Author Archives: Bubbawheat
Shazam!
Shazam! 2019
It’s previously been very rare for me to see any movies on opening weekend, let alone going to see a movie during an early screening. And while this wasn’t an extraordinarily exclusive early screening, it’s one of the first times I’ve ever gotten to see a movie early. As far as the character goes, I’m not overly familiar with DC’s Captain Marvel aside from a vague history of how he got his name before Marvel existed, then had to change it to Shazam to avoid confusion. It’s also an odd coincidence that Marvel’s Captain Marvel and DC’s Captain Marvel were released within weeks of each other. Not only that, but they both feature Djimon Hounsou in a minor role. And after the negativity surrounding the early extra grim-dark entries in the DC Universe, they’ve gone much closer to the successful Marvel route to lighten things up quite a bit. And while it might be a little closer to standard, it still works and makes this one of the most fun DC films in a long time. And as I do with every new release, there will be spoilers so here’s your warning.
Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors
Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors
This is the most recent animated project from Marvel which have been very hit or miss and mainly focused on TV series lately. This almost seems like a response to DC’s Super Hero Girls only instead of making a team of super hero girls and market it directly to girls, this seems like just a generally diverse group of heroes that happen to be made up of more than half women. And while I haven’t seen much of the marketing for it, I get the impression that it is geared slightly more towards girls, but also generally gender neutral. This is my first experience with the majority of the heroes presented in here, though I have heard about several of them in passing and I was familiar with Chloe Bennet’s Quake from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. though I stopped watching shortly after she first got her powers. It also is an odd release strategy as this is basically the pilot movie that aired on TV and is now available on Marvel’s YouTube channel Marvel HQ. But the next two releases are 30 minutes followed by 44 minutes and are considered “TV specials”. It’s not a series, it’s not movies, the lengths are all over the place so far, but I’m curious where it’s going to go.
Venom
Venom 2018
This is still just the second to last theatrical release I have to catch up on from last year. After this, there’s just Aquaman left for me which is currently out on digital so I hope to get around to it soon. When this came out, I heard a lot of mixed things about it, even those who didn’t enjoy it gave at least some credit to Tom Hardy for his performance. I generally like Venom as a concept, but I haven’t really gotten much of a feel for him past Spider-Man 3. This movie tried to take that concept and mix in a few too many genres. It feels like they wanted to go much more of a horror route, but the horror elements were very minor overall, there’s honestly more of a character drama with a really weird buddy cop comedy mixed in only it’s very much on the dark side of things where the humor is concerned. Overall, I did enjoy it, but I thought they could have taken it a bit further and made it great. Instead, it was just ok.
Marvel vs DC
Marvel vs DC
I’ve been running this site for seven years and this is the 1,000th post and a subject that I don’t think I’ve really discussed more than a passing “I like them both”. But considering that I’ve seen every Marvel movie and every DC movie except for a couple I think I’m pretty well qualified to discuss the two biggest brands in superhero comics. Now, this isn’t just going to be a surface level discussion. I’m going to dig deep and take a good look at these two brands, where they’ve come from, where they are, and where they’re going. So sit back and buckle up.
Superhero Podcast Review: The Bright Side Chat Podcast
It’s been a little big longer than I had planned, but it’s time once again for another superhero podcast review. Once again, I did a random search to find today’s podcast. The title seemed promising, and it feels like it’s been a while since I covered a podcast that had less than 100 episodes on them. As with my previous podcast reviews, I go over the basics of the podcast and ultimately come up with a final review, whether I decide to: Subscribe, Unsubscribe, or check out Selected Episodes. As is usually the case with these reviews, my final verdict is very subjective and personal to my own tastes though the rest of the review tries to be more objective. If you know of or host a podcast that you would like to be reviewed here, feel free to leave a comment and let me know about it.
Pixies
Pixies 2015
I was browsing through Vudu’s library of movies instead of choosing one of the movies from my curated lists on Hulu and Netflix and came across this movie. This will actually be the fifth animated movie that I’ve watched from Arcana Studio and they’ve had some mixed results. The Howard Lovecraft trilogy was ok, but I wasn’t a fan of the Steam Engines of Oz so I didn’t have a lot of hope for this movie. At only 73 minutes, I still figured that I’d give it a shot and even if I didn’t care for it, I hadn’t lost much time on it. Spoiler alert, I was right and this was a pretty poor movie that had shallow characters, poor humor, poor animation, and a weak plot.
Captain Underpants
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie 2017
This was a movie that I never planned on watching in theaters and somehow kept forgetting to add to my big list of superhero movies. But I never forgot about it and had actually heard quite good things about it, at least in the very general sense without revealing anything of the plot. When I finally watched it, I was quite surprised at the direction this movie went as it was equal parts Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, Deadpool, all mixed with a kid’s imagination on a PG level. It was fun, it was silly, it was absurd, it made me laugh quite a bit and was really a joy to behold despite not really having any deep down morale or message.
Birdboy: The Forgotten Children
Birdboy: The Forgotten Children 2018
I’ve always been a fan of animated movies whether they’re what most American audiences think of like the standard Disney animated fare marketed towards children or the independent or foreign animation that’s targeted towards adults. This is definitely the latter of those two. It’s a Spanish animated feature based on a graphic novel called Psiconautas that takes place in a dystopian island populated with anthropomorphic animals alongside a handful of regular animals that still have the ability to communicate and some inanimate objects who can also speak. The film is filled with dark imagery of nuclear style explosions, death, drugs, violence, addiction, abuse, and plenty of others. It’s densely packed with intense imagery and themes and it unfolds in a way that’s somewhat difficult to unpack in a single viewing, but it is intensely fascinating and hauntingly beautiful in places.
Batman & Bill
Batman & Bill 2017
Everyone knows who Batman is, Bruce Wayne, billionaire, crimefighter. Not everyone knows who’s listed as the creator of Batman unless they’re a comics fan, and very few people unless they’re die-hard comics fans know who really created Batman. This documentary follows the research of novelist Marc Tyler Nobleman as he not only uncovers the seldom told story of Bill Finger but also manages to get him officially credited as the rightful co-creator of Batman right alongside Bob Kane. The documentary itself is a fascinating story that has a few surprises going for it as it tells its quest for recognition that was long overdue. The interviews are bolstered by comics inspired simple animations. It’s a story that I didn’t know but I’m glad I know it now.
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel 2019
So here we are with the first MCU release of the year to kick things off into spring even though it’s still pretty damn cold here in the Midwest. Also, after 11 years and 18 movies, Marvel finally gives a woman center stage and on International Women’s Day no less. Captain Marvel is someone that I know very little about, I’m not overly familiar with the Kree or the Skrulls, so I was coming into this movie pretty fresh. And for the first time in my life, I actually went to see this movie on opening Thursday as the Friday release date keeps getting pushed back further and further. All things considered, this ended up being a fairly standard MCU movie that hits all the same beats along with some fun twists and a female empowerment message. Of course, fairly standard MCU is still an above average superhero movie it just doesn’t do anything to break new ground with the gold standard. And as I always do in my reviews, I will be discussing the movie in full so here’s your spoiler warning.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 