

This full-cast audio production gives you all the dead you can handle. The production qualities are great, almost on par with Christof Laputka's THE LEVIATHAN CHRONICLES (I said almost -- when it comes to pure production quality, nobody touches the Laputka).

So you're afraid of starting a new podcast and waiting for episodes? WE'RE ALIVE has 95 epidoses waiting for you. That's a lot. I've only listened to a couple, but that was enough to know these boys are the real deal. 

The podcast is a smash hit on iTunes, with an 5-star rating averaged acros 2,079 reviews. That's a lot of positive feedback. Here's a link to get it right from the iTunes store. 

Maybey they pump out the episodes because they treat it like a professional production. KC Wayland lists himself as writer, director, and show-runner. He and co-creator Shane Salk kick out lots of zombiriffic good times for you, so check it out.

Some fun fan art by Luis Salazar. Luis gave Sly from NOCTURNAL a cool, Roman, gothic treatment. How regal, as if Sly ever had aspirations for leadership ...

Click on the image to see a bigger version over at Flickr.

With the upcoming remake of Arnold Schwatzenegger's super-fun scifi standard TOTAL RECALL, I have a question for you. There is no right or wrong answer, per se, but damn, I'm curious -- if you're re-making a movie because it is an enduring classic that made beaucoup bucks, why do producers/writers/directors feel the need to "re-invent" it? 

I'm not saying the new Colin Farrell version of RECALL is going to be bad, but the previews to make it look like they've made significant changes to the plot. The question is: why? What's wrong with the original plot? Why wouldn't you just make a few tweaks to a proven product, cast a bunch of good-looking people with box office caché, update the FX and tell the same story?

Some awful remakes come to mind, like PLANET OF THE APES or THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. And speaking of Farrell, how about that FRIGHT NIGHT remake? It was a flick about a vampire next door -- did they really need to walk away from the original, super-fun plot? 

But sometimes, you can't win. In 1998, Gus Van Zant tried a shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's classic PSYCHO, and that failed to thrill. Can you blame that on the star power, or lack therof? Or, is this proof that a classic in one decade is a product of the times, and the same story told 30 years later won't have the same impact?

How much of this is a quest for the best product, and how much of it is territorial pissing? I wonder. If you do a shot-for-shot remake, and it's a hit, the director probably doesn't get that much credit for it. But if you change it up and it's a smash like SCARFACE, THE THING or THE FLY, you are showered with accolades, champagne, hookers and blow (a shower we'd all like to have, and, yes, the hookers can be male).

So what are your thoughts? If Lucas sees your YouTube video and says "Oh, golly! I need this kid directing the reboot of STAR WARS," do you gut the plot and "modernize" it, or do cast Vin Diesel as Vader, dust off the existing script and have at it?

I loved THE AVENGERS. Loved-loved-loved it. And Marvel knows that. That's why they are busting out the "Marvel Phase One DVD Collection."

Check this bad boy out. Nick Fury's case, packed with not only a freakin' Tesseract, but 10 discs that cover Marvel Studios' superhero goodness from IRON MAN all the way up through THE AVENGERS. Plus confidential S.H.E.I.L.D. files, prop reproductions, artifacts from the movies.

Granted, this seems to be in Blu-ray 3D and Blu-ray, and Poppa ain't got a Blu-ray player, but this is some super cool collectible stuff.

It's on shelves September 25th, 2012. We can only hope Joss Whedon gets a little tasty-taste of the action from this sucker. 

One can only hope the GFL books can someday get a treatment this sexy. Oh, I have plans. Do I ever ...

Due to various deadlines, movie reviews have fallen off as of late. So instead, here's a lil' review of a brand-new novel from Rob Reid. Check it out. If you dig the book and want it from Amazon, just click right here.

Junkie David Kirby sent me this interesting "unathorized birography" of me. Well! Aren't I horribly important and terribly busy! That's right, an FDØ expose. Perhaps by Kitty Kelly, author of biographies on Nancy Reagan, the Brittish royal family and Øprah? Nope, it's by some internet douchebag named Saul Eadweard Helias.

Now before you think I'm being mean, let me point out two things: first, Ol' Saul might not be real, and second: the $44, 88-page "biography" is content scraped from Wikipedia. Awwww, you mean I'm not horribly important and terribly busy? Sure, it's scraped from Wikipedia, but I'm still worthy of a biography, right?

Sadly, no. Ol' Saul is part of VDM Publishing, a company that rips Wikipedia articles and then offers the content as a print-on-demand (POD). So how special is my biography? As of November, 2010, the "leading content aggregator" had offered 150,000 titles for publication. Who knows how many are available now. 

VDM's model is called an "author mill." Victoria Strauss goes into a bit of detail about the company and the biz model in her Writers Beware blog post from back in 2009.

In short, these Internet Douchebags scrape other people's work on Wikipedia, and also mass-solicit for old college papers, dissertations, etc., to feed their automated process that dumps title after title into eBookstores like Nook and Amazon. 

I haven't looked that closely into VDM, because you can't cure douchebaggery, but if you are a writer and get anything from them or their many aliases (Alphascript, Betascript, Fastbook Publishing and Doyen Verlag) avoid them like the plague. 

