Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The Loving Dead by Amelia Beamer

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Kate and Michael are roommates living in the Oakland hills, working at the same Trader Joes supermarket. A night of drunken revelry changes their lives forever, but not in the way that anyone would expect. A slow-spreading plague of zombie-ism breaks out at their house party, spreading amongst their circle of friends, and simultaneously through the Bay Area. This zombie plague – an STD of sorts – is spread through sex and kissing, turning its victims into mindless, horny, voracious killers. Thrust into extremes by this slow- motion tragedy, Kate and Michael are forced to confront the choices they’ve made in their lives, and their fears of commitment, while trying to stay alive and reunite in the one place in the Bay Area that’s likely to be safe and secure from the zombie hoards: Alcatraz.

Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege by Karen Miller

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On the Outer Rim, the planet Lanteeb has no strategic value, no political power, and one enormous problem: It has been invaded by an emboldened Separatist Alliance. To find out why, Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi have snuck onto Lanteeb—and now look oblivion in the eye. . . .

Hiding their lightsabers beneath their dusty disguises, Anakin and Obi-Wan draw on their Jedi skills to stay one step ahead of Lok Durd’s droid army on Lanteeb. The Jedi know that a captive scientist has given Durd the keys to a terrifying bioweapon. Durd knows that the Jedi are on his planet. With Yoda calling on the powers of the Jedi Council, with a new Separatist technology jamming the Guardians’ communications, and with a traitor at the heart of the Republic’s government, the wheels of war are turning. But the Separatists have blockaded Lanteeb. The finishing touches are being put on a weapon to destroy whole worlds. And it will be up to the two Jedi Knights and their most trusted comrades to liberate Lanteeb or forever suffer the consequences.

The Day the Leash Gave Way and Other Stories by Trent Zelazny

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Collected here are twenty-four dark, quirky, eccentric stories. Trent Zelazny will surprise you, entertain you, and take you places you’ve never been before. A new strong, confident voice has arrived. Zelazny could have chosen to make a career of covering the same ground that his father had already plowed. Instead he has chosen to strike out on his own and prove right out of the gate that he is his own man.

"Trent Zelazny is off and running. I have someone new to admire." -Joe R. Lansdale, Edgar Award winner and seven-time Bram Stoker Award winner

"Trent Zelazny is a master of tension, frisson, madness, and mayhem. I love the way he writes and read everything I can get my hands on. You should do the same." -Gerald Hausman, author of Time Swimmer and Castaways

"A gift for storytelling is in Trent Zelazny’s genes. It’s a pleasure to crack open his book and let him carry you away." -Charles Ardai, Edgar and Shamus Award winner

"You can tell Trent Zelazny is having fun when he’s writing, because his work is so much fun to read… You should try it sometime." -Brian Knight, author of Broken Angel and Sex, Death & Honey

"Trent Zelazny pulls off ideas most other writers wouldn’t dream of, never mind attempt. That he succeeds is testament to the length of his imagination and the breadth of his talent. He will not live long in the literary shadow of his father, but will soon take his rightful place beside him as one of the most important writers of the fantastic this country has produced." -Garrett Peck

More in Part II

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Fuzzy Dice by Paul Di Filippo

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How badly could you screw up when granted access to infinite worlds conforming to your heart’s most intimate desires? No matter how much of a disaster you or I might make of such a miraculous gift, rest assured that Paul Girard, hapless middle-aged bookstore clerk, can hilariously surpass your worst fumblings and missteps. Visited one morning by a dimension-hopping artificial intelligence named Hans, Paul is given the ability to jump instantly to any world he can envision. But without truly knowing himself, Paul soon discovers that framing a wish that gets the expected results is not as easy as it first appears. From the depths of the Big Bang to a world where hippies rule; from a land of Amazons to one where life is a video-game; from a society where cooperation means everything to one where individual chaos rules. Across these bizarre dimensions and many others, Paul races in the search for happiness, love, wealth, status and the answer to the Ontological Pickle. Acquiring comrades and enemies along the way, our feckless alternaut reaches a cul-de-sac from which the only exit is death. And then his adventures really begin.

