Author Archives: Bubbawheat
TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #7
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week 7
Episode: The Hub
Original airdate: 11-12-13
It’s that time of week again for another recap of the latest Marvel TV episode. For the first time in several weeks I am not actually wanting to call this the best episode yet. Of course, this isn’t a bad thing because I’ve been enjoying the past several episodes very much and I think the overall quality has improved greatly over the first couple episodes which were good, but not great. All of the characters on the show are starting to flesh out a more well rounded personality, and this episode had a moment that made me laugh out loud, which doesn’t happen all too often and as a sidenote is one of several reasons why you will never catch me using the abbreviation LOL. Last week’s episode gave a lot of time to fleshing out Simmons’ character and this time around Fitz gets his time to shine. We also get to see a bit more of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s inner workings and how the organization operates. And finally, we get yet another hint into the mystery surrounding Skye’s past.
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Book Nights: Super Born: Seduction of Being
Super Born: Seduction of Being
by Keith Kornell
I was initially reluctant when I got an e-mail asking me to review a superhero novel, I was even more reluctant when I read the initial synopsis for it mentioning the main character as a single mom and a review blurb calling it “hypersexualized”. I also don’t own an e-reader which made me turn down a previous offer at reviewing a superhero novel, but even with my doubts they were still willing to send me a physical copy of the book. It was a rough start, I wasn’t fond of the overly sarcastic humor nor the frequent talk about sex which wasn’t helped by the cover that looked like I was reading a cheesy romance novel. The science mumbo-jumbo was equally over-specific and absurd, and the characterization of the superheroine main character felt like it was written by a man who was not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination. I soldiered on through the rest of the book was rewarded with much of the same, but underneath all of that there was an interesting plot that kept me wanting to know how it was all going to end up.
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Thor: The Dark World
Thor: The Dark World 2013
Choosing a specific genre for this site brought about some factors that I had’t considered when I first started it almost two years ago now. One is that “superhero” isn’t really a genre, I had briefly considered going for Fantasy as my genre of choice, but there are so few sword and sorcery fantasy movies out there, and even fewer good ones barring the Lord of the Rings. And another is the fact that because I don’t review everything, that means that the new releases that I review are very much dependent on the release schedule, and the superhero “genre” if it may be called that is something of an oddity. It tends to be very summer heavy, with over two-thirds of the big theatrical releases happening in that one three month period, and once the summer’s over there’s a giant dead zone until the next summer rolls around so it’s been almost 3 months since the release of Kick-Ass 2 which was the last superhero movie of the season. Not only that, but this Thor movie itself is a bit of an odd beast when you look at it compared to other superhero movies. It’s very different from the first Thor, where a large part of the film took place on Earth where Thor was the superhero alien god come down to Earth. This movie is much more of a fantasy movie with sci-fi elements where Norse gods and dark elves are fighting each other along with the occasional sci-fi gun and Earth only shows up once in a while. That said, it really played to my love of fantasy movies and I enjoyed every minute of it, from the fantasy battles, the Marvel humor, to the sci-fi monkey wrenches that made it that much more fun. As a note, I tend to avoid tiptoeing around spoilers, and there are a couple surprises in this movie that I will be talking about, you have been warned.
TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #6
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. week 6
Episode: F.Z.Z.T.
Original airdate: 11-5-2013
I’ve mentioned before that this show keeps improving week after week, and in this episode it took yet another jump in the right direction. While there isn’t very much action, there is a lot of character with very strong performances from Agent Coulson as well as Simmons. There’s also one of the stronger tie-ins to the Marvel cinematic universe with the connections to the Chitauri and what happened during the Avengers. There is also a couple nice reveals at the end that gives a lot while still leaving a good chunk of the mystery intact. There are a couple moments that I couldn’t quite get behind, but the rest of it is so well done that I didn’t care.
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Filmwhys #17 The Manchurian Candidate and Dredd
Sorry for the late episode, but I’m back once again with another episode of Filmwhys, aka the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast. This week my guest is Ryan C of Trash Film Guru among other sites who asks me the question why haven’t I seen The Manchurian Candidate, the original one with Frank Sinatra, one of the classic thrillers of the time. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen Dredd, a great adaptation of the sci-fi comic that got somewhat overlooked last year but has found a home since it hit home video.
