Blog Archives
Filmwhys Extra #17 Nolan’s Batman Trilogy
The 17th Filmwhys Extra where I am discussing the entire Christopher Nolan Batman Trilogy with two of my three previous guests who just watched one of the films for the first time. Jess from French Toast Sunday and Elwood Jones from From the Depths of DVD Hell. It was a lot of fun revisiting this trilogy as it’s been a couple years for me. It’s still one of the best, if not the best superhero trilogy of all time and I’m glad that I got to convince three other people to finish the trilogy as none of them had gone in completely clean.
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Filmwhys #39 Mad Max and the Dark Knight Rises
Episode 39 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Shane McFilm from The Cinematic Katzenjammer who asks me why I haven’t seen Mad Max, the low budget Australian movie that introduced Mel Gibson to the masses and spawned a franchise. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen the Dark Knight Rises, the final film in the much hailed Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy.
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Graphic Horror: Bordello Of Blood
Tales From the Crypt: Bordello of Blood 1996
Even though I haven’t managed to catch as many horror movies this month as I would have liked to, since I am going through several seasons of the Tales From the Crypt television show I thought it was only fitting to finish out watching the final movie. Even though it’s actually the second movie that was released just a year after Demon Knight, it even features the return of a couple elements from Demon Knight including the key and William Sadler, though the latter returned covered in mummy wraps to talk with the Cryptkeeper. Out of the three movies, this one is definitely the most comedic as noted by fact that it stars Dennis Miller. It also has the most nudity of the three as there are several scenes that take place within the bordello even though they are all vampire women, they are often mostly naked vampire women. And even though I hadn’t seen this film probably since it first came out on home video/aired on cable I still remembered the final twist so that wasn’t a surprise.
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Graphic Horror: Ritual
Ritual 2002
While a lot of people are familiar with the great television series Tales From the Crypt that ran for seven seasons on HBO, there are slightly fewer people who realize that they made a feature length film towards the end of their run called Demon Knight. Even fewer people realize that they made another movie the next year starring Dennis Miller called Bordello of Blood. And not even I realized that they had a this as a third movie to round out the trilogy. But when Bordello of Blood was a disaster at the box office, those plans were scrapped and the film, possibly still at the script stage was sold to Universal who stripped out all the references to the Cryptkeeper and Tales From the Crypt and released it as a solo film several years later. It wasn’t until even later that the Tales From the Crypt presents was restored when it was released on DVD and the Cryptkeeper scenes added back for the release, albeit with a very low budget version of the Cryptkeeper puppet that was also used in the DVD release of the television series which was around the same time. And after all this passing around, was the movie actually worth it? Not really. It felt like one of the mediocre episodes of the show drawn out into an hour forty-five. Mysteries were confusing for the sake of being a reveal closer towards the end, but it just made things confusing rather than interesting. And the final payoff was pretty weak anyway. I almost would have rather seen the Tales From the Crypt name left off of this movie.
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Filmwhys Extra #16 Batman in Animation
Episode 16 of Filmwhys Extra where my guest is DJ Valentine from Simplistic Reviews and we spend some time discussing Batman’s various appearances in all the different direct to home video DC Animated titles like Under the Red Hood, The Dark Knight Returns, and Gotham Knight. We talk about our favorites, the voice actors, the animation, and try to cover all of the titles that have included Batman in them aside from some of the earlier spinoff titles from the television series.
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Filmwhys #38 Perfect Blue and the Dark Knight
Welcome back to another Batman themed episode, and one of only a small handful of times where I can arguably have the better argument of a movie that someone should have seen by now. Episode 38 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Elwood Jones from From the Depths of DVD Hell who asks me why I haven’t seen Perfect Blue, one of the older and well respected anime movies that was a strong influence on Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. And in return, I get to ask him why he hasn’t seen arguably the greatest superhero movie of all time, the Dark Knight.
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Graphic Horror: The Scribbler
The Scribbler 2014
For a couple years now I’ve avoided falling into the trap that nearly every other movie blog falls into during this time of year: reviewing horror movies for October. But since I started my Graphic Horror tag this past March, I thought it was due time to go further into the very shallow selection of horror movies and thrillers adapted from graphic novels and comic books. To kick things off, I’m taking a look at the movie that just released on VOD a couple weeks ago adapted from Daniel Schaffer’s comic the Scribbler. The story itself is a weird mix of Girl, Interrupted, Fight Club, and the Cell. Katie Cassidy in the lead role was one of the best parts of the movie, though I thought things got a little muddled in the direction. It also had a rather surprising and unusual turn towards the end that I will be discussing, so spoilers abound. Overall I enjoyed it, but the concept felt a bit stronger than the execution.
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Mercury Man
Mercury Man 2006
It’s October, so you know what that means? Horror movies! And this year I am going to be no different, but before I get to some horror and thriller movies based on some graphic novels, I used my free month of Netflix to check out a superhero film that I didn’t have on my list and hadn’t seen around anywhere else. It’s a Thai movie from 2006 that could easily be considered a Thai variation of a Wuxia movie which I don’t cover here, but still draws enough inspiration from Western superhero movies that I thought I had to include it. It also follows pretty closely to the standard superhero origin story, though with a lot more martial arts fight sequences rather than superpower showcases. Also, while the film is mostly in Thai with subtitles, when the villains are speaking to each other, they tend to speak in heavily accented English for reasons I never quite understood. It was different enough to be a refreshing change of pace compared to most of the superhero movies I see, but in the end it still followed the same basic story arc.
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Superhero Shorts: Spawn: The Recall
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a superhero themed short film and as a few questions of its creator. This time around I’m talking with Michael Paris about his short film set in the Spawn universe with an original character as well as an appearance by Spawn himself. It’s a film that was two years in the making due to all the visual effects that Paris did all on his own. As usual, you can watch it below or you can check it out at the official website, and you can also check out Michael Paris’s earlier work at his own website.
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Filmwhys #37 When Harry Met Sally… and Batman Begins
Welcome back to another episode of Filmwhys starting off my first event here on the show. For the next five weeks I’ll be taking a look at plenty of Batman, and what better place to start then at the beginning. At least the beginning of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy. My guest is Jess from French Toast Sunday who asks me why I haven’t seen the classic romantic comedy for people who don’t necessarily like romantic comedies When Harry Met Sally… and in return I ask her why she hasn’t seen the beginning of Christopher Nolan’s epic Dark Knight Trilogy, Batman Begins.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 