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Batman
Batman 1989
It has been ages since I’ve seen the original Batman. Tim Burton’s vision of Gotham has long been one of the most iconic and especially known for being one of the first movies to bring a darker side to superhero movies and help bring them more into the mainstream, even if the big superhero movies were pretty much limited to Batman until X-Men comes along over 10 years later. It really helped turn Batman into a household name, and Jack Nicholson’s performance as the Joker is one of his most iconic, as well as one of the best performances in a Batman movie period. But watching this movie after seeing what Batman has become in the years since, it’s almost like looking at a shadow of his former self. Now, the Tim Burton movie is almost like a bridge between the pure camp of the Adam West Batman TV series and the extremely dark and realistic Batman of the Nolan trilogy and the DC Animation movies. And as much as I loved both extremes of Batman for very different reasons, this movie is kind of stuck in the middle and falls behind. But Batman is still Batman, and I enjoyed almost every minute of this movie. It’s still a great movie even if it’s lost some of its luster.
As You Watch Podcast #4 Snatch
Welcome back to the fourth episode of the As You Watch Podcast, featuring myself, Joe from Two Dude Review, Nick from Cinematic Katzenjammer, and special guest Travis from TME Ink. In our fourth episode we talk about our movie of the episode: Snatch – A 2000 Guy Ritchie movie involving diamonds, a fixed boxing match, and a lot of criminals. But we also cover today’s new releases on DVD and Blu-Ray: The Cabin in the Woods and the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and this weekend’s new theatrical releases: Dredd 3d, End of Watch, and The Master. We also cover our top three Brad Pitt supporting/underrated roles. Snatch was Joe’s pick so you can check out the episode and leave feedback over at his site. I also worked on some new mash-up intros to the DVD and theatrical releases, so be sure to leave feedback on those.
The Dark Knight Returns Pt. 1
The Dark Knight Returns Pt. 1 2012
No, this isn’t a typo of some shortened cut of the Dark Knight Rises, instead it’s a brand new DC animation. There are a few similarities, but in this version Batman retired for 10 years, not 8. He was in his sixties, not his forties. He’s fighting the Mutant leader and the Mutants, not Bane and the League of Shadows. I believe this also in some way follows Under the Red Hood, as they refer to Jason’s death, who was the second Robin. I’ve been a fan of DC animation for a while now, and they haven’t personally let me down yet. I know there are some people who have issues with the way they don’t entirely follow the comics in some of the features, but since I don’t follow the comics, they’re all fresh to me and just plain amazing storytelling. The movies just keep getting better and better and this one is no exception. I especially like the fact that while this movie is labelled with the sometimes accursed “part 1”, it doesn’t feel like only half of the story. There is a full fledged story told entirely within this one movie, but it also does a great job at laying the groundwork to make you excited for the upcoming part 2 next year.
Daredevil: Director’s Cut
Daredevil: Director’s Cut 2003
I was quite surprised when I heard the news of Michael Clark Duncan’s passing, so I did the only thing I could really think of to do my small part to honor his memory: watch one of his movies. And while Daredevil is near the bottom of the recent comic book movie heap, derided by many fans and movie lovers alike, and the director’s cut is widely hailed as the much improved version, if often grudgingly, that was the movie that I decided to watch. Ben Affleck was an interesting choice for the role of Daredevil, and I thought he did a passable job. The rest of the cast was pretty impressive too, with some small controversy about the race swap of the Kingpin. Or at least I remember it being a point of contention with at least one of my friends, who is a big comic book fan. I had no problem with it personally, I couldn’t think of a single white guy with the sheer mass to pull off the role as well as being able to act. I think the biggest fault of the movie is that it didn’t really have a singular tone. In some places it was very darkly serious, in others it was cheery and hopefully romantic, and in others it was over the top campy. Personally, I enjoyed almost every minute of it. I could see the faults of a bad film peeking through, but I looked past it into an enjoyable little flick.
Barb Wire
Barb Wire 1996
Ok, so first off I should probably mention that it’s taken me about three days to write this review. It’s not that it’s a terribly complex movie, or that I’ve wanted to go on and on and on about it. It’s just that for about two days, I’ve been sitting with this post open on its own tab, and I’ve been finding any and every online reason to distract myself from writing it. I do have to admit that it’s been very refreshing to essentially take a break from blogging. I went from being quite disappointed that my traffic wasn’t increasing at the same rate it had been for a handful of months, and that it was way lower than several other sites that had started around the same time, and that posting daily was way more taxing than I realized and after a few days, I realized it wasn’t having a huge effect on traffic. I’m obviously getting less traffic than I was when I was posting daily, but it’s not a huge drop. And if I really cared that much about traffic, I would simply review more popular movies. But taking this break has helped me focus on what this site has really become for me, a way to seek out and share my thoughts on a little niche genre that I enjoy, a way to find the undiscovered little gems that others may get a kick out of. But before I go way off topic (too late), let’s get back to the movie at hand. Before I started looking into it, all I knew about Barb Wire was that it was Pamela Anderson’s attempt at acting, an adaptation of some comic book, and Pam Anderson showed off quite a bit of her body in it. After I started looking into it, one of the first things anyone mentioned about it was that it was essentially a remake of Casablanca. Now Casablanca is one of the few black and white classic movies that I’m a big fan of. I’ve seen it three or four times (which is a lot for me, I rarely re-watch movies unless it’s a favorite), so I was curious how many similarities I would be able to catch, which did kind of make it more interesting to watch, if only a little.
