My top 5 Superhero Shorts
I can’t believe that it’s been a full year since I decided to reach out to my first filmmaker who created a fan film based on a podcast of all things, but he did give it a superhero spin and I thought it was a fun little short. But it grew from there and since then I’ve talked to over two dozen filmmakers, each one as interesting as the next. From college students to animators, from Great Britain to Los Angeles, it’s been a fun year and this has become one of my favorite features to do on this site. So since I’m in the running for this year’s Lammys blog awards for best running feature, I thought it was a good time to share my five favorite editions of Superhero Shorts with you. If you’re a member of the Lamb, be sure to keep me in mind when making your nominations next week. I hope you enjoy!
Jonah Hex
Jonah Hex 2010
I hadn’t heard anything very good about this movie, it pretty much tanked at the box office, even my wife didn’t really like it very much. I don’t watch too many westerns, but I do occasionally enjoy them, especially westerns with a slight sci-fi twist, something along the lines of the rarely duplicated Brisco County Jr. So my expectations were fairly low coming into this movie and I was not let down. I was surprised that it wasn’t a horrible movie by any means, it was just mediocre. There weren’t any laughably bad scenes with cheesy acting nor were there any edge of your seat action setpieces. The concepts were far-fetched, the humor was uneven, and the action was nothing special. I didn’t hate it, but I won’t be eager to watch it again anytime soon.
Follow Friday: Marked Movies
Welcome to the long awaited return of Follow Friday, where each time I feature and interview a fellow blogger and follow their suggestion to another blog to feature next time. I prefer this over a blogroll because it gives each blog their own time to shine, plus I personally rarely click on blogrolls so why would I expect you to? Not only that, but I get the chance to check out some great blogs I might not have found otherwise found, talk to some great people, and share the conversation with you. Of course, if you would rather see something like a blogroll, I have collected all of my previous Follow Friday sites in list form which you can find right at the top of the page. Way back when I last had one of these, Morgan from Morgan on Media directed me to Mark Walker’s site Marked Movies
Wanted
Wanted 2008
I actually got this movie as a Christmas present probably three years ago and never got around to watch it, I can’t believe it took me this long to get around to it. You may not think it’s a superhero movie at first, but there’s definitely some super powers and it was based on a comic book series written by Mark Millar so that’s good enough for me. This movie has some serious action in it, and a lot of humor. It feels a kinda like a mix between Kick-Ass, Fight Club, and Fast and the Furious and I mean that as a good thing. This may not go on my list of top superhero movies just because it doesn’t have quite enough of a superhero vibe to it, but I will likely be making a list of my favorite comic book movies and this will definitely be on that one.
Superhero Shorts: A New Mutant
Superhero Shorts: A New Mutant
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts where I share a superhero short film and ask a few questions of its creators. This time I’m talking with a group of students who created their own short for their college film class led by Eric Limarenko. They adapted a comic story written by Brian Michael Bendis called A New Mutant, as usual, you can watch it below.
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The Curse of Three
The Curse of Three
aka Why is the Third Superhero Movie the Worst?
Sequels have long been a sure sign of a bad movie. Take an existing popular movie, try it again and see lightning strikes twice. Most of the time it didn’t. Then somewhere along the line, maybe in the late 80’s early 90’s, filmmakers started making sequels that lived up to the original’s expectations. Or oftentimes in the case of superhero movies, exceeded them. Especially in superhero movies, once the origin story is out of the way, the sequel is the best place to get a good action filled story in. But then something else happened, it started with Superman III. Where the sequel was as good as the original, the third movie went way downhill in terms of plot, action, and just overall quality. Is it a curse, often times it doesn’t matter whether the third movie has a bigger budget or a smaller budget, the same people behind the scenes or new ones, they almost always end in crap. Is it a curse, and can it be broken?
Devilman
Devilman 2004
So the other day I was at my local used DVD store searching through their titles for some superhero movies and among some overpriced “rare” titles like Doc Savage and Remo Williams I found this DVD. I recognized the name from an anime series, though I never actually watched it. The cover looked pretty interesting for a live action anime movie so I picked it up. I should also mention that part of the reason why I’m reviewing this title is that I started putting what I should watch next for this site up for a vote. Every week or so I’ll post three different posters of movies I’m considering reviewing on this site’s Facebook page and you are free to vote for which one you want me to watch next. This movie won the last vote and I will have a new vote up tomorrow so be sure to “like” my Facebook page if you want to help influence which movies show up here.
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Will a Superhero Movie Ever Win an Oscar?
aka Will a Superhero Movie Ever Win (another) (non-technical) Oscar?
The Superhero Movie has never really been thought of as Oscar material, it’s simple, light material without any depth or expert filmmaking involved. It’s easy to poke fun at a superhero movie because there are so many that win Razzies rather than Oscars, like Catwoman. But filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Bryan Singer can elevate typical superhero fare to something much more great. In fact, The Incredibles is the only superhero movie to win an award, but in the smaller animated category, Christopher Nolan is the only one out there that brought a non-technical win for Heath Ledger as the Joker in the Dark Knight in a live action movie, though several years earlier Warren Beatty brought on a nomination for Al Pacino in his comic strip adaptation of Dick Tracy.
Superhero Shorts: Rage
Superhero Shorts: Rage
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts, where I take a look at a superhero themed short film and have a brief talk with the creator. This time I’m talking with Stephen Henning who created an original supervillain named Rage in a short using a lot of news footage and special effects. As usual, you can check out this UK based short film below, or you can visit the White Hat Films’s YouTube page, also note that while the video’s runtime is over 30 minutes, that includes over 14 minutes of outtakes after the short.
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What ifs! What if you could pair up any two superheroes?
Crossover event, superpowered team up, whatever you want to call it, it’s usually an interesting thing to see two superheroes who normally would never exist next to each other suddenly team up to battle a common foe. Do you choose two heroes who are polar opposites to see how difficult it would be for them to work together like say Lobo and Captain America, or would you pick a more natural pairing that would compliment each other nicely like maybe Mr. Fantastic and Plastic Man. Personally, I think there could be a lot of fun interaction between Hellboy and Spider-Man, that would be a really odd team-up but could make for some very unique situations. So who do you think would make a good match? Anything is fair game, DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, from movies or only in comics, and anything in between.
