Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal 1981
You may remember that one friend you had when you were younger, you know the one who had the hidden stash of Playboys and knew how to get alcohol and cigarettes. Or the one who had the cool dad who let him and his friends watch whatever they wanted from their VHS library or have the run of the TV which also happened to have HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax. Or maybe you were that kid and your friends would come over to your house. I don’t remember those friends very clearly anymore, but I do remember visiting one of those friends when I was somewhere around early middle school, maybe 5th grade and we watched Heavy Metal because we weren’t supposed to be watching it. I remember when I was younger I had a love of darker animation like Secret of N.I.H.M, the Last Unicorn, and The Mouse and his Child, but the days where I would discover Liquid Television, Vampire Hunter D, and Akira were still several years away, though Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards was also right around this time even if I don’t remember if it came first or not. So this was unlike anything I had ever seen before and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Over twenty years later I’ve finally gotten around to revisiting it and unfortunately it’s not everything that I remember back when I was 12 or so.
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Hero at Large
Hero at Large 1980
This was one of the first obscure movies that I wanted to watch during the first year of this site since it did have a theatrical release here in the United States even though I had never previously heard of it before. I wasn’t exactly sure what to think of it as the cover art featured John Ritter with his feet in a giant washbasin and his costume hung up in the background. What I got was a really heartwarming comedy about a struggling actor who wants to make a real difference. It’s rather far-fetched at times, but Ritter’s Three’s Company era charm really won me over even as he’s going after his across-the-hall neighbor with an almost stalker-level abandon. It also had an overwhelmingly late 70’s feel to it with some of the fashions and overall look to it, which makes sense as it did come out right at the beginning of the new decade in 1980. There was also one brief nod to Superman which had come out to great acclaim just two years prior.
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Is Warner Bros. Relying Too Heavily on Batman?
I’ve been meaning to write on this topic for quite a while now, but since recently it came out in the news that next year’s Batman vs. Superman is supposedly even less a sequel to Man of Steel than we initially suspected and is much more a Batman story. But even if you discount the whole Batman vs. Superman issue, there’s still the matter of what they’re doing with their home video releases. This year alone, Warner Bros. have released seven straight-to-video animated movies and one more that’s due before the year’s out. Every single one of them features Batman in some way, shape, or form, and half of them have him specifically in the title of the film as the main character. You have to go back four years to 2011 to find a year where Batman made up less than half of that year’s line-up, having only Batman: Year One released alongside the other actually non-Batman titles All Star Superman, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, and the live action Green Lantern.
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Thursday Movie Picks: Train Scenes
There’s been a couple times in the past where I joined in this weekly discussion topic started by Wandering Through the Shelves where there’s a new topic for each participating site to choose three movies and the occasional honorable mentions that fit within the theme of the week. This week’s theme is Train Movies, but as I can only think of a single train movie that fits in this site’s focus, I decided to narrow it just a bit and go for train scenes. It seems like every other superhero has at least one moment where they need to stop a train for one reason or another, but here’s my top three, unranked.
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The Incredible Hulk Returns
The Incredible Hulk Returns 1988
It’s time to finally finish these Incredible Hulk movies as I end with the first one to come after the end of the TV series. I don’t see myself going all the way back to the original pilots for the show as they feel more like they should be considered pilots rather than TV movies, though I may visit them sometime down the line when I run out of other films to watch. But that’s beside the point, I’m here to talk about this film which was also intended to be a spinoff pilot for a potential Thor series, like the Trial of the Incredible Hulk was intended to be a spinoff pilor for a potential Daredevil series. So once again, this movie focused as much if not more on the origin of their version of Thor than they do on Banner and the Hulk. Though it’s interesting that this was the only TV movie that brought back the character of McGee, the reporter who was apparently a big part of the series and this is his only appearance in these TV films. In fact, this was his last major acting appearance. As far as the quality goes, I would say that it falls somewhere in between the other two, it has a lot of fun moments with Thor, but it also doesn’t really go anywhere by the end.
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Filmwhys #57 Asphalt and the Lone Ranger
Episode #57 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Fritzi Kramer from Movies Silently who asks me why I hadn’t seen the 1929 German silent film Asphalt, one of the last silent films from Germany before sound films took over. And in return, I ask her why she hadn’t seen the 1956 version of the Lone Ranger which brought the adventures of the television series to the big screen for the first time in an adventure that surprisingly had some small similarities to the recent Johnny Depp movie.
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The Trial of the Incredible Hulk
The Trial of the Incredible Hulk 1989
My first real exposure to the 1970’s Incredible Hulk series was the final film the Death of the Incredible Hulk, so I decided that I would go ahead and continue the trend by watching the three films that followed the series in the reverse order. This was the second of those films and was originally intended to introduce Daredevil as a possible series in its own right. I find it interesting how television was handled differently back then, there are many series that initially started out as a stand alone pilot movie, and if the movie was successful, then it would launch into production to air the next year give or take. It’s also worth noting that while I didn’t care for the Death of the Incredible Hulk at all, I generally enjoyed this film. There was a lot more done with its television budget in terms of sets and cinematography, and the characters felt more fleshed out. There were still plenty of gaping plot holes and sub par special effects, but they were integrated into the story much better.
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September Update, stats, and the like
It feels like it’s been quite a while since I’ve gone and done just a regular blog-style post where I share my thoughts on where the site is, where it’s been, and where it’s going. I’ll also share a few stats from August which I totally didn’t steal from another blogger who I follow but can’t remember but when I do remember I will totally give them a link right here. I find it fascinating how things can change over time. I’m closing in on four years writing on this site and what it is now is pretty different from what it was three years ago even though I’m still watching and reviewing superhero and comic book movies as the one constant.
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The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger 1956
The more I look into the history of the Lone Ranger, the more I question my decision to include the Lone Ranger in my list of comic book heroes but not Zorro. They’re both period heroes that hide their identity behind masks. Neither one have super powers, they only have their trained fighting abilities to help them out, they also have their calling cards, with Zorro’s slashed Z and the Lone Ranger’s silver bullets. Also, neither one were originally comic books; Zorro started out as a serialized pulp novel while the Lone Ranger began as a radio drama. The one thing I can fall back on is that while Zorro transitioned into films well before it made it into a full fledged comic book in the late 40’s, the Lone Ranger became a comic strip in the late 30’s which were collected into comic books in the 40’s and eventually included original stories all before its first feature length film in 1956. This came out near the end of the long running TV show and included the two main stars of the series. I’m not familiar with the show myself, but I would imagine that it follows a fairly similar format as this film does. For the most part, it was a fun enough film that didn’t have anything wrong with it per se, but neither did it ever stand out as a great film.
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Dr. Strange
Dr. Strange 1978
One thing that I find somewhat interesting when comparing this film to the Marvel animated film that came out almost 30 years later is that this film is almost always referred to by the abbreviation Dr. Strange. Meanwhile, the animated version and the upcoming live action film are both referred to in the long form Doctor Strange. I mainly reference this random fact because there is not really a whole lot to discuss when it comes to this failed pilot turned made-for-TV movie. It was produced a year after the successful Incredible Hulk pilot films which went to series and the limited series The Amazing Spider-Man. But when this pilot movie aired, it didn’t get nearly enough ratings for it to transition to a full series. Watching it now, the biggest problem seems like during the entire run time of the movie, nothing really happened. It’s extremely slow and very boring. I watched it over two sittings and found it hard to pay attention it was so dull, though I did happen to catch a little Easter egg where at one point Dr. Strange pulls out an Incredible Hulk comic. I would easily say that this is the worst movie based on a Marvel property that I’ve seen so far.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 