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The Toxic Avenger Part 2
The Toxic Avenger Part 2 1989
Since The Toxic Avenger was Troma’s first real hit, it’s no surprise that it became a sequel, and when that sequel originally ended up being over 4 hours long, it turned into 2 sequels. There are a large number of changes from the first movie to the second. Almost the entire cast was changed up, everyone from Toxie’s mother and girlfriend to Toxie himself, even being changed within the movie. The tone more or less remains the same gore-filled action comedy with hammy acting and cartoonish sound effects, though I didn’t have as much fun watching this one as I did the first one. I think they realized what they had and tried too hard to recreate it, giving it a much less charming feel to it. There’s also some odd choices in budget, while it feels like they spent more time or money on Toxie’s makeup, the fake eye moves occasionally, and there are some added effects used later in the movie. And yet there also seems to be less money spent on the other effects. A few people get shot, but there are no gunshot wounds or any blood at all, and the gory death scenes felt much tamer and sillier. If there wasn’t also a larger amount of nudity, I would almost think that they were considering to aim for a PG-13 rating. There are still some laughs to be had, but it’s far less entertaining on the bad movie scale.
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The Toxic Avenger
The Toxic Avenger 1984
A lot of B-movie fans, and especially horror B-movie fans likely know the name Troma. It’s a small company that’s churned out a whole lot of low budget films over the years with titles like Yeti: A Love Story, Surf Nazis Must Die!, and Killer Condom. But before doing horror movies, they mainly did sex comedies. The Toxic Avenger was more or less their first foray into horror, even though it’s not what anyone would call full blown horror, it has the death scenes and blood and gore which is a staple of these kinds of horror movies. And it was a success… eventually. It wasn’t quite the slow burn that the Rocky Horror Picture Show would become, but it found a foothold as a midnight movie and is considered a cult classic. Heck, there was even a children’s cartoon of it. As for my own experience with Troma films, I know I was familiar with the Toxic Avenger, but I can’t for the life of me remember exactly how. I think I watched at least one of the films when I was younger, and I know I caught some of the episodes of the cartoon. I also watched Tromeo and Juliet, which was directed by the James Gunn who would later go on to direct Super. But my knowledge of Toxie had mostly faded when he came back on screen in all his cheesy glory. This is a cult movie for a lot of the same reasons the Room is a cult movie. The acting is horrible, the effects are obviously cheap but brutal (for the time at least), but in the end, I had a blast.
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Filmwhys #6 12 Angry Men and Superman
Running a little bit behind on this episode, but I think it was worth the wait. In this episode of Filmwhys, the why haven’t you seen this film podcast, my guest is Jay Cluitt from Life vs. Film who asks me why I haven’t seen the classic Sidney Lumet film 12 Angry Men. And I ask him why he hasn’t seen the classic, original superhero movie Superman with Christopher Reeve.
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Filmwhys #5 Run Lola Run and The Punisher
There’s never enough time to watch all the movies I want to, but now that Filmwhys is weekly, I’m working on it that much quicker. In this episode of Filmwhys, the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast, I’m joined by Dylan Fields of Man I Love Films who asks me why I haven’t seen Run Lola Run, the unique 1998 German film with a unique premise, pseudo-time travel, animation, and running. And I ask him why he hadn’t seen the 2004 Punisher film starring Thomas Jane.
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Superman & Batman Apocalypse
This movie was sort of billed as a sequel to the animated Superman/Batman Public Enemies, although it really is a stand-alone piece with only a brief callback to President Luthor’s impeachment to tie it to the previous movie. I hadn’t really heard much about this movie compared to some of the other DC animation so I really didn’t know what to expect, other than Darkseid considering the title of the movie is Apocalypse even though they went with the traditional spelling of the word rather than the typical comic book spelling of Apokolips. But even with the Superman & Batman title, this really could have been called Supergirl: Apokolips, as she is the main focus of the movie and Batman doesn’t get much screen time at all. But I am a big fan of Supergirl as a character so I really enjoyed this movie and it quickly rose as one of my favorite DC animations. From the great tone that’s set early on to the amazing action sequences towards the end, it’s really an all around great movie and one to check out if you haven’t seen it yet.
