Blog Archives
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn 2011
Since I’ve been running a few blogathons lately, I thought I would return the favor and join in some of the other blogathons that have been running by some of my favorite sites. So when I saw that It Rains… You Get Wet was helping to run his very first blogathon, I knew I wanted to be a part of it, and when I saw that it was a Spielbergathon, I was even more excited. Make sure you check out the other entries as well as the other sites hosting it: Citizen Screenings and Outspoken and Freckled. Of course, when you think of Steven Spielberg, you think of his many classic blockbusters like Jaws, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, and plenty more but while he has many iconic heroes to his name, he has never done a superhero movie. But he has actually been involved with a couple comic book adaptations, directing this adaptation of the long running, beloved French comic which has actually been adapted many different times in France but most Americans were unaware of it, and he was also the executive producer of the odd sci-fi western adaptation of Cowboys and Aliens. This was also a noted collaboration between himself and Peter Jackson who will hopefully still be directing the sequel once he’s done with the Hobbit films later this year. I didn’t see this movie in theaters, but I did enjoy it fairly well once I saw it on home video. I was unfamiliar with the details of Tintin outside of the absolute basics of his appearance and the fact that he was a comic character but knew nothing about what types of adventures he had or his personality before watching this.
Read the rest of this entry
Antboy
Antboy 2014
I saw the Danish trailer for this movie last year and to my amazement, it was actually given a home video release here in the US and I happened to find it here through Redbox (and you can see if Antboy at Redbox is available near you) though the US distribution almost completely erases any mention of the fact that this is a Danish movie, filmed in Danish, and dubbed in English without even the option to watch in the original language with subtitles. Aside from that, I thought it was a fun family superhero movie that followed several superhero movie conventions while also bucking a couple of them. There are some fun little flourishes and it rarely takes itself seriously. I mean, what do you expect from a movie called Antboy? It’s interesting to see what slight differences pop up when it comes from Denmark, though there are surprisingly few things that aren’t really relatable as an American audience. I absolutely enjoyed it for what it was.
Read the rest of this entry
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014
I wasn’t really planning on seeing this movie in theaters, it had a lot of negative hype surrounding it as it was from (director Jonathan Leibsman) and producer Michael Bay, the early buzz around the movie was that they were going to be aliens, they weren’t going to go with the full Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles title, the turtles themselves had really weird noses, and it had the critic’s bane Megan Fox in a major role as April O’Neal. It didn’t help once the reviews started coming in either. Outside of a couple positive reviews, including one from Today, I Watched a Movie whose taste is often similar to mine, everything was coming back negative and further diminishing my desire to see this movie. But I was overruled by my family and to my surprise, it wasn’t the crapfest I was anticipating. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not an amazing achievement in cinematic history either but I wasn’t counting the seconds until the movie was over and I caught myself enjoying the moments between the turtles and other things here and there.
Read the rest of this entry
Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four 2005
I recently talked briefly about this movie in my top 10 guilty pleasure superhero movies list even though it had been years since I had seen it last, I also think that it is one of the last few big superhero movies that I’ve yet to review here on this site along with its sequel, Elektra, TMNT, and just a couple others. While I did enjoy it the last time I saw it, I’ve had years of internet loathing to soak its way into my brain as well as years of quality cinema, superhero and otherwise to better allow me to see the flaws in this movie and boy did I ever. Of course, behind all the bad writing, dated special effects, and questionable casting choices there is still some fun to be had watching this movie and above all else, it’s still the Fantastic Four.
Read the rest of this entry
Assault on Arkham
Batman: Assault on Arkham 2014
There were two straight-to-home-video superhero movies from the two big comic book companies that came out about the same time on streaming services, and depending on how you look at it I chose poorly by watching Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United first, or just saved the best one for last. The only thing I knew about this movie was that it was based on the recent Arkham video game series which I haven’t played. I had no idea that it was more specifically about the Suicide Squad which I had only just heard about earlier this year when they were teased in an episode of Arrow. Many of these DC Animated movies have been getting darker and darker, and while this movie has plenty of moments that border on the “R” side of its “PG-13” rating, they are handled with a lot of fun. It also helps to set the tone right from the beginning with the introduction to the suicide squad themselves that feels like it could have been pulled from a 70’s cop show. I loved this movie from start to finish and it’s another quality title in the series.
