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Steam Engines of Oz
Steam Engines of Oz 2018
I wasn’t intentionally going down the Arcana studios rabbit hole, but I just happened to see this DVD at the library after returning Howard Lovecraft and the Kingdom of Madness so I decided to pick it up and get it over with. I didn’t have very high hopes for it even though I was about fifty-fifty with the Howard Lovecraft trilogy. In general, I’m a big fan of Oz adaptations and I do like it when they go away from the traditional Dorothy route and get into some of the extended lore even if I technically haven’t read any of it myself. But this suffered from many of the problems that existed with the Howard Lovecraft series, especially the low budget animation and limited quality for voice actors outside of a few notable characters. But this one also suffered from lack of interesting characters or a cohesive story and failed on almost all accounts.
Howard Lovecraft and the Kingdom of Madness
Howard Lovecraft and the Kingdom of Madness 2018
This is the third movie in a trilogy from comic studio slash low budget animation studio Arcana. The first movie felt a little overly kiddish, the second was a little darker and a little better. The third movie finishes out the trilogy and ends up falling somewhere inbetween the two. This has always been a lower budget animated series, but somehow the lower budget is felt a lot more in this final chapter. And I’m still not overly familiar with the mythology behind HP Lovecraft but of the three, I think I’ve either just started to get the hang of it after watching it over the course of three movies, or it was less dense this time around. It’s still an odd choice for what appears to be a children’s film but it’s not a bad ending to the trilogy. And even though this is a less popular film, it’s still a fairly recent release which I will be going into full spoilers so here’s your warning.
Teen Titans Go! to the Movies
Teen Titans Go! to the Movies 2018
I’ll be honest: I’ve only seen a couple episodes of the original Teen Titans cartoon, but I’ve seen a much larger handful of Teen Titans Go! And on top of that, I’m someone who generally champions different takes on properties so I do quite enjoy the wacky sitcom-esque basis for Go! so I was actually quite excited to see this film even though I missed out on watching it when it was in theaters. This is a property that doesn’t take itself seriously and it often uses self-deprecating humor, there’s also quite a bit of background details that cover the breadth of DC comics knowledge though there’s not quite as much background details as something like a LEGO Movie, but for someone like me who has a lot of DC movie and TV knowledge, but not a lot of comics knowledge, there were a lot of deep cuts that I recognized, and plenty other deep cuts that were too deep for even me.
Split
Split 2017
Even though I watched this for the first time last year after I heard about the final twist that connected it to Unbreakable I never got around to writing about it until now. And honestly, I’m glad I did as I was able to watch a video showcasing some of the extra good parts that I missed the first time around and I also saw more things that I hadn’t quite noticed on a first watch. This was a great return to form for Shyamalan after a series of disappointments and even though Glass didn’t quite resonate with many of his fans, I think that this is a great trilogy with a very similar style. Where Unbreakable was the first act of the origin story, this is the second act where it showcases the origin of the villain. It also has a similar slow pace and real world explanations for the powers. Not only that, but it also holds its own as a stand-alone horror suspense movie.
BlokeBusting The Essentials #49: The Amazing Spider-Man
Your deep dive into the top 100 Superhero films of all time!
#49: The Amazing Spider-Man
Or
We’re Sorry For Emo Peter…
Well, we’re back once more to talk about a film from Bubbawheat’s list. This time we’re focusing on the reboot of Spider-Man featuring Mr Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Rhys Ifans. There’s a few things that I will need to bring up here, so I think it’s best if we speed right along!
First Impressions
This film was one that I wasn’t excited about the first time I saw it. Despite the issues most people had with Spider-Man 3, I had no real problems with it other than agreeing that there were too many villains and that Venom was poorly used, so I could have left the Spider-Man films alone and been fine until Tom Holland arrived. However, this film was made and I did end up watching it. And I shall air my issue with how Spider-Man has been portrayed now, since otherwise it’ll simply be an Elephant in the blog.
The LEGO Movie 2
The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part 2019
It’s been an interesting year so far for me, and while it’s only February, I’ve actually been doing quite well at keeping up with the new releases that I cover here on the site. And while LEGO Movie may have been a bit of a stretch to consider as a superhero movie at all, the sequel is even slightly moreso. But it still has LEGO Batman as a main character and the heroic characters are busy saving their world, so I’m rolling with it. As far as how it stacks up to the previous two movies, the humor is still the same but this one builds on the live action reveal of the first movie in a way that’s predictable but still enjoyable. And as I tend to mention with any new release reviews, I discuss the movie in full so if you’re worried about spoilers, here’s your warning.
FTMN Quickie/Almost Super: Sexina
Almost Super: Sexina: Pop Star P.I. 2007
A little while ago I was cultivating some lists of movies that I still need to review that are on various streaming services. One of those services is Hoopla which is free through most local libraries. I did a basic search for “Superhero” and this was one of the movies that came up. I ran a poll on Twitter, and this is the movie that won. I knew I was in for a bad movie from the start just based on the description and cover art, but I was in the mood for a bad movie and this scratched that itch perfectly. The only problem was that I didn’t quite read the description carefully enough because I quickly realized that this wasn’t really a superhero movie at all, but a private eye detective style movie. Not only that, but it was also a parody film though the line between the movie trying to parody its subject and the movie just being funny because it’s so bad is a very thin line. Honestly, the film did eventually get some genuine laughs out of me but it was also halfway between laughing with it and laughing at it.
Incredibles 2
Incredibles 2 2018
I’ve almost finished catching up with all the 2017 releases but I still have a ways to go with the 2018 releases. I actually watched this film with my daughter in theaters back when it first came out. I remember quite enjoying the film overall and hearing mostly positive praise for the film with a handful of complaints about how it was overly obvious and more or less mirrored the first film. Watching it again, I do see some flaws in logic, but for the most part it was great to see the family back together again and it felt just as good as it did the first time around. There’s a similar aspect of family difficulties right alongside some fantastic superhero action. There were a few questionable actions, but in general I was having too much fun just watching the movie that I didn’t really care.
Top Black Superhero & Comic Book Movies of All Time *Updated*
It’s 2019 and while I wrote the majority of this post back in 2016, there have finally been a few new superhero movies that feature a Black protagonist. Not only that, but they have actually been quite good. Not only not only that, but two of them were nominated for Academy Awards including the first ever Superhero movie to be nominated for Best Picture. So this February, I decided to update this list to include the more recent Black superhero and comic book movies. Below is the original introduction.
BlokeBusting the Essentials #99: Supergirl
Your deep dive into the top 100 Superhero films of all time!
#99: Supergirl
Or:
Why Women Superheroes Had Trouble Getting Films Made
This film took me a long time to watch. Seriously, and I wish I wasn’t joking, this took me 4 separate sessions over a couple of weeks to finish. I would press play, get about 25 minutes in and just have to pause it. What does that mean for this review? You’re about to find out.
First Impressions
This film was hard to watch, but maybe not for the reasons you might think. I’m sure some people will happily take it as a sign that women cannot helm a major film. They are wrong. Others might take it to mean that I have an issue with the character in general. They would also be wrong. My main problem with this film is one of pacing. It’s the same issue I have with some of the older superhero films, where some parts just take AAAAGGGEEESSSS to get going, while other parts are over way too fast. I have another issue with this film, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 