Author Archives: Bubbawheat
Superhero Shorts: Wolverine the Musical
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts, where I feature a superhero themed short film and ask a few words of the filmmaker. This time around I’m talking with Vincent Bova, who along with his partner in felt Damien Eckhardt-Jacobi who created Wolverine: The Musical… with puppets. As always, you can view the short below or you can check it out on their site Glove and Boots or their YouTube channel where they have a ton of fun videos featuring their usual characters Mario and Fafa the Groundhog.
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The Flashpoint Paradox
The Flashpoint Paradox 2013
While I haven’t been able to make it to the theaters these past couple weeks to catch up on a lot of the big superhero movies, I did manage to watch DC’s latest animated venture The Flashpoint Paradox which manages to continue The Dark Knight Returns’ trend of pushing the limits of a PG-13 rating with a very adult story and some graphic violence. That said, I’m a big sucker for time travel, and especially timeline altering movies. I always loved those episodes of Star Trek, and I even quite liked the first Butterfly Effect. This is right alongside one of those with a great alternate timeline brought about by Professor Zoom using his super speed to go back in time and alter something, and somehow the Flash retains his memories of his former life, but not his former powers. In this reality, his mom is alive, but Aquaman and Wonder Woman are fighting a war that’s about to destroy the entire Earth. The scale of this movie is pretty epic, the violence is devastating, the themes are mature, and it does great justice to the character the Flash. This isn’t the first time I’ve said this, and it probably won’t be the last, but this has come close to being my favorite DC Animation once again.
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The Top Ten Bad Superhero Movies
After finishing up the Toxic Avenger series, I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of the top ten bad superhero movies. That is to say, ten of the cheesiest, worst, and yet amazingly fun to watch superhero movies. There are no good movies on this list, but I think every single one of them are a blast to watch, even more so if you are in the company of like minded friends and/or your favorite mind-altering substance. So sit up, kick back a few cold ones, and enjoy these monuments to bad moviemaking, with capes.
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Filmwhys #8 Seven Samurai and the Toxic Avenger
Coming right back atcha with episode 8 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film podcast where my guest is Nick Jobe of Your Face! who asks me why I haven’t seen Seven Samurai, a great classic film by Japanese master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. And I ask him why he hadn’t seen The Toxic Avenger, one of the more entertaining of Troma Films B-Movies, and the reason why I ended up watching all of the Toxic Avenger movies.
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Toxic Crusaders
Toxic Crusaders: The Movie 1991
Just when I thought I was done with the Toxic Avenger I noticed that they had collected some of the cartoon episodes and made it movie length. Not only that, but it’s currently available to watch on YouTube on Troma’s official YouTube channel, though for some reason the four live action Toxie movies aren’t available anymore. It’s a weird concept to turn a campy movie with so much sex and violence into a children’s cartoon. Something similar had been done before with Rambo having been made into a cartoon, but this at least has a superhero angle going for it. The animation is typical low quality like many of the mass produced cartoon properties of the 80’s and early 90’s. The writing is very formulaic, the voice acting is generally below average, but it’s sprinkled with moments of humor that hit me in just the right way, and the formulas fell right along with many of the cheesy cartoons I grew up with and I didn’t hate watching it by a longshot.
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Citizen Toxie
Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV 2000
This is the most recent Toxic Avenger movie to come from Troma films, at least until the slowly developing sequel Toxic Twins finally gets made. Apparently the writer/director suffers from procrasti-pation, a cross between procrastination and constipation, at least according to the teaser. But anyway, this movie feels like it already exists in practically a different universe. There’s no direct follow up from Toxie part 2 or 3, in fact his girlfriend is back to being blind. There are plenty of other additions to the movie that make it seem like they’ve been there all along, like Toxie’s sidekick Lardass or his ability to change into a hot bikini babe. There’s also a lot more nudity in this movie, there are more breasts in part 4 than there were in parts 1 through 3 combined, though there’s always a layer of crass humor to undercut any possible sexiness. This movie also has plenty of “star” power, ranging from Stan Lee who voices the opening and ending narration, famous porn star Ron Jeremy, Troma property Kabukiman, and not-exactly-stars-but-I-recognized-them stand up comedians the Skylar Brothers. And also more than any of the previous movies, this film is filled with humor that is based on being offensive. It is still a cheesy B-movie, and as far as my enjoyment level goes, it is much better than parts 2 & 3, though I’m not sure it captured the original intent or charm of the first movie.
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The Toxic Avenger Part III
The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie 1989
After the drop in entertainment quality between the first and second Toxie movie, I didn’t expect very much from The Last Temptation, and aside from a couple minor moments, it follows along the exact same path as Part II. There’s the childlike exposition narration, the usual over the top hammy acting, though another thing I noticed this time around was the horrible pacing. Even though the effects are nothing to write home about, they often linger on them as if they were a multi-million dollar set piece, complete with reaction shots of crowds gasping and screaming as if they’re watching something absolutely horrifying, and while a case could be made for that, they’re often watching something that they should be cheering for in an odd way, rather than screaming in terror over. I’m hoping that what I’ve heard holds true and the final installment brings it back up a notch, if not in actual movie quality, at least in entertainment value, which as fans of bad movies know are not always the same thing.
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Filmwhys #7 Rocky and Under the Red Hood
I’m back with another episode of Filmwhys, or the Why Haven’t You Seen this film podcast. This time around my guest is Joe Guiliano from Two Dude Review and The As You Watch Podcast who asks me why I haven’t seen the Stallone classic Rocky, and I ask him why he hasn’t seen one of DC Animation’s best movies, Under the Red Hood.
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Do toys count as spoilers?
I wouldn’t call myself a collector of movie figures, I have a small handful of mostly Kevin Smith inaction figures and a couple Simpsons figures. Out of the package as well, I got them to display the way I wanted to, not as an investment to resell in the future. But I also have a 6 year old daughter, so I spend plenty of time in the toy aisles of pretty much any store we go to. A few weeks back I walked past the Man of Steel toys and thought to myself how much spoilers are contained in the movie toys themselves, and is that irresponsible or is it just the basic fact of marketing? If you have an action packed movie with specific setpieces, it makes total sense that you would want to play up those moments in the toys so that kids can recreate those movie moments as close as possible. On the other hand, there could be spoilers within those toys if they reveal critical plot points to savvy adults. What if there was a Marion Cotillard toy with her dressed up her League of Shadows gear complete with knife accessory before the movie came out? Or to make a prediction for a future movie, what if they have a young action figure of the old guy in The Wolverine? The other point for the toy companies is that they do often extend the line of toys out past the context of the movie. Like for example Iron Man 3 I imagine had available different versions of his armor that either weren’t really featured in the movie at all, or armors that were only featured for mere moments within the movie and never really played a large factor. If you’re someone who avoids spoilers and you have kids, or if you would have kids, do you/would you avoid the movie toy aisle as much as possible for fear of spoilers? Or if you’re someone who devours every tidbit of early information, do you dissect even the toy line for hints into the movie’s storyline? Tell me what you think? Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.
Superhero Shorts: Superseven
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a superhero themed short film and have a brief talk with one of the creators. Today I’m talking with Scott Rhodes and his superhero spy webseries called Superseven. This isn’t your typical James Bond type spy, and it also borrows heavily from some classic B movie spy comedies. As always, you can watch it below, or you can visit their YouTube Channel or their official website.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 