Blog Archives
Batman Begins
Batman Begins 2005
I am equal parts overjoyed and annoyed by all of the Batman reviews that have been popping up these past couple weeks. I especially enjoy it when some of the lesser reviewed gems come out of the woodwork, like a review of the first season of Batman: The Animated Series, or some of the DC Animated films. But I’m also annoyed because one of the reasons that I started this blog as a niche review site instead of a general movie review site was to stand out, and yet now I’ll be blending in as I take another look at Christopher Nolan’s already legendary Batman Trilogy. Today I start with the beginning, as that’s typically the best place. This is yet another origin story, but it’s unique in the fact that Batman is one of the few superheroes that kind of skipped over the whole origin story. Yes, Tim Burton’s Batman movie has that pivotal moment in Crime Alley where his parents are murdered, but when the flashback is over, he’s Batman in full force. This is the first time that audiences actually got to see how Bruce Wayne turned tragedy into vigilante.
Batman: Under the Red Hood
Batman: Under the Red Hood 2010
Even before starting this site, I was a fan of DC’s animation studio and had watched most of their earlier releases like New Frontier, Doomsday, and Gotham Knight. They were all pretty good and I enjoyed watching them as I did some of the Marvel releases around that point like Ultimate Avengers and Planet Hulk. All of them were good. Under the Red Hood is great. It’s interesting that I watched this after Superman vs. the Elite because they both deal with slightly similar ideas, and yet Under the Red Hood takes those ideas and instead of using some random anti-heroes/villains that were never heard of before or since, they take characters much more rooted to the core of the Batman mythos and break down the story on a completely personal level. I must say that this is the best one of these movies that I’ve seen so far. There are a couple weak spots, but it’s pretty impressive overall.
My history with comic books
It may seem odd for someone to start up a site about superhero movies without having a strong connection to comic books. The two things go hand in hand as the superhero genre started with comic books, almost all superhero films are adapted from comic books, and those that aren’t often become comic books after the fact. But I’ve said from the beginning that I’m not a huge comic book fan, I haven’t read dozens of X-men or Superman comics. In fact I can count the number of comics of either of those two that I’ve read on one hand. But that’s not to say I’ve never read any comic books. I’ve read a few, I own a few, and here is where you can get pretty much my entire experience with comics.
Superhero Shorts: The Hillywood Show
Superhero Shorts: Dark Knight by The Hillywood Show
Welcome to this week’s 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 is from a YouTube channel that my wife really enjoys called The Hillywood Show ran by Hilly and Hannah Hindi. These sisters started out doing a mashup movie character sketch show called The Hillywood Show. The highlight of the show are the well made costumes of characters such as Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka, Edward Scissorhands, and other Johnny Depp or Tim Burton characters. But they got their biggest boost in popularity when they made a music video parody of Twilight featuring an extended remix of Katy Perry’s Hot and Cold which brought their videos from 10s of thousands of views to over a million and have grown from there, parodying the other Twilight movies as well as Harry Potter, Vampire Diaries, The Hunger Games, and the one I’ll be looking at today: The Dark Knight, which you can watch right below or you can visit The Hillywood Show’s website.
Superhero Shorts: Batman’s Night Out
Superhero Shorts: Batman’s Night Out
Welcome to this week’s edition of Superhero Shorts, where I take a look at a superhero short film and interview the creator. This week I was able to get a hold of Sean Ward, the producer behind the recent short Batman’s Night Out which has gotten over 1 million views on YouTube. Below you can Toronto Batman interacting with the citizens of Toronto with amusing results. Enjoy.
Will the Avengers be an origin movie?
It’s the middle of April and I want to take a quick moment here at the beginning of this post to say thanks. Thank you to everyone that’s been visiting and commenting on my site. I’ve tried to put a lot of work into this and seeing the site grow makes me very happy. I’d love to hear feedback on what you like, what you don’t like, and any ideas of what you’d like to see more of. I’m looking forward to getting ready for the Avengers next month and re-watching all the lead up movies including the only one I haven’t seen before, Iron Man 2. I could also use some help coming up with names, should this Tuesday blog post have a name? I’m also not sold on “Superhero Shorts” mainly because I most enjoy the interview part of the article, and “Superhero Shorts” does not convey the idea of an interview. I also love hearing suggestions on what I should watch next, got any ideas? Leave a comment, let me know what I should watch after the Avengers and before I start prepping for the new Spiderman. Speaking of which, that brings me to today’s blog topic, do we need more origin stories?
Superhero Shorts: Batman Dead End
This week I’ll be looking at my first dramatic Superhero Short as suggested by Ryan McNeely over at 5 Word Movie Reviews on my first edition of this series. Batman: Dead End is one of the most recognized superhero fan films, getting praise from the likes of filmmaker Kevin Smith and comic book artist Alex Ross. It was a labor of love from special effects artist turned director Sandy Collora whose goal was to create a Batman film that captured the look of the comic books as closely as possible. But enough of a backstory, let’s take a look at the film. You can view it at Sandy Collora’s website Collora Studios or watch it embedded below.
Batman: The Movie
Batman: The Movie 1966
I had been considering watching this movie sometime this month because Jena has been very much into Batman more than any other superhero, and while I wanted to save the two Nolan Batman movies for just before the Dark Knight Rises, I figured I could watch the others early. It was Saturday evening and Jena was going on about Batman while we were trying to figure out something to watch, so I looked this movie up. The Batman TV show was a bit before my time, so I had never seen any of it aside from a few YouTube clips, but I was familiar with how campy it would be. It still managed to go above and beyond my expectations and it was hilariously fun to watch.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 