Con-Man: WonderCon 2015 Friday

We only got about an hour of floor walking in for Friday but it proved very lucrative. It didn't seem too packed around the Anaheim Convention Center yet as most people were walking out as we were headed in. Lots of cosplayers outside by the fountains with Elvira, Xena, Rocket, Groot and Wheeljack from Transformers among them. Inside seems extra cavernous this year but having wider aisle ways isn't a bad thing, at all. Ran into the vendor I bought my Bishop from Aliens from at Long Beach Expo that Lance Henriksen signed. This time they had Neca's Robocop VS The Terminator figures for cheap so it was my first buy of the night. More walking around and we ventured into Warner Brothers' San Andreas Experience which was basically the trailer with 4D f/x, aka The Rock, Carla Gugino, Mr. Fantastic and that guy from Sideways surviving a huge earthquake complete with vibrating and moving chairs. I'm still not sold on the flick but it was a nice addition to the floor. Elsewhere I picked up some issues of awesome movie magazine Cinefantastique with Demolition Man, Captain America, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Robocop II in their extremely deeply researched and reported sights.

Moving onto more of the floor there were big set ups for Valiant and IDW like at last week's Emerald City Comicon along with Image which has several panels this show to highlight their creative owned genre divisions. Boutique Bait had some awesome Street Fighter shirts along with Bruce Lee and Voltron socks! They were right next to Nerdist who had quite the display set up for interviews and podcasts while La-La Records has a show exclusive Masters of the Universe soundtrack featuring 2 CD's of music from the beloved Filmation cartoon. I'm on the fence about picking it up but the bastards also had scores to The Flash from 1990, The Warriors and The Phantom on sale! Arrrgh, choices. I ended up with The Phantom and will contemplate the other titles over the weekend, don't wanna blow my wad on the first night, amirite? Ran into La-La representative and #MovieBro Mike Joffe whom I met through my #ActionBro David J. Moore at Conan the Destroyer as we chatted about all the awesome soundtracks La-La puts out.

It was time to eat but nobody told this guy a frigging Mighty Ducks AND Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Game were going on so getting over to Orange staple The Lazy Dog Cafe seemingly took forever. Luckily their Whiskey Ginger (Jameson & Ginger Beer) along with lots of mac n' cheese, edamame and a burger solved all our problems. Our Lyft driver back was a cool guy, a vegan chef inbetween gigs who loved sci-fi movies too boot. We talked Aliens, Blade Runner, DC versus Marvel, Masters of the Universe and how Dolph Lundgren was a perfect He-Man. Tomorrow will probably be crazy but I'm stoked to walk the rest of the floor as well as check out some panels on writing, pulp heroes, Warner Brothers' presentation and Capcom! See you at the show!

That's the Power of #MovieBro

Movies bring people together.  I've been fortunate enough to meet some great folks who became firm friends over the years thanks to the power of cinema.  In the mid-2000's I made pals with a Jean-Claude Van Damme fan from the U.K. through the forum board of a fan site and we're still e-homies today.  Around the same time I e-met the administrator of the premiere Dolph Lundgren web site and now he works with the big Swede, has visited him on countless movie sets while writing and producing his own works.  A one time student in Los Angeles, we even met up when he was visiting a few years back.  Then there was the co-worker who noticed the Escape From New York button on my shoulder bag, we became instant #MovieBros and now he runs his own frigging film festival.  After attending one of the Van Damme Double Dips and Dolph night, an author recognized me at San Diego Comic-Con, we met for lunch where he was wearing an I Come In Peace tee shirt and we proceeded to discuss action movies known and obscure for a couple hours.  It just goes on and on and I'm only too happy to see them all succeeding.

Tom, the U.K. based Van Damme fan and I have traded movie ideas with for years, always joking that one day we'd meet up in Bulgaria to make a low budget action movie starring Michael Biehn or Rutger Hauer for Nu Image.  Now, Super Tom is one step closer as he's just wrote and produced a short film called Out.  The trailer just hit this past weekend, it looks great and I know he's got much more in the pipeline.  Watching the handsomely shot and edited trailer concerning a newly released convict helping his adopted brother get out of the world of crime has inspired me to keep moving towards Bulgaria, in a sense.  Running the blog, traveling to conventions and planning events has been fun and rewarding but it's good to keep pushing towards something bigger.

The author who introduced himself to me in San Diego was one David J. Moore, a prolific writer who has contributed to the likes of Black Belt Magazine, Fangoria and Filmfax while visiting movie sets around the globe.  He published World Gone Wild: A Survivor's Guide to Post-Apocalyptic Movies this past year and it is awesome.  It's hardcover with glossy pages and color text and photos, in other words, it's a real book.  The tome consists of bite size movie reviews for over 800 titles in the End of the World genre featuring dozens upon dozens of interviews with cast and crew.  After reading his review and interview with director Roger Christian, I actually want to see Battlefield Earth!  There's plenty of titles I'd never heard of but now want to check out.  Like me, David is celebrating these films and showing the filmmakers that someone out there enjoyed their work, no matter how obscure or how limited the release.  Sit downs with the likes of Albert Pyun, Michael Pare, Martin Campbell, Russell Mulcahy and Paul W.S. Anderson are highlights.  Mr. Moore's next book is The Good, The Tough and the Deadly: Action Stars and their Movies which pays homage to you guessed it, my favorite genre, the action movie!  David has lined up another winner with something like 60+ interviews with actors, martial artists, writers, directors, etc.  Yours truly contributed to one of them and has a couple reviews included.