Superhero Shorts: Bullock the Bruiser
It’s been a while but I’m back with another edition of Superhero Shorts, where I take a look at a superhero or comic book short film or fan film and briefly talk with someone involved with the film. This time around I’m taking a look at an original superhero short film called Bullock the Bruiser that clocks in at about 40 minutes, which is pretty long for a typical short film though it’s just shy of my criteria for a feature length film at 45 minutes. And I was able to ask a few questions of the producer, writer, and director of the film Marcelo Mayen. And while I’m not able to share the short in full, you can watch the trailer for the short just below. And if you would like to follow the short, you can find it on Facebook, Instagram, and IMDB.
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Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom
Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom 2016
I’ve never been a huge HP Lovecraft fan, essentially the only things I know about his writing are that it involves a lot of madness and tentacle creatures and gave some inspiration to the first Hellboy movie and In the Mouth of Madness. It seemed quite unusual that these kinds of stories would translate to a comic book made for kids and that comic would then be turned into an animated movie complete with the voice of Hellboy in a small role even. When I initially saw the box art for the film several months ago, I dismissed it as one of those cheap knock-off movies that tend to mimic a popular movie from a few years earlier like Karate Panda or Dragon Flight School. And to a certain extent, that’s exactly what this is only there’s not really any movie that it’s trying to cash in on, it’s just a lower budget animated film that managed to get a few medium profile actors to lend their voices. It wasn’t a horrible experience by any means, but there also wasn’t much enjoyment to be had outside of a couple brief laughs.
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Filmwhys #84 Nausicaa and 30 Days of Night
Episode 84 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Non Wels from the Joy Sandwich Podcast who asks me why I hadn’t seen Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the first feature length film from the mind of Hiyao Miyazaki that basically became the start of Studio Ghibli. And in return, I ask him why he hadn’t seen 30 Days of Night, the vampire movie set in the Northernmost town in Alaska where vampires savage the town for an entire month.
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Power Rangers
Power Rangers 2017
I’m already back to the theaters this week, though I’m not sure if I’ll be able to see the indie film Wilson any time soon, but I took my wife and daughter to see this film based on the trailers and the box office and the few positive reactions I noticed this weekend so far. Last year I revisited both the original Power Rangers Movie as well as the second movie Turbo and while I had watched the first season or two of the show back when it aired, those did not hold up for me at all. This film did a much better job of updating this story and these characters by taking them more seriously, but not so seriously that everything became extremely grim-dark. It does feel a little bit like it’s trying to copy the Marvel formula, but considering how well that has worked for Marvel, it’s not that bad of an idea. And for myself, and my family, it worked.
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FTMN Quickie/Almost Super: P.U.N.K.S.
Almost Super: P.U.N.K.S. 1999
I have gone back and forth on whether or not to write something about this film here on this site, but since I had gone almost two weeks without writing anything here, I figured I might as well get something out of the time I spent watching this movie. Since this is a niche movie site, I have certain criteria on what films I review for this site, but the definition of “superhero movie” is nebulous at best so sometimes a short description of a movie sounds like it could fit this site, but when I watch it, it actually doesn’t. I was trying to start watching some kids movies based on a Twitter poll I posted a week or so ago gauging what I should watch next for this site, and P.U.N.K.S. is on YouTube so that’s what I went for. Needless to say, it’s a pretty bad film even if it does have the likes of Randy Quaid, Henry Winkler, and a young Jessica Alba.
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My Life in Film pt 1
Recently a movie meme was hitting the rounds on Facebook and Twitter, I’ve seen it as both My Life in Film or #ThisIsMyFilm. The basics is that you choose your favorite movie from each year starting with the year you were born. Some years are harder than others, and doing the list myself it made me realize how few movies I had seen that were released in certain years in the early 80’s. And since I haven’t been posting much here recently, I thought I would expand my list and also include my favorite superhero or comic book movie from each year, aside from those few years where my favorite was a superhero movie. And FYI, the release dates are according to Letterboxd as that’s what I’m using to browse what films I’ve listed as having seen in each year. Thanks to Le0pard13 for the inspiration to turn this into a blog post. And despite not being as old as him, I’ve still decided to split this up into two blog posts. This one starts off with the year I was born and goes through the year I graduated high school.
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Lightspeed
Lightspeed 2006
I think it’s kind of funny that lately I’ve been visiting my local library a bit more often and I will keep an eye out for movies that might be on my list that I haven’t reviewed yet. This is one that I noticed, but for a long while decided against picking it up, but I would still keep checking on it from time to time and I noticed that just about every other time I would go there, this movie would be checked out. The only thing I really knew about it was that it was yet another one of those Stan Lee original movies that aren’t affiliated with Marvel, along with the likes of Mosaic, the Condor, and Mighty 7. The only difference is that this one is actually a live action movie that was made for the Sci-Fi channel despite the cover art character who looks like a CGI character with way more muscles than Jason Connery. It totally feels like a very low budget TV movie that essentially creates a middle aged Flash in order to fight the Lizard except he’s the Python. It was pretty poor on all levels, from characters to plot to special effects.
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Logan
Logan 2017
It’s been a long 17 years since I first saw Hugh Jackman on screen playing Logan aka Wolverine. In those 17 years I graduated college, got married, had a kid, moved almost a dozen times, and every couple of years or so there would be another X-Men movie where I would get the chance to see Hugh Jackman play the role once again. There has been a lot of fluctuation in the cast of these films, but there has been one constant, one actor you could count on to at the very least give a two word cameo. The quality of the films fluctuated quite a bit but one thing never seemed to waver: Jackman’s commitment to the role and his performance. The Last Stand or X-Men Origins: Wolverine are not great movies, but Jackman still gives a great performance and embodies what we have come to think of as the definitive Wolverine in spite of comic purists who may complain about his 6 foot stature vs comics Wolverine’s much shorter height. It’s so great that he was able to make his (supposed) last role as the character such an unforgettable one where he gets one hundred percent of the spotlight and makes Wolverine feel like the well rounded character that he is.
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Graphic Horror: Bad Kids Go To Hell
Bad Kids Go To Hell 2012
In yet another instance where I happen across a movie that I wasn’t aware of, this was brought to my attention due to a pseudo-sequel which came out earlier this year called Bad Kids of Crestview Academy which I will be watching at some point in the near future. But this was an odd concept of a horror comedy version of the Breakfast Club. It even has Judd Nelson in a small role as the principal or headmaster, whatever his title is. The movie was co-written by the original comic book author Matt Spradlin. Even though they added in an extra member to this horror Breakfast Club, it didn’t help to add much interest, and while it did get a few big laughs out of me, overall it wasn’t that interesting of a film. Either as a horror, mystery, or comedy.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 