Blog Archives
Filmwhys #35: Dead Poets Society and Darkman
Filmwhys 35: Dead Poets Society and Darkman
Episode 35 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Alex Withrow of And So It Begins… who asks me why I haven’t seen Dead Poets Society, one of Robin Williams’ greatest roles in his career. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen Darkman, Sam Raimi’s first foray into the superhero film waters with a hero of his own creation that later spawned two direct-to-video sequels. We also spend a little time talking about the career of Robin Williams as well as a couple teachers that inspired us in our past.
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The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn 2011
Since I’ve been running a few blogathons lately, I thought I would return the favor and join in some of the other blogathons that have been running by some of my favorite sites. So when I saw that It Rains… You Get Wet was helping to run his very first blogathon, I knew I wanted to be a part of it, and when I saw that it was a Spielbergathon, I was even more excited. Make sure you check out the other entries as well as the other sites hosting it: Citizen Screenings and Outspoken and Freckled. Of course, when you think of Steven Spielberg, you think of his many classic blockbusters like Jaws, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, and plenty more but while he has many iconic heroes to his name, he has never done a superhero movie. But he has actually been involved with a couple comic book adaptations, directing this adaptation of the long running, beloved French comic which has actually been adapted many different times in France but most Americans were unaware of it, and he was also the executive producer of the odd sci-fi western adaptation of Cowboys and Aliens. This was also a noted collaboration between himself and Peter Jackson who will hopefully still be directing the sequel once he’s done with the Hobbit films later this year. I didn’t see this movie in theaters, but I did enjoy it fairly well once I saw it on home video. I was unfamiliar with the details of Tintin outside of the absolute basics of his appearance and the fact that he was a comic character but knew nothing about what types of adventures he had or his personality before watching this.
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Antboy
Antboy 2014
I saw the Danish trailer for this movie last year and to my amazement, it was actually given a home video release here in the US and I happened to find it here through Redbox (and you can see if Antboy at Redbox is available near you) though the US distribution almost completely erases any mention of the fact that this is a Danish movie, filmed in Danish, and dubbed in English without even the option to watch in the original language with subtitles. Aside from that, I thought it was a fun family superhero movie that followed several superhero movie conventions while also bucking a couple of them. There are some fun little flourishes and it rarely takes itself seriously. I mean, what do you expect from a movie called Antboy? It’s interesting to see what slight differences pop up when it comes from Denmark, though there are surprisingly few things that aren’t really relatable as an American audience. I absolutely enjoyed it for what it was.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014
I wasn’t really planning on seeing this movie in theaters, it had a lot of negative hype surrounding it as it was from (director Jonathan Leibsman) and producer Michael Bay, the early buzz around the movie was that they were going to be aliens, they weren’t going to go with the full Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles title, the turtles themselves had really weird noses, and it had the critic’s bane Megan Fox in a major role as April O’Neal. It didn’t help once the reviews started coming in either. Outside of a couple positive reviews, including one from Today, I Watched a Movie whose taste is often similar to mine, everything was coming back negative and further diminishing my desire to see this movie. But I was overruled by my family and to my surprise, it wasn’t the crapfest I was anticipating. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not an amazing achievement in cinematic history either but I wasn’t counting the seconds until the movie was over and I caught myself enjoying the moments between the turtles and other things here and there.
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Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four 2005
I recently talked briefly about this movie in my top 10 guilty pleasure superhero movies list even though it had been years since I had seen it last, I also think that it is one of the last few big superhero movies that I’ve yet to review here on this site along with its sequel, Elektra, TMNT, and just a couple others. While I did enjoy it the last time I saw it, I’ve had years of internet loathing to soak its way into my brain as well as years of quality cinema, superhero and otherwise to better allow me to see the flaws in this movie and boy did I ever. Of course, behind all the bad writing, dated special effects, and questionable casting choices there is still some fun to be had watching this movie and above all else, it’s still the Fantastic Four.
