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Follow Friday: The Velvet Café
Follow Friday: The Velvet Café
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 Scott over at Front Room Cinema to check out The Velvet Café. But since she was on vacation last week, I held it over and am featuring it this week.
Almost Super: Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat 1995
I hit a little bit of a movie block this past week, possibly due to watching The Dark Knight Rises, also possibly due to a couple movies that I plan on watching but haven’t been in the mood for. That, and I’ve been under the weather for the past few days and haven’t been in the mood for much of anything. So I put a call out on Twitter, and the only suggestion was Mortal Kombat. I was a big fan of both the game and the movie when it first came out, but haven’t watched it again in years. I believe the last game I played was Mortal Kombat 4, and didn’t play very much of that. The movie tosses in a ton of references to the game, which isn’t always a good thing, the fight scenes were pretty well done, and while it’s a little bit more campy than I remember, it’s still a pretty fun watch. Especially if you’re a fan of the Mortal Kombat games.
My Movie Confessions
Before I get to my confessional post, I’d like to mention that I’m in the process of putting together a podcast. I will do my best to bring the superhero love when and where I can, but I thought it would be easiest to round up some other movie bloggers to have a general movie podcast. As of right now, it seems to be between me, Nick over at Cinematic Katzenjammer, Joe over at Two Dude Review, and Vern over at The Vern’s Videovangaurd, with a couple others possibly joining up. We’re all fairly new to the podcasting game, so we’re taking it slow. I hope to have the first episode up by the middle of August and will be trying for a new episode every two weeks at first. As for today’s post, I’ve had a few ideas rolling around in my head, I know I want to do a post about the actors who double dip in the superhero pool, but I haven’t done the planning needed for that one yet. In the end, I took the easy way out and joined a fun little blogathon headed up by Nostra of My Film Views called Movie Confessions. I figured that I ask so many questions of others, it’s time to answer a few myself.
The Dark Knight Rises
The Dark Knight Rises 2012
I have to start off by mentioning that this is turning out to be one of the harder reviews I’ve had to write. I actually ended up seeing it by myself in the local theater at a late Saturday night showing, largely because I got the chance to participate in my first podcast for the Lamb which I believe will be posted this weekend. I jumped at the chance when the Dark Knight Rises episode went up for grabs, and even though it got filled before I got to put my name in the hat, a couple people dropped out so I snuck my way into the pod. And then I realized I would have to do something I have almost never done before: see the movie opening weekend, and see it by myself. I am a very shy person, and I dislike crowds of any kind. I was worried that the theater would be crowded, especially when I got to the theater at 9:25 and saw that the 9:30 show was flashing “sold out”. But luckily for me, the theater was only about two thirds full for the ten o’clock showing. I ended up having a good theater experience, sitting with empty chairs on either side of me, and near complete silence during the entire movie, the only crowd reaction was for the line “So that’s how it feels”. And since watching the movie, I’ve gone through and read many different reviews and takes on the movie, which has made it a little bit harder to sort out my own opinions from those of others. But I will say that Dark Knight Rises is an epic end to the best superhero trilogies of all time, even if it doesn’t have much competition in that category. I’ll even say that it’s one of the best movie trilogies of all time.
FTMN Poll: Best poster of the week?
I haven’t decided for sure yet, but instead of the usual poll, I may use these Monday posts to highlight the minimalist posters I use in my daily Facebook game. If you haven’t visited our Facebook Page yet, be sure to check it often. I post a new minimalist poster almost every day with the title removed, and it’s your job to guess what movie the poster is for. There’s some great designs, good ones, tough ones, and some not-so-great ones. There’s only been a couple stumpers including one from this week, though there’s still not a ton of people playing. So which one’s your favorite from this week’s batch, and why?
