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TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #2.1
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 Week 1
Episode: Shadows
Original Airdate: 9-23-14
While I had a somewhat disappointing reaction to Gotham, I was very excited for the return of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and it did not disappoint. There was a lot of shaking things up at the end of the first season and it wasted no time in getting right to the heart of the action while still tossing in a few hints at a bigger picture. And on top of everything else, it took what happened into directions that I didn’t exactly expect it to, and opened with a taste of what’s to come with the other Marvel TV series showing up later on, Agent Carter. I’m glad that I stuck with this show from the very beginning, and I have high hopes for where it’s going to end up throughout the rest of this season. As usual, I won’t be shying away from spoilers so be warned if you haven’t watched the episode before reading this.
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TV Nights: Gotham #1
TV Nights: Gotham
Episode: Pilot
Original Airdate: 9-22-14
It’s time to start the biggest superhero and comic book TV seasons in many years if not ever and Gotham is the first one out of the gate, though I’m probably one of the last ones out of the gate to get a post written about it. Based on the trailer, and what the show was going for I had high hopes for this show. I thought it could be an interesting take on the superhero trend, something along the lines of how Lois and Clark focused more on the relationship between the two rather than the superhero aspect. This show is supposedly going to take a closer look at the Gotham PD side of the equation rather than the supervillain side of things. And since this takes place when Bruce Wayne is still a boy and there is no such thing as Batman there should also be no such thing as supervillains yet. Instead, they are all still merely criminals before crossing the line once the door has been opened for the overly theatrical. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if they delve into some early theatrics later in the season, especially if they start struggling in the ratings department. Overall, I initially liked what I saw, but as I started reading other people’s negative reactions, I started to see more of the holes in the show and am actually a little glad that I have waited so long before writing this.
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Sin City
Sin City 2005
After hearing the reviews for the disappointing sequel Sin City: A Dame To Kill For I had decided to wait to revisit the original movie until after seeing it for myself. I thought that doing it this way around would remind myself of how good it could have been rather than setting myself up for disappointment. And in that respect it worked exactly the way I hoped it would. There are still a handful of issues that I noticed in the sequel that were also present in the original, but for the most part, the original still holds up almost 10 years later while the sequel is the one that feels dated. I don’t specifically remember seeing this when it was originally in theaters. I was a fan of Robert Rodgriguez from Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn but knew nothing about the Sin City books. But I liked it enough to get the three disc DVD edition that has a version where you can see the four stories individually and extended. It also came with a mini reprint of the comics used in the movie so you can see how visually similar they ended up being. There’s just something about this movie that can be felt, the actors are better, the cinematography is better, there’s just a more intense feeling that everyone involved knew they were doing something different. This was an experiment in filmmaking, the digital cameras were fresh. Rodgriguez was able to change up his style of directing, letting the cameras roll continuously and let the takes flow naturally. There was just an unspoken buzz in the air that can still be felt, something that was absent in A Dame to Kill For.
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Santo vs. Las Mujeres Vampiro
Santo vs. Las Mujeres Vampiro aka Samson vs. the Vampire Women 1962
It’s probably not too surprising that I occasionally bite off a little bit more than I can chew. And/or I am a very absent minded person and will easily forget things if I get distract- Squirrel! A few weeks ago, I agreed to take part in a blogathon hosted by Movies Silently called Accidentally Hilarious where bloggers would take a look at classic bad films that are so bad they are hilarious even though they were never intended to be comedies. There wasn’t a lot for me to choose from, and many of those early superhero films are hard to find, or are Batman which is an intentional comedy and also is just one year after the cutoff date of 1965. So I chose this film which is part of a long line of Santo films. This one is probably the most famous of them as it’s one of the only ones that got an English language dub and was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Santo is a Luchador superhero who may or may not actually have superhuman strength, but does occasionally battle supernatural forces of evil. I’m not sure if I’ll go back and check out other Santo movies, especially after watching this one. And while I did watch the English dub of this movie where he is constantly referred to as Samson, I will be referring to him as his original Spanish name, Santo.
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The Iron Giant
The Iron Giant 1999
I don’t remember the first time I found out about the Iron Giant. I know it wasn’t in theaters, I wasn’t one of those lucky few that caught it during its brief and relatively unsuccessful theatrical run. I don’t remember if I went back to it after watching Brad Bird’s later feature the Incredibles or if I just happened across it on TV or a random video rental trip. I always thought it was an interesting look that called up the retro 50’s style and the film itself is actually set during that time as well. It was also a movie that I didn’t initially consider as a superhero movie, but when I did my final poll for the 100 Essential Superhero Movies I included it and it nabbed the second spot, which is likely more a testament to the quality of the movie than to its place as a superhero movie. There are definitely superhero elements; this is an origin story of sorts, the Iron Giant himself has more than enough super powers, and at the end of the day he uses Superman himself as inspiration to save an entire town. I will do my best for this to not just be a gush fest, but it will be tough as this is one of my favorite movies and it’s a shame that it has taken me this long to get around to reviewing it here.
