Author Archives: Bubbawheat
The Toxic Avenger Part 2
The Toxic Avenger Part 2 1989
Since The Toxic Avenger was Troma’s first real hit, it’s no surprise that it became a sequel, and when that sequel originally ended up being over 4 hours long, it turned into 2 sequels. There are a large number of changes from the first movie to the second. Almost the entire cast was changed up, everyone from Toxie’s mother and girlfriend to Toxie himself, even being changed within the movie. The tone more or less remains the same gore-filled action comedy with hammy acting and cartoonish sound effects, though I didn’t have as much fun watching this one as I did the first one. I think they realized what they had and tried too hard to recreate it, giving it a much less charming feel to it. There’s also some odd choices in budget, while it feels like they spent more time or money on Toxie’s makeup, the fake eye moves occasionally, and there are some added effects used later in the movie. And yet there also seems to be less money spent on the other effects. A few people get shot, but there are no gunshot wounds or any blood at all, and the gory death scenes felt much tamer and sillier. If there wasn’t also a larger amount of nudity, I would almost think that they were considering to aim for a PG-13 rating. There are still some laughs to be had, but it’s far less entertaining on the bad movie scale.
Read the rest of this entry
The Toxic Avenger
The Toxic Avenger 1984
A lot of B-movie fans, and especially horror B-movie fans likely know the name Troma. It’s a small company that’s churned out a whole lot of low budget films over the years with titles like Yeti: A Love Story, Surf Nazis Must Die!, and Killer Condom. But before doing horror movies, they mainly did sex comedies. The Toxic Avenger was more or less their first foray into horror, even though it’s not what anyone would call full blown horror, it has the death scenes and blood and gore which is a staple of these kinds of horror movies. And it was a success… eventually. It wasn’t quite the slow burn that the Rocky Horror Picture Show would become, but it found a foothold as a midnight movie and is considered a cult classic. Heck, there was even a children’s cartoon of it. As for my own experience with Troma films, I know I was familiar with the Toxic Avenger, but I can’t for the life of me remember exactly how. I think I watched at least one of the films when I was younger, and I know I caught some of the episodes of the cartoon. I also watched Tromeo and Juliet, which was directed by the James Gunn who would later go on to direct Super. But my knowledge of Toxie had mostly faded when he came back on screen in all his cheesy glory. This is a cult movie for a lot of the same reasons the Room is a cult movie. The acting is horrible, the effects are obviously cheap but brutal (for the time at least), but in the end, I had a blast.
Read the rest of this entry
Filmwhys #6 12 Angry Men and Superman
Running a little bit behind on this episode, but I think it was worth the wait. In this episode of Filmwhys, the why haven’t you seen this film podcast, my guest is Jay Cluitt from Life vs. Film who asks me why I haven’t seen the classic Sidney Lumet film 12 Angry Men. And I ask him why he hasn’t seen the classic, original superhero movie Superman with Christopher Reeve.
Read the rest of this entry
Superhero Movie Bingo
I had an idea pop into my head the other day, and I just had to see it through to fruition. There’s plenty of common things that happen in many superhero and comic book movies so I thought I’d liven up the viewing experience by making a little game out of it. Just a fair warning though, I won’t be held responsible for you getting kicked out of the theater for yelling “Bingo!” during the movie, and trust me, it won’t be too hard to get one, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a movie or two out there that could fill up the entire card. Is there any squares I missed the boat on, or any that I should have added. Let me know. The one that I wanted to add but didn’t because I wanted to keep the images from the more recent movies is “walks away from an explosion”. If I get enough fresh ideas I may revisit this one. Or, I may just revisit this only with an eye towards the bad superhero movies. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.
Read the rest of this entry
Can a Kaiju be a Superhero?