Gears of War: Anvil Gate by Karen Traviss

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Continuing the saga of the bestselling game series!

With the Locust Horde apparently destroyed, Jacinto’s survivors have begun to rebuild human society on the Locusts’ stronghold. Raiding pirate gangs take a toll—but it’s nothing that Marcus Fenix and the Gears can’t handle. Then the nightmare that they thought they’d left behind begins to stalk them again. Something far worse, something even the Locust dreaded, has emerged to spread across the planet, and not even this remote island haven is beyond its reach. Gears and Stranded must fight side by side to survive their deadliest enemy yet, falling back on the savage tactics of another bloody siege—Anvil Gate.

The Hounds of Avalon (Dark Age, Book 3) by Mark Chadbourn

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The Hounds of Avalon are coming …These are the twilight days, when eternal winter falls and the gods destroy themselves in civil war; when an invasion force of ghastly power threatens to eradicate all life. Humanity’s last chance lies with two friends, as different as night and day, bound together by an awesome destiny. Hunter: a warrior, a rake, an assassin; Hal: a lowly records clerk in a Government office. They must pierce a mystery surrounding the myths of King Arthur to find the dreaming hero who will ride out of the mists of legend to save the world. But time is running out, for when the Hounds of Avalon appear, all hope is lost… HOUNDS OF AVALON is the latest installment in Mark Chadbourn’s brilliant new sequence: exciting, evocative, terrifying and awe-inspiring.

More in Part III

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Entangled by Graham Hancock

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Graham Hancock has spent decades researching and writing some of the most ambitious and successful nonfiction investigations into ancient civilizations and wisdom. Entangled uses all of Hancock’s skills and knowledge to propel a fantasy adventure like nothing else preceding it.

Entangled is a time-slip novel alternating between present-day California, Brazil, and prehistoric Spain, with two teenage female protagonists who must come together to avert an incredibly bloodthirsty takeover of the human race.

Entangled is the first book in a trilogy relating the story of an unrelentingly evil master magician named Sulpa who is on the loose and determined to destroy humanity. Leoni, a troubled teen from modern-day Los Angeles, and Ria, a young woman who lives in Stone Age Spain, meet in a parallel dimension outside the flow of time to stop Sulpa’s spectacular, deadly materialization of the modern world.

Entangled rides a growing wave of interest in parallel dimensions and imaginary worlds (The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Golden Compass are recent Hollywood examples) and will have immediate appeal to readers of Philip Pullman, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Kate Mosse, among others.

But Entangled has the added merit of being grounded in solid anthropological and scientific research. Hancock calls on his years of research into cutting-edge issues, including the "Neanderthal Enigma," the nature of consciousness, the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics, parallel realms, time travel, and near-death and out-of-body experiences.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams

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BioWare and LucasArts—creators of the hugely popular Star Wars:® Knights of the Old Republic® video game—have combined their storytelling talents and cutting-edge technology for an innovative new massively multiplayer online role-playing game that allows players to create their own personal Star Wars adventure 3,500 years before the rise of Darth Vader. Now #1 New York Times bestselling author Sean Williams brings the world of the game to life in his latest novel, Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance.

Tassaa Bareesh, a matriarch in the Hutt crime cartel, is holding an auction that’s drawing attention from across the galaxy. Representatives of both the Republic and the Sith Empire are present, along with a Jedi Padawan sent to investigate, a disenfranchised trooper drummed out of the Republic’s elite Blackstar Squad, and a mysterious Mandalorian with a private agenda. But the Republic’s envoy is not what he seems, the Empire’s delegate is a ruthless Sith apprentice, the Jedi Padawan is determined to do the right thing and terrified that he can’t, the trooper hopes to redeem her reputation, and the Mandalorian is somehow managing to keep one step ahead of everyone.