Read the rest of this entry
Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United
Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United
It seems like it happens quite often when a straight to home video release catches me unaware until it is actually released as is the case with this movie which is a pseudo-sequel to Iron Man and Hulk: Heroes United from last year. It has the same kinda cell shaded CGI animation style and the same voice actors for Iron Man and Hulk, though it doesn’t quite feel as young skewed as the previous attempt, it’s not too deep either. And similar to Iron Man and Hulk, I didn’t really connect with this movie aside from a couple fights and a couple laughs, it was too simple, too silly, and didn’t really feel connected with anything. Even my daughter Jena didn’t give this one a whole lot of interest. It’s interesting that while Marvel is dominating the box office, and has quite a few TV shows out there, but its home video animated movies are severely lacking.
Read the rest of this entry
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy 2014
There are a few things that I don’t do lightly, one of them is to go to the movie theater not just on opening weekend, but on opening night. Of course, it does help that these days opening night isn’t the midnight showing, I was able to catch a nice early 8pm showing and it wasn’t even the first one. But the reason why I ventured out to do this is because I was really excited to see this movie and my usual time to go on Saturday morning wasn’t nearly as early as I would have liked. But that’s all beside the point, I’ve been excited to see Guardians of the Galaxy from the first teaser and the fact that it’s directed by James Gunn. While he doesn’t have a perfect track record, I could really get behind what he’s trying to sell here. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Specials, but Tromeo and Juliet was my first Troma film, I enjoyed the live action Scooby-Doo movie for what it was, and I’m a big fan of his Super. It’s still crazy to think how Gunn was chosen for this movie in the first place, but I’m glad he was. The humor hit in all the right places for me, the soundtrack was amazing, and the ecclectic cast somehow managed to mesh in just the right ways. I don’t think it’s the Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back of the Marvel Universe as I’ve heard it called, but it’s another well placed entry in the universe.
Read the rest of this entry
Pizza Man
Pizza Man 2011
This is another one of those lesser known, indie superhero movies that flew under the radar for me. And to be honest, I don’t often go digging for these gems, but I always keep an eye out for them to cross my path and this one did through one of my favorite movie sites to read Today I Watched a Movie who picked this up at Wal-Mart and gave it such high praise that I had to check it out, and so I picked it up for myself a few days later and it sat on my DVD shelf for a couple months before my wife finally put it in our DVD player for us to watch. I’m not as fully sold as TIWAM was, but it’s still a solid superhero send-up with a fun plot and quite a few recognizable characters.
Read the rest of this entry
TV Nights: The Flash Series
With the new Flash TV show on the horizon I thought it would be a good idea to do something that I’ve wanted to do for a while here but never really had the time for it, watch a TV season to review here. If you’re a regular visitor and noticed a lack of regular posts lately, this is why. Instead of watching a 75-120+ minute movie to review, I bunkered in for the long haul to watch 22 episodes of the Flash, and did make a little time for a movie here and there between episodes. I watched a lot of television when I was younger and I’m certain that I watched the entire run of the Flash back in 1990 when I would have been the ripe age of 10 years old. Twenty four years later and the only thing that had stuck with me was a scene involving Barry alphabetizing books on a shelf as a test for his powers which ended up being in one of the last two episodes. Exciting, I know. But looking back on the show, it’s definitely dated and covers a lot of the typical sci-fi/superhero cliched storylines in it, but aside from that it was quite an enjoyable watch and it’s disappointing that it didn’t find an audience back in 1990. I can only hope that the new series lives up to the standard that this episode has set for it in my eyes.
Read the rest of this entry
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm 1993
This is one of the very few superhero movies left that I had not yet seen before that I really felt like I was missing out on an important and/or great movie. There’s still plenty out there for me to watch, but most of the rest of them are more obscure and/or pretty bad. When I ask the question “What’s your favorite superhero movie?” this movie has come up on more than one occasion so it’s got to be a pretty good movie, and it’s more or less a spin-off of the amazing 90’s Batman: The Animated Series which I watched and loved back when it was coming out with new episodes, and I’ve also seen and enjoyed every one of DC Animation’s home video Batman movies so I was looking forward to finally watching this one and I’m pleased to say that for the most part it didn’t disappoint. My only qualms come from the fact that I did watch this one out of chronological order and so many story elements that were used in this movie were done as well if not better in later movies that I was already familiar with. But aside from that, it was great to finally see this movie and the nostalgia from the animation and music style from the animated series.
Read the rest of this entry
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 