Blog Archives
Behind the Mask
The Shadow: Behind the Mask 1946
This post is part of our Patreon program where for just $1 a month, you can vote for one of the movies that I review on this site. This is another one of the series of older Shadow films and the second of three released in 1946 with Kane Richmond as Lamont Cranston and Barbara Reed as Margo Lane. The two of them are engaged and about to be married when the murder of a newspaper columnist is pinned on the Shadow and it’s up to Lamont to solve it. Similar to the previous film The Shadow Returns, this is filled with a lot of sitcom-esque humor that honestly gets in the way of the film more than it enhances it. While The Shadow Returns had some fun moments and was generally entertaining, this one felt much more like a chore with an outdated sense of humor and aimless storytelling.
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Batman: Soul of the Dragon
Batman: Soul of the Dragon 2021
It’s been a couple months since I subscribed to HBO Max with the intention of catching up on several of the animated DC movies that I’ve missed out on these past couple years but I only just now got around to watching the first one. There wasn’t any specific reason why I picked this one out of the others that were on there, it just stood out as being a little bit different than what I’ve come to expect in these animated movies and in that respect, it very much was. This was done in the style of the 70’s with a bit of classic Bond mixed with Bruce Lee and some exploitation cinema all mixed together. Not only that, but despite the fact that this is labelled as a Batman movie, ninety percent of the film is all about Bruce Wayne and Batman only shows up for one scene near the beginning, then for the climactic end battle. The story beats were a little on the cliched side, but it was cliches done with love and it was a lot of fun overall. This is still a relatively recent release so there will be spoilers ahead. You have been warned.
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Inspector Gadget’s Last Case
Inspector Gadget’s Last Case: Claw’s Revenge 2002
This post was brought about by a monthly Patreon vote, if you’d like to influence what movies I review and support this site, you can join for as little as $1 a month at Patreon.com/FlightsTightsAndMovieNights. This was one of a handful of movies that I found on Tubi that I hadn’t covered, most of them are extremely low budget and/or foreign animation tossed into the home video and streaming market. I was a fan of the original Inspector Gadget cartoon and also reviewed the two live-action movies here but haven’t been familiar with the various later incarnations of the character. This movie doesn’t really feel much like an Inspector Gadget story at all, especially with such a strong focus on the Gadgetmobile which wasn’t even a character in the original cartoon. It really almost felt like a completely different story with some Inspector Gadget trappings tossed into it.
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Brenda Starr
Brenda Starr 1989
This review was decided on in part by a monthly poll over at our Patreon page where you can also join for just $1 a month to vote in a monthly poll to help decide what I review here. This is a movie that I’ve had on my radar for quite a while even though I didn’t really know a whole lot about it. All I knew was that it was based on a serial comic strip back in the day and it starred Brooke Shields and Timothy Dalton. When watching it, I soon realized that it was some cross between Dick Tracy and Cool World which is funny because both of those movies would come out just a few years later. The film struggled with a low budget, then legal issues caused it to be shelved for three years to eventually come out with little fanfare and awful reviews. Looking back at it, the film definitely has some issues, but feels a little bit ahead of its time with its bright comic costumes and tongue in cheek humor.
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Spider-Man: No Way Home
Spider-Man: No Way Home 2021
I ended up missing the past couple movie releases due to the arrival of a little bundle of joy that’s taken up much of my time lately. But I just couldn’t miss out on the latest Spider-Man movie especially with the multiverse aspect coming into play. And I’m very glad that I was able to see it as soon as I did. I’m not big on the anti-spoiler culture that has permeated a lot of the nerd fandom lately, I was just excited to see it as soon as possible. Plus I signed up for the latest Lambcast discussing this and every other Spider-Man film so I had an extra reason to see it. I’ve enjoyed every Spider-Man movie to some degree or another with my least favorite: Amazing Spider-Man 2 still being ranked as a fun-but-very-flawed film so I was happy to see them all come together in this film. There was plenty of fanservice to be had, but for the most part, it was all done with a degree of reverence, plus it all made sense to further the story or the characters. There were some more changes to this MCU Spider-Man timeline to help differentiate Tom Holland’s Peter Parker even more from the others than they already have but I loved this entry in this long-running and varied franchise. And as there are plenty of spoiler fanservice elements, beyond this paragraph will definitely be spoilers.
