Blog Archives
100 Essential Superhero Movies – You Decide! X-Men: The Last Stand
Part of finishing off this list of 100 essential superhero movies is bringing in my audience, and so when I got down to the last 20 movies, I decided that I would let you decide. And what better than to reach out to other movie critics and reviewers to let them argue the case for a superhero movie that they are a fan of and at the bottom of the post, there is a poll where you can vote whether or not you agree if it should be included in the 100 Essential Superhero Movies list. Today my guest is Tony Cogan from Coogs Film Blog who is taking a look at the third X-Men film which was taken on by Brett Ratner after Bryan Singer left to help Superman Returns.
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100 Essential Superhero Movies – You Decide! The Meteor Man
Part of finishing off this list of 100 essential superhero movies is bringing in my audience, and so when I got down to the last 20 movies, I decided that I would let you decide. And what better than to reach out to other movie critics and reviewers to let them argue the case for a superhero movie that they are a fan of and at the bottom of the post, there is a poll where you can vote whether or not you agree if it should be included in the 100 Essential Superhero Movies list. Today’s entry comes from TS Hendrik from The Non-Review and he takes a look at a movie that I quite enjoyed, The Meteor Man.
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The 100 Essential Superhero Movies project needs you!
Just after finishing up my last blogathon this past March, I stumbled upon an idea that I really wanted to do for yet another blogathon here at Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights. When I first started this site I had a list of 100 theatrically released superhero movies that I wanted to cover in that first year, and while I did reach my goal of watching and reviewing 100 movies, I didn’t stick to that list because there were some other direct-to-DVD releases that I wanted to watch and in many cases they are just as good and often better than the theatrically released ones. So what I wanted to do was to come up with a list of 100 superhero movies that are essential viewing for a superhero fan up through the end of 2013. This isn’t just a list of the 100 best superhero movies because that might be an easier list to come up with, but these are 100 movies that are important to the category of superhero movies as a whole. Some of the choices are quite easy to make, but I’m down to the last 20 movies and this is where I need your help.
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Graphic Horror: Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight
Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight 1995
The Graphic (Novel) Horror blogathon is coming to a close, but not before I manage to eke out a couple more horror movies here in March. Also, if you haven’t checked the main page for the blogathon recently, there are a couple updates with folks out on different blogs who have contributed their own articles so be sure to check them out. I was a big fan of the television show Tales From the Crypt, and even though it was around the time when this movie came out, I probably didn’t catch it in theaters, instead finding it when it came to home video and agreeing with the general consensus that the movie wasn’t nearly as good as most of the episodes made for HBO. I especially found it interesting in this viewing that I had a hard time finding good screenshots to take as there is rarely anything interesting happening on screen and the creature effects are mediocre at best. The movie eschews the show’s typical morbid twist and instead relies on a macabre fantasy/action plot with demons and a fun wraparound with the Cryptkeeper tying it in with the television show. There are moments of fun in this movie but they are few and far between.
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Graphic Horror: Alien
Graphic Horror: Alien 1979
This is something that I haven’t done very much since starting my Filmwhys podcast, and that is to go back and watch an essential movie that I hadn’t seen, only I didn’t do it to talk about during an episode of Filmwhys. (Instead I’m talking about it here in a review) Before now I had seen Aliens a few times, and somehow skipped ahead and watched AvP in theaters, but never went back to watch the original even though there’s always the debate over which is the better movie: Alien or Aliens. For my part, I don’t think I’ll ever like this one as much as Aliens, but it is still a great movie that I really enjoyed. And for the record, I did watch the 2003 Ridley Scott director’s cut of the movie instead of the theatrical release, although I didn’t go back and check to see what the differences between the two versions are.
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Graphic Horror: The Cell
Graphic Horror: The Cell 2000
When I first decided to run this Graphic Horror blogathon, I was planning on only covering the movies that were actually based on graphic novels, but when no one jumped on the Cell, I couldn’t let that go considering that this was pretty much the first movie that I thought of when I came up with the entire idea for the blogathon in the first place. When I was younger, I never really got into horror movies much, but after seeing Seven there was a while where I would seek out these not-quite-horror movies focused on serial killers. I was also a big fan of artistic music videos like Nine Inch Nails and a couple of Madonna’s videos and this movie looked right in line with that surreal, dreamlike music video style, though honestly I don’t think I’ve revisited this movie since that time. But it has still always stuck with me as an interesting concept with beautiful visuals even though the other things like the plot never really stuck with me as closely. I had even forgotten that Vince Vaughn had a significant role in this movie.
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Graphic Horror: Born Dark Comic Kickstarter
Born Dark Issue: 0 Kickstarter
We’re just in the beginning of this Graphic Novel Horror Blogathon, but it’s not just about horror movies that are or should be graphic novels, it’s also about graphic novels that could become movies. And there’s a brand new one looking for funding for their issue #0 which will propel them into a full fledged series. It’s doing quite well at the moment, but still has a ways to go. It’s called a “dark fantasy” but it also delves into some horror elements. And I’m not just trying to convince others to back this project, I’m excited enough about it that I have backed it myself. And to help tell you more about this comic, I asked a few questions of the writer, Lela Gwenn. Click here to visit the Kickstarter page, or click any of the images to go there as well.
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Graphic Horror: Tales From the Crypt
Graphic (Novel) Horror Blogathon: Tales From the Crypt 1972
Welcome to my first entry in the Graphic (Novel) Horror blogathon, where I and other bloggers take a look at horror movies that could be, should be, or were graphic novels. I’m kicking it off by watching the movie that was made many years before one of my favorite TV shows that were both inspired by the pulp EC comics series including Tales From the Crypt, the Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, and several other titles. I had never seen this movie before today, but as this was an anthology inspired by the comics just like the television series, I was already familiar with the story of two of the shorts even though there were some minor differences, mainly in the length as the TV series was a full half hour while this includes five shorts and a wraparound story in about an hour and a half. The budget for this movie felt quite small with many cheap looking visual effects, but I think it still often captured the feeling that I got from the Tales From the Crypt television show with the macabre stories and occasional twist endings. While not as good as the TV show, it was still entertaining to watch.
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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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Graphic (Novel) Horror Blogathon
Graphic (Novel) Horror Blogathon
March is upon us and the Graphic Horror blogathon is on! I’m happy with the amount of participation in my last blogathon, the Comic Strip Double Dip, but this time around I wanted to do something a little less strictly associated with superheroes. Instead, I was thinking about how so many blogs out there spend October looking at horror movies and largely ignore horror for the other 11 months. So I wanted to do my part to promote horror movies on the other side of the calendar as Halloween, like in March. But of course, my site being my site and all I still have to have some sort of superhero or comic book connection when I started thinking about all the horror comics out there, like the classic Tales From the Crypt and various other EC Comics, 30 Days of Night, and the Walking Dead. There’s a few others, but I also started thinking about horror movies and thriller movies that would make great graphic novels, like the Cell, or Nightmare on Elm Street (which actually did become a comic book). So I’d like to hear from you and what horror movie you think is well suited to be a graphic novel, or even vice versa.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 