Category Archives: Holiday Gift Guide 2011
Biff Bam Pop’s Holiday Gift Guide Day 24 – Gift Cards & Certificates
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably left the shopping to the very last minute, right?
You’ve had the chance to check out the Biff Bam Pop! Holiday Gift Guide for the last 23 days and even win free stuff like Stephen King’s latest book 11/23/63 or the complete series of Battlestar Galactica on DVD.
Yet despite a whole bunch of great ideas to make your shopping experience easier this holiday season, here you are.
What’s a desperate last minute shopper to do?
Final Giveaway!!! Win A Copy Of The Bestselling Biography Of Steve Jobs In Day 23 Of Biff Bam Pop’s Holiday Gift Guide
I’m writing this entry on MacBook Air. I’ll check to see how it looks on my iPad or my iPhone – I think you get the picture. Apple products have made an indelible impact on my life, and probably on yours as well. If you’re remotely interested in technology, at least. And the man at the forefront of all this amazing “stuff” was Steve Jobs. I read the biography that shares his name and it was completely captivating to read about his genius at work. Make no mistake, Jobs could be a mean guy. He also appeared to have some nasty hygiene as a young man, though that also came with stellar taste in music. Written by Walter Issacson, the book leaves no stone unturned, talking to both friend and foe of Jobs to give a complete picture of one of the most important creative minds of our time.
Apple accolytes will eat this book up, and I can’t give it a higher recommendation. Even if you don’t have multiple iPods, you’ll still find Steve Jobs the book fascinating. Order it online from Amazon.ca here or win a copy from Biff Bam Pop and our friends at Simon and Schuster!
How to enter the Steve Jobs book Holiday Gift Giveaway:
1) Post a comment below with your favourite Apple product and why (must use valid email when commenting).
2) Bonus entry: Tweet us @BiffBamPop with your favourite Apple product and why (you must be following@BiffBamPop on Twitter).
Winner Selection:
One winner will be selected from all entries received by December 25th, 2011 at 11:59 PM EST.
The winner will be announced December 26th, 2011 right here at Biff Bam Pop!
Biff Bam Pop’s Holiday Gift Guide Day 22 – Morning Glories Deluxe Collection Volume 1
It’s thrilling to find a truly compelling mystery. Properly strung along, an audience can enjoy following a tricky story for a while, until the thread either leads to a massive “promised land” of a twist, or unravels. But just following the thread can be a lot of fun – if it leads through interesting places, with interesting characters along for the ride.
Morning Glories is a new “mystery” comic from Image, mixing the charm and vulnerability of The Breakfast Club and Runaways with the tantalizing rabbit-hole spiral of Lost and the X-Files at their best, and ladelling on some “1984” for good measure. There’s a lot to recommend from Image these days: aggressive, idiosyncratic titles like Skullkickers and Chew, which shine through the field of pedestrian superhero fare like laser pointers on a foggy day. But not every comic needs to be a bloody send-up of low fantasy or a weirdness-laden subversion of detective procedurals. Rich in character, Morning Glories gets great mileage out of just how scary it is to be a teenager at a new school, laden with expectations from faculty and parents alike.
Of course it’s not quite that simple. The school – ostensibly an elite institution for gifted students – is anything but ordinary, the teachers are terrifying, possibly insane, and horrible things are surely happening just out of sight. The kids aren’t unblemished saints either. What will surprise you is just how much writer Nick Spencer (also of Ultimate Comics: X-Men and the last pre-New 52 run of Action Comics) is willing to put these characters through during a “routine” school day. More shocking still is how far these characters – distinctly rendered by artist Joe Eisma, which is important when, unlike in a superhero comic, there are no wild costumes and gimmicks – are willing to go to push back against their mad surroundings.
The first twelve harrowing issues are collected in the Morning Glories Deluxe Collection, which you can order from Amazon.ca here. As Morning Glories is an ongoing series, it won’t take you to the end of the thread, but serve as an introduction to the school, the characters, and the big questions awaiting you. The large format also features the fantastic character-study cover art of Rodin Esquejo, which is absolutely not to be missed.
Feel like following a thread through the most terrifying school you’ve ever seen? Morning Glories Deluxe Collectionis your wake-up call!
Giveaway!!! Win Season 1 and Season 2 Of The Monkees in Day 21 of Biff Bam Pop’s Holiday Gift Guide
Here we come…(dum dum)…walking down the street…(dum dum)…
Ok, come on, you know the rest of the words. Even if you didn’t grow up in the late 1960s’, The Monkees have managed to transcend time and their original label as fakers to be one of the best pop bands to have come out of the era. Sure, they were born from Beatlemania and A Hard Day’s Night, but there’s little doubt that together Mickey Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davey Jones were arguably the first manufactured band that wanted credibility and actually deserved it. Buy any Monkees singles collection and your ears wind up getting treated to brilliant pop tracks like “I’m A Believer”, “Last Train To Clarksville”, “Stepping Stone” and, of course, “Daydream Believer”.
Along with the music, The Monkees produced one of the most enduring tv series of all time. Two seasons of comedy and music that managed to work well together – creating a phenomenon that’s lasted for years. This fall, the entire run of The Monkees was rereleased on DVD by Eagle Rock Entertainment. Both season sets are worthy of a spot in your pop culture collection, with the second season set getting a special mention because it contains The Monkees one-off tv special, 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee.
You can order Seasons 1 and 2 of The Monkees on DVD from Amazon.ca here. Or you can win copies of both from Biff Bam Pop and Eagle Rock Entertainment.
How to enter the Monkees Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD Holiday Gift Giveaway:
1) Post a comment below with your favourite Monkees song and why (must use valid email when commenting).
2) Bonus entry: Tweet us @BiffBamPop with your favourite Monkees song and why (you must be following@BiffBamPop on Twitter).
Winner Selection:
One winner will be selected from all entries received by December 22nd, 2011 at 11:59 PM EST.
The winner will be announced December 23rd, 2011 right here at Biff Bam Pop!
Winner receives 1 (one) copy of The Monkees Season 1 on DVD and 1 (one) copy of The Monkees Season 2 on DVD.
Biff Bam Pop’s Holiday Gift Guide Day 20 – Stieg Larsson’s Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Extended Editions
For movie fans everywhere, this week will no doubt be all about David Fincher’s adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, staring Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as everybody’s favourite computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander. The buzz is strong on this film, as Fincher filmed in Sweden and had the Oscar-winning duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross come up with the moody soundtrack. Regardless of how good the film is, it will have a lot to live up to, as the original cinematic version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is brilliant stuff.
This version stars Michael Nyqvist as Mikael and the amazing Noomi Rapace as Salander – she’s the real reason to watch this film or the other two in the series, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest. All three have been rereleased on DVD and Blu-Ray in their original mini series format as Stieg Larsson’s Dragon Tattoo Trilogy Extended Editions, which means there’s much more to all of them than what we originally received in theatres.