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Origin Stories: Marc Webb & (500) Days of Summer
(500) Days of Summer 2009
This is part of a new series of reviews that I’m starting that takes a look at directors of well known superhero movies and takes a step back to either their big movie just before their superhero movie, or one of their first films. In this case, it’s both. 3 years before Marc Webb directed the Amazing Spider-Man films, he had a single feature length film to his credit: a romantic dramady starring Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I had seen this film many years ago and really enjoyed it. Rewatching it this time around definitely hit differently, but there are still a lot of great moments throughout this film and it holds up very well as a visual and interesting look at a short lived relationship from the guy’s point of view. Also, this post was decided on by a monthly poll from our patrons at our Patreon, so for only $1 a month, you can help choose a movie review that appears on this site.
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Filmwhys #87 The Living Daylights and From Hell
Filmwhys #87 The Living Daylights and From Hell
I’m back with another episode of Filmwhys aka the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast. This time around I’m taking another dip into the James Bond franchise. This will be the fourth Bond film that I’ve seen, the third one that I’ve watched for a podcast, the second that I’ve watched specifically for Filmwhys, and the first Timothy Dalton Bond film. My guest is Jim O’Kane, a big member of the Movies by Minutes community and relevant to this site he specifically co-hosted the Rocketeer Minute. The movie that he watched for the first time was the first graphic novel adapted from the works of Alan Moore, the film itself is fairly mediocre but there’s still a lot of great discussion to be had in our conversation. Click here to listen, or you can subscribe via Filmwhys’ new home at Anchor.fm/Filmwhys.
It’s Time to Rewind: Bonus weeks
It’s Time to Rewind: Bonus weeks
It’s Time to Rewind has finished up its first season on Groundhog Day a few weeks ago, but there has been bonus content coming out every week since then and of course I have to share it here. Especially as three of those episodes are focused on Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Tomorrow’s bonus episode is a cross-promotion of the latest Filmwhys episode and season 2: Trapped in the Twilight Zone will be starting on November 1st. So enjoy these episodes and I look forward to sharing the next season with you!
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Filmwhys #86 The Mist and Spawn
Filmwhys #86 The Mist and Spawn
Wow, it’s been quite a while hasn’t it? Even though I’ve started a new podcast, I didn’t want to fully give up on my previous Filmwhys podcast so I am finally bringing it back. Hopefully new episodes will be coming out monthly near the middle of each month. For this month’s episode I brought back guest Justin Gott from the Rambling Ramblers Podcast who asks me why I hadn’t seen the 2007 Frank Darabont horror film the Mist. And in return, I ask him why he hadn’t seen the 1997 superhero film that was the first non-parody superhero film with a Black lead, Spawn.
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Invisible Sue
Invisible Sue 2018
It’s been a little while again since I’ve been able to watch and review a superhero movie here, pretty much all of my free time is split between work, a newborn, and the podcasts which I’ve been sharing on this site. But I did find this movie on DVD at the dollar store a couple months back with absolutely no information about what the movie is outside of the name of the film and the fact that the cover has a girl in a superhero mask. Apparently it’s a German film, but similar to the Antboy release, the only available audio track on the DVD is the English dub. At least partially due to the fact that it’s more of a family friendly film. I would be curious to see this in the original German as I remember that it helped out my viewing of the Antboy sequels. As it is, it’s a pretty basic kids adventure movie with a little bit of super powers and gadgetry thrown in the mix. It doesn’t do anything badly, but it never really pushes the excitement level past the halfway point.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 