Blog Archives
The Other Side of Adaptation: Labyrinth Coronation vol 2
Labyrinth Coronation vol 2 2018
This is the second edition of my new series where I take a look at comic books and graphic novels that were adapted from movies rather than the other way around as I typically cover here. I’m continuing through the Labyrinth prequel mini-series that I started in the first edition. This will likely be a shorter article as the overall presentation of the story remains the same and I’ll just be focusing on how this volume furthers the story. There are still some nice moments that echo the original Labyrinth movie, but it feels like it’s starting to veer farther from the source material into something new yet still familiar. And as I will be discussing the story of this volume, there will be spoilers ahead so be warned.
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Jailbait
Jailbait 2014
This is another movie that I just happened to come across randomly where I saw the movie poster in a Facebook group and noticed the magic words along the top of it “Based on the graphic novel”. From the looks of it, it seemed like a modern version of the old women in prison exploitation genre, and while it took a little while to get there, that’s exactly what it was. I don’t have a whole lot of experience in that genre so if it was any sort of send up or honest to the genre I wouldn’t know it. And as for the graphic novel connection, I didn’t look up the info until after I watched it and it seems like The Asylum made a graphic novel tie-in to the movie and released it a few months before the movie came out. It’s difficult to determine for certain if the movie was actually based on the graphic novel or vice versa, but since the poster does have the magic words, I’ll stick with it. As far as the actual quality of the movie, the main character was uninteresting and it was overblown, overdramatic, and shifted gears on a dime. It was just too much and too little all at the same time.
Polar
Polar 2019
Every year since running this site I’m constantly discovering new superhero and comic book movies that fly under my radar through most of the year. I discovered that this film was releasing on Netflix about a week before it came out. I didn’t hear very good things, but the trailer looked pretty stylish and it starred Mads Mikkelsen. It’s a hyper violent, sexed up action movie but the plot felt empty and hollow. I’ve seen plenty of these types of movies where there’s a career criminal that for whatever reason ends up on the wrong side of the organization that they work for and have to turn against the other criminals in order to survive. And while it does have some good moments here and there, it doesn’t add up to a very good movie. And as this is a recent movie, I will be discussing it in full so this is your spoiler warning.
My Friend Dahmer
My Friend Dahmer 2017
I couldn’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Jeffrey Dahmer was the first serial killer that I became aware of when it happened. I don’t really remember very much about his life, his trial, or anything after he went to jail. Pretty much the only thing I remembered was the basics of his crimes including the cannibalism and the fact that it was known that he had tortured animals when he was younger. Going into this movie I wasn’t quite sure what to expect outside of the fact that it was told from the perspective of someone who knew Dahmer in high school and had previously turned it into a graphic novel. While the movie does show some sympathy towards Dahmer and the struggles he had in his life, it also shows just as much of his disturbed nature and early signs of the road he would eventually go down. Not only that, but it paints it all in such a generally mundane way that somehow makes the story feel even more unnatural.
The Death of Stalin
The Death of Stalin 2017
Every so often I do a Twitter poll to help me decide what movie I should watch and review next. The poll I ran a couple weeks ago had this film in the lead, but it was checked out of the library last time I went there so it took me longer than I had planned to get around to watching it. For this movie and the next one I’m planning on watching I was able to go in almost completely blind. I only knew three things about this movie before pushing play on my DVD player: the title, that it was a comedy, and it was based on a graphic novel. The comic was written by Fabien Nury and drawn by Thierry Robin and originally published in French under the title La Mort de Staline, it’s loosely based on the real life events that happened during and shortly after Stalin’s death. And the movie itself extends that concept a little bit further by including some satirical comedy to shine a light on the absurdities of the situation despite how dark some of the situations are.
Ethel & Ernest
Ethel & Ernest 2016
I always enjoy getting around to watching comic book movies that aren’t just about superheroes. This is the second film that I watched based on a graphic novel by Raymond Briggs after the lesser known 80’s animation When the Wind Blows. Briggs is probably best known for his children’s book the Snowman and while children’s books do share some similarities with comic books and graphic novels, there’s enough of a difference that I don’t include any of them in my list. This has a somewhat similar style as When the Wind Blows except that the backgrounds in this film are gorgeous. The two main characters actually feel like they inspired the two characters in the previous movie but they are actually inspired by the author’s actual parents. This film chronicles the relatively basic life of two simple people living in London through the events of World War II as well as their years afterwards. It might be simple, but it’s a poignant look at these two people’s life from the perspective of their eventual son.
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FTMN Book Club – February
I’m going to start off by saying that I’m not entirely sure how this is going to work, but since I’ve decided to start taking a look at some actual graphic novels in addition to just the movies that are based on them, I thought I would try and make this more of a communal thing. Since this is the inaugural edition, I am admittedly being lazy by choosing the book that I’m already in the process of reading. The Diary of a Teenage Girl, an Account in Words and Pictures by Phoebe Gloeckner.
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The Diary of a Teenage Girl
The Diary of a Teenage Girl 2015
Often I take the internet’s word for things. If something is called a graphic novel or a comic book, then I take it at its word. I added this movie to my watch list because it was listed as being based on a comic, but when I looked at the credits, I saw that it was “based on the novel”. So in rare form, I decided to check it out myself since my library had both the DVD and the original book it was based on. Personally, I wouldn’t quite call the book a graphic novel but I will still include it here on my site. It would be more apt to call it an illustrated novel with some comic pages included. There are large pictures on about every third page, and there’s about a dozen 1-3 page sequential comic book pages throughout the book that’s structured more like a diary, as the title implies. That said, it’s still a fascinating look at the life of a teenage girl in the 70’s who is obsessed with sex and jumps into that world with both feet.
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Graphic Horror: 30 Days of Night: Dark Days
30 Days of Night: Dark Days 2010
It’s March and I’m continuing my recent tradition of making March Graphic Horror month where I seek out and review horror and thriller films that are based on comic books and graphic novels. And while I haven’t made an official blogathon this year, if you would like to join in, here’s a list of films that fit the bill, just let me know via e-mail or Twitter and I’ll check it out and share the link. But for the first film I decided to go back to my other goal for the year and continue watching movies made in 2010 and later with this sequel to 2007’s 30 Days of Night. Unfortunately, while it did have a few moments of inspiration, it mostly fell flat into a rather trope-filled horror movie that fell into all the same routines filled with a rather boring cast. It wasn’t awful to watch, but there were way too many decisions that I questioned concerning the characters, the vampires, and mostly everything else.
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300
300 2006
I’ve reached a couple milestones as I write this review. This appropriately marks my 300th review for a comic book or superhero movie, on top of that I’ve also recently passed my fourth year writing on this site and it’s been a lot of fun and I’m finally getting down to the nitty gritty of superhero and comic book movies. Along with the new movies and just a small handful of notable films I’ve yet to cover there will likely be a lot more obscure and foreign films in the future. But as for the film that I’m actually discussing here today is one of the reasons why Zack Snyder went on to make Watchmen, Man of Steel, and is currently in charge of the DC Extended Universe. It’s a film that I’ve seen before, likely when it was in theaters, I used to own, and spawned a second movie that’s a prequel and sequel all at the same time. It’s been years since I’ve seen this film and it has suffered a bit from being parodied to death, but for the most part it still holds up as an enjoyable film with lots and lots of abs.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 