It used to be that the only people that knew the term “Kaiju” were either the extreme Japanophiles or the extreme B-movie geeks that watched all the old classic monster movies. Now it feels like many more people know the term, either because of the shrinking of the world through the ease of communication, or because of the anticipation of Pacific Rim helping draw attention to the term. In case you don’t know, Kaiju is a term used for a giant monster used in a monster movie, the most iconic being Godzilla. Now, I have to admit that I have seen very few Kaiju movies, most of those have been the MST3K versions, especially the Gamera series. It’s hard to forget “Gamera is really neat, Gamera is full of meat, we believe in Ga-me-ra. And one of those has been the 1998 Americanized, or should I say the Emmeriched version. But one thing I do know, or at least am pretty sure of, is that often Godzilla is the “good” Kaiju battling the “bad” Kaiju. So, does that make Godzilla a superhero?
Read the rest of this entry
Filmwhys #5 Run Lola Run and The Punisher
There’s never enough time to watch all the movies I want to, but now that Filmwhys is weekly, I’m working on it that much quicker. In this episode of Filmwhys, the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast, I’m joined by Dylan Fields of Man I Love Films who asks me why I haven’t seen Run Lola Run, the unique 1998 German film with a unique premise, pseudo-time travel, animation, and running. And I ask him why he hadn’t seen the 2004 Punisher film starring Thomas Jane.
Read the rest of this entry
Tiger and Bunny: The Beginning
Tiger and Bunny: The Beginning 2012
This was originally a successful anime series in 2011, and then after its series run, they decided to take the first couple episodes, add some filler and a new third act and bill it as a movie. Now, I haven’t seen the series just yet, but based on this movie, I really want to. The basic premise is that 45 years ago people with special abilities started to appear that were called NEXT, many of those people started working with the government as a hero force. Now, it has turned into this psuedo-reality competition complete with corporate sponsors, a TV station that is dedicated to filming their exploits, and they even turned it into a reality competition complete with points for their heroic deeds. Overall, it felt like a pretty fresh take on the superhero genre and I thought it was quite enjoyable. And I did watch this movie in the original Japanese with English subtitles.
Read the rest of this entry
Superman & Batman Apocalypse
This movie was sort of billed as a sequel to the animated Superman/Batman Public Enemies, although it really is a stand-alone piece with only a brief callback to President Luthor’s impeachment to tie it to the previous movie. I hadn’t really heard much about this movie compared to some of the other DC animation so I really didn’t know what to expect, other than Darkseid considering the title of the movie is Apocalypse even though they went with the traditional spelling of the word rather than the typical comic book spelling of Apokolips. But even with the Superman & Batman title, this really could have been called Supergirl: Apokolips, as she is the main focus of the movie and Batman doesn’t get much screen time at all. But I am a big fan of Supergirl as a character so I really enjoyed this movie and it quickly rose as one of my favorite DC animations. From the great tone that’s set early on to the amazing action sequences towards the end, it’s really an all around great movie and one to check out if you haven’t seen it yet.
Read the rest of this entry
Filmwhys #4: The Deer Hunter and Super
I’m back again on my journey to fill my large gaps in movie watching. In this episode of Filmwhys, or the why haven’t you seen this film podcast, my guest is Stefan Gagne, a web author who writes at StefanGagne.com who asks me why I haven’t seen one of Robert DeNiro’s early works The Deer Hunter. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen James Gunn’s Super.
Read the rest of this entry
Jack the Giant Slayer giveaway and Filmwhys Quiz!
The contest is now over, congratulations to the winner, and read below for the answers to the Filmwhys quiz
I’ve been lucky enough to catch the attention of PartnersHub which often runs Blu-Ray giveaways across various movie blogs. Being that this is a niche site, I’ve so far declined to run giveaways for movies I wouldn’t review for this site. And while this is a fantasy movie, it would easily qualify for an “Almost Super” entry. And on top of that, it was released to Blu-Ray on my birthday! Not only that, but I did enjoy the movie myself a lot more than many of my fellow reviewers who have seen it. It’s not an amazing movie by any means, but it really is worth a watch. And while you’re at it, click on the pic below to check out the neat little app attached to the movie.
Read the rest of this entry
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 