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The Amazing Spider-Man 2
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 2014
There’s one thing that I’ve been enjoying about 2014 that I did not enjoy about 2013. Even though there have been roughly the same number of superhero and comic book movies, last year they were all packed into the 3 or 4 months of summer, while this year they have been spread out to mostly 1 or 2 a month. August has been the biggest month with three theatrical movies, and the rest of the year is pretty wide open with only the limited release Birdman, the graphic novel adaptation The Scribbler, and the first Disney/Marvel animated collaboration Big Hero 6. To date, I have only missed a couple theatrical movies including this one. It’s actually surprising because if you would have asked me last year, this would have probably been number two on my most anticipated list behind X-Men: Days of Future Past. But as I learned more about the movie from the trailers and the early reviews I decided not to take the time out of my busy schedule to go see it and instead waited until I could watch it at home. Ultimately, I think that was the best decision for me to make because when all was said and done, this is my second disappointment of the year next to Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t nearly on the same level as that movie, there is still plenty of fun to be had here, and some great action beats. The problem is that it tried to combine too many characters and interconnected sub plots that just made it too confusing. It isn’t a Spider-Man 3 debacle, but it’s a far cry from the other movies. And finally I will give a quick spoiler warning as I will be mentioning a significant plot point from the end of the movie.
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Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer 2007
I can honestly say that I don’t remember much about the release of this movie. I was a fan of the first Fantastic Four and I was looking forward to seeing what happened with the sequel. I was glad that they were bringing in the Silver Surfer and Galactus even though I had heard that they had turned him into a giant cloud. I don’t remember if I knew about the minor controversy with Doug Jones doing the motion capture and speaking role during production, but replaced by Laurence Fishburne’s voice afterwards. It came after a middle of the road movie and featured one of the most popular characters from the Fantastic Four, but it failed to generate enough interest and barely cleared its budget domestically. I still consider the first movie to be a guilty pleasure of mine and I expected more of the same out of the sequel. And while there is still some of that fun charm that I enjoyed in the first movie, it ends up working against itself more often than not. And on top of everything else, it fails at way too many of the necessary superhero tropes. There’s a weak villain, a weak climax, and a sacrifice that neither had weight nor real impact.
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Sin City: A Dame To Kill For
Sin City: A Dame To Kill For 2014
I think more than any movie before it, this had the quickest drop from being a movie that I had been looking forward to the most to being a movie that I was dreading watching. All after I started hearing all the negative reviews coming in from many of my fellow reviewers who were watching early screenings. It warned me away so much that I avoided seeing this movie opening weekend. Although I wouldn’t have had to worry about my other usual concern when seeing a movie opening weekend as the crowds wouldn’t have been an issue with the tepid $6 million opening. Maybe it was the poor marketing, maybe it was the fact that it’s been ten years since the first Sin City, maybe it was because the second 300 movie also came out earlier this year, but nobody went to see this movie. This movie is still a far cry from The Spirit, that pseudo Sin City directed by a lone Frank Miller with all of the elements of Sin City but not in the right amounts. There are plenty of great moments in this movie, but none of those moments ever added up to a cohesive whole and in the end I was left wanting.
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Orgazmo
Orgazmo 1997
This is one of the very few movies that I included in my 100 Essential Superhero Movies that I hadn’t seen before, but enough people voted for it in the poll that I included it sight unseen. It came from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creative types behind the juggernaut that is South Park which I was a fan of. I say was not because I no longer like it, but I just haven’t watched it in years. So with the recommendation of my readers and my enjoyment of South Park I went in expecting to really enjoy this movie. Unfortunately, most of the comedy did not make me laugh at all, and when you take the humor away from this movie, there’s not a whole lot left to grasp onto. Not to mention that it’s a somewhat of a movie about the porn industry without any female nudity aside from the occasional sideboob though I suppose that’s supposed to be part of the joke and I knew about that wrinkle going into the movie as well. And underlying the plot line about this clean cut Mormon entering into the seedy porn underworld is the side story about him actually becoming this crimefighter Orgazmo. It just never added up for me.
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Sheena: Queen of the Jungle
Sheena: Queen of the Jungle 1984
I often enjoy doing blogathons, especially when I am able to do them within the focus of this site, and so when my friend Todd over at Forgotten Films decided that he wanted to do a big 1984-a-thon in honor of the 30th anniversary of one of the greatest years in cinema history, I gladly jumped on the bandwagon. Unfortunately, 1984 wasn’t a huge year for superhero movies and the two that were made, Supergirl and the Toxic Avenger, I had already covered here. But there was one other film released that year that wasn’t quite a superhero movie, but it was a comic book adaptation of the first female to ever get her own comic book title four years before Wonder Woman. It began its way to the big screen in the 70’s and took over 10 years before it finally got its cast and went into production with Tanya Roberts who I knew as Donna’s mother Midge from that 70’s show and didn’t realize it until over halfway through the movie and not only that but love interest and journalist was played by Ted Wass who I best knew as the dad from Blossom. Anyway, when I chose this movie I knew it was going to be a campy movie right along the lines of Supergirl and Toxie and it really was. A silly plot, bad acting, and a lot more nudity than I was expecting for a PG-rated movie. But in the end, it was still quite a bit of 80’s fun.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 