Every month the staff at Critical Blast combs the cosplay community for up-and-coming cosplayers who deserve to have a broader audience for their work, taking into account not only costuming skills and spirit, but also how they use that ability in service to others. Through this, we've not only met some talented cosplayers, but also some fine human beings.

2020 has been one of the strangest years in the lifetime of most who have gone through it. We've had to quarantine ourselves, avoid large gatherings -- all of which is antithetical to what our favorite cosplayers are used to (with, perhaps, the exception of wearing a mask). It's a year that we'll all be happy to see in the rearview mirror as we cross over into 2021. And to help give this year the boot, weve brought in a talented cosplayer who looks ready to give 2020 the swift kick it deserves. So without further introduction, Critical Blast is proud to introduce you one and all to 2020's final...

Kurt Russell is the most unique choices to cast in the role of Santa Claus. He's also one of the best choices, as this Santa is not just a kind and gentle spirit, he's also a man of action.

THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES 2 is a sequel to the original in the same vein as the sequels to THE SANTA CLAUSE -- slightly lesser, slightly sillier follow-ons that don't quite measure up to the original, despite all the original characters brought back (with new ones). This go-round Russell brings with him Goldie Hawn as Mrs. Claus (who made a surprise appearance at the end of the first movie), while Darby Camp and Judah Lewis return as Kate and Teddy Pierce, with Kimberly Williams-Paisley as their mom, Claire. New to the franchise is Tyrese Gibson as Bob, Claire's new boyfriend, and Jahzir Bruno as his son Jack.

With much of the world being risk-averse to crowds of shoppers this year, it doesn't take a crystal ball to predict that online sales are going to be through the roof for Black Friday and beyond. And with shipping times factoring into the gift-buying (and sending) equation, the earlier you get started with your list the more likely it is you'll have everything wrapped and ready in time for Christmas.

Move over Sharknado -- there's a new species set to wreak havoc in a made-for-TV way.

Steve Urena's SLOW POKES is the kind of fun schlock you'd expect to find on 1990s Syfy late at night, in terms of both plot and execution. The story follows a group of high school seniors on their last field trip to a high tech think-tank-and-amusement-park, where the chief scientist, Eden Rare, makes scientific strides before breakfast. However, her latest world-saving foray has gone incredibly awry. Attempting to speed up the metabolism of three-toed sloths so that their accelerated mating cycles might save them from extinction, she instead made these creatures -- with their already extremely long claws -- swift, deadly killing machines.

There are several very different pieces of equipment in the gym. Learning to use them all correctly can seem overwhelming to the newbie. You might even be slightly uncomfortable with so many eyes looking at you as you are figuring out the way round those complicated machines.

This is one of the reasons we have put together this guide to help you understand all you should know as a gym newbie. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

BEFORE YOUR FIRST DAY AT THE GYM

The things you do before you step into the gym are as important as what you do there. Here are a few things you should consider before your first training session at the gym:

WESTWORLD releases its third season on Blu-ray, and once again it's a season where I have no idea what is happening from episode to episode, nor do I know how it all tied together. The intelligence of the hosts -- robots built to look and think like human beings -- flit back and forth from the real world to the cyber-built world to the robot-populated theme-park worlds that you never know which reality you're in -- or, indeed, if anywhere at all is real. One of the character even states that it would be the ultimate mind trip if somehow an artificial reality was built with an artificial reality inside it, so they only thought they were in the real world.

In Jungian terms, the collective unconscious involves those concepts we humans instinctual identify regardless of cultural boundaries, and abstract symbols come to be imbued with deeper meaning: a flag becomes not merely colorful fabric, but an emblem of national identity, just as a cross represents spiritual salvation for a Christian adherent. In horror cinema, the mask, and indeed the slasher subgenre in particular, is the one most singularly representing silver screen terror in the minds of the general populous the world over. Sure, vampires, zombies, werewolves and Hell-born spawn may be catalysts for insomnia, but since the commercialization of the killer-run-amok tale in the late-70’s odds are more people at Halloween associate hockey with Jason Voorhees than the Stanley Cup.

