Why I Don’t Rate Movies
First off, the title of this post is a little bit of a lie. I am on Letterboxd where I keep track of all the movies that I watch, both superhero and non-superhero, and on that site I do rate them on their scale of 5 stars, including half stars. But for the reviews that I write for this site, I don’t include any ratings on any sort of scale. It’s up to the reader to determine what I thought about the movie based on the words rather than a bite-sized bit of info at the beginning or the end of the review. There are quite a few reasons why I do this actually, and it’s not just to try and force people to actually read the review rather than just looking at the rating to see what I thought of a particular film.
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I, Frankenstein
I, Frankenstein 2014
I have decided that I am close enough to the end that I will finish seeing all of the 2014 films on my list before doing my full, written year-in-review including a top 10 list as I have only 3 movies left to watch and hope to knock at least 2 of them out this weekend. But this film I have been almost dreading ever since it came out back in January. I believe it has missed hitting many worst-of-the-year lists (which I haven’t been reading) merely because it has been forgotten about in favor of more recent and/or more high profile disasters and cannon fodder. But I am a fan of Underworld and I liked many of the actors that signed up for this film including Bill Nighy, Aaron Eckhart, and Miranda Otto. Unfortunately, the biggest mistake this film makes is that it is essentially a mid budget B-movie that thinks it’s a big budget serious action movie. I can’t say that this was a very good movie at all, the action was mediocre, there was too much exposition, the effects were overly flashy and not very good, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t have a lot of fun watching this film. Admittedly most of that fun was through making jokes at the film’s expense on Twitter, but fun was had nonetheless.
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WordPress Fireworks: 2014 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here's an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 200,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 9 days for that many people to see it.
Filmwhys #44 All About Eve and Batman Returns
Episode 44 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Max Covill from Impassioned Cinema who asks me why I haven’t seen the classic Best Picture Winner All About Eve which also had the most Oscar Nominations ever until Titanic tied it and the most nominations for actresses. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen the sequel to Tim Burton’s Batman which focused more on the villains and was set at Christmas, Batman Returns.
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Hercules
Hercules 2014
I was initially unsure of whether to include this film as Hercules comes from classic Greek mythology and I was unfamiliar with the actual comic that inspired it. But after seeing the film, it really is quite obvious that it’s not directly inspired by the original myths and legends of the hero, but instead is one step removed and is adapted from a comic book from Radical Publishing called Hercules: The Thracian Wars which takes the air out of Hercules’s legend and places him as a mercenary with a storyteller trumping up his exploits. When this film came out, I generally heard negative reviews about it which made me less likely to see it, though many noted the film’s mis-marketing as a factor which sold the film with Hercules being the legend that he is known for. In fact, nearly all of the opening few minutes of the movie which detail his fantastic exploits showed up in the trailer. But, as I wasn’t deluded by the trailers and knew what I was going in for, I appreciated the film’s exploration of the difference between myth and reality. What I didn’t fully buy into was when the film started buying into its own sense of mythical reality towards the end.
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What I’ve Learned Watching Superhero Movies for 3 Years
This marks the third anniversary of when I started Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights and in that time I’ve seen a whole lot of superhero movies and comic book movies. You can learn a lot about a particular niche of film when you start delving deeply enough into it. While I was aware even when I started this site that superhero movies were currently on the rise, even back at the tail end of 2011 I had no idea that they were going to reach the heights that they are at now, and there shows no signs that they are slowing down. All of the major players have their own superhero cut of the market that they can claim as their own with the only exception being Paramount Pictures which has had their hands in Marvel properties, but the closest thing they can claim are the Transformers and G.I. Joe properties which are based on toys and cartoons that have had comics as well. But that’s beside the point, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some of the things that I’ve learned over the past three years.
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Filmwhys Extra #20 2014 in review
Welcome back to another episode of Filmwhys Extra. Episode 20 in fact, where my guest is Andrew Robinson from gman Reviews. We wrap up 2014 by discussing the past year’s worth of superhero and comic book films, including the direct to home video animated releases from Marvel and DC, some smaller indie releases, and Andrew stretches the definition of “superhero” for his top 10 of the year. We also manage to go on quite a few tangents before we even get to any of this year’s releases but it’s a fun conversation and I hope you enjoy listening as much as much as I enjoyed chatting.
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Real Heroes
Real Heroes 2014
I’m wrapping up the year by trying to finish up the last of the superhero and comic book based films that have come out throughout this year. I only have a few left to go and it’s quite possible that I can watch every superhero and comic book film that I know of before the year’s end. This is one that I only recently heard about thanks to the folks over at Superhero Speak who talked to the writer/director Keith Hartman about his little indie film that takes a look at a superhero reality show along the lines of the Real World. I expected it to be a bit dated as reality shows have spread out a lot farther than the old “putting people in a house to see how they react with each other” style made famous by MTV, that and there are many different web series out there that have tried their hands and some type of reality superhero show. But when I actually checked it out, I thought it ended up being pretty hilarious. It had a nice mix of reality show tropes mixed with a superhero spin as well as the self-involved LA actor types, only with superhero costumes. If you want to check it out for yourself, you can see the trailer and find info on where you can watch it at the movie’s website.
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Filmwhys #43 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Elf-Man
Episode #43 of The Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where it’s close to the holiday season so I thought it was a perfect time to bring in a couple Christmas-related films. It also seems like I’m getting into a habit of a deadline creep where this show gets posted later and later in the week where it started getting posted on Saturdays, then Sundays, then Mondays, and the last two episodes haven’t come out until Tuesday. I’ll do my best next week to have this posted actually on Monday and I’ll be discussing the year in superhero films with a guest or two. But this week, my guest is Nick Jobe from Your Face! who asks me why I haven’t seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, one of Shane Black’s best films since the original Lethal Weapon that brought Robert Downey Jr. back on the map before he became Iron Man and of course since it is a Shane Black film it does take place during Christmas. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen Elf-Man, the one and only true Christmas superhero movie where Wee-Man becomes a Christmas related superhero in a very schlocky straight-to-home-video movie.
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This Week in Superhero TV 12/9 – 12/12
A bit of a short week for you this time around, though I do have a bonus review of last week’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as I forgot to watch it last week. Which is a shame because I have been enjoying the second season of this show quite a bit, it just slipped my mind. It’s time for the last 3 mid-season finales, something that I feel like is a completely artificial practice that has popped up in the past 5 years or so. Some days I think that the networks should move towards a more cable-like season formula where the seasons are shorter, but they aren’t in blocks of a year. In fact, it could essentially still be like what it is now, but it would actually be considered two seasons, the fall season and the spring season. But whatever, it’s too ingrained in the networks’ marketing at this point for them to try and shake things up. But anyway, mid-season finales for everyone! Or at least, for Flash, S.H.I.E.L.D, and Constantine.
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