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Electric Man
Electric Man 2012
This movie marks the first time that a filmmaker has come to me and offered a screener for a movie that actually fits the context of my site. Even though it’s not really about the exploits of a superhero, instead it’s about the exploits of a comic book shop and a group of people who are focused on getting this important and rare comic book, issue #1 of Electric Man. The comic is a fictional precursor to Superman, and in mint condition goes for around $100,000. It takes place in Edinburg, Scotland and has a very English mentality to it. One of the ways that it was described to me was “Clerks meets the Maltese Falcon”, and while that’s not too far off the mark, it doesn’t meet either the comedy of the first, nor the mystery of the second. It has plenty of fun moments, and some interesting characters, but it doesn’t knock it out of the park.
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The Crow
The Crow 1994
I missed out on a few things that I wanted to do as far as scheduling goes, I wanted to watch all of the sequels before watching the original and have the review of this one up on Devil’s Night, right before Halloween. Instead, I only watched the first sequel and then watched this one on Halloween. But I’m sure none of this is very interesting to anyone reading this so I’ll just get straight to it. I loved the Crow when I first saw it, I probably did not watch this in theaters as I would have been 14 at the time and I was not the type of teenager who saw a lot of R rated movies in theaters. But when I did watch it, I fell in love with it, and I was also very intrigued with the whole behind the scenes story about Brandon Lee’s tragic death during filming and the early computer and optical graphics to complete the movie without him. But the style, the writing, and the feel of it still holds up, it’s extremely quotable and filled with memorable characters and an amazing soundtrack. I’m honestly a little disappointed that it’s taken me this long to rewatch it.
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Superhero Shorts: Spiderman
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts, where I feature a superhero themed short film and ask a few questions of its creator. This time around I’m going way back, all the way back to 1969 in what is quite possibly the first live action Spiderman movie ever, predating even the 70’s Electric Company shorts. This was the last of a series of 41 amateur short films created by Don Glut starting from when he was nine years old. As usual, you can watch this short below, but there is also a documentary featuring all of these shorts called I Was a Teenage Movie Maker. If you would like to get more information about Don Glut, visit his official website or Frontline Entertainment.
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The Crow: City of Angels
The Crow: City of Angels 1996
I’ve been wanting to get to these movies for a while now, even though out of the four of them, there’s only one that I’ve seen and that same one is the only one that’s considered good. For that reason, I wanted to save it until the end, but I also wanted to be able to publish it on Devil’s Night, since the movie takes place around that day. After watching this movie, it really makes me want to skip straight to the original. This is a pale copy that pretends to be a sequel while at the same time apes nearly everything that made the original good, with only a handful of switcheroos here and there. Everything from the effects, to the stunts, even the soundtrack is not nearly as well done or entertaining. And since it’s been so long since I’ve watched the original, I spent most of the time being reminded of moments from the Brandon Lee version that were done immensely better. It has a few interesting moments here and there, but for the most part it tries to be like the original, but really misses the mark.
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This Film Is No Longer Available Due To Copyright Infringement
Whenever anyone chooses to make a fan film, the biggest risk that they take is the fact that they are using characters that they don’t own the rights to, and therefore run the risk of getting shut down by the company that does hold the rights to those characters. Of course, it doesn’t happen very often, and there’s the whole “fair use” excuse, often including a disclaimer at the beginning or the end claiming that they are making no profit on this intellectual property and the rights belong to whichever company it may be. On top of that, there are literally dozens of fan films that are made every year, some even get upwards of a million views on YouTube and they are allowed to remain with no consequences whatsoever. But what happens when it’s your project that gets shut down? What rights do you have, what options are out there, and if you’re just a fan that wants to see a good film regardless of who owns the characters, how can you actually get the chance to see it? Unfortunately, when a company chooses to use the dreaded “Copyright Infringement” hammer, there’s not really much you can do. And if they are the ones who own the character, isn’t it really their right to exercise?
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 