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Man of Steel
Man of Steel 2013
More than any other movie this summer, the one I’ve been looking forward to the most was Man of Steel, and at least right now just getting home from the theater, it did not disappoint. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but my hopes were high coming off of all the glorious trailers and the incredible cast. Even though it was treading on yet another origin story, I was willing to go with it. With Zack Snyder behind the helm, I was hoping for some visually amazing battles, and with Christopher Nolan overseeing the story, I was hoping for some real character depth. In my opinion, I got both. There may be some problems that come into my head after the fact, but at the moment I just had an amazing time at the movie theater, this review will likely have some spoilers so if you haven’t seen the movie. Go see it! Then come back and read my thoughts on it.
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5 Obstructions #1: Batman & Robin
Obstruction #1: Write a good review of a bad movie
When I saw this blogathon I immediately thought it was a great idea, in fact, I even had the idea for the first “obstruction” a while back. For full details, check out the overview post over at Nostra’s My Film Views. But basically the idea is five writing challenges inspired by a movie that challenged the filmmaker to make the same movie five different times, each time with a different challenge, or obstruction. For the first obstruction, I figured I could easily find a bad movie that I’ve seen recently and I decided to make that challenge into a “sell out” review. That is to say I am writing this review as if I had been paid by the filmmakers to give it a good review, and I figured the best place to use that marketing double-speak is for the film Batman and Robin. Enjoy.
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Superman Doomsday
Superman Doomsday 2007
This was advertised as the first animated Superman movie rated PG-13 and was really the start of the DC Animation boom that’s continued to this day. Before this, most of the movies released were drawn from the various animated series like Batman, Batman Beyond, and The Adventures of Superman. This one was based on one of the most popular comic books of all time, the Death of Superman, though there were many significant changes to the story. I was actually vaguely familiar with the Death of Superman story because one of my friends bought into the whole craze at the time so I read through the first issue shortly after it first came out. When this movie came out, I had heard that there was a brief cameo by Kevin Smith which referred to the giant mechanical spider he was asked to include during his work on the Superman Lives script. In the end, it turned out pretty well, though I do think it is one of the weaker animated projects, likely due to the fact that it was one of the earlier ones.
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Condorman
Condorman 1981
With a name like Condorman, you’d think it would be a no brainer for a superhero movie, and yet this movie actually turned out much more like a spy movie slash comedy. You may ask why I’m keeping this on my main list and not tagging it with my “almost super” category, at least if you’re someone who follows this site on a regular basis. I decided to let it stay for a few reasons. One is that it has a strong foundation in comic books, the “spy” in question is actually a comic book writer and artist, and second is that his spy persona feels much closer to a comic book superhero than a James Bond or Inspector Clouseau spy. But that’s all really beside the point, it’s another movie that I had never heard of, an 80’s movie that’s been all but forgotten even though it was technically a Disney movie, or at least a Disney production with a little animation thrown in for the opening credits. It’s a fun little attempt at being a Pink Panther movie with a lot more gadgets and costumes thrown in. I had a lot of fun while watching it, even though at times it went a little too far on the goofy side of comedy. And on top of the goofball comedy, there was actually quite a bit of excitement with some fun car chases, boat chases, and explosions.
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Scooby-Doo Mask of the Blue Falcon
I will easily admit to being a Scooby-Doo fan when I was younger. I watched many episodes of the Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo as well as A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, alongside the older episodes. They were goofy, silly, campy, and fun, but I enjoyed them. I also watched plenty of other Hanna Barbera properties back when Cartoon Network was new and filled most of its programming slots with classic cartoons and only a handful of fresh ones. Among them was of course Blue Falcon and Dynomutt either in their own show or one of the many Hanna-Barbera mashups like the Laff-a-Lympics. Scooby-Doo has never really seemed to completely go away, there’s always some new TV show or an endless stream of straight-to-home-video movies like this one. But many of the newest episodes and movies have had a lot sharper sense of humor while still retaining some of the goofiness and campiness the classic fans love. This one is no exception, there’s a lot of smart humor alongside the typical slapstick antics of Mystery Inc. It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve seen an episode or movie about Scooby-Doo, probably not since the live action movie, but I really enjoyed this movie, especially because of all the little background references and such.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 