Also, the current leaderboard:
David – 4
Jason – 3
Morgan – 2
Dust Raven – 2
Dusty – 2
Keith – 2
No One – 2
Dylan – 1
Silver Emulsion – 1
Rob – 1
Fog’s – 1
Tygenco – 1
Nick – 1
The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight 2008
Or as it might more appropriately be called when compared to the recent movie, “The Dark Knight Falls”. Not because of the quality of the movie at all, but just because of what happens to Batman at the end of the movie, especially with where he starts the new movie. Ever since this movie came out in 2008, it has moved to the top of nearly everyone’s list of favorite superhero movies, and with good reason. The most memorable thing about the movie is definitely Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker. He was able to create something different than we’ve ever seen before, something much darker, close to many of the comics, and yet still likable. But there’s more to the movie than just the Joker, the overall plot is extremely tight and engaging, and the level of realism is really bumped up from what we saw in Batman Begins. Not only all that, but even the relationships between the characters are all very strong, and the movie still manages to have a huge heart in it. It really is one of the best superhero movies of all time, if not the best.
Superhero Shorts: Disassembled
Superhero Shorts: Disassembled
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 Junaid Chundrigar and his animated short film Disassembled. While the Avengers movie was all about how the heroes assembled together to form their team, this is what happens on a bad day when they get disassembled. It’s very Robot Chicken-esque with a bunch of very quick mini-scenes. And it’s not just the Avengers that were featured in the movie, it also features several other famous Marvel characters, many of whom I believe were also Avengers at some point in time. As always, you can watch the short right below, or you can watch it at Junaid’s YouTube Channel
Follow Friday: Fog’s Movie Reviews
Fog’s Movie Reviews
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 Scott over at Front Room Cinema to check out The Velvet Cafe. But since she’s on vacation this week, I decided to feature the site that inspired this column in the first place, Fog’s Movie Reviews.
Batman Begins
Batman Begins 2005
I am equal parts overjoyed and annoyed by all of the Batman reviews that have been popping up these past couple weeks. I especially enjoy it when some of the lesser reviewed gems come out of the woodwork, like a review of the first season of Batman: The Animated Series, or some of the DC Animated films. But I’m also annoyed because one of the reasons that I started this blog as a niche review site instead of a general movie review site was to stand out, and yet now I’ll be blending in as I take another look at Christopher Nolan’s already legendary Batman Trilogy. Today I start with the beginning, as that’s typically the best place. This is yet another origin story, but it’s unique in the fact that Batman is one of the few superheroes that kind of skipped over the whole origin story. Yes, Tim Burton’s Batman movie has that pivotal moment in Crime Alley where his parents are murdered, but when the flashback is over, he’s Batman in full force. This is the first time that audiences actually got to see how Bruce Wayne turned tragedy into vigilante.
New look, & Top 5 Most Original Superhero Movies
As you can probably tell, at least if you’ve ever been here before, I’ve gone and given this place a little bit of a makeover. I recently took part in a Brutally Blog Blustering over at the LAMB where you submit your blog, and people give constructive criticism anonymously. One thing that many people mentioned was the disjointed URL, so while it is a bit long, I couldn’t think of anything else more appropriate than FlightsTightsAndMovieNights.com. I will continue to renew Bubbawheat.com because I’ve had that name for more than half of my life at this point, and I doubt I’ll be changing it any time soon. I also went and made a more comics appropriate background that is hopefully not too distracting and looks good on most screen dimensions. I even adjusted my header image a bit to give it a more consistent and comics related font, as well as adding a few randomly changing taglines. If you’re wondering, there’s four. Which one do you like the best? I will be making a couple more tweaks to how my sidebars and pages are set up over the next week or so, but nothing too major. While several people complained about my lack of a blogroll, oftentimes even while praising my Follow Friday, I will be making a page collecting all of my Follow Fridays into a blogroll page of sorts. But enough about that, this week’s topic is a list of the five most original superhero movies. There’s tons of superhero movies out there, but so many of them are basically different takes on the same formula, or one of a select few formulas. But every once in a while, a movie comes out and does something completely different. It may not always work 100%, but I respect their efforts for trying.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 