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.
Follow Friday: Radiator Heaven
Welcome to another edition of Follow Friday where each week I feature and interview a fellow blogger and follow their suggestion to another blog to feature next week. I prefer this over a blogroll because it gives each blog their own time to shine, plus I personally rarely click on blogrolls so why would I expect you to? Not only that, but I get the chance to check out some great blogs I might not have found otherwise found, talk to some great people, and share the conversation with you. So this week I was directed by Brent Allard over at Criminal Movies to check out JD’s site Radiator Heaven.
X2: X-Men United
X2: X-Men United 2003
I’ve almost finished revisiting all of the X-Men movies and tonight I watched what many consider the strongest out of all of them. It has more characters, a bigger conflict, and the whole enemy of my enemy is my friend plotline. And not only are there more characters, most of the characters are stronger than in the first X-Men and there are fewer weak characters. Where X-Men was the movie that made everyone take notice of the superhero movie again, X2 was the movie that made everyone take superhero movies seriously. At least for a little while. I do have to mention that for whatever reason, the movie didn’t fully hold my interest for the duration. I felt the need to pause it a couple times to check on other things. It’s not a huge negative against the movie because I can be easily distracted, but it is a slight negative. There is still a lot of great things in this movie.
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.
X-Men
X-Men 2000
While it seemed like a good idea at the time to watch all five of the X-Men movies back to back, coming around to watching the first one made me realize that they’re better suited as being treated as separate entities. When you watch them close together, the continuity changes are quite glaring. Aside from that, this movie generally holds up and I can totally see how this one movie really paved the way for the previous generation of superhero movies. I say previous in the hope that the recent Avengers movie, prequels and sequels, as well as Nolan’s Batman movies, lead into the current generation of superhero movies. But X-Men still stands as a landmark in superhero movies.
FTMN Poll: Who’s your favorite X-Men villain?
Last week I asked what your favorite X-Men was, this time around I’m asking who your favorite villain is? One great thing about the X-Men is that the villains are often just as interesting and complex as the X-Men themselves. Many times even becoming allies during different periods of time. Rather than just being evil for evil’s sake, though there are a few of those in there too, it’s their different ideologies that put them at odds with the X-Men. I pulled this list together mostly from my memory of the 90’s cartoon and the movies, if I left any biggies out please leave a comment telling me about them. Which one is your favorite? The all-powerful Apocalypse? The mysterious Mystique? Or one of the many government officials working to pass laws and public favor against mutants in general? Vote! Leave a comment! You know the drill. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2009
I continue on my trek through the X-Men movies in a possibly unorthodox manner moving on to what I believe would actually be the next chronological movie. Even though it starts well before First Class, the main portion of the movie takes place sometime before the X-Men trilogy but after First Class, the intention was probably to have it be around 1979 due to the finale being set in Three Mile Island, though it’s fairly vague in its time period, without any obvious 80’s or 90’s fashions. I have had it on bluray for a while now, though I haven’t watched it since I bought it over a couple years ago. I think this is generally the least liked X-Men film alongside the Last Stand. And while I could see a few general annoyances, I still enjoyed the movie a lot.
Superhero Shorts: How It Should Have Ended
Superhero Shorts: How it Should Have Ended
Welcome to this week’s edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a different superhero themed short film and get the creator of the film to answer a few interview questions. This week I get the chance to feature my first animated short rather than a live action one, and since I’ve just started watching the X-Men movies, I thought it would be perfect to feature How X-Men: First Class Should Have Ended, which you can watch right below, or on their website, along with tons of other parodies of recent and classic movies.
Follow Friday: Criminal Movies
Welcome to another edition of Follow Friday where each week I feature and interview a fellow blogger and follow their suggestion to another blog to feature next week. I prefer this over a blogroll because it gives each blog their own time to shine, plus I personally rarely click on blogrolls so why would I expect you to? Not only that, but I get the chance to check out some great blogs I might not have found otherwise found, talk to some great people, and share the conversation with you. So this week I was directed by M over at The Smoking Pen to check out a fellow niche blogger that focuses on movies about crime and the anti-hero, Criminal Movies
X-Men: First Class
X-Men: First Class 2011
X-Men: First Class is an interesting idea for a movie. It’s not exactly a prequel since it eschews several elements of the sequels that came before it, but it’s not exactly an entire reboot either because it pulls several parts of its history and future directly from the other movies. It was another late movie for me, something I need to stop doing so much. It’s also one of the rare instances that I actually rented the movie on bluray. I love getting the chance to bust out the bluray player, but I tend to watch most movies either streaming or on the computer’s DVD player, it’s all hooked up to the same monitor though. First Class looked fantastic, even though it did have a few slight hiccoughs due to it being a rental. I guess blurays are scratch resistant, but not completely scratch-proof. It’s a great place to jump into the current continuity of X-Men.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 