Blog Archives
Almost Super: Gremlins
Almost Super: Gremlins
I have been without internet for a little while, but that hasn’t stopped me from watching movies and getting things ready for this site. I managed to find a wi-fi hotspot to upload this post, but I don’t have much time here today. I’ll be back in full force on Friday. I’ve also been wanting to start a new series for a while now. There are a limited number of superhero movies, and my goal of watching all of them is actually attainable, if still a few years away. So to help expand this blog a little bit, I came up with this series “Almost Super” so that I can feature other movies that I enjoy that still share some qualities of superhero movies without directly being one. In honor of being selected in this year’s Lammy awards under the Sci-Fi Horror banner I thought it would be a good idea to expand my horror repertoire a little bit. And what better fit for this site than a not-quite-typical horror movie. Gremlins is a much different type of horror, with creatures that could have easily been lifted off a comic book page and plenty of humor to back it up. And that’s why I selected it for my first edition of Almost Super.
FTMN Poll: What Features Do You Like Here?
I felt like it was time to get a little more feedback on this site, so I thought the best way to do that was via a poll. Next week’s poll will be something a little bit more fun. You can choose multiple options, just let me know what you like here. Is there anything that you don’t like? Is there anything missing? Let me know in the comments. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.
X-Men: The Last Stand
X-Men: The Last Stand 2006
It feels like I’ve been watching X-Men movies for a long time now, there’s been some pretty great movies, and some fairly mediocre movies, but I’m glad I’m done with them and am ready to move onto something different. It makes me glad that I’m not going to try to cram all eight Batman movies back to back to back. After two great X-Men movies by Bryan Singer, he dropped out for the chance to make Superman Returns while the helm was passed on to Brett Ratner. The movie promised a lot of things, some popular X-Men that hadn’t made it to the movies yet, and it centered around the mutant “cure” which could have brought in all sorts of layers of meaning to this movie. But instead, it’s a lot of empty action with little real depth to it all. It’s still a fun watch, but compared to the previous two X-Men movies and even First Class, it felt fairly empty.
Follow Friday: Radiator Heaven
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. So this week I was directed by Brent Allard over at Criminal Movies to check out JD’s site Radiator Heaven.
X2: X-Men United
X2: X-Men United 2003
I’ve almost finished revisiting all of the X-Men movies and tonight I watched what many consider the strongest out of all of them. It has more characters, a bigger conflict, and the whole enemy of my enemy is my friend plotline. And not only are there more characters, most of the characters are stronger than in the first X-Men and there are fewer weak characters. Where X-Men was the movie that made everyone take notice of the superhero movie again, X2 was the movie that made everyone take superhero movies seriously. At least for a little while. I do have to mention that for whatever reason, the movie didn’t fully hold my interest for the duration. I felt the need to pause it a couple times to check on other things. It’s not a huge negative against the movie because I can be easily distracted, but it is a slight negative. There is still a lot of great things in this movie.
X-Men
X-Men 2000
While it seemed like a good idea at the time to watch all five of the X-Men movies back to back, coming around to watching the first one made me realize that they’re better suited as being treated as separate entities. When you watch them close together, the continuity changes are quite glaring. Aside from that, this movie generally holds up and I can totally see how this one movie really paved the way for the previous generation of superhero movies. I say previous in the hope that the recent Avengers movie, prequels and sequels, as well as Nolan’s Batman movies, lead into the current generation of superhero movies. But X-Men still stands as a landmark in superhero movies.
FTMN Poll: Who’s your favorite X-Men villain?
Last week I asked what your favorite X-Men was, this time around I’m asking who your favorite villain is? One great thing about the X-Men is that the villains are often just as interesting and complex as the X-Men themselves. Many times even becoming allies during different periods of time. Rather than just being evil for evil’s sake, though there are a few of those in there too, it’s their different ideologies that put them at odds with the X-Men. I pulled this list together mostly from my memory of the 90’s cartoon and the movies, if I left any biggies out please leave a comment telling me about them. Which one is your favorite? The all-powerful Apocalypse? The mysterious Mystique? Or one of the many government officials working to pass laws and public favor against mutants in general? Vote! Leave a comment! You know the drill. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2009
I continue on my trek through the X-Men movies in a possibly unorthodox manner moving on to what I believe would actually be the next chronological movie. Even though it starts well before First Class, the main portion of the movie takes place sometime before the X-Men trilogy but after First Class, the intention was probably to have it be around 1979 due to the finale being set in Three Mile Island, though it’s fairly vague in its time period, without any obvious 80’s or 90’s fashions. I have had it on bluray for a while now, though I haven’t watched it since I bought it over a couple years ago. I think this is generally the least liked X-Men film alongside the Last Stand. And while I could see a few general annoyances, I still enjoyed the movie a lot.
Superhero Shorts: How It Should Have Ended
Superhero Shorts: How it Should Have Ended
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 get the chance to feature my first animated short rather than a live action one, and since I’ve just started watching the X-Men movies, I thought it would be perfect to feature How X-Men: First Class Should Have Ended, which you can watch right below, or on their website, along with tons of other parodies of recent and classic movies.
Follow Friday: Criminal Movies
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. So this week I was directed by M over at The Smoking Pen to check out a fellow niche blogger that focuses on movies about crime and the anti-hero, Criminal Movies
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 