Blog Archives
X-Men: First Class
X-Men: First Class 2011
X-Men: First Class is an interesting idea for a movie. It’s not exactly a prequel since it eschews several elements of the sequels that came before it, but it’s not exactly an entire reboot either because it pulls several parts of its history and future directly from the other movies. It was another late movie for me, something I need to stop doing so much. It’s also one of the rare instances that I actually rented the movie on bluray. I love getting the chance to bust out the bluray player, but I tend to watch most movies either streaming or on the computer’s DVD player, it’s all hooked up to the same monitor though. First Class looked fantastic, even though it did have a few slight hiccoughs due to it being a rental. I guess blurays are scratch resistant, but not completely scratch-proof. It’s a great place to jump into the current continuity of X-Men.
My top 5 X-Men
I’m getting ready to watch X-Men: First Class for the first time, went out and rented it on bluray today. I was never big into the X-Men comic books, but right at the same time as I started watching Batman: The Animated series, there was the X-Men animated series. I watched both of them every time they came on. They were very different from each other, but they both treated subject matter in a very adult manner. It made complicated issues understandable without being too childish. It’s where I learned about all of these mutants before I ever thought of someone playing a mutant on the big screen. But I haven’t actually gone back and re-watched any of the cartoons so the live action movies are much clearer in my memory. While many of the characters are very different from each other, there are a lot of great characters to choose from. I’ve said before that I’m not very keen on making lists, but I thought this was a list I could handle.
Generation X
Generation X 1996
I was all set to watch X-Men First Class to kick off my X-Men reviews, but as I was expanding my big list of movies to include home video and TV movie releases I realize that I had forgotten all about a 90’s made for TV movie called Generation X. And on top of that, what better movie to bridge the gap between old cheesy movies and the much better modern movies? So with that in mind, as well as coming off of Fantastic Four, I looked up Generation X and watched what is easily the worst X-Men movie even considering some people’s dislike of The Last Stand and Wolverine. The other thing that is pretty funny is that someone who looks back on it now makes it look like just a cheap rip off of the X-Men, although Emma Frost is a little more high profile nowadays.
FTMN Poll: Who’s your favorite member of the X-Men?
Now that I’m getting around to watching the X-Men movies, I’d like to know who your favorite member of the X-Men is. One of the popular ones such as Wolverine, or one of the lesser known ones such as Havok or Jubilee. I’ve tried to include most of the major members from the movies and the 90’s cartoon that I’m familiar with, but I’m sure I’ve left some out. If your favorite’s not on the list, be sure to leave a comment telling me why I should have included him/her.
Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four 1994
It’s time for yet another classic cheesy movie goodness, and while this is the newest of these movies that I’ve seen, being from the 90’s, the fact that the budget was so low that it looks and feels at least five years older than what it actually is. If there’s one piece of trivia that any superhero movie fan knows it’s this Fantastic Four movie directed by Roger Corman. It was never intended to be released in theaters or even on home video, the studio decided that it was worth the small budget that they gave the movie in order to retain the rights to the Fantastic Four so they could make a better version of the movie in the near future. This is the exact same reason why all of the recent non-Marvel studio movies are being rebooted and churned out so quickly. If they didn’t make these movies then Fox, Sony, and whatever other studio would lose the rights to make another movie using those characters. But while it was never intended to be released, no one that actually worked on the movie knew that fact so they all put their full effort into it, just at a dirt cheap salary.
Superhero Shorts: Uncanny X-Men
Superhero Shorts: Uncanny X-Men
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 getting ready to start watching the X-Men movies by watching a fan made series based on the Phoenix Saga. Below you can watch the first episode “Birth”, or you can visit their YouTube channel at ThrowbackStudioz.
Follow Friday: The Smoking Pen
Welcome to another edition of Follow Friday where I take a look at a great movie blogger that you should check out too. 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 filmsRruss to check out a blog dedicated to action movies, guns, and all things badass, which does include quite a bit of coarse language, and so does this post FYI. I’m talking about The Smoking Pen.
Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon 1980
As I continue my venture into the great chasm of cheesy superhero movies I decided to seek out the 1980 movie of Flash Gordon. There was very little about this movie that I knew of going into it. I knew the hero was named Flash Gordon, the villain was named Ming the Merciless, Queen did the theme song which I had heard, and of all people my older sister actually gave it her endorsement. I do have a Facebook account, but I only use it for old friends and family. I posted about the poll I had on what to watch, mentioning the cheesy movies like Flash Gordon was tied with X-Men and my sister wrote “Flash Gordon isn’t cheesy, it’s awesome!” After watching it, I agree. It’s awesome, horribly horribly awesome. This movie made me laugh harder and more often than the Avengers. There was so much wrong with this movie, but it played it all so earnestly I just had to buy into it.
Avengers Redux, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Try the Theater
It may sound odd, but I haven’t been to a theater in about four years. The last movie I remember seeing was Wall*E, back when Jena was too young to really enjoy or remember it, shortly afterwards we ran into some major money troubles and have only recently gotten to the point where I think we’ve just about fully recovered. I was originally going to title this blog “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Theater” so that should give you a little preview of how things went. We went down to the local AMC twelve screen, the only theater in our relatively small midwest town outside of a single screen theater that shows mostly independent movies so we could watch the Avengers.
Howard the Duck
Howard the Duck 1986
There was only two things I really remembered about this movie before I picked it up on clearance at a used DVD store for about two bucks: I had watched it when I was younger, and I recently skimmed a review for it that had a picture of duck boobs from it. Based on that alone, my wife was against letting Jena watch it with us. But ever since we brought the DVD home, she has been interested in the movie based on the cover artwork alone. My wife was upstairs going to bed early, it was late, my review is due in a couple hours to meet my own personal deadline (which I’ll be about an hour late on), the movie is rated PG, so we started watching it together. Jena’s one word review of Howard the Duck: “Fantastic”. I’m glad I let her watch it with me, it may not be a stellar parenting choice, but I’m ok with it. And while there is that moment of pseudo-nudity, it’s presented in a non-sexual manner, and she is a girl after all. Howard the Duck managed to combine adult themes, childish humor, minor amounts of action, and a love story between a human and a duck. It was bad, but based on the reactions of my daughter, and my wife who came down halfway through the movie, it was worth it. (note: running behind, pics will be added tomorrow)
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 