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Hentai Kamen
Hentai Kamen: Forbidden Superhero 2013
What better way to bring in the Christmas spirit than to talk about an asian movie about a superhero who wears a pair of panties as his superhero mask and dresses like Borat was way too modest. Really though, this is a superhero spoof movie that’s much better than the awful Superhero Movie while going through a lot of the same types of conflicts and story beats, except in every case it turns it into something so ridiculously sex-related that it becomes absolutely hilarious. I’m sure some people won’t get the joke, but I thought that the level of seriousness this movie treated a superhero with a pair of women’s panties on his face was just the right amount of absurdity and obscenity to make me laugh hysterically through most of this movie.
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Filmwhys #20 Double Indemnity and the Pumaman
Welcome to yet another episode of Filmwhys, aka the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast. I’m trying to get into a more regular schedule having a new episode up every two weeks on Saturday, and hopefully there’s something extra I’m working on coming in the new year. This episode my guest is Will from Exploding Helicopter who asks me why I haven’t seen Double Indemntiy, the great film noir thriller from the brilliant director Billy Wilder and in return I ask him why he hasn’t seen The Pumaman which doesn’t have quite as good of a pedigree, but was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s a so-bad-it’s-good movie with a low budget, cheesy acting, and a crazy plot.
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Captain Battle: Legacy War
Captain Battle: Legacy War 2013
Continuing on in my quest to watch all of the 2013 releases I can get my hands on, and I’m pretty sure I’ve come to what I would easily call the worst superhero film of 2013, and I’m not talking about Iron Man or Man of Steel like some people might claim. No, I’m talking about an actually bad movie. This movie looks worse than most fan films I’ve covered on this site. The special effects look like they were done on a trial version of After Effects, with page wipes straight out of Windows Movie Maker, and make up that looks like it was done with magic markers. The movie attempts a story that’s much too big for the special effects or acting abilities of those involved. And on top of that, while it is based on an actual comic book, the timing of it is a cheap rip-off of Captain America, complete with a Red Skull analogue with the aforementioned red magic marker special effects makeup. It has plenty of moments of enjoyably bad moviemaking, and a handful of T&A, but for the most part it was simply a boring mess of a movie.
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Legends of the Knight
Legends of the Knight 2014
It’s not so rare these days to find interesting projects looking for funding on Kickstarter, it is a bit more rare to find projects that actually catch my own personal interest. But when I heard about this project, I was happy to make it my first Kickstarter donation, giving $10 so I could get a digital download when it became available. This is a project by Brett Culp which takes a different look at Batman. It doesn’t look at the character himself, but instead takes a look at the impact that character has had on the world itself through a handful of people and their inspiring stories of how they take one part or another of Batman’s philosophy or his story as a whole and use it to improve their own lives and the lives of others. It is a documentary which takes a look at about a dozen people across the country who all have a strong connection to Batman in one way or another. Through a series of interviews and plenty of Batman artwork and children dressed up as Batman, we get to see a slice of these people’s lives and how Batman has made their lives better. You can view the trailer and find out more information at their official website.
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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #10
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week 10
Episode: The Bridge
Original airdate: 12-10-13
After a week off, S.H.I.E.L.D. Is back for it’s midseason finale before taking a month or so hiatus. Which made me wonder how long has “midseason finale” even been a thing? But that’s a topic for another day. Anyway things ramp up and a bunch of threads finally start coming together before leaving us with a slight plot twist and a cliffhanger ending. As a “midseason finale” there are some expectations more or less that it is going to be a big episode and I do think that it delivers on pretty much all counts. There’s also quite a bit of recapping which makes this episode a good jumping-on point if you’ve been avoiding the show before now. The action is better, the villains are interesting and not a “freak of the week”, the callbacks are nice choices, and there’s even time for a little bit of character development and progression of lingering mysteries. If the rest of the season can keep up this quality, then we’re in for a good ride.