And people? Don't buy this thing. It doesn't even have any pictures of me in a gladiator costume back in 2002 waking up in a ruined Vegas hotel room next to a naked Pamela Anderson, and if you don't have that, it's not a real biogrpahy.

Andy Griffith vs. the Grim Reaper. Grim Reaper won. The bastard always wins.

I remember watching THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW re-runs all the damn time. Andy, Opie and one-bullet Barney Fife. The Andy Griffith show was the anti-A-Team. I loved that show. Fortunately, I'm not yet of the age where MATLOCK appeals to me, so my experiences with Mr. Griffith are almose exclusively of black and white, small-town good times. 

Did you watch the show in your younger days? Have any favorite moments? And if you're of Matlock-watching age, feel free to talk about that as well. 

Many of you are football fans, and more than a few are fans becuase of THE GFL series. You'll get a big kick out of this 1953 standup/storytelling piece from Andy, as it might remind you of a time when you had no f-ing idea what was happening on that pretty green cow pasture.   

Dexter: The Sixth Season hits on DVD on August 14, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on one of my all-time favorite shows.

If you've missed the Dexter Train to Bloodland, you've missed a wild ride. Read up to learn more. If you're a ticket holder on the express line, than you'll enjoy reading my thoughts and sharing your own. You will, dammit!

Click through to see that Ol' Dex has to offer. And if you've never seen the show at all but are made of money, here's a link to snag Dexter: Seasons 1-5 and pound it like Ron Burgandy knocking back Scotch.

Junkie Gmork made a cool video of the unboxing of her ten copies of NOCTURNAL. I love comparisons of size. Using your dog in such scientific exercises is always a good thing. Unfortunately, we did not make the NY Times best-seller list (she gives a rah-rah at the end of the video), but a crapload of Junkies did their damndest to help make that happen. Krakens Boosters, represent!

Awww, snap! Check out two full pages from the INFECTED graphic novel, available July 9. Published by IDW Publishing and drawn by the phenomenal Chad Minshew, this bad boy looks amazing. This is issue #1 of 5. Click on the images to see them larger on my Flickr page. 

What's that? You want it for your very own? The Diamond product code is MAY120450. Go to comicshoplocator.com, type in your zip code, find a store near you, then call and request it.

If you're asking, "hey Dark Øverlord, what's the best way for us to help you with this?" The answer is buy it in print from your local shop. Why? Because it increases awareness with the comic shop owners and workers, who are then more likely to hand-sell the book to others. The better the comic does, the more likely you are to see INFECTED as a movie. More and more, Hollywood makes movies from comic books. It makes sense, because it's a visual medium that they can instantly see as a movie. 

The INFECTED graphic novel should also be available electronically with the IDW Publishing app (the app is free, the comic will not be), and should also from ComixOlogy. 

If you've read my blog posts, you know I'm old as hell. Or "was" old as hell. I've moved on, folks. 

My humans would like to think I had a good life. I lived in Michigan and California. I drove back and fourth between those a total of four times. Add in various trips, and I was able to sniff stuff in twelve states. I also marked my territory in all twelve states, mind you, so Wyoming? Yeah, that pee spot is mine.

I swam in the Great Lakes. I swam in the Pacific Ocean. When I snuck away from my people, I also swam in some shallow bodies of water that could barely be described as "fetid ponds." As an annoying dog, there were few things more satisfying than getting away from Scott and coming back covered in stinking mud. Ah, the good life ... 

Yep, I'm dead. Sunday, June 17, 2012 was my time. I arrived in 1998. I don't remember much, other than that I was a five-pound pup in a Humane Society in Michigan. Scott and the Evil Queen found me. Apparently, me playing a game of throwing my own dried poop and chasing after it endeared me to the Evil Queen. I became theirs, they became mine. There was a lot of love, I tell you. A lot of love, a lot of treats, which are kind of the same thing. 

I also utterly destroyed Scott's back yard in Stockbridge, MI. I dug so many holes that he finally bought enough chicken wire to cover the entire back yard. He laid down the chicken wire, then a couple of inches of top soil, then seeded it. The first time I tried to dig through that? I had to admit, he beat me. Damn you, Scott! 

But it's not all bad. My family doesn't believe in an afterlife, we don't think we'll all be reunited in a cloudy place with a bunch of winged dudes flying about and jamming AC/DC on harps, but in a way, I get to live on. You've read NOCTURNAL? Yeah, that "Emma" is me. Hopefully Scott can write a sequel, so I can roam around with Bryan a bit more. And maybe you've read ANCESTOR? Well guess what: those snarling 650-pound black and white beasties were based on me. 'Cause I was that mean. It's too late for you to prove that one wrong, by the way, so let the record show that my snarling face inspires monsters. 

I know my people miss me. They miss me very much. I'm sorry they are hurting right now, but that's the price you pay for the gift of loving something so deeply. It's a price they pay gladly. As my atoms and elements spread to other uses, whatever might be left of me will miss them as well.

Thanks to you all for reading my surly blog posts. It was fun while it lasted. And when you read NOCTURNAL or ANCESTOR, think of me.

-Emma-