Justice League: War
Justice League: War 2014
Taking a quick break from the non-superhero comic book adaptations I watched a couple brand new DC Animation releases: Justice League: War and JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time. My review of Trapped in Time will be up in a couple days, but first I’m going to talk a bit about Justice League: War which is the first Animated offering from DC’s New 52 timeline offering up yet another Justice League origin story, though I haven’t read any of the New 52. Fortunately, even though a lot of it is the same thing we’ve seen more than a couple times, it’s still a fun ride. After the very dark turn in DC Animation with Dark Knight Returns and The Flashpoint Paradox, War lightens things up quite a bit while not going all the way around to being too shallow. There’s still plenty of action to be had here and they sneak in a single swear word, but the blood is kept to a minimum. It was also a nice change of pace to add Shazam into the mix, as he’s not usually one of the regulars in these movies.
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A History of Violence
A History of Violence 2005
Slowly but surely I’m progressing through some non-superhero comic book adaptations this month. This is one area of movies that I cover for this site where I’m extremely unfamiliar with the movies. Before I started reviewing movies for this site, I had already seen dozens of superhero movies which I’ve been re-watching to review, but movies in this category are much fewer and further between. So when I picked A History of Violence to watch the other night, it was honestly based solely on the runtime, being about half an hour shorter than the other options I was considering. I knew absolutely nothing about this movie other than the title, the fact that it starred Viggo Mortenson, and it was based on a graphic novel. What I ended up watching was a very compelling story about a man trying to live a simple life only to have his dark past come back to haunt him, causing him to find a way to free himself of that past once and for all. This movie really surprised me in a lot of great ways, and I was never entirely sure of what direction it was going to take until the credits finally rolled. Movies like this are why I so greatly enjoy writing for this site.
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Superhero Shorts: Casey Jones the Movie
Welcome back my friends to another edition of Superhero Shorts, where I feature a superhero themed short film and ask a few questions to the creator. This time around I’m talking with Polaris Banks, who spent a few years creating a fan film centered around Casey Jones from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, only not quite the version from the children’s cartoons, but the version more true to the original comic books. As usual, you can watch the movie below, or you can visit the official website.
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Filmwhys #22 Before Sunrise and The Incredibles
It’s time once again for another episode of Filmwhys. This time around I’m joined by guest JD Duran from Insession Film as well as their podcast. He asks me why I haven’t seen Before Sunrise, Richard Linklater’s film that started a trilogy about a simple couple played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy who spend the night walking around Vienna and mainly just talking to each other about anything and everything. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen The Incredibles, Pixar’s love letter to superheroes combined with a smart script from also-director Brad Bird touching on much more common family issues like fitting in, a midlife crisis, and possible infidelity.
TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #12
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week 12
Episode: Seeds
Original Airdate: 1-14-2014
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has come off of its midseason hiatus and hit the ground running. Many of the biggest problems that I had with the first half of the season are no longer apparent in these past couple episodes. The team finally feels like a team, even Ward is getting much more personality to him, the mysteries are starting to actually build upon each other and bring things back from earlier episodes to form a larger whole. There’s still a bit of the freak of the week going on, but for the most part, I think it’s really getting into the swing of things and I’m looking forward to where this goes for the rest of this season and hopefully beyond. If you’ve been reading my recaps to this point, you already know I don’t shy away from spoilers, but there’s a couple possible surprises here if you haven’t watched the episode yet, so you’ve been warned.
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Filmwhys Raw #1
Welcome to a new format for Filmwhys that will hopefully make this podcast weekly once again. I will be alternating between the standard format of Filmwhys where I take a look at two movies with a single guest, and these Filmwhys Raw which might have two or three guests and it’s more of a free-flowing conversation with some movie-related topic to get us started. For this premier episode I’ve brought back the Vern from The Vern’s Video Vangaurd among other sites and we talk about “Making Time for Movies” while going off on a few other tangents including the origin of both of our online names. Click here to listen and as always, I appreciate any ratings or reviews you can give me and if you’re interested in being a guest on Filmwhys Raw, just let me know on Twitter. With generally less editing involved, these episodes will be going up shortly after recording, as this episode was recorded just a few hours ago before the Golden Globes. Now I just need to come up with a graphic for these episodes. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.