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Filmwhys #34: Rosemary’s Baby and Supergirl
Episode 34 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest Eric from TheIPC asks me why I haven’t seen Rosemary’s Baby, the horror classic from Roman Polanski about a woman who is having the devil’s baby but takes the entire course of the pregnancy to fully realize it. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen Supergirl, one of the worst films to come out of the Salkind Superman era with Faye Dunaway hamming it up as the villain and practically no budget for any of the special effects. *Warning: there is some minor language in this episode as I found it hard to talk about his Shitfest otherwise* Also, the Filmwhys archives have been fully updated if you are looking for any recent episodes that had fallen out of the PodOmatic RSS/iTunes feed.
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Assault on Arkham
Batman: Assault on Arkham 2014
There were two straight-to-home-video superhero movies from the two big comic book companies that came out about the same time on streaming services, and depending on how you look at it I chose poorly by watching Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United first, or just saved the best one for last. The only thing I knew about this movie was that it was based on the recent Arkham video game series which I haven’t played. I had no idea that it was more specifically about the Suicide Squad which I had only just heard about earlier this year when they were teased in an episode of Arrow. Many of these DC Animated movies have been getting darker and darker, and while this movie has plenty of moments that border on the “R” side of its “PG-13” rating, they are handled with a lot of fun. It also helps to set the tone right from the beginning with the introduction to the suicide squad themselves that feels like it could have been pulled from a 70’s cop show. I loved this movie from start to finish and it’s another quality title in the series.
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Top 10 Guilty Pleasure Superhero Movies
It feels like I’ve been running or planning my own blogathons quite a bit around here, I thought it was only fair to finally take part in some other blogathons. One I ran across just today was a fun little blogathon called Guilty Pleasure Movies over at Flick Chicks. And even though I did recently take part in a Guilty Pleasures Lambcast, I didn’t mention too many superhero movies and I knew I could easily come up with a whole top 10 list of Guilty Pleasure Superhero movies. These aren’t some of the best movies out there, and I’m sure I might catch some flak from true superhero fans for liking these, but there’s just something about them that I happen to like.
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Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United
Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United
It seems like it happens quite often when a straight to home video release catches me unaware until it is actually released as is the case with this movie which is a pseudo-sequel to Iron Man and Hulk: Heroes United from last year. It has the same kinda cell shaded CGI animation style and the same voice actors for Iron Man and Hulk, though it doesn’t quite feel as young skewed as the previous attempt, it’s not too deep either. And similar to Iron Man and Hulk, I didn’t really connect with this movie aside from a couple fights and a couple laughs, it was too simple, too silly, and didn’t really feel connected with anything. Even my daughter Jena didn’t give this one a whole lot of interest. It’s interesting that while Marvel is dominating the box office, and has quite a few TV shows out there, but its home video animated movies are severely lacking.
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Guesting at the Matineecast, aka “The Circle is Complete”
While I do get the occasional chance to make a guest appearance on other people’s podcasts, I don’t always feel the need to share them here on this site, especially when I get the rare chance to talk about movies that aren’t superhero movies. But this past weekend I got the chance to make an appearance on the podcast that really inspired my Filmwhys podcast, especially as far as his format goes where he has a single guest, opens up with some movie-related questions before digging into some no-nonsense talk about a new release and two other movies that connect to the new release in some way, one chosen by himself and the other chosen by his guest. If you have listened to Filmwhys, I’m sure you can tell which parts I cribbed off of his notes and where I spun it in my own direction. Anyway, since I did make it out to the theater opening weekend for Guardians of the Galaxy, I was happy to come onto his show to discuss the new release. And for my Other Side, I chose a James Gunn written superhero movie that’s even more lesser known than Super, which is the Specials. So make sure you go and visit theMatinee.ca for Matineecast episode 118 and hear our thoughts on Guardians of the Galaxy, the Specials, and some other movie from another director known for superhero movies about a group of misfits banding together. You’ve probably never heard of it.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 