None of these guests—invited or uninvited—have any intention of participating in the auction. Instead they plan to steal the prize, which is locked inside an impregnable vault: two burned chunks of an exploded star cruiser, one of which may hold the key to the wealth of an entire world.

But the truth about the treasure is dangerous and deadly. And in the end, Sith and Jedi, Republic and Empire, must do something they’ve never done before, something that all the agents of good and evil could never make them do: join together to stop a powerful threat that could destroy the galaxy.

An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat (Chronicle of the Dead Empire) by Glen Cook

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The Dread Empire, a gritty world of larger-than-life plots, nation-shattering conflict, maddening magic, strange creatures, and raw, flawed heroes, all shown through the filter of Glen Cook’s inimitable war-correspondent prose. The Dread Empire, spanning from the highest peaks of the Dragon’s Teeth to the endless desert lands of Hammad al Nakir, from besieged Kavelin to mighty Shinshan, the Empire Unacquainted with Defeat, with its fearless, masked soldiers, known as the Demon Guard… An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat collects all of Glen Cook’s short fiction set in the vast world of the Dread Empire, from "The Nights of Dreadful Silence", featuring the first appearance of Bragi Ragnarson, Mocker, and Haroun bin Yousif, to the culture-clashing novella "Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat"; from "Silverheels", Cook’s first published work of fiction, to "Hell’s Forge", a haunting tale of cursed pirates and strange lands, appearing here for the first time. Also including a detailed introduction and extensive story notes by Glen Cook, An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat charts the development of this influential American author and the massive, multifaceted world that he created.

More in Part I

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Chew Volume 2: International Flavor Written by John Layman Art by Rob Guillory

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Tony Chu, the cibopathic federal agent with the ability to get psychic impressions from the things he eats, is on a bizarre new case. A newly discovered fruit takes Agent Chu to a remote island full of secrets, Presenting the second storyline of IGN.com’s pick for Best Indie Series of 2009 and MTV Splash Page.com’s pick for Best New Series of 2009. Find out what the fuss is about in this latest a twisted and darkly funny comic about cops, crooks, cooks, cannibals and clairvoyants.strangeness-and a shadowy killer with a particularly sinister appetite.

I had this to say about Volume One:

The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft Volume 1 Written by Mac Carter Art by Tony Salmons

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Chilling! Uncanny! Macabre! The wall that separates reality and nightmare comes fast undone in this, the complete, horrific chronicle of young H.P. Lovecraft! Is he a harmless writer of supernatural fiction – or a secret god of destruction and despair? This is one strange tale, indeed!

Cowboy Ninja Viking Volume 1 Written by A. J. Lieberman Art by Riley Rossmo

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Tasked with creating a counter-intelligence unit, Dr. Sebastian Ghislain turned to those long thought useless to society: patients with Multiple Personality Disorder.

Now all but one of these ‘Triplets’ has gone rogue, and it’s up to Cowboy Ninja Viking to find and stop this band of ridiculously disturbed-but highly effective-assassins!

‘COWBOY NINJA VIKING is one of those rare occasions where something that should be nothing but a guilty pleasure ends up being way deeper and better written…this book is just the gift that keeps on giving.’ -Ain’t It Cool News

COLLECTS THE FIRST 5 ISSUES OF THE SMASH HIT SERIES, PLUS THE NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN ORIGINAL PITCH, ALTERNATE SCRIPTS, UNUSED ART AND PIN-UPS. WANT MORE? FINE. WE’LL THROW IN AN INDEX!

For the gang at Moving Pictures, I reviewed Despicable Me.

The new Nexus Graphica is up at SF Site. This time I discuss comics that have NOT been collected.

I go on to discuss several uncollected series that deserve to appear in book format.

This column emereged out of some discussions with Alan J. Porter and hopefully will lead to a new RevSF feature on uncollected works.

