Blog Archives
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker 2000
I’m continuing my month of animated movies switching back and forth between animation for adults, and those for younger audiences. While this isn’t exactly a kid’s film, it did spawn off of the great era of DC Animation on television starting off with Batman: The Animated Series. It was a show that while I don’t have clear memories of when I watched it, whether it was right after coming home from school or during those Saturday mornings while I was an early teen even on through my later teens, though I didn’t quite follow the show into the Batman Beyond era. I know I’ve seen a few episodes and watching this film again it reeked with familiarity, but there was never anything specific that I could put my finger on. The flashback scene also brought back more memories of the series I did watch, and overall it went quite a bit darker than I would have expected and like the series before it, Return of the Joker was a solid Batman story on par with some of the best animated movies they’ve released in recent years. And while I don’t usually mention this for older movies, since there is a large mystery aspect to this film’s story I will be discussing the reveal so don’t read if you’d rather watch the mystery unfold for yourself.
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Wrinkles
Wrinkles aka Arrugas 2011
Going full on into animation month here as I have decided to jump back and forth between animation geared for adults and those geared for kids. After checking out the latest kid’s Lego Justice League film I decided to check out this Spanish animated drama about an old folk’s home. And even though the original language track is often preferred by cinephiles, when I saw that Martin Sheen was in the English voice cast I decided to watch the English dub. And while I didn’t really know anything about this film aside from a couple recommendations and a quick mention of Alzheimer’s, I was surprised how much I loved this film. It alternates between making you laugh and making you cry in a heartbeat, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Lego Justice League: Gotham City Breakout
Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League Gotham City Breakout 2016
This is the latest in one of the many DC animated series that have been coming from Warner bros, typically all focused on either Batman or the Justice League. It follows the same general pattern where it’s much more kid friendly than the Warner Premier PG-13 movies, but it also has a lot more humor that adults will get a kick out of unlike the Batman Unlimited series. It seems like this one really cranked the jokes up to 11, especially if you’re a longtime fan of Batman with several references to the Adam West series and two plots going on at once which keep things going at a near breakneck pace. So far, this has been my favorite of all the Lego DC movies and a lot of fun, especially if you have kids.
June-ing the Cult: Elwood Jones and Zebraman
Zebraman 2004
June has come to an end and as I try to squeeze my foot in the door I don’t quite make it so this last June-ing the Cult post is showing up on the doorsteps of July. This has been a fun month of movies that range from odd to awful to just plain bizarre, but they have all been a treat to watch. Wrapping up this month is the second film from Japan and is easily the most bizarre of them all, almost moreso since it comes from acclaimed and prolific director Takashi Miike. Zebraman starts out as a look into the life of a sad teacher who tries to live out this superhero fantasy based on a cheesy show that he watched as a kid until it eventually turns into something much more bizarre involving super powers and alien invaders. It was a nice way to wrap things up even though I doubt I’ll get around to the vastly different sequel any time soon. But before we get too far into the film, let’s hear from Elwood Jones who chose this film for me to watch.
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June-ing the Cult: The Movie Rat and Zokkomon
Zokkomon 2011
My June-ing the Cult month is winding down as I get to my last two which are also the two most recent films in this line up. Over at the The Movie Rat, Bernardo suggested that I check out Zokkomon, which is only five years old at the moment and was actually distributed by Disney World Cinema. Aside from that, I had no idea what I was getting into other than I assumed there would be at least some musical numbers based on what little I’ve seen out of Bollywood. What I ended up getting was a weird mix of Batman, Harry Potter, with a little Matilda and even the Karate Kid thrown in for good measure. The high point was the colorful characters and the touch of a greater message that was only slightly heavy handed. Very fun film and easily recommended.
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman 1974
Continuing my month of the more obscure and cult superhero films I’m taking a look at probably the least well known version of a popular superhero going back to the first TV pilot of the Wonder Woman TV show. Most people are familiar with the popular Lynda Carter show from the 70’s, but before they cast Carter they actually shot, filmed, and aired a very different version of the show with actress Cathy Lee Crosby as Diana Prince. And while I haven’t really seen any full episodes of the Carter version aside from a few clips, this felt very different than what I would imagine the later show went on to be. It had much more of a serious tone to it and felt more like a detective show rather than a superhero show. She barely wore the costume, there were no special effects to show off any super powers to speak of, and there was actually quite a bit of death and danger. It was quite fascinating to look back at this version of the character even though it barely resembled anything I knew about Wonder Woman aside from her name and the name of Steve Trevor.
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June-ing the Cult: Silver Emulsion and 3 Dev Adam
3 Dev Adam aka 3 Giant Men 1973
We’re halfway through this trip across a handful of cult superhero movies thanks to several of my cult blogging friends. Throughout the month of June, I’ve asked several bloggers that I know who often tackle their own fair share of obscure and cult films and asked them to each choose a superhero movie for me to check out and review. Thanks to Will from Silver Emulsion for picking today’s movie, if you go visit his site make sure to check out his thoughts on every Superman movie made, including many foreign knock-offs, including Turkish Superman.
Justice League of America
Justice League of America 1997
While I’ve delved through the entire depths of the Marvel film catalogue including their awful TV movie roots, I have yet to do the same for DC. I have seen nearly all of their films, but there are a handful of early animated movies from the 90’s and a couple TV movies including this one that was initially intended to be the pilot of a new TV series coming hot off the heels of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. But they also took a page out of the popularity of MTV’s the Real World which would have been on season 4 or 5 when this went into production and also would be near the height of the show’s popularity. So this show combines the superheroics with the daily life of the heroes alongside several “confessional” segments where the heroes talk directly to the TV audience. It’s bizarre how this managed to even make it to the pilot movie stage, the costumes and effects were lackluster, the characters were unlikable and barely resembled their comic book counterparts, and overall it feels roughly five years behind even 1997.
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The Spirit
The Spirit 1987
To go along with the other cult movies that other bloggers have picked out for me, I thought I’d follow along with some cult films of my own choosing. I have no idea whether or not this really counts as much of a cult film, though I have heard from at least two people who have seen this and thought it was much better than the theatrical Frank Miller version. This was made in the mid-Eighties with Sam J. Jones as the lead, better known as Flash Gordon himself. It also had Nana Visitor as his love interest who I was familiar with as Major Kira on Star Trek: Deep Space 9. But most of all, this pilot movie was extremely 80’s. From the music to the cheap sets to the power suits and cassette walkmen, it was very much steeped in the 80’s and for that reason alone, I had a lot of fun watching this. Most of it is even set up to have much more of a comedy feel than an action/detective vibe. It was as close to Adam West’s Batman with a bit more 80’s sensibilities than you could ever get.
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Superhero Podcast Review: Meanwhile…
Round three of my current project of superhero podcast reviews where I’m taking a closer look at some of the many superhero and comic book movie podcasts out there and seeing how they align with my own tastes. I’m still going with my regular listens though this time it’s a much more recent show having debuted within this past year. I generally listen to a lot of different podcasts, mainly indie movie podcasts, but I’m always looking to grow my subscription list so if you have or know of a superhero-focused podcast, primarily on the movie side of things, give me a shout in the comments or on Twitter so I can make it a future review.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 