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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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Filmwhys #18 The Mexican and Thor the Dark World
Apologies for the delayed post, but I’m excited to bring a slight change-up to my normal Filmwhys format. Instead of having my guest introduce me to one of their favorite movies that I’ve never seen, I decided it was time to share one of my favorite non-superhero movies to my guest that they’ve never seen. And this time around my guest is the Vern from Vern’s Video Vanguard and a few other sites and I ask him why he hasn’t seen the Mexican, one of Gore Verbinski’s earlier movies before he went on to direct the Pirates of Caribean movies with Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, James Gandolfini, and a really sweet looking classic pistol. And we both watch the current theatrical release Thor The Dark World.
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TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #8
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week 8
Episode: The Well
Original airdate: 11-19-13
The lead up to this episode from what I read about was a big deal that it was the tie-in episode to the theatrical release of Thor: The Dark World. I wasn’t really expecting something huge like a cameo from Chris Hemsworth or Tom Hiddleston, or even Kat Dennings though that could have been more likely. What could have been a possibility was something to do with the beast that was let loose in England during the battle. They might not be able to use the full quality as in the movie, but one might think that they could use it in some lower res capacity. What we got instead is a completely unrelated story about an Asgardian who came to Earth in the distant past and left an ancient relic that has been found. The tie in is mainly just a very brief montage of quick clips from the first two movies as well as starting the episode with the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents cleaning up a little bit of the mess left in England from the climax of the Dark World. As far as a “tie-in” goes, it was a bit of a let down. Looking at the episode apart from the marketing and it’s another fairly solid episode with a surprising guest appearance by Peter MacNicol, and finally a little bit of depth to Ward’s character.
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League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2003
I had heard a lot of the behind the scenes stories about this movie, it’s Sean Connery’s last on-screen role before going into retirement, and there were a lot of struggles between him and the director. It got a lot of negative press after it came out because the source material is very literate while the movie is much more of a dumbed down action movie that spells out any references it makes so that more people will catch the reference, like when they make the Around the World in 80 Days reference, and then points out exactly where it came from. But I did enjoy the movie then, and I still mostly enjoyed it now even though I recognize a lot more of the flaws in it this time around. I think it helps that I’m not actually familiar with the source material comic. It’s not an incredibly deep movie by any means, but it does have some fun bits inbetween the ridiculous moments.
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TV Nights: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #7
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week 7
Episode: The Hub
Original airdate: 11-12-13
It’s that time of week again for another recap of the latest Marvel TV episode. For the first time in several weeks I am not actually wanting to call this the best episode yet. Of course, this isn’t a bad thing because I’ve been enjoying the past several episodes very much and I think the overall quality has improved greatly over the first couple episodes which were good, but not great. All of the characters on the show are starting to flesh out a more well rounded personality, and this episode had a moment that made me laugh out loud, which doesn’t happen all too often and as a sidenote is one of several reasons why you will never catch me using the abbreviation LOL. Last week’s episode gave a lot of time to fleshing out Simmons’ character and this time around Fitz gets his time to shine. We also get to see a bit more of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s inner workings and how the organization operates. And finally, we get yet another hint into the mystery surrounding Skye’s past.
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Book Nights: Super Born: Seduction of Being
Super Born: Seduction of Being
by Keith Kornell
I was initially reluctant when I got an e-mail asking me to review a superhero novel, I was even more reluctant when I read the initial synopsis for it mentioning the main character as a single mom and a review blurb calling it “hypersexualized”. I also don’t own an e-reader which made me turn down a previous offer at reviewing a superhero novel, but even with my doubts they were still willing to send me a physical copy of the book. It was a rough start, I wasn’t fond of the overly sarcastic humor nor the frequent talk about sex which wasn’t helped by the cover that looked like I was reading a cheesy romance novel. The science mumbo-jumbo was equally over-specific and absurd, and the characterization of the superheroine main character felt like it was written by a man who was not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination. I soldiered on through the rest of the book was rewarded with much of the same, but underneath all of that there was an interesting plot that kept me wanting to know how it was all going to end up.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 