Today at noon, Our Newest Blog goes Live...Hero & Heroine Histories!

Today, we launch our newest blog, Hero & Heroine Histories to accompany our sister blog, Femmes Fantastique!
Like FF it'll be weekly (perhaps more frequently, as my schedule allows), featuring both new histories and updated entries from our popular series on this blog.
The first entry is 1950s commie-fighter The Avenger.
So, bookmark it or load the RSS, and check it out often.

Law & Order: UK...now on Region 1 DVD!

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups.

The police who investigate crime, and the Crown Prosecutors who prosecute the offenders.

These are their stories.

Sound familiar?
It's the opening narration of the most recent version of the long-running Law & Order franchise.
In fact, it's now in it's second season!
But, if you live in the US, you haven't seen it...until now!

It's Law & Order: UK, produced in England.
Creator Dick Wolf is overseeing the whole thing, but the main writer / producer is former TorchWood and Life on Mars staffer Chris Chibnall.
Plus, it features several genre performers as regulars, including Jamie Bamber (BattleStar Galactica), Harriet Walter (Lord Peter Wimsey / Harriet Vane Mysteries) and...

Fantastic Femme Freema Agyeman (Dr. Who, TorchWood, Survivors)! (Looks good in her barrister's robes, eh?)

 (Here's a shot in her "civilian" garb.)

Anyway, I was going thru the Sunday papers (which I pick up after 9pm on Saturday night) and I glanced thru the sale flyers.
The Target Stores flyer usually has a page of new cds and dvds. Sometimes they have exclusives.
They sure did this week...Law & Order:UK for only $26.99!
I went online to target.com and noticed that, after this week, it'll be 39.99, so I'm going to grab it at my local store on Tuesday!
Maybe I'll see you there!

Fantastic Femmes--Vanessa Ferlito

Note: this page has been updated with NEW info HERE!

Best known for her genre work in GrindHouse, 24, and the CSI franchise, Brooklyn-born Vanessa Ferlito has also done comedy (Madea Goes to Jail), and is currently in the new film drama Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps!
Trivia: though she's Italian-American, Vanessa often plays Hispanic-named or accented characters!
She's worked with fellow Fantastic Femme Rosario Dawson on three films: GrindHouse (She didn't have any scenes together with Rosario), 25th Hour, and Descent!

Genre appearances include...

24 (Claudia Hernandez)

GrindHouse / GrindHouse presents Death Proof 

(Arlene aka ButterFly)

CSI: Miami / CSI: New York 

(Detective Aiden Burn)

Spider-Man 2 (Louise)

Check out...

Vanessa Ferlito Pictures (FanSite)

Vanessa Ferlito Movies (FanSite)

Vampirella Resurrected...at Dynamite!

Before Twilight!
Before True Blood!
Before Buffy the Vampire Slayer!
Before Blade!
There was…Vampirella!

Dynamite Entertainment (Project SuperPowers, Green Hornet) has acquired the Vampirella property from Harris Publications.

Vampirella debuted in 1969 in a black & white magazine titled simply Vampirella.
Initially, she was just the hostess of various horror stories, much like EC's Crypt Keeper or DC's Cain and Abel, but much cuter!

In Vampirella #9, the character received her own strip, with the first tale being (what else?) her origin story!

 

Vampirella has been around since then in both b/w and color comics form from Warren and then Harris Publications, remaining one of the most popular female and/or vampire characters in comics!
In addition, there was a series of paperback novels by Ron Goulart, adapting the comics storylines into prose!
There was even a Vampirella feature film starring Talisa Soto as the Draculonian, now available on dvd.

We wish her a long and prosperous un-life at Dynamite!

Fantastic Femmes--Liza Lapria

Note: this page has been updated with NEW info  
HERE!

Welcome to our second blog...Femmes Fantastique!

One of our blog's most popular features has been the ongoing Fantastic Femmes series featuring beautiful women of science fiction and fantasy movies and tv.
It's been so popular that we've decided to do a spin-off blog...Femmes Fantastique!
We'll be posting at Femmes Fantastique at least twice weekly, both with follow-ups to previous entries from this site (like our premiere FF entry, Jessica Alba) with updated credits and links, and new entries we'll cross-post on both blogs, like tomorrow's entry on Liza Lapira.
So bookmark the Femmes Fantastique rss feed, or come visit every week.
There'll aways be something new!


Above is the header pic for the blog, featuring the women of all three Austin Powers films!

Fantastic Femmes--Zoe Saldana IS Neytiri Dis'kahan Mo'at'itey

Too bad Fantastic Femme Zoe Saldana wasn't nominated for an Oscar for her performance as Neytiri.

If you just think of it as "digital makeup" rather than animation, it's as award-worthy as any performance in makeup (like John Hurt's performance in The Elephant Man)!

Fantastic Femmes PixPost--Halle Berry Redux

We end the month with a PixPost of a previous Fantastic Femme fave...

Got a problem with that?

Didn't think so!

Fantastic Femmes PixPost: Dorothy Dandridge IS Melmendi, Queen of the Ashuba

In her only genre role, Dorothy Dandridge played Melmendi, Queen of the Ashuba in 1951's Tarzan's Peril.

An original story, not based on any of Edgar Rice Burroughs' stories, the film was the third of five movies starring Lex Barker as Tarzan and it was directed by Byron Haskin, who went on to A-list genre films like 1953's War of the Worlds.
It was also the first Tarzan film to have scenes shot on location in Africa.
(Previous films used existing stock footage from other movies.)

One of the scenes from the film is recreated in the biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge starring Fantastic Femme Halle Berry as Dorothy playing Melmendi.
Here's a comparison between a scene in the original film and the biopic's version of it.

Melmendi, nor her tribe, the Ashuba, have appeared in any Tarzan story (in any media) since...

Note: technically, this is a Pix Post, but it's also a Hero(ine) History and Fantastic Femme entry!