Filmwhys Extra #16 Batman in Animation
Episode 16 of Filmwhys Extra where my guest is DJ Valentine from Simplistic Reviews and we spend some time discussing Batman’s various appearances in all the different direct to home video DC Animated titles like Under the Red Hood, The Dark Knight Returns, and Gotham Knight. We talk about our favorites, the voice actors, the animation, and try to cover all of the titles that have included Batman in them aside from some of the earlier spinoff titles from the television series.
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Graphic Horror: Tales From the Crypt Season 1
Welcome to my look back at one of my favorite horror TV shows of all time, Tales From the Crypt. While I never actually saw the show while it aired on HBO, instead I caught up with it several years later when it was airing late at night on Fox. And while I imagine that little to none of the blood and gore was cut out of the show, I did miss out on the plenty of sex and language that’s present throughout the show. When the show came out, it was an interesting experiment that throughout its run showcased many notable directors and actors. And while it was still on a somewhat smaller budget, especially during the early seasons, it managed to showcase some great special effects, especially when it came to the animatronic Cryptkeeper that opened and closed every episode with John Kassir’s iconic voice.
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TV Nights: The Flash #1
The Flash Week 1
Episode: Pilot
Original Airdate: 10-7-14
Even though I haven’t been watching Arrow, this was the show that I’ve been most excited for this season. I’m a big fan of the Flash and everything I’ve heard about this show before now has been pretty positive. They want to take it in a more sci-fi direction, they have John Wesley Shipp as an homage to the 90’s short lived Flash series which I’m glad I caught up with a few months back, and they have Danielle Panabaker who I remember from when she was in Sky High. It has a lot more of what’s missing from the rest of the superhero TV shows this season: fun. Yes, there are some serious moments, but there is a lot more fun in this show than Gotham, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or even Arrow from what I gather. Those other shows do have their fun moments, and Flash has a serious side too, but this is the right way to do a superhero on TV right now. It’s the closest thing to a Marvel movie brought to the small screen, which is funny because it is a DC property.
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Filmwhys #38 Perfect Blue and the Dark Knight
Welcome back to another Batman themed episode, and one of only a small handful of times where I can arguably have the better argument of a movie that someone should have seen by now. Episode 38 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Elwood Jones from From the Depths of DVD Hell who asks me why I haven’t seen Perfect Blue, one of the older and well respected anime movies that was a strong influence on Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. And in return, I get to ask him why he hasn’t seen arguably the greatest superhero movie of all time, the Dark Knight.
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TV Nights: Gotham #3
Gotham Week 3
Episode: Balloonman
Original Airdate: 10-6-2014
This will be the last week where I post my thoughts on each episode on its own post. Starting next week, I’ll be discussing Gotham, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Flash, and eventually Constantine on a combined post covering all the shows until I decide to stop watching some of them. But Gotham has been a strange creature these past few weeks. Each time I watch the show, I do enjoy it quite a bit. But then after the credits roll and I begin to think about it a bit in order to write my thoughts on it, I start poking holes in it. Whether it’s the Penguin, or Fish Mooney, or Jim Gordon himself, there’s a lot of elements of the show that just rub me the wrong way as it pertains to the Batman mythos, at least the corner of the mythos that I know about. This was the first episode where I started poking holes in the show as I was watching it, but at this point there is still enough good in the show for me to latch onto to stick with it for a while longer at least.
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TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #2.2
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S2 Week 2
Episode: Heavy is the Head
Original Airdate: 9-30-2014
Once again, I’m a bit late with this week’s recap of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Depending on how much I have to say about Gotham next week, I will likely start combining my thoughts on the superhero TV shows of the week into a separate post, though the Flash and Constantine pilots will still get their own posts. Anyway, S.H.I.E.L.D. continues strong into its second season as things continue to have been shaken up since the events from the end of the first season. The team still has a lot of rebuilding to do, and it has to reassess their threats from various sources including Hydra, the government, and yet another group who we get to see a little bit more of in this episode.
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Graphic Horror: The Scribbler
The Scribbler 2014
For a couple years now I’ve avoided falling into the trap that nearly every other movie blog falls into during this time of year: reviewing horror movies for October. But since I started my Graphic Horror tag this past March, I thought it was due time to go further into the very shallow selection of horror movies and thrillers adapted from graphic novels and comic books. To kick things off, I’m taking a look at the movie that just released on VOD a couple weeks ago adapted from Daniel Schaffer’s comic the Scribbler. The story itself is a weird mix of Girl, Interrupted, Fight Club, and the Cell. Katie Cassidy in the lead role was one of the best parts of the movie, though I thought things got a little muddled in the direction. It also had a rather surprising and unusual turn towards the end that I will be discussing, so spoilers abound. Overall I enjoyed it, but the concept felt a bit stronger than the execution.
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Mercury Man
Mercury Man 2006
It’s October, so you know what that means? Horror movies! And this year I am going to be no different, but before I get to some horror and thriller movies based on some graphic novels, I used my free month of Netflix to check out a superhero film that I didn’t have on my list and hadn’t seen around anywhere else. It’s a Thai movie from 2006 that could easily be considered a Thai variation of a Wuxia movie which I don’t cover here, but still draws enough inspiration from Western superhero movies that I thought I had to include it. It also follows pretty closely to the standard superhero origin story, though with a lot more martial arts fight sequences rather than superpower showcases. Also, while the film is mostly in Thai with subtitles, when the villains are speaking to each other, they tend to speak in heavily accented English for reasons I never quite understood. It was different enough to be a refreshing change of pace compared to most of the superhero movies I see, but in the end it still followed the same basic story arc.
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TV Nights: Gotham #2
Gotham Week 2
Episode: Selina Kyle
Original Airdate: 9-29-2014
After getting through the first episode of Gotham I thought that it had some promise but ultimately suffered from Pilot Syndrome. It had too many plots, too many characters, and too many potential Batman villains that they introduced. But the potential was there, there are some great characters like Donal Logue’s Harvey Bullock, and the look of the show has a great feel to it. This second episode gave the show a chance to dial things back a little bit and bring things into a tighter focus. And while it was still drawing a few too many threads across Gotham, the overall quality of the episode was much better than the Pilot and I’m looking forward to seeing what Gotham will bring in the future.
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Superhero Shorts: Spawn: The Recall
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a superhero themed short film and as a few questions of its creator. This time around I’m talking with Michael Paris about his short film set in the Spawn universe with an original character as well as an appearance by Spawn himself. It’s a film that was two years in the making due to all the visual effects that Paris did all on his own. As usual, you can watch it below or you can check it out at the official website, and you can also check out Michael Paris’s earlier work at his own website.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 