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Gamera Vs. Barugon

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Freed from the Z Plan capsule, Gamera attacks a dam upon his return to Earth. Meanwhile, a private expedition to retrieve a rare opal in New Guinea unwittingly unleashes the malevolent Barugon. Virtually unstoppable and able to freeze anything in its path, the monstrous lizard turns modern cities into glaciers until Gamera arrives to challenge the marauder! But even the fire-spitting terrapin becomes trapped in the creatures frozen grip. Can one of the explorers, Keisuke Hirata (Kojiro Hongo, Satans Sword), and a New Guinea native, Karen (Kyoko Enami, The Woman Gambler), help to defeat Barugon before it plunges Japan into a new Ice Age?

Gamera Vs. Barugon, the second entry in Daiei Studios monster series, was directed by veteran Shigeo Tanaka (The Great Wall) and is more lavish than the original in terms of scale and scope it was shot in spectacular color! Noriaki Yuasa (Gamera, The Giant Monster) was charged with helming the visual effects for this outing, and the results are fantastic. For the first time, Shout! Factory presents Gamera Vs. Barugon in an all-new HD anamorphic widescreen transfer, both in Japanese with English subtitles and English audio.

After America by John Birmingham

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March 14, 2003, was the day the world changed forever. A wave of energy slammed into North America and devastated the continent. The U.S. military, poised to invade Baghdad, was left without a commander in chief. Global order spiraled into chaos. Now, three years later, a skeleton U.S. government headquartered in Seattle directs the reconstruction of an entire nation—and the battle for New York City has begun.

Pirates and foreign militias are swarming the East Coast, taking everything they can. The president comes to the Declared Security Zone of New York and barely survives the visit. The enemy—whoever they are—controls Manhattan’s concrete canyons and the abandoned flatlands of Long Island. The U.S. military, struggling with sketchy communications and a lack of supplies, is mired in a nightmare of urban combat.

Caught up in the violence is a Polish-born sergeant who watches the carnage through the eyes of an intellectual and with the heart of a warrior. Two smugglers, the highborn Lady Julianne Balwyn and her brawny partner Rhino, search for a treasure whose key lies inside an Upper East Side Manhattan apartment. Thousands of miles away, a rogue general leads the secession of Texas and a brutal campaign against immigrants, while Miguel Pieraro, a Mexican-born rancher, fights back. And in England, a U.S. special ops agent is called into a violent shadow war against an enemy that has come after her and her family.

The president is a stranger to the military mindset, but now this mild-mannered city engineer from the Pacific Northwest needs to make a soldier’s choice. With New York clutched in the grip of thousands of heavily armed predators, is an all-out attack on the city the only way to save it?

From the geopolitics of post-American dominance to the fallout of Israel’s nuclear strike, After America provides a gripping, intelligent, and harrowing chronicle of a world in the maw of chaos—and lives lived in the dangerous dawn of a strange new future.

The Office of Shadow by Matthew Sturges

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Midwinter has gone, but that cold season has been replaced by a cold war in the world of Faerie, and this new kind of war requires a new kind of warrior.

Seelie forces drove back Empress Mab at the Battle of Sylvan, but hostilities could resume at any moment. Mab has developed a devastating new weapon capable of destroying an entire city, and the Seelie have no defense against it. If war comes, they will almost certainly be defeated.

In response, the Seelie reconstitutes a secret division of the Foreign Ministry, unofficially dubbed the "Office of Shadow," imbuing it with powers and discretion once considered unthinkable. They are a group of covert operatives given the tasks that can’t be done in the light of day: secretly stealing the plans for Mab’s new weapon, creating unrest in the Unseelie Empire, and doing whatever is necessary to prevent an unwinnable war.

The new leader of the "Shadows" is Silverdun. He’s the nobleman who fought alongside Mauritane at Sylvan and who helped complete a critical mission for the Seelie Queen Titania. His operatives include a beautiful but naïve sorceress who possesses awesome powers that she must restrain in order to survive and a soldier turned scholar whose research into new ways of magic could save the world, or end it.