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The Wolverine
The Wolverine 2013
I’m one step closer to watching all of the 2013 superhero and comic book movies of 2013 and this is one that I’m really disappointed that I missed out on in theaters since I’m a big X-Men and Wolverine fan though I’m not about to do any sort of X-Men marathon again any time soon. This is Hugh Jackman’s sixth turn at playing Wolverine, at least if you count his brief cameo in First Class and at least three more on the way with Days of Future Past coming out next year, Apocalypse announced for 2016, and another solo Wolverine movie very likely it seems that Hugh Jackman will be playing Wolverine until he is too old to pull off the mostly ageless mutant. This time around he’s put in Japan which is part of his origin story though this movie has it take place after the events of The Last Stand. He is brought there so a business tycoon named Yashida who used to be a soldier and was saved by Logan at Nagasaki during the atomic bombing. He is now dying and offers Logan an opportunity to relinquish his healing abilities and die a natural death. Things expectedly go sideways and Logan is left to protect Yashida’s granddaughter named Mariko while his healing abilities have been taken from him. Reminding me a bit of 2 Guns, there’s some good character interactions but it’s mixed with a heavily convoluted plotline. And I’d also like to note that I did watch the unrated extended edition for this review.
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Filmwhys #19 The Gold Rush and The Crow
I’m pleased to have another episode of Filmwhys ready to go for you today. I’m joined by Todd Liebenow of Forgotten Films who asks me why I haven’t seen the Gold Rush, one of Charlie Chaplin’s greatest films from the silent era featuring his famous little tramp character. And in return, I ask him why he hasn’t seen The Crow, the gothic supernatural revenge tale about a man who was killed along with his fiance and is brought back to life by a Crow in order to seek vengeance, it’s also the final film role of Brandon Lee who tragically died during filming.
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2 Guns
2 Guns 2013
I’m continuing on my quest to watch the rest of 2013’s superhero and comic book movie releases before year’s end which brought me to this pseudo-buddy cop movie that may surprise you to find out that it was actually based on a comic book series from Boom studios. There’s nothing really special or extraordinary about this movie when comparing it to other, what I like to refer to as caper movies. The high point is definitely the friendly bickering chemistry between Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, but it’s a bit weighed down by the overly complex plot filled with double and triple crosses and you’re never really sure where anyone’s true allegiance lies. Violent fun at best, confusing at worst it was better than what I expected it to be, but I’m not surprised by those who didn’t click with this film.
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Iron Man and Hulk: Heroes United
Iron Man and Hulk: Heroes United 2013
It’s the start of December, nearing the end of 2013 and this is the last superhero movie release of the year. It’s also the first straight-to-video release from Marvel using CGI animation rather than the mix of traditional and CG that they’ve used for their past releases. It ends up looking much better than many of the cheap and/or old CGI cartoons of past home video releases and TV shows, but it’s still quite obviously far from the level of a theatrical release and the cheapness of the animation does show. It also felt like it’s aimed at a younger audience with a lot of humor that tends to focus more on slapstick and childish attitudes. Even the voice work has an air of cheapness that doesn’t quite capture the essence of either of the characters. There are some fun moments in the movie enough that I don’t regret watching it, but it really felt a lot more mediocre than I was expecting in more ways than one.
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TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #9
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week 9
Episode: Repairs
Original airdate: 11-26-13
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m done with my turkey lunch, had only a five minute drive to my sisters where the rest of my family came together and am starting on a nice and relaxing 11 days off of work. And I’m ready to do some writing and movie watching. But first off it’s time to talk about this week’s episode of S.H.I.E.L.D. where it tries to take a bit of a creepy tone with some ghosts and another almost tie-in with Thor. The episode takes a closer look at Melinda Mays’ backstory and adds a little to several of the other characters as well. But I didn’t think the attempt at bringing a thriller/horror element to the show worked very well and it had a very annoying character that they were trying to help. The character moments were great, but the rest was quite lacking.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 