Sparks
Sparks 2014
This is a movie that completely escaped my attention as it made the festival rounds last year and it even played near me in Chicago last April, but I did notice it when it came out on DVD as it appeared at my local Wal-Mart. Since it was a lower budget indie movie I had to look farther into it and contacted the writer/director and got to interview William Katt who is the executive producer and plays the main villain in the movie Matanza which you can view here. But aside from that, it is another different take on the superhero movie. It’s a film noir thriller set in the 20’s & 40’s following the story of Ian Sparks and his descent into the underbelly of the superhero culture. There’s plenty of twists and turns and things don’t turn out quite the way one might expect. It has a bit of a slow start, but once the action starts happening it goes on right through the end.
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Filmwhys Extra #7 Sparks
Filmwhys Extra #7 Sparks
Welcome back to another episode of Filmwhys Raw, I mean Filmwhys Extra. I do plan on bringing back a regular episode soon, but in the meantime I was privileged to have the chance to talk with William Katt who is probably best known as the lead in the 80’s superhero TV show The Greatest American Hero and is now working with writer/director Christopher Folino on his recent film Sparks: The Origin of Ian Sparks which is currently out on DVD, and my review of the movie will be posted soon.
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The 100 Essential Superhero Movies project needs you!
Just after finishing up my last blogathon this past March, I stumbled upon an idea that I really wanted to do for yet another blogathon here at Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights. When I first started this site I had a list of 100 theatrically released superhero movies that I wanted to cover in that first year, and while I did reach my goal of watching and reviewing 100 movies, I didn’t stick to that list because there were some other direct-to-DVD releases that I wanted to watch and in many cases they are just as good and often better than the theatrically released ones. So what I wanted to do was to come up with a list of 100 superhero movies that are essential viewing for a superhero fan up through the end of 2013. This isn’t just a list of the 100 best superhero movies because that might be an easier list to come up with, but these are 100 movies that are important to the category of superhero movies as a whole. Some of the choices are quite easy to make, but I’m down to the last 20 movies and this is where I need your help.
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Graphic Horror: Afflicted
Graphic Horror: Afflicted 2014
Even though my blogathon is over, I like the tag “Graphic Horror” enough that I’ll be keeping it and using it right alongside “Almost Super” for horror movies that aren’t quite superhero movies, even if they are based on graphic novels and therefore included in my big list of superhero and comic book movies. When I saw the trailer and early promotional tweets about this movie I was very interested. It was a found footage movie very similar in style to Chronicle only with a horror twist to it, where these two friends go on a world trip and one of them catches something that starts to make him sick, but then gives him superpowers before taking a much darker turn. There was another element to the story that the PR wanted to keep a secret, but I didn’t go digging into what it was until they decided it wasn’t that big of a secret to keep once it hit its wide release and I found out that the superpowers were brought on because he is becoming a vampire. This actually made me a little bit more interested in the movie because I’m always a fan of vampire movies and I thought this would do for vampire movies that Chronicle did for superhero movies and I think I was right.
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TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #17
TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week 17
Episode: Turn, Turn, Turn
Original airdate: 4-8-14
Once again, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has a tie-in with a currently released Marvel movie, and once again I was able to catch it so I was aware of the connections, and this time around it’s not just the fact that they’re cleaning up in the same location that the movie’s climax took place in. This time around the movie changes everything and going into the episode with that knowledge actually takes away some of the tension that the show tries to present. There’s also a few extra references, like knowing the fate of Nick Fury, the allegiance of Agent Sitwell, and who is the driving force behind the Clairvoyant whose identity goes through plenty of twists and turns in this episode and leaves you guessing until the very end. Things are changing and this episode brings a major shake-up which the show really needed. Fair warning: spoilers abound.
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Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Captain America: The Winter Soldier 2014
This year is reminding myself of how much different the superhero movie schedule is compared to last year when there were about a dozen movies packed between the end of May and the middle of August, while this year has the movies much more spread out closer to one every month with Captain America kicking off the more traditional superhero fare as early as April (as opposed to the few comic book movies like 300 & I, Frankenstein and the few movies with a less direct superhero connection like Robocop and the Lego Movie) and yet this is also more of a far cry from a traditional superhero plot and instead feels much more like a conspiracy thriller along the lines of a dozen or so great movies whose names I can’t recall at the moment. There’s also a bit more of Captain America adjusting to life in the 21st century which I have been wanting to see ever since the first movie. In short, I loved every minute of it. Also, as a warning, I don’t always tread lightly around spoilers, though most of the spoilers I already knew or assumed before seeing the movie.
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Filmwhys Raw #6 Play Ball!
Episode 6 of Filmwhys Raw where my guests are John LaRue from The Droid You’re Looking For and Todd Leibenow from Forgotten Films, and this was my chance to participate in Todd’s blogathon going on right now, the Big League Blogathon and since it was difficult to fit a baseball movie into the focus of my superhero site, I decided that we would spend this podcast talking about any and all things related to baseball in the movies.
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Superhero Shorts: Batman Evolution
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a superhero themed short film and ask a few questions of the creator. This time around I have the fun short Batman Evolution where Eric Gable used his martial arts training and love of both the classic and modern styles of Batman to create a short that shows how Batman changed from the comedic and campy Adam West style Batman to the grittier modern Batman started by Tim Burton and taken even further by Christopher Nolan all while using authentic Ninjutsu techniques during the fight choreography. As always, you can watch the video below or you can visit their YouTube channel.
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TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #16
TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week 16
episode: The End of the Beginning
original airdate: 4-1-2014
Thankfully we’ve seen the last multi-week hiatus for this show and it will now be running straight through till the finale and things finally seem to be ramping up to full speed with yet another tie-in episode to a current release movie. Unfortunately, unlike the Thor crossover and like most of this country, I have yet to see the new Captain America movie which I have heard from those who have seen it that there are events happening in some of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Facilities at the same time that the show is taking place. But I can say that it doesn’t take much away from the episode. This episode finally brings out the clairvoyant, and while I won’t spoil who it is, I will say that I was right when I thought it would end up being a woman. There’s a few questions answered, still several left unanswered, and all wrapped in a nice mix of action, drama, and tension.
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Filmwhys #27 The Simpsons and Jack of All Trades
Welcome to another episode of Filmwhys, also known as the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where things didn’t go quite as planned with my scheduling but I was glad to put this show up earlier than planned where my guest is Nick Jobe from Your Face! who asks me why I haven’t seen Jack of All Trades, a short lived comedy with groovy Bruce Campbell as a revolutionary spy/hero and in return I ask him the question that has been burning in my head ever since I found out that he had never seen the Simpsons, my all time favorite television show where I have seen nearly every episode, and all the classics dozens of times and often bring up episodes which have made me familiar with several of the movies I’ve seen on this podcast for the first time.
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