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Barb Wire
Barb Wire 1996
Ok, so first off I should probably mention that it’s taken me about three days to write this review. It’s not that it’s a terribly complex movie, or that I’ve wanted to go on and on and on about it. It’s just that for about two days, I’ve been sitting with this post open on its own tab, and I’ve been finding any and every online reason to distract myself from writing it. I do have to admit that it’s been very refreshing to essentially take a break from blogging. I went from being quite disappointed that my traffic wasn’t increasing at the same rate it had been for a handful of months, and that it was way lower than several other sites that had started around the same time, and that posting daily was way more taxing than I realized and after a few days, I realized it wasn’t having a huge effect on traffic. I’m obviously getting less traffic than I was when I was posting daily, but it’s not a huge drop. And if I really cared that much about traffic, I would simply review more popular movies. But taking this break has helped me focus on what this site has really become for me, a way to seek out and share my thoughts on a little niche genre that I enjoy, a way to find the undiscovered little gems that others may get a kick out of. But before I go way off topic (too late), let’s get back to the movie at hand. Before I started looking into it, all I knew about Barb Wire was that it was Pamela Anderson’s attempt at acting, an adaptation of some comic book, and Pam Anderson showed off quite a bit of her body in it. After I started looking into it, one of the first things anyone mentioned about it was that it was essentially a remake of Casablanca. Now Casablanca is one of the few black and white classic movies that I’m a big fan of. I’ve seen it three or four times (which is a lot for me, I rarely re-watch movies unless it’s a favorite), so I was curious how many similarities I would be able to catch, which did kind of make it more interesting to watch, if only a little.
Sting of the Black Scorpion
Sting of the Black Scorpion 2002
This is one of the many rarities and lesser known straight-to-DVD superhero movies I found at my local rental store’s bargain section. It is actually three episodes of the Roger Corman produced television series on the Sci-Fi channel called Black Scorpion. I looked it up and the show ran for only 22 episodes and spawned one other movie called “Return of the Black Scorpion” which was released a year before this one, but I couldn’t tell if it was a newly made epilogue for the TV series, or if it was a similar collection of episodes. There was also two made for TV movies several years before featuring the same characters, and with Roger Corman attached to it. But I couldn’t find much more information on them either. This show is rather akin to the classic Adam West Batman TV series, although it feels like it’s almost trying to be a serious show. Where Batman was almost nonstop camp and silliness, this movie plays sometimes for laughs, and sometimes more seriously. And it also has Frank Gorshin, who played the Riddler, as Clockwise.
Follow Friday: It Rains… You Get Wet
Follow Friday: It Rains… You Get Wet
Welcome to another edition of Follow Friday where each week I feature and interview a fellow blogger and follow their suggestion to another blog to feature next week. I prefer this over a blogroll because it gives each blog their own time to shine, plus I personally rarely click on blogrolls so why would I expect you to? Not only that, but I get the chance to check out some great blogs I might not have found otherwise found, talk to some great people, and share the conversation with you. Of course, if you would rather see something like a blogroll, I have collected all of my previous Follow Friday sites in list form which you can find right at the top of the page. This week I was directed by Ruth over at Flixchatter to check out Michael aka Le0pard13’s blog It Rains… You Get Wet.
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 1993
When I first made my superhero movie list, this one was absent from it. I had actually seen it before, back when it first came out even though I think I waited for home video. I always remembered it as more of a sci-fi movie than a superhero movie. But then I watched a great episode of How it Should Have Ended with Super Mario. “I’m just like you, I’m a superhero. I rescue the princess. You are Superman, I am Super Mario, we are the same.” And it won me over, and I was hoping for another “so bad it’s good” superhero movie because this one has bad written all over it. They took the overall concept of Super Mario, pulled out a handful of names, and a couple designs, then threw it into a generic connected dimension sci-fi movie. Instead of making the mushroom kingdom into a bright, colorful, whimsical place, they made it dark and dystopian. It had some pretty poor action, poor comedy, and a poor plot. There were a handful of fun moments, but not much in the movie clicked with me, and it also never quite transcended into over the top bad fun, it was just lazy.