Timecop: The Berlin Decision
Timecop: The Berlin Decision 2003
I don’t think I even knew that there was a sequel to Timecop until I started looking up information about the Jean Claude Van Damme version. It’s not surprising because it came out several years later, direct to video, with none of the same stars. Instead of Van Damme, we’re given Jason Scott Lee as yet another foreign lead and Timecop. And the villain this time around is also a member of a group trying to eliminate the Timecop program as a member of the Society for Historical Accuracy, or something like that. There is a bit of a problem with plot clarity, but there is quite a bit more questioning of the possibilities of time travel, including the beginning and titular scene where Brandon Miller seeks to kill Hitler while timecop Ryan Chan stops him in order to preserve the timeline in spite of any possibly positive repurcussions. I also noticed a surprisingly improved fight choreography, as Van Damme is a noted martial artist himself, though there are a few fight scenes that were better than anything from the first one.
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Graphic (Novel) Horror Blogathon
Graphic (Novel) Horror Blogathon
March is upon us and the Graphic Horror blogathon is on! I’m happy with the amount of participation in my last blogathon, the Comic Strip Double Dip, but this time around I wanted to do something a little less strictly associated with superheroes. Instead, I was thinking about how so many blogs out there spend October looking at horror movies and largely ignore horror for the other 11 months. So I wanted to do my part to promote horror movies on the other side of the calendar as Halloween, like in March. But of course, my site being my site and all I still have to have some sort of superhero or comic book connection when I started thinking about all the horror comics out there, like the classic Tales From the Crypt and various other EC Comics, 30 Days of Night, and the Walking Dead. There’s a few others, but I also started thinking about horror movies and thriller movies that would make great graphic novels, like the Cell, or Nightmare on Elm Street (which actually did become a comic book). So I’d like to hear from you and what horror movie you think is well suited to be a graphic novel, or even vice versa.
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Are Awards Important if You Don’t Watch “Awards Movies”?
Recently another film critic was in the news, it seems that lately the only time that film critics get in the news is whenever they go out of their way to shine a negative light on film criticism, whether it’s calling 911 during an industry screening, or yelling vulgarities during an awards ceremony. I’m one who rarely pays attention to any of the awards shows. When I was younger, I used to always watch the MTV Movie Awards for a couple reasons. One was that it was almost always an entertaining show, and two was that the movies that were getting awarded were the movies that I was very aware of and if I hadn’t seen them, I had really wanted to see them. Now I don’t even bother with that awards show. Some time during this past year the conversation was brought up about watching all of the Academy Awards Best Pictures winners. Several people on Twitter were discussing how many they had seen, and when I counted up my tally, I had about half a dozen, and they were all also commercial blockbusters as well. So what is my point exactly? I’m not entirely sure, but there is definitely a disconnect between the general public, and most film critics, whether amateur bloggers or professional critics, and in my opinion most of the time the only difference between the two is one of the two gets a paycheck.
TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #11
TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #11
Episode: The Magical Place
Original Airdate: 1-7-14
After a brief midseason hiatus, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is back and continues to kick the latter half of the season off in high gear, continuing from last episode’s cliffhanger. There are quite a few interesting character developments from almost everyone except for Fitz Simmons, I’m even starting to get a feel for Ward here. There are some nice moments of kick ass action, some quieter dramatic moments, and still plenty of room for some comedy. And while I’m certain that the revelation of Coulson’s revival won’t please too many people, I’m glad it’s finally done with. And for my point of view, the situation surrounding the revival was always going to be more interesting than the payoff no matter what they would have come up with.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 