They’ll do whatever is required to prevent a total war: make a dangerous foray into a hostile land to retrieve the plans for Mab’s weapon; blackmail a king into revolting against the Unseelie Empire; journey into the space between space to uncover a closely guarded secret with the power to destroy worlds.

Before They Were Giants: First Works from Science Fiction Greats Edited by James L. Sutter

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See how it all began! In Before They Were Giants, editor James L. Sutter collects the first published stories of 15 of science fiction and fantasy’s most important authors, including winners of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, New York Times bestsellers, and members of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Along with these often rare or never-before-anthologized stories, all 15 authors provide brand-new retrospective critiques and interviews discussing the stories’ geneses, how publication affected their lives, and what they know now about writing that they wish they’d known then. Contributors include Ben Bova, Charles Stross, China Mieville, Cory Doctorow, David Brin, Greg Bear, Joe Haldeman, Kim Stanley Robinson, Larry Niven, Michael Swanwick, Nicola Griffith, Piers Anthony, R. A. Salvatore, Spider Robinson, and William Gibson.

More in Part II

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Blacksad Written by Juan Díaz Canales Art by Juanjo Guarnido

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Private investigator John Blacksad is up to his feline ears in mystery, digging into the backstories behind murders, child abductions, and nuclear secrets. Guarnido’s sumptuously painted pages and rich cinematic style bring the world of 1950s America to vibrant life, with Canales weaving in fascinating tales of conspiracy, racial tension, and the "red scare" Communist witch hunts of the time. Guarnido reinvents anthropomorphism in these pages, and industry colleagues no less than Will Eisner, Jim Steranko, and Tim Sale are fans! Whether John Blacksad is falling for dangerous women or getting beaten to within an inch of his life, his stories are, simply put, unforgettable.

The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

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It begins with an explosion. Another day, another bus bomb. Everyone it seems is after a piece of Turkey. But the shockwaves from this random act of 21st century pandemic terrorism will ripple further and resonate louder than just Enginsoy Square.

Welcome to the world of The Dervish House; the great, ancient, paradoxical city of Istanbul, divided like a human brain, in the great, ancient, equally paradoxical nation of Turkey. The year is 2027 and Turkey is about to celebrate the fifth anniversary of its accession to the European Union; a Europe that now runs from the Arran Islands to Ararat. Population pushing one hundred million, Istanbul swollen to fifteen million; Turkey is the largest, most populous and most diverse nation in the EU, but also one of the poorest and most socially divided. It’s a boom economy, the sweatshop of Europe, the bazaar of central Asia, the key to the immense gas wealth of Russia and Central Asia.

Gas is power. But it’s power at a price, and that price is emissions permits. This is the age of carbon consciousness: every individual in the EU has a card stipulating individual carbon allowance that must be produced at every CO2 generating transaction. For those who can master the game, who can make the trades between gas price and carbon trading permits, who can play the power factions against each other, there are fortunes to be made. The old Byzantine politics are back. They never went away.

The ancient power struggled between Sunni and Shia threatens like a storm: Ankara has watched the Middle East emerge from twenty-five years of sectarian conflict. So far it has stayed aloof. A populist Prime Minister has called a referendum on EU membership. Tensions run high. The army watches, hand on holster. And a Galatasary Champions’ League football game against Arsenal stokes passions even higher.

The Dervish House is seven days, six characters, three interconnected story strands, one central common core–the eponymous dervish house, a character in itself–that pins all these players together in a weave of intrigue, conflict, drama and a ticking clock of a thriller.

Noise by Darin Bradley

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This haunting debut from a brilliant new voice is sure to be as captivating as it is controversial, a shocking look at the imminent collapse of American civilization—and what will succeed it.

In the aftermath of the switch from analog to digital TV, an anarchic movement known as Salvage hijacks the unused airwaves. Mixed in with the static’s random noise are dire warnings of the imminent economic, political, and social collapse of civilization—and cold-blooded lessons on how to survive the fall and prosper in the harsh new order that will inevitably arise from the ashes of the old.

