Author Archives: Bubbawheat
The Heroic Trio
The Heroic Trio 1993
I’m continuing my journey through the superhero and comic book movies on Netflix that I have yet to review which are mostly foreign and kids films. This was one that I really knew nothing at all about aside from the fact that one of the stars was Michelle Yeoh, but it was highly recommended to me on Twitter when I was trying to decide what film to watch next so I gave it a go. I will say that it was a lot funnier than I expected, but at the same time it tends to hop around all over the place, narratively speaking. And even though I generally watch dubs over subtitles, the original Cantonese language option wasn’t available on Netflix. It’s one of those movies that feels like it has a lot of backstory to the characters, but we only get to see a snippet of what’s fully going on.
Antboy: Revenge of the Red Fury
Antboy: Revenge of the Red Fury 2014
I’m still moving through my Netflix queue of superhero movies I haven’t reviewed yet and I was a little surprised to see this film on the list, especially since it did actually include the original Danish language track on it. I remember the first time I watched the first Antboy, English was the only available option that I could find. I still watched most of it in dubbed English, though I was able to switch partway through when my daughter and wife weren’t interested in watching the film along with me. This sequel picks up more or less where the first film left off, it brings back almost all of the major characters except for Ida’s sister. It also completely eschews adults in favor of the young characters. In fact, the only real adult in this film is the villain the Flea, not even Antboy’s parents get a moment of acknowledgement.
Superheroes
Superheroes 2011
It’s been a while since I watched a superhero related documentary, but this one has always been popping up when I looked around for them here and there. It was originally aired on HBO after a premier at the Slamdance Film Festival. It’s a very rudimentary look at the Real Life Superhero Movement (RLSH) as it existed in 2010 as it has in depth interviews with several members of the RLSH as well as a few members of police that they encountered during their time together. It generally lets the superheroes speak for themselves, though it does give an overall impression of looking down upon the movement as a whole where most of the heroes focused on are kooks or have other issues and there’s only a small portion near the end that really sheds a positive light on the whole concept.
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Filmwhys Extra #26 Marvel Ultimate Ranking Part 2 of 3
This is the second special episode in a series where I cover the second group of 20 or so of the middling movies to have come out based on a Marvel owned comic book. These aren’t the worst, they aren’t the best, but they’re worth talking about. I am once again joined in this adventure by Matt Brown of several podcasts which can all be found at his personal site Tederick.com. Be sure to listen to part 1 on the worst Marvel films and part 3 will be released in two weeks, I hope you enjoy!
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Not Everything with a Tenuous Link to Superheroes is a Superhero Movie
AKA The Adventures of Food Boy is Not a Superhero Movie
It’s been a long while since I’ve written one of these blog posts looking at what does or doesn’t make a superhero movie as a whole. I usually err on the side of acceptance, including movies like the Spongebob Movie that only has the characters turn into superheroes for the last fifteen to twenty minutes at the end, or Birdman where the main character is an actor who used to play a superhero and is having hallucinations of that same hero, or even Electric Man where it’s mainly about comic books and one of the characters merely cosplays as the fictional comic book hero. But I finally found a movie that made me draw the line even though the poster for the film has the titular Food Boy opening his shirt in a clear homage to Superman and one of the alternate titles of the film is High School Super Hero.
The Crow: Salvation
The Crow: Salvation 2000
I’ve had my share of ups and downs with the Crow series, the first one is one of my all time favorite films and I never bothered with any of the sequels until starting this site. Not only that, but it’s taken four years before I finally got to the final entry in the franchise. Well final for me since it’s technically the third one released, it’s not like they’re interconnected at all, and there’s the ever present possibility of another film in the near future even if it’s been in development hell for years now. But back to the film itself, it was a bit of a pleasant surprise. For what it’s worth, this is definitely the second best film in the Crow franchise, unfortunately there’s still a pretty wide gap between this film and the first one.
Barbarella
Barbarella 1968
I had heard a little bit about this film and always had in the back of my mind that it was based on a comic book but for some reason it hadn’t made it to my master list before now. But this month I was granted a new free trial of Netflix and went through all of their superhero and comic book offerings and came up with a list of eight films to try and watch during this month. For whatever reason, this was the first film that I decided to check out from that list, I guess I was in the mood for a cheesy sci-fi movie, and while I knew it was going to be somewhat of a sex romp, I was still a little surprised at how much nudity and sexuality came through in this film even though much of it was edited out during some theatrical releases of the film in the US. Barbarella originally started out as a comic strip in a French magazine before being collected in a series of graphic novels and eventually translated into English. It even ran in Heavy Metal magazine. As for the movie, it’s generally notable as it stars Jane Fonda but is basically a B-movie sci-fi film with a mix of sex and adventure.
Filmwhys Extra #25 Ultimate Marvel Movie Rankings pt 1 of 3
This is a special episode where I cover the first 20 or so of the worst movies to have come out based on a Marvel owned comic book before getting to the better ones in part 2 and the best ones in part 3. I am joined in this adventure by Matt Brown of several podcasts which can all be found at his personal site Tederick.com. Parts 2 and 3 will be released every two weeks and I hope you enjoy!
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Alter Egos
Alter Egos 2012
It’s been a while since I’ve gotten around to watching a proper superhero movie to review here, I’ve been busy with Channel: Superhero as usual as well as work stuff. But I finally caught up with this film that I had heard of back when it got picked up by Kevin Smith for his new SModcast pictures presents which was quickly renamed to the Kevin Smith movie club where it ran for three years until 2013. I had no idea what the movie was actually about aside from the catch phrase “Alter Egos” and honestly thought it had more to do with the real life superheroes that these lower budget indie superhero flicks tend to move towards. But instead, it has built a world all its own and it only focuses on a small portion of that world. It has a fair amount of humor, and uses the minimal special effects to the film’s advantage to craft an all around entertaining movie. I really enjoyed this look at the struggles of a superhero’s persona with the hints of the larger world revolving around it.
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Filmwhys #61 Anchorman and Catwoman
The Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast with guest Dave from Superhero Speak who asks me why I hadn’t seen the film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, one of Will Farrell’s greatest comedies taking the air out of seventies network news. And in return, I ask him why he hadn’t seen Catwoman, which is the only superhero movie with a Black female as the lead hero… and also one of the worst superhero movies of all time with zero ties to Batman or any connection to the Catwoman from the comics.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 