As You Watch #2: Dick Tracy
Welcome back to the second episode of the As You Watch Podcast, featuring myself, Joe from Two Dude Review, Nick from Cinematic Katzenjammer, and Vern from Vern’s Video Vangaurd. In our second episode we talk about our movie of the episode: Dick Tracy. But we also cover today’s new releases on DVD and Blu-Ray, including The Lucky One and Battleship, and this weekend’s new theatrical releases, including Lawless. We also cover our own personal top three gangster movies, avoiding some of the biggest titles in that category. Since Dick Tracy was my pick of the week, I’m hosting the podcast, so leave any feedback and suggestions right here and everybody will be able to see them. In two weeks, we’ll be watching I Saw the Devil, so if you want to watch too, be sure to check it out. If you write a review of the movie, we will gladly add a link to it in our podcast post. And special thanks to the band Jelly Project who allowed us the use of their song “Crazy World” to open our show.
Click Here to Listen at our PodOMatic page
Superhero Shorts: Captain Planet Trailer
Welcome to this week’s edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a different superhero themed short film and get the creator of the film to answer a few interview questions. This week I’m talking with Noah Baron, Matt Kohler, and Robert Santiago, three actor-turned-producers who came up with a different take on the classic 90’s cartoon Captain Planet. Instead of amping up the campiness of the old cartoon, they turned it into a much more realistic and gritty movie trailer that looks seriously good. You can watch it below, or you can see it on any of their own sites.
Return of Captain Invincible
Return of Captain Invincible 1983
This isn’t quite the start of my new schedule just yet. I’m still trying to figure that one out. I know I’ll be watching another movie this weekend and I’ve got a promising new Superhero Shorts interview lined up, I think it’s a pretty good one. But for now I’ll just talk about this awesome 80’s movie that Morgan over at Morgan on Media pointed out to me. It’s called Return of Captain Invincible and it’s an 80’s, musical, superhero comedy. You heard that right. Not only that, but it stars Alan Arkin and Christopher Lee. It has a very Rocky Horror Picture Show vibe to it and it is extremely ludicrous. The songs range across a wide variety of styles and quality, and there is a surprising amount of Benny Hill-ish shirt-bursting moments, and even some brief nudity, which actually surprised me a bit, I always forget that ratings back then were actually more lenient on PG ratings. The movie overall was quite enjoyable for me, and for a couple days at least you can see my live tweets while I was watching the movie, covering some of the better moments.
Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy 1990
Before I get into some more classicly bad and/or cheesy superhero movies, I picked this movie for our new podcast. I won our first game and next Tuesday will be the second episode of the As You Watch Podcast. You can be involved too. If you want to watch Dick Tracy and review it on your site, I will gladly link to your reviews so we can all discuss it together. Anyway, Dick Tracy came out on the heels of Tim Burton’s Batman movie and tried to cash in on that first wave of Superhero movies, but it was fairly short lived as nothing besides Batman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles seemed to have any pull with audiences at the time. Dick Tracy was inspired by a classic comic strip that dates back to the 30’s. Warren Beatty pulled a lot of his influence to make this pet project, initially getting it greenlit under a moderate budget before ballooning it to almost double before he was done. The results were fairly impressive for the time, with all the bright colors and unique characters that looked like they were almost taken directly off the comic book page. But while there are still a lot of great things about the movie, it just doesn’t quite hold up as well anymore, at least in my opinion.
FTMN Poll: What’s your favorite type of “bad” movie?
Bad movies, some of them are hard to watch, but others transcend that barrier to become a real treat. I just got done watching several that I totally didn’t like and will shortly be moving on to a few that I predict I will enjoy a whole lot more, so I have to ask “What kind of ‘bad’ movies do you like the best?” Is it the ones that are cheesy and campy which make the bad jokes incredibly charming? Or is it the ones that try to take themselves seriously, but are either so over the top or just cheaply made that their piss poor efforts are hilariously bad? Vote, share some of your favorites, enjoy!
Almost Super: Die Hard
Almost Super: Die Hard 1988
I was never a big fan of the huge action movie franchises when I was younger. I think out of all the well known movies by the big action stars of the 80’s and 90’s, I had only seen Total Recall and Last Action Hero. It was only a couple years ago when I finally saw Die Hard back to back with the first Lethal Weapon after watching Live Free or Die Hard, mainly because I’m a huge Kevin Smith fan and try to watch almost everything he’s been involved with. That reason was also what made me watch Roadhouse – in the special edition DVD, he and Scott Mosier do a really fun commentary track for it. I never did go on to watch any of the sequels, but of the four films, the original Die Hard was head and shoulders above the other three in terms of quality. There’s a reason that for years and years after this movie came out, action movies like Speed were referred to “Die Hard on a Bus”. It was the benchmark of a great action film, and over twenty years later, it still holds up as a great flick. It is well crafted twists and turns with just the right amount of comic relief without being too silly. And John McClane himself is practically a superhero in his own right, taking on an entire pseudo-terrorist-cell all by himself.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 