Mount Rushmore of Independent Superhero Movies
When I saw the blogathon going on over at Two Dollar Cinema called the Mount Rushmore of Movies, I thought it was something that could be fun to join in on. I’ve posted my top 10 superhero movies so I didn’t really want to go that route, nor did I want to do something like choosing the Mount Rushmore of Marvel or DC. But since I recently watched Defendor, I thought I would honor a certain type of movies that I really enjoy and they all seem to fit together quite nicely. While I am calling this the “Mount Rushmore of Independent Superhero Movies”, as the most expensive out of the four movies was a moderately budgeted $30 million while the other three clock in at a much lower budget. They also all share the fact that none of the heroes actually have super powers, and they all have some type of mental or social disability. They are also all black comedies involving some dark subject matter while still trying to inject some humor or at least some levity to the entire situation. And on top of it all, I greatly enjoy all four of these movies and would like more people to see them, as only one of them were a commercial success.
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Defendor
Defendor 2009
This is the last of a small group of similarly themed independent superhero movies that I’ve come around to watching. Alongside Special, Super, and to a lesser extent Kick-Ass, this is definitely the one with the least amount of humor in it, but I think it’s coming to be the one that I like the most. It’s not exactly a big movie but it does have a nice cast consisting of Woody Harrelson as Arthur Poppington/Defendor, Elias Koteas as Officer Dooney, Kat Dennings as Angel/Kat Debrofkowitz, and Sandra Oh as the psychiatric evaluator. The way I like to describe the tone of the movie is if Forrest Gump was Batman. There is some humor in it, but the movie rarely uses Arthur’s mental disability as a source of humor, instead it uses it much more as a source of empathy. And instead of stumbling his way through significant moments in history, he stumbles his way through a local drug lord’s activities. It has moments of lightness, but also becomes a bit of a crime drama mixed with a bit of social commentary. If you can find it anywhere out there, it’s worth your time to check it out.
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Filmwhys Raw #4 The Bad Samaritan Must Die interview
Welcome to another episode of Filmwhys Raw, this time around I was able to talk with a couple filmmakers responsible for the superhero movie The Bad Samaritan Must Die which I reviewed recently. Click here to listen to us talk about the film, some of their earlier short films, their plans to make a sequel/prequel to The Bad Samaritan Must Die called Dawn of the Bad Samaritan, and some other tangents.
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Superhero Shorts: Forrest Fire Films
Welcome back once again to another edition of Superhero Shorts where I feature a superhero themed short film and ask a few brief questions with the filmmaker. Today I’m talking with Forrest Whaley from Forrest Fire Films who is probably best known for his many stop motion Lego animated videos featuring several different superheroes with a Robot Chicken level of violence, language, and humor, and he has also done the animated viral video the Duck Song and its various sequels. As usual, you can watch one of his films below, or you can visit his YouTube channel to see many more videos from him.
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Dark Vengeance Fan Art Contest
I don’t do too many contests here, but when I get the chance to partner with someone else running a contest, I’m usually up for the task, especially if there’s some connection to this site. While the connection might be thin in this case, I’m a fan of art and wanted to share this opportunity with you to create a piece of fan art for Steven Seagal’s new movie coming to Redbox at the end of this month called Dark Vengeance. You can view the trailer below and you can click here for details on how to enter the contest.
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Robocop
Robocop 2014
So I once again managed to make it out to theaters to catch a new release this year which brings my total up to 3, and while I didn’t make any official goal this year, it’s bringing me well on my way of reaching last year’s goal of 10 theatrical viewings which I only made it about halfway. I had a few reservations about seeing it, it is a reboot and these kinds of reboots of 80’s movies have had a pretty hit and miss track record. The early reviews coming in were mixed, so I had some hope there. And when I watched it, I quite liked what I saw. But when I discussed it for an upcoming Lambcast episode, it didn’t hold up very well to dissection. There is a great cast here, there are some updates that work quite well, from the drones angle to the conservative news show host, and even some nice little callbacks to the original movie. But there are also quite a few missteps in the movie, like the fact that while the satire is on a different topic and scale than the original, it also carries much less of an impact, and the final act doesn’t carry any of the same punches as the original. There’s nothing wrong with the movie by any means, but it’s not much of an improvement and like most remakes, it wasn’t really needed in the long run.
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Filmwhys #24 Saving Private Ryan and Constantine
I’m still truckin’ with these podcasts and still havin’ a lot of fun with them. This time around on the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast my guest is Ryan McNeil from The Matinee who asks me why I haven’t seen Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielburg’s epic World War II movie about a group of soldiers trekking across war-torn Europe to find a single soldier and bring him home. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen Constantine, with Keanu Reeves playing John Constantine who has the ability to see angels and demons who are all around us and is stuck on Earth fighting the demons to try and win his way back into Heaven when his life runs out.
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Relationships in Superhero Movies
So today is Valentine’s Day and I was originally planning on not doing anything special for it with regards to this site. Then I started having a few ideas, but they all would take too much time that I didn’t have. But then I thought of something that I could do, and that was to make a list of the best relationships in superhero movies. But when I started going over the list in my head, I had trouble coming up with good ones and came up with plenty of bad ones. I then considered doing a list of the worst relationships, but instead decided to just take a look at the whole situation, good and bad.
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The Bad Samaritan Must Die
The Bad Samaritan Must Die 2012
Being a site that focuses on mainly superhero movies to watch and review, there’s not too many opportunities to recieve screeners for movies as most of the films are big tentpole films from major studios who aren’t that worried about the opinion of a small time niche movie critic. But once in a while I’m able to run across a smaller independent film that’s looking for more exposure as is the case with this film. If you’re interested in helping support independent film then make sure you check out the film’s official site at TheBadSamaritan.com where you can read some behind the scenes info, watch a trailer, and even buy the movie for yourself. As for what I thought about the movie? I admit that it took me a little while to warm up to it. But once I did, I enjoyed it for what it was. It’s a look at a vigilante as more of a cult leader, someone who gains a fiercely loyal following during a time when they feel like the best quality in a person is strength. It has some strong ideas, but as is often the case in independent cinema, it does struggle a bit behind the lack of a proper budget.
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Filmwhys Raw #3
Welcome to another episode of Filmwhys Raw, the show between regular episodes of Filmwhys where I talk to a guest or two about a movie related topic for a little while. This time around there were some technical difficulties and I lost one of the participants and had to edit around it. The guest I lost was Pat McDonnell from 100 Years of Movies, but I was able to save my discussion with Matt Kubinski from CinemaJaw where we talked about graphic novels and movies adapted from them. Click here to Listen and I’ll be back next week with a regular episode, until next time this has been Bubbawheat from Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.
