Blog Archives
Filmwhys #75 Sixteen Candles and Josie and the Pussycats
The Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Emily Mackay from Movies and Mayhem who asks me why I hadn’t seen Sixteen Candles, one of the seminal 80’s coming of age films from writer/director John Hughes. And in return, I ask her why she hadn’t seen Josie and the Pussycats, a 00’s revamp of the Archie comics characters turned into a meta narrative about pop culture at the time.
Read the rest of this entry
Superbob
Superbob 2015
It’s time to catch up with another movie from last year that I wasn’t able to see because it wasn’t released here in the US. This is a little independent comedy from Grain Media and first time director Jon Drever. Often, I think to myself that there’s almost nowhere new that a superhero movie can go, it just has to do something that’s been done before well. And while there have been several concepts out there about a loser who gains super powers to become a superhero, there hasn’t been anything that’s gone quite the same way about it that Superbob does, and that’s not even discussing the pseudo-documentary style of it either. I initially wasn’t sure what to expect from this movie, but the nervous charm of Bob made me laugh quite a bit throughout the film and it has a nice heart at the center of it all. A pleasant surprise of a movie and currently available in the US to stream via Flix Premier.
Read the rest of this entry
Filmwhys Extra #28 What is a Comic Book Movie?
It’s been a while since I’ve done a Filmwhys Extra episode, the episode between the episodes before I started my Filmwhys Spotlight project. But this idea came to mind a few weeks back and I just had to make it happen. So without further ado, The Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast crossover episode with two other comic book movie podcasts 24 Panels Per Second and Meanwhile… and their respective hosts Dru Jeffries, David Babbitt, and James Thompson where we ask a seemingly simple question: What is a Comic Book Movie
Read the rest of this entry
The Last Superhero
All Superheroes Must Die 2: The Last Superhero 2016
It’s been a bit of a slow August, at least slow as in posts appearing on this site, the complete opposite when it comes to outside of this blog. But I was able to check out another recent release. Back when I first caught All Superheroes Must Die, I thought it was a great little ultra-low-budget gem that brought some new ideas and a horror vibe to superhero movies. Writer/director/star Jason Trost has gone a slightly different direction with his sequel that follows the events after his first movie along with revisiting events well before in a pseudo documentary style that becomes more like a mystery than a superhero movie. And it succeeds quite well as a mystery, it kept me guessing until near the very end without falling for obvious Macguffins and the documentary style was a nice touch to help explain the low budget feel, though there were a few moments of special effects that looked good despite the low budget.
Read the rest of this entry
Filmwhys Spotlight: Supergirl
The third entry in my series shining a light on underappreciated superhero movies through the eyes of the fans that love them. This time around I’m shining the spotlight onto 1984’s Supergirl with the help of guests Jermaine Dickerson from Jermaine Design, Todd Liebenow from Forgotten Films, and Andrew Wickliffe from The Stop Button. I hope you’ll join us in taking a look at some of the brighter points of this movie that for many hasn’t stood the test of time, not that it even was ever successful in the first place.
Read the rest of this entry
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Avengers: Age of Ultron 2015
I think it’s actually quite fitting that I have a review of Ultron just after my review of Suicide Squad. Both films had large expectations behind them, and both ended up falling quite a bit short of them for many fans. The biggest difference is that while considered a disappointment, it still snagged around a 75% approval rating from critics, though I imagine that many of those positive reviews still have the word “disappointment” or some variation of it within the text. In fact, one of the reasons why I didn’t immediately review this film after seeing it for the first time in theaters myself was because I felt like I needed to let it settle for a bit and I wanted to give it a second viewing with tempered expectations to help see some of the positives without getting stuck on the feelings of being let down from the perfection that was the first Avengers movie. I just didn’t quite expect that second viewing to come almost a year and a half later. But here we are. So, did it improve from that initial viewing? Yes, but there are still plenty of flaws throughout the run time.
Read the rest of this entry
Suicide Squad
Suicide Squad 2016
Like with any recent DC live action movie release these days there’s a lot more to it than just “Did I like it?” or “Did I not like it?” It seems like it started a little bit with Manof Steel and escalated greatly with Batman vs Superman and once again there’s this great divide between a very low critical consensus and a record breaking box office. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Does it really even matter anymore as long as the money is flowing and nothing’s going to stop this DC train from moving along trying to catch up to the Marvel money train chugging a few billion dollars ahead. Obviously, I’m a superhero movie fan, you don’t sit through over 300 superhero movies without either being a fan, becoming a fan, or quitting about 100 movies ago. My expectations for Suicide Squad were very similar to the animated Assault on Arkham, and what I got wasn’t a far cry from it. The characters were fun, it was fast paced, sure there were some flaws with the story but at the end of the day, my wife and I had a great morning at the movies. It would just be nice if there was a little bit more cohesion so that everyone else had fun too.
Read the rest of this entry
Top 10 (Non-DC) Animated Comic Book Movies
After finishing up a full month of animated movies, I managed to complete one of my mini-goals. I have finished watching every animated movie that’s currently on my list, as well as a couple that weren’t. So with that in mind, I thought it was time to share my top 10 list of animated comic book movies. There are a couple conditions here – one is that I decided to exclude DC Animated films just because their output is so massive that they literally make up half the total list of films that I’m choosing from, and also because I’ve already done a top 10 list of just DC Animated films so I’m not looking to repeat myself. I considered also excluding Marvel in fairness, but their animated output is still quite small, and much of it is quite lacking. I also decided to exclude superhero movies that weren’t based on a comic i.e. no Incredibles. Spoiler alert, it would be at the top of the list. But with those conditions out of the way, let’s get to the list! And FYI, you can click any of the titles to check out my original full reviews on the movies.
Turtles Forever
Turtles Forever 2009
And finally wrapping up this month of animated movies that’s seeped slightly from July into August I’ve reached another milestone. This is the last animated film that I currently have on my list. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any others out there, I know there’s plenty if I expand to foreign comics, but I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten every English one. As for the actual movie, Turtles Forever came out of an event that was done for the 25th anniversary of the Turtles and so they made this TV movie based around the current series that started in ’03 and was airing on CW4Kids. The main focus of the movie was to bring the 80’s animated series into a connected continuity with the 00’s series, and apparently to also make fun of it. There’s a ton of meta humor that often gets in the way of telling any sort of real story, but that’s ok because it is a ton of fun to watch. Especially if you’re someone who grew up with the 80’s Turtles and even if you’re like me and have never seen a single episode of the 00’s Turtles.
Read the rest of this entry
Filmwhys #74 Face/Off and Bounty Killer
The Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Honor Knight from The Soiled Restroom Cinema podcast who asks me why I hadn’t seen Face/Off, one of director John Woo’s best American movies with amazing performances from Nicolas Cage and John Travolta acting like each other as much as possible. And in return, I ask him why he hadn’t seen Bounty Killer, a comic book movie from just a couple years ago that’s a low budget, high gore, action flick that’s a mix of Mad Max and Kill Bill with a lot more comedy and not nearly as much style.
Also, if you’d like to contribute to my GoFundMe campaign, you can find it here at http://gofundme.com/Bubbawheat, any contributions and shares are appreciated.
Read the rest of this entry
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 