Dredd
Dredd 2012
I’m not entirely sure how I ended up missing this movie last year, along with pretty much everyone else that missed this movie during it’s fairly poor theatrical run. I did actually watch it earlier this year before watching the Stallone Judge Dredd but I decided not to review it mainly because I watched it on my small laptop and the visuals, especially the slomo visuals were something that the little screen couldn’t appropriately capture. So instead I waited until I got around to watching it on my bigger screen TV so I could more appropriately judge the movie on the ever-important visuals and I was happily willing to watch it due to the interesting plot and characters. It is a far cry from the Stallone feature, both in quality of special effects, as well as the overall tone and level of violence. It is a very violent and bloody movie along the lines of what could be a Punisher movie, but it’s generally never excessive or reveling in the gore. And more to the point, especially for fans of the original character Dredd: he never takes off his helmet.
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Ghoulish Guests: Bubbawheat’s Five Favorite Movie Monsters
Check out my guest post over at Anti-Film School where I talk about some of my favorite movie monsters.
I did one of these last year for the “Five Films That Scare” me and when I made the short list for this year, I realized that I had a lot of overlap, especially since I only had three horror films on that list. I could easily put Tomie and the Gremlins on this list as well, but they are worthy of at least honorable mentions. Tomie is a long running series over in Japan and there are some pretty bizarre and monstrous versions of Tomie in some of the later movies, and who doesn’t love the Gremlins? But anyway, this year I’ve got an all-new list and it’s all tied to horror this time, no funny business.
5.) Ju-On: The Grudge
Ok so I lied, this list isn’t 100% all new since this made my honorable mention last year, and even though the girl/young woman with long black hair…
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TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week 4
Episode: “Eye Spy”
Original Airdate: 10-15-13
One thing I realized this week about this show, while I do think that the quality and my enjoyment of the show has been increasing from week to week, there is one thing missing from it that I do think turns a lot of fans off. There is a distinct lack of Marvel in it. This episode gets it right in terms of building the mysteries, developing (most) of the characters, creating an interesting, mysterious, and action packed episode. But it doesn’t feel like we’re dealing with superheroes and aliens here, it feels more like a James Bond spinoff than a Marvel spinoff. And that’s not a bad thing for some people. I’m really enjoying the show for what it is, but aside from a cameo, a couple lines reminding you of other Marvel properties, and the fact that Coulson is a major player in the show, there just isn’t a strong Marvel presence in it. I don’t honestly know if it truly needs that strong of a connection, but I would kind of like to see it come into play a bit more often.
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Filmwhys #16 North by Northwest and Persepolis
I’m back once again with another episode of Filmwhys, aka the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast. This week my guest is Pat McDonnell of 100 Years of Movies who asks me the question why haven’t I seen North by Northwest, Hitchcock’s classic Cary Grant movie featuring the famous scene of him being chased by a cropduster in the middle of an open field. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen the animated graphic novel adaptation of Marjan Satrapi’s autobiographical Persepolis where she follows her early life living in Iran during a revolution and a war and the oppression of the Islamic Fundamentalists while she is an outspoken woman who eventually flees to spend time in France.
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Superhero Shorts: Neighborhood Watchmen
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts, where I take a look at a superhero themed short film or webseries and ask a few questions of one of its creators. This time around I’ve got a webseries for a D-list superhero team called the Neighborhood Watchmen, it’s an office comedy that shows what happens between the duties of a superhero team. And I was able to talk with Dash Kwiatkowski, director, producer, and Killzone for the series. You can watch the first episode below, or you can visit their YouTube channel to watch every episode they have up so far.
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Batman: Gotham Knight
Batman: Gotham Knight 2008
It had been a long time since I visited this movie so I figured it was overdue for a revisit. Gotham Knight is one of the more unique entries in the DC Animation canon. It’s an anthology consisting of several short films loosely tied together and all featuring Batman in one way or another. While they did try this again later on with Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, this one is done by different anime directors with very different styles while Emerald Knights all shared the same style as they were done by a single director within DC Animation. While there are a few high points, and a few weak spots, overall it’s quite enjoyable and Batman generally translates quite well to an Anime style. The only thing I don’t think translated quite as well is that Bruce Wayne is generally shown in a Bishounen style, as in he has a more effeminate look to him which is very different from the very masculine style in western animation and comics. But aside from that, it was an enjoyable movie and a welcome departure from the traditional animation style without going too far into typical Anime philosophizing and introspection that plagued the recent Iron Man anime Rise of Technovore.
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TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #3
TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week 3
Episode “The Asset”
Original Airdate: 10-9-13
After a bit of a hit and miss start with a lot of setup in the first couple episodes, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Finally hits a stride in episode 3 which I thought should have been called “Gravity” especially due to the release of Gravity this past weekend and a lot of the subject matter in the episode, both literally and figuratively. There are plenty of special effects and action scenes, and most importantly there’s a lot of character development as well as some twists and turns in where the story is going. This episode really felt like it was hitting on all cylinders and it kept the humor up to boot. Really the only thing missing, which I didn’t even miss, was any sort of tie-in to the larger Marvel Universe. But an overall solid episode that I really have a hard time finding fault with except for a couple minor nitpicks.
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Superhero Shorts: City of Titans
Ok, it’s not entirely a traditional Superhero Shorts, there is a YouTube clip involved, but this is really about an upcoming independent game that was inspired by one of my favorite games of all time, City of Heroes. If you haven’t played City of Heroes, you missed out because it ran for many years before being shut down about a year ago now. After the shutdown announcement, there was an almost immediate push by a group of players to create a new game inspired by the old one we loved so much. Eventually that group of players split into two groups, and only a few days ago one of them, Missing Worlds Media, have gotten to the point where they were able to launch a Kickstarter campaign to secure funds to finish the game, and they were also able to take a little time out of their busy schedule to answer a few of my questions about the project. You can visit and contribute to the Kickstarter campaign right here which is running until November 4th, 2013, and you can also view the kickstarter video below.
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Persepolis
Persepolis 2007
While I still have plenty of straight up superhero movies to go, I thought it was a good idea to branch out into non-superhero movies based on graphic novels. And of course, this black and white, animated tale of the life of an Iranian woman living through a revolution and a war, dealing with prejudice at home and in France, was originally a graphic novel by the same name. Even though it’s in black and white, the animation is visually striking, not only that, but the story itself is very engaging. Not only does Marjan suffer through a lot of strife, but she also has plenty of moments of joy and is always surrounded by people who care about her. It’s a really great movie and well worth your time to watch.
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TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #2
TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week 2
Episode “0-8-4”
Original Airdate: 10-2-13
The first episode had a lot going for it, but also had to give a lot of time for setup and introductions. This is the first episode where we have the full team and we get to see them actually act as a team. There are of course going to be a few bumps along the way, and I felt like the quality of some things didn’t quite live up to the spectacle of the first episode, but I still had a great time and enjoyed a lot of the little things throughout the episode as well as the fun extra at the end. The episode is centered around an “0-8-4” aka an object of unknown origin that has been found in Peru and the team goes on their first mission as an actual team in order to assess and retrieve it. Things of course go sideways when the Peruvian military show up, calm down when it turns out to be an old flame and colleague of Coulson’s, then go sideways again when rebel forces start attacking them both.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 