Four years before DC Comics founded the Justice League team to take on the interstellar horror of Starro the Conqueror, screenwriter Hideo Oguni teamed up with artist Taro Okamoto to bring us the strangest, not-quite-kaiju of them all: the Pairans. These alien beings were slightly larger than humans, and looked like giant starfish with a large, unblinking eye in the middle.

Borrowing heavily from STAR WARS and the arcade game craze (and pre-dating BACK TO THE FUTURE when it comes to that cool DeLorean-inspired ride), THE LAST STARFIGHTER had all the elements of great 1980s science fiction. A teenaged protagonist seemingly stuck in the middle of nowhere and no chance of leaving; a call to be a hero that he rejects and then has thrust upon him; a victory won against insurmountable odds; a girlfriend, a mentor, a family...everything to deserve remembering as one of the great 1980s films.

Tis the season to lose control of your television to the more sentimental members of the family. So if you're going to watch anything from now through the end of the year, it's going to be a Christmas movie, and it's probably going to be either Lifetime or Hallmark (not that you'll be able to tell the difference). The romantic holiday genre has grown so pervasive that we even had to come up with an alternative a few years back, when we put out our Nine Christmas Movies for Guys Who Hate Christmas Movies.

This year, we may just have to round out that list to ten (or bump one off -- we'd hate to ruin the gestalt of our nine ladies dancing).

From Director Jake Horowitz comes CUP OF CHEER, a slightly bawdy sendup of just about every heartfelt holiday homecoming you've ever watched.

Beth Harmon (The New Mutants' Anya Taylor-Joy) is raised in an orphanage until her younger teens. While there, she and the other girls are regularly given "vitamins" which include tranquilizers, to which 9 year old Beth develops an addiction. Because she is proficient in math and gets her work done early, she is rewarded with the job of cleaning erasers in the basement, where she meets the grumpy janitor, Mr. Shaibel (Bill Camp), who teaches her how to play chess, a game for which she shows an amazing facility.

No matter the genre of film or TV show, some tropes remain universal. One of these is the fortune-teller or the psychic. Such readers are consulted when characters are stuck. Or indeed when the plot itself doesn’t seem to move forwards. But how effective is the fortune teller as a plot device?

In the world of Peter Milligan's HAPPY HOUR, the government has all but eliminated societies ills and unrest by treating the root cause of unhappiness -- unhappiness itself. A surgical procedure, performed on everyone, makes the brain incapable of feeling sadness, which gives everyone a peppy, optimistic outlook on everything, including terminal cancer.

But when Jerry suffers a head injury in an automobile accident, he awakens to a room of smiling doctors and nurses who tell him his sister is dead. When Jerry is outraged by their lack of appropriate reactions, they realize Jerry's injuries have worked against his surgery -- he's sad about his sister's death, and something has to be done about that.

Thirty-one years ago, two righteous California teens with guitars and a dream had an excellent adventure in a time-traveling phone booth. It was so much fun, they had to do it again, but it ended up being a totally heinous bogus journey.

Along the way, Bill S. Preston, Esquire (Alex Winter) and Ted "Theodore" Logan (Keanu Reeves) learned they had a destiny. Their band, Wild Stallynz, would create a song that would unite the world. But decades later, the band has fallen apart, but the boys still have the dream, even if they have fallen to playing wedding receptions. Their music skills are actually incredibly well-rounded, in every technique. But what they produce is the result of obviously trying too hard, seeking that special combination that will finally unite the world.

When I say that the music on this CD is fresh as fresh air, I mean that in a much deeper sense than the first thing that may pop into your mind.

