Superhero Shorts: Arkham Rising
Superhero Shorts: Arkham Rising
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a superhero themed fan-film and talk a little bit with its creators. This time I was clued into a new Batman short film by the director himself, Tito Guillen. It’s called Arkham Rising and it fills in what Christopher Nolan left out when it comes to some of the inmates within Arkham Asylum. You can watch it at ArkhamRising.com or right below.
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut
Superman II: The Donner Cut 1980/2006
Ever since I had heard about this movie, I was quite curious about it. More so after I actually watched the theatrical cut of Superman II way back when I started this site. For those not in the know, I’ll do a brief re-cap. Richard Donner originally was shooting Superman & the sequel concurrently, and had shot about 80%+ of the film before they had to stop production. For various reasons, when they restarted production Richard Donner didn’t return and was replaced with Richard Lester who re-shot much of the film with a different tone in mind, as well as a smaller budget. While both films follow essentially the same plot, this is a very different film, and well over half the movie is new or alternate footage. The overall tone is much more serious and the humor that is still there is less campy. I personally enjoyed the Donner cut much more than the Lester cut, at least up to a certain point.
As You Watch: The City of Lost Children
Here’s the latest episode of our movie podcast, complete with its own site so it’s easy to know where to post feedback and comments. We watch the interesting City of Lost Children and talk about our top 3 performances by Bond actors while they’re not playing James Bond. Check it out!
Superhero Shorts: One on One
Superhero Shorts: One on One: A Superman Story
Welcome to the latest edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a different superhero themed short film and get the creator of the film to answer a few interview questions. This week I’m talking with Jake Thomas, the man behind a more unique superhero short film called One on One. Instead of focusing on the superhero everyone knows and loves, he instead makes it a more real world story with the superhero reporter with the glasses. You can check out the short film below, or you can visit his YouTube channel which also has some other fun superhero shorts.
As You Watch #10: Halloween Tournament
I’ve been away for a little while and there were a couple episodes of the podcast that I missed. Be sure to check out our Podomatic page to listen to this week’s episode and our earlier episodes without me there. I would have posted here except I didn’t have much free time, and I also didn’t have any other content to go alongside it. There have been many great guests so if you haven’t already, be sure to check them out. And that brings me to our latest episode which is a bit of an experiment. We forego our typical current release/top 3/movie of the week format and have a horror tournament with our guest Jason Soto of Invasion of the B Movies. Find out which horror movies rise to the top out of several different categories of horror, and for those regular listeners, I actually turn out to be more versed in horror than I thought I was. It was a fun episode and we get back to normal next week. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights. Check back in a couple days for a new Superhero Shorts with an interesting new Superman short film.
Batman Returns
Batman Returns 1992
This is a movie that like Batman, I hadn’t seen in years and years. But whether it was because I had gotten acclimated to Tim Burton’s style by watching Batman shortly before it, or because it was just a closer fit to my own personal tastes, but I enjoyed Batman Returns a whole lot more than Batman. I think one of the biggest complaints about the movie is that it felt more like “Penguin and Catwoman” rather than “Batman”. And while I agree with the idea, I disagree that it is a complaint. I said in my review of Batman that the rogues gallery is more interesting that Batman himself and that holds just as true here. This movie also plays on the Batman/Catwoman romance in a great way. As much as I enjoyed Anne Hathaway in the Dark Knight Rises, I thought Pfeiffer and Keaton had much better chemistry.
Words without pictures: A Superhero novel
Infinite Crisis by Greg Cox
As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve moved to the Chicago area and am now facing an hour’s train ride each way to work. To my surprise, my sister is a moderate fan of superheroes as well and she lent me her copy of Infinite Crisis: A Novel to read. I was familiar with the storyline and the previous event Crisis on Infinite Earths in name only. This is the first superhero novel I’ve ever read. When I was in my teens/early twenties I read a ton of fantasy books, mainly all of the Forgotten Realms series that was published at the time, as well as the Weis/Hickman written Dragonlance novels and Robert Jordan’s massive Wheel of Time series. One of the things I noticed fairly early on is how much is lost without visuals. Comic books and superheroes are very much a visual medium. And I understand that fantasy can be very visual as well, but for some reason reading about superheroes without the visuals to back it up felt a lot more silly to me. Especially when you get to the fact that this novel covers a huge crossover comics event that features literally hundreds of heroes and villains and has about a dozen main characters. And on top of that, seeing Batman survive being strangled by some superhuman villain is one thing, but reading several times how he’s only surviving because of his armored neckpiece just sits the wrong way with me. But aside from a few qualms, I generally enjoyed it.
Where I’ve been
As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been pretty absent for the past couple weeks. That’s because I’ve moved. It’s not a huge move, but I did cross state lines, going from near one big city to near an even bigger city. I’ve gone from just south of Indianapolis to the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. My job is still the same, though I’m not only working an extra 5-10 hours a week, but also my travel time has increased to 12 hours a week (up from just over 1 hour), this will actually be a help to this blog… when I actually get a laptop that works because I can watch movies and write reviews during my ride, but that’s not for a little while yet. So things will likely remain slow for a while until my work smooths over or I get a new laptop. My original goal of reviewing 100 movies this first year is very close and I’m not letting that fall by the wayside. So keep an eye out and things will hopefully soon get back to normal. And by the way, be sure to check out As You Watch Podcast episode 7, where Nick, Joe, and Vern bring in Andrew and Sarah from Two Tickets For… to sub for me as they talk about Woody Allen’s Match Point. Check it out, leave some feedback. They’re calling it the best episode ever, I’m not sure what that says about me 😉 Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.
As You Watch #6: John Carter
I also wanted to mention a quick update. I have moved to Chicago, but got delayed getting an apartment. I will hopefully be back up and running full time again sometime next week. But for now, check out our latest episode of As You Watch that I recorded before I left where we talk about John Carter, our favorite non-franchised movies IN SPACE, and as always the current DVD and theatrical releases. This week please leave any feedback or comments over at Two Dude Review where this week’s episode is hosted.
As You Watch #5: Batman
In our fifth episode, myself, Joe from Two Dude Review, Nick from Cinematic Katzenjammer, and theVern from Vern’s Video Vangaurd discuss movies and lead up to our feature discussion about Tim Burton’s Batman.