Sting of the Black Scorpion
Sting of the Black Scorpion 2002
This is one of the many rarities and lesser known straight-to-DVD superhero movies I found at my local rental store’s bargain section. It is actually three episodes of the Roger Corman produced television series on the Sci-Fi channel called Black Scorpion. I looked it up and the show ran for only 22 episodes and spawned one other movie called “Return of the Black Scorpion” which was released a year before this one, but I couldn’t tell if it was a newly made epilogue for the TV series, or if it was a similar collection of episodes. There was also two made for TV movies several years before featuring the same characters, and with Roger Corman attached to it. But I couldn’t find much more information on them either. This show is rather akin to the classic Adam West Batman TV series, although it feels like it’s almost trying to be a serious show. Where Batman was almost nonstop camp and silliness, this movie plays sometimes for laughs, and sometimes more seriously. And it also has Frank Gorshin, who played the Riddler, as Clockwise.
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 1993
When I first made my superhero movie list, this one was absent from it. I had actually seen it before, back when it first came out even though I think I waited for home video. I always remembered it as more of a sci-fi movie than a superhero movie. But then I watched a great episode of How it Should Have Ended with Super Mario. “I’m just like you, I’m a superhero. I rescue the princess. You are Superman, I am Super Mario, we are the same.” And it won me over, and I was hoping for another “so bad it’s good” superhero movie because this one has bad written all over it. They took the overall concept of Super Mario, pulled out a handful of names, and a couple designs, then threw it into a generic connected dimension sci-fi movie. Instead of making the mushroom kingdom into a bright, colorful, whimsical place, they made it dark and dystopian. It had some pretty poor action, poor comedy, and a poor plot. There were a handful of fun moments, but not much in the movie clicked with me, and it also never quite transcended into over the top bad fun, it was just lazy.
As You Watch #2: Dick Tracy
Welcome back to the second episode of the As You Watch Podcast, featuring myself, Joe from Two Dude Review, Nick from Cinematic Katzenjammer, and Vern from Vern’s Video Vangaurd. In our second episode we talk about our movie of the episode: Dick Tracy. But we also cover today’s new releases on DVD and Blu-Ray, including The Lucky One and Battleship, and this weekend’s new theatrical releases, including Lawless. We also cover our own personal top three gangster movies, avoiding some of the biggest titles in that category. Since Dick Tracy was my pick of the week, I’m hosting the podcast, so leave any feedback and suggestions right here and everybody will be able to see them. In two weeks, we’ll be watching I Saw the Devil, so if you want to watch too, be sure to check it out. If you write a review of the movie, we will gladly add a link to it in our podcast post. And special thanks to the band Jelly Project who allowed us the use of their song “Crazy World” to open our show.
Click Here to Listen at our PodOMatic page
Superhero Shorts: Captain Planet Trailer
Welcome to this week’s edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a different superhero themed short film and get the creator of the film to answer a few interview questions. This week I’m talking with Noah Baron, Matt Kohler, and Robert Santiago, three actor-turned-producers who came up with a different take on the classic 90’s cartoon Captain Planet. Instead of amping up the campiness of the old cartoon, they turned it into a much more realistic and gritty movie trailer that looks seriously good. You can watch it below, or you can see it on any of their own sites.
Return of Captain Invincible
Return of Captain Invincible 1983
This isn’t quite the start of my new schedule just yet. I’m still trying to figure that one out. I know I’ll be watching another movie this weekend and I’ve got a promising new Superhero Shorts interview lined up, I think it’s a pretty good one. But for now I’ll just talk about this awesome 80’s movie that Morgan over at Morgan on Media pointed out to me. It’s called Return of Captain Invincible and it’s an 80’s, musical, superhero comedy. You heard that right. Not only that, but it stars Alan Arkin and Christopher Lee. It has a very Rocky Horror Picture Show vibe to it and it is extremely ludicrous. The songs range across a wide variety of styles and quality, and there is a surprising amount of Benny Hill-ish shirt-bursting moments, and even some brief nudity, which actually surprised me a bit, I always forget that ratings back then were actually more lenient on PG ratings. The movie overall was quite enjoyable for me, and for a couple days at least you can see my live tweets while I was watching the movie, covering some of the better moments.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 