In his own words, Paul Winter wanted this album to be a celebration of light. “With the title of Light of the Sun, I intended to embrace the many meanings we attribute to light: light as spirit, love, consciousness, human kindness, serenity, heart, exaltation, fire, the light that is integral to beauty, and the smile that reflects the sunshine in our heart.” Paul continues, saying, “Music is the common medium that can embody both the spiritual and physical aspects of light.”

To that end I feel Paul succeeds in accomplishing that desire, something that many artists hope to achieve in their works but sadly fall short.

THE GREAT is a comedic farce that loosely follows the biography of Catherine the Great. Equal parts BLACK ADDER and CALIGULA, the series goes out of its way to make the profane mundane, with palace life centered completely around copulation and killing.

Elle Fanning plays Catherine, the naive German woman brought to Russia to be a wife to Emperor Peter II (Nicholas Hoult), an overgrown infant with an inferiority complex instilled by his mother and father that he compensates for by doing whatever he pleases. As he is the emperor, who exercises capriciously the right of life over death of any and all of his subjects, nobody dares cross him. Indeed, most of the palace court are too daft to put up anything like an argument. Hoult plays the emperor much like Hugh Laurie's Prince Regent from BLACK ADDER, only with no filter, a leporine libido, and the attention span of a ferret on sugar cubes.

Sometimes when an actor finishes a film, he or she retains a prop of some kind, a souvenir or memento they can look to in the future for a conversation piece.

Zachary Levi seems to have come away from his stint on SHAZAM with the coolest and most valuable vestige ever: The Wisdom of Solomon. (The superhero character more commonly known as Captain Marvel gains his powers by shouting out an acronym, which gains him the combined powers of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury.)

During the trying and tiring time of the last few days, as votes were being tabulated with deliberation and states were switching colors more slowly than leaves in autumn, Levi interected a thought onto Twitter -- a place designed ostensibly just for that purpose but, ironically, in abject opposition to the ideal on most days.

I've been fascinated with the paranormal almost since I knew how to read. Early influences on me were the television movie of the week that told the Betty and Barney Hill abduction story, and films like THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK (not to mention the few appearances of Bigfoot on THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN). I clipped articles from the World Weekly News like it was gospel.

I'm pretty sure Bat-Boy isn't still out there waiting to attack, but I remain fascinated with UFOs and cryptids. And while the media has become suffused of late with multiple Bigfoot hunting series, they skew strongly to "reality entertainment" than anything remotely investigatory. If you need to do a CGI recreation of your Bigfoot encounter, I really don't ned to see it.

That's what makes Darcy Weir's SASQUATCH AMONG WILDMEN stand apart from this crowd. It's a true documentary, eschewing any sensationalism or fakery. 

Presidents have been featured, satirized, and flat-out lampooned in comics for as long as there have been Presidents and free speech. Superboy and Superman both managed to meet President Kennedy. Spider-Man met President Obama. President Roosevelt was nearly a junior member of the All-Star Squadron.

But unless my comics memory is failing (it could be -- I'm getting older, and I've read comics for a long, long time), there hasn't been a deluge of praise-and-parody comic books such as that which has been unleashed following the 2016 election of President Donald Trump. From Antarctic Press's TREMENDOUS TRUMP and TRUMP'S SPACE FORCE, Keenspot's TRUMP'S TITANS, and a cascade of others, Trump comics has become a cottage industry over the past four years.

Fifty years ago, JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS jumped out of the comic books and into our televisions, where every Saturday morning they would put on another show and run into another dastardly villain seeking to take over the world or enrich themselves at the expense of others. Josie, Valerie, and Melody (with their friends Alexander, Alexandria, and Alan M.) travel the globe from one exotic locale to another, making music and stopping bad guys.

Now you can own the complete series on Blu-ray, including the excellent documentary featuring the charming Dan DeCarlo, the man who created Josie.

There are plenty of ways to enter this contest, and you don't have to pick just one. Pick them all and maximize your chances of winning this trip down animated memory lane! Be sure to check out our Rules & Regulations page, and then get ready to rock out with this talented voice cast.