Hiram and Levi are two young men, former Scouts and veterans of countless Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. Now, on the blood-drenched battlefields of university campuses, shopping malls, and gated communities, they will find themselves taking on new identities and new moralities as they lead a ragtag band of hackers and misfits to an all-but-mythical place called Amaranth, where a fragile future waits to be born.

Prince Valiant: 1939-1940 (Vol. 2) by Hal Foster

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Swords and sorcery at their grandest as the classic adventure strip continues in second volume!

For 35 years, Hal Foster created epic adventure and romantic fantasy in his legendary Sunday strip, Prince Valiant. Realistic in its visual execution and noble in its subject, depicting a time in which the fabled warriors of history and legends fought together for the greater good, it remains one of the great masterpieces of the medium.

In this second volume, Prince Valiant helps his father reclaim his throne in kingdom of Thule, fights alongside King Arthur, and is made a knight of the Round Table in recompense for his bravery and wit. Bored by the peace he helped to create, Val decides to independently pull together the forces to battle the Huns’ descent on Southern Europe. When Val’s army breaches the Huns’ stronghold, however, he discovers that corruption reigns still further west in Rome. Thus Val sets off with Sir Gawain and Tristam of Arthurian legend fame, and the familial kinship of the trio sees them through chivalrous escapades, false imprisonment and daring escapes. By the end of this volume, they go their separate ways, and Val boards a ship to Sicily—yet a storm approaches, throwing him off-course, as adventure follows him everywhere.

Fantagraphics is proud to present these strips, which, thanks to the use of original proof sheets and advances in printing technology, are even brighter and crisper than when they were originally published 70 years ago. Foster’s work, painterly and sweeping, is finally treated to the grand depiction it deserves. These illustrative, time-honored comic strips will enthrall old readers and just as easily awe new ones. 112 pages of color comics.

More in Part I

A plethora of geek stuff will begin streaming via Netflix in July.

Premiering July 1:

Aliens: Collector’s Edition
Anastasia (1997)
Anatomy
Art of the Devil III
Babylon 5 Seasons 1-5
Barton Fink
Batman: The Movie
Black Dynamite
Black Sabbath
Black Sunday (1960)
The Book of the Dead
Brutal Massacre: A Comedy
A Christmas Carol (1984)
Edges of Darkness
Enemy Mine
Futurama Vol. 1-4
Ghost in the Shell 2.0
Ghost Machine
Gurren Lagann Vol. 1
Hell’s Gate (2002)
InAlienable
Jan Svankmajer: The Ossuary & Other Tales
Kagemusha
Krull
Labyrinth of Darkness: Jiri Barta
Live Nude Comedy
Lois & Clark Seasons 1-4
Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon
Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro
Merlin and the Book of Beasts
Now and Then, Here and There Vol. 1-3
The Omen (1976)
Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead
Phantasm IV: Oblivion
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
Pushing Daisies Seasons 1-2
Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Robotech
Run Robot Run!
S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale
The Sarah Connor Chronicles Seasons 1-2
Shadow Puppets
Shock (1946)
The Shortcut
Stan Helsing
Strait Jacket
Swamp Thing
V: The Original Miniseries
V: The Complete TV Series
V: The Final Battle
Veronica Mars Seasons 1-3
Zombieland

Premiering July 2:

All Souls Day (2005)
Session 9

Premiering July 6:

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Premiering July 9:

Below
Zig Zag (David S. Goyer’s directorial debut!)

Premiering July 12:

Robin Hood: Season 3

Premiering July 15:

2012

Premiering July 16:

Jackie Brown

Premiering July 20:

Around the World in 80 Days (1989)
Rodan
Shark Week 2009: Jaws of Steel
A Town Called Panic
War of the Gargantuas

Premiering July 23:

Blood: The Last Vampire
Planet 51

Premiering July 25:

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Info courtesy of FeedFliks.

Over at Moving Pictures, I reviewed the latest Adam Sandler film Grown Ups.

Check out the rest of my review at Moving Pictures.