Category Archives: Blogs
Why Do I Appreciate the Fan-Film?
Why Do I Appreciate the Fan-Film?
I’ve expanded this blog a lot over the past few months and one of the first features I introduced besides these blog posts and of course the reviews was Superhero Shorts, where I feature a superhero themed short film, which so far has always been a fan-film, and interview the creator. It’s honestly been a lot more work than it may seem, as YouTube is frought with a lot of copycat uploads so it’s not always easy to find the original if it even exists on YouTube itself. And on top of that, it’s not exactly the most popular feature on this site. Sure, there have been a couple breakout articles, such as the Hillywood show which got a big bump when they graciously plugged it on their own very popular Facebook page, but I doubt any of their fans stuck around to read any of my other articles. And Garrett Gilchrist’s interview about his unfinished She-Hulk movie, which he also graciously plugged it on his Tumblr page, though fans of She-Hulk are actually more likely to stick around on top of the fact that it is currently my favorite interview I’ve done so far. But if it’s hard to do, and not that popular, then why continue to do it?
Why doesn’t DC make a theatrical animated movie?
Aside from a couple of their big movies like the original Superman, and some of the Batman movies, DC has yet to really capitalize on their cast of characters in the theaters. While Marvel has had a handful of bad movies, they haven’t had many unsuccessful movies. DC however has had many flops. From Steel to Catwoman to Supergirl to Superman 3 & 4 to recent disappointments like Green Lantern and the Spirit, DC hasn’t had the best of luck with their secondary characters. But one thing that DC has going for it that fewer people know about is their amazing animation department. For the past several years, DC Animation has been cranking out some fantastic direct-to-DVD animated movies led by the talented Bruce Timm who was famously behind Batman: The Animated Series. The quality of these movies is generally very high, with great animation, great stories, and great voice acting. But the question is, why don’t they make one into a theatrical feature film?
Brief hiatus
I have to take a brief hiatus this week because I am without internet this week. I will still be watching movies and will have lots of stuff ready for my return.
First Impressions: A Look at the Lammys Best Horror/Sci-Fi
First off, I’m sorry I don’t have another Superhero Shorts for you today. I really enjoy this feature, but the part I enjoy most is the interviews. And unfortunately, I can’t write both halves of the interview so I’m beholden to the filmmakers who are willing to give me the time to answer my silly little questions. I do have a couple in the works where I’m just waiting on their response, and I’m always on the lookout for fan films new and old to try and contact. If you know of any that I haven’t featured yet, please let me know, especially if you have any contact information. So instead, since the Large Association of Movie Blogs is right at the start of the voting process for their Lammy awards, I thought I’d take a page out of Fogs’ Movie Reviews and take a closer look at all the blogs nominated for Best Horror or Sci-Fi blog, which includes this site.
A Big Thanks, and Upcoming Lamb News
I’ve got to start out by saying a great big thank you to all of my readers and Lamb members. As most of you know, or could have figured out by the large poster that was hanging out in the sidebar for a while, the Large Association of Movie Blogs aka Lamb has been holding their yearly awards. And from over 1,200 members, and probably well over a hundred genre blogs, I made it through to the nominations stage to be eligible for the best Sci-Fi or Horror blog. I really appreciate the votes of confidence and while I think it’ll be a tough challenge to nab the top spot, it feels really good to make it this far. Voting starts this weekend, be sure to keep an eye out and keep me in mind. Now, I was going to make a blog post about the parallels of mutant discrimination in the movies and how it can relate to almost any minority group, I’m in too good a mood for such a heavy subject. Instead, I’m moving that topic into my review for X-Men: The Last Stand, which is where it has the most relevance anyway. Then, I was going to compare the different actors that played the same mutants across different movies, but it turned into mostly First Class vs. the X-Men trilogy, and then it became late so instead I’ll just be writing a short post.
Avengers Redux, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Try the Theater
It may sound odd, but I haven’t been to a theater in about four years. The last movie I remember seeing was Wall*E, back when Jena was too young to really enjoy or remember it, shortly afterwards we ran into some major money troubles and have only recently gotten to the point where I think we’ve just about fully recovered. I was originally going to title this blog “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Theater” so that should give you a little preview of how things went. We went down to the local AMC twelve screen, the only theater in our relatively small midwest town outside of a single screen theater that shows mostly independent movies so we could watch the Avengers.
My history with comic books
It may seem odd for someone to start up a site about superhero movies without having a strong connection to comic books. The two things go hand in hand as the superhero genre started with comic books, almost all superhero films are adapted from comic books, and those that aren’t often become comic books after the fact. But I’ve said from the beginning that I’m not a huge comic book fan, I haven’t read dozens of X-men or Superman comics. In fact I can count the number of comics of either of those two that I’ve read on one hand. But that’s not to say I’ve never read any comic books. I’ve read a few, I own a few, and here is where you can get pretty much my entire experience with comics.
How I feel about spoilers
There’s not a whole lot that can really be contentious in a review situation. There can be disagreements on how good one movie or another is, but in the end, it’s all personal opinion and everyone is entitled to have their own opinion of a movie whether it’s good or bad. But there is one other thing that some reviews include that many people complain should not be included in a review as it may “ruin” the entire moviegoing experience and that my friend, is the spoiler. A twist, a death, a revelation, a relationship, a sled, they can all fall into the category of a spoiler in someone’s eye, but does it really hurt if a review includes a spoiler? If you found out, and I haven’t seen the movie yet or read any spoiler-filled reviews so this is completely made up, if you found out that in The Avengers that Black Widow died in the movie before seeing it how would it really impact your viewing of the movie? I think I would still enjoy the movie just as much if I had gone in ignorant.
DC Showcase Short Films
DC Showcase
I absolutely love animation, so when I saw a blogathon about animated short films over at Pussy Goes Grrr I knew I wanted to participate. And I didn’t want to just use an installment of my Superhero Shorts for it. So instead I decided to search out all the recent DC Showcase short films that have been packaged with various DC movies. There have been five of them so far, but as the blogathon limits it to a total hour of animation, I eliminated the longest one. Read below for my short reviews for Catwoman, The Spectre, Jonah Hex, and Green Arrow.
Five by Five? Try Seven by Seven
First off, I’d like to say thanks to FilmsRruss for picking me along with six other blogs to share with his readers in the blog meme “7×7 link award”. I apologize to him in advance if this post comes off as insincere, but I just don’t look at these chain letter awards the same way I used to. I honestly do appreciate the fact that another blog likes this one enough to share it with their readers, but I don’t buy into the whole “award” mentality that it’s supposed to give off. That said, I decided to not just follow along with the basics of it and decided to go on a blog journey. Everyone who got the award would mention who gave it to them, so I went backwards through the links to see if I could get to the origin of this award.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 