Blog Archives
Follow Friday: At the Back
Welcome to the first weekly edition of Follow Fridays. I decided to do a Follow Friday for a couple reasons, one: I never click on anyone’s blogrolls, and two: I think my blogroll widget did something to cause my posts to miss their schedules. I also liked the way that both the Lamb and Fog’s Movie Reviews feature other blogs in their own post rather than just an easily overlooked sidebar. Now of course, I couldn’t just steal another idea without adding my own little spin to it, so I decided to carry on my Superhero Shorts idea of interviewing the creators of the blogs I feature, and let them choose the blog to feature for next Friday. And my first pick goes to At The Back.
Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2 2010
I think it’s kind of funny that right after putting up a poll and a blog discussing spoilers I watch a movie that was not spoiled to me in any way shape or form. Here is everything I knew about Iron Man 2 before watching it: Don Cheadle replaced Terrence Howard as Rhodie and he gets to pilot his War Machine suit. Black Widow makes an extended appearance in this movie. Whiplash is the main villain played by Mickey Rourke. And that’s it. I had an inkling about the role of Tony’s father, I had no idea Nick Fury played such a big role, and also had no idea about the subplot about him being slowly killed by the use of his arc reactor core. So everything going into this movie was a big surprise and I must say a delight. I can’t say right now if the sequel is better or worse than the original, but it’s absolutely on par with it.
Iron Man
Iron Man 2008
After watching the two Hulk movies that left something to be desired, I was ready to move on to an Avenger that had it all: Great characters, great plot, great action, great everything. I’m talking about Iron Man, the first movie released as part of the Avengers Initiative and arguably the best of the bunch. Disappointingly once again, Jena was disinterested in this movie and I hope it doesn’t extend to when we watch the Avengers in theaters because I’d prefer to not have that experience and everyone else’s around us ruined by an unruly five year old. I’ve heard mixed things about Iron Man 2 so I’m not sure what to expect next, but for now at least, I had a great time with this movie.
Superhero Shorts: The Hillywood Show
Superhero Shorts: Dark Knight by The Hillywood Show
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 is from a YouTube channel that my wife really enjoys called The Hillywood Show ran by Hilly and Hannah Hindi. These sisters started out doing a mashup movie character sketch show called The Hillywood Show. The highlight of the show are the well made costumes of characters such as Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka, Edward Scissorhands, and other Johnny Depp or Tim Burton characters. But they got their biggest boost in popularity when they made a music video parody of Twilight featuring an extended remix of Katy Perry’s Hot and Cold which brought their videos from 10s of thousands of views to over a million and have grown from there, parodying the other Twilight movies as well as Harry Potter, Vampire Diaries, The Hunger Games, and the one I’ll be looking at today: The Dark Knight, which you can watch right below or you can visit The Hillywood Show’s website.
The Incredible Hulk
The Incredible Hulk 2008
I feel like I first have to justify my viewing order for preparing for the Avengers. Out of all of the tie-in movies the only one I have yet to see is Iron Man 2. But when I decided to rewatch all of the Avengers movies leading up to the Avengers itself I knew I wanted to start with Hulk because I remembered it tying into the Incredible Hulk, and I like to watch movie sequels back to back. And to end the series, I had most recently watched Captain America this year so I wanted to put that at the end, especially because with the ending it feels like it leads directly into The Avengers. So instead of using one of the other methods to order the movies, I decided to go with this order: Hulk and The Incredible Hulk, then Iron Man and Iron Man 2 so I can watch those sequels back-to-back as well, then Thor, and finally Captain America’s audio commentary. I used to love watching audio commentaries but it’s been a while since I’ve put aside the time to watch the commentary instead of or in addition to the actual movie. It won’t get a full review but it will get a brief mention in a blog post.
DC Showcase Short Films
DC Showcase
I absolutely love animation, so when I saw a blogathon about animated short films over at Pussy Goes Grrr I knew I wanted to participate. And I didn’t want to just use an installment of my Superhero Shorts for it. So instead I decided to search out all the recent DC Showcase short films that have been packaged with various DC movies. There have been five of them so far, but as the blogathon limits it to a total hour of animation, I eliminated the longest one. Read below for my short reviews for Catwoman, The Spectre, Jonah Hex, and Green Arrow.
Hulk
Hulk 2003
It’s finally time for me to begin assembling for the Avengers, and while many people try to forget this installment of the franchise and it was made before Marvel decided to make all the movies lead up to a big crossover movie event, it is generally considered that The Incredible Hulk is a sequel and not a reboot. So by this theory I decided to watch this version of the Hulk first to refresh my memory before heading into its sequel. On top of that, it’s a great chance for me to once again become involved with the LAMB and their Lamb’s in the Director’s Chair. This time around the director is Ang Lee who at the time seemed like a very interesting choice to take on The Hulk. He had just come off of his acclaimed and popular Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and it was thought that he would bring a unique take on the Hulk, and he definitely did do that even if it might not have been a good thing.
Superhero Shorts: Batman’s Night Out
Superhero Shorts: Batman’s Night Out
Welcome to this week’s edition of Superhero Shorts, where I take a look at a superhero short film and interview the creator. This week I was able to get a hold of Sean Ward, the producer behind the recent short Batman’s Night Out which has gotten over 1 million views on YouTube. Below you can Toronto Batman interacting with the citizens of Toronto with amusing results. Enjoy.
The Shadow
The Shadow 1994
One thing that I’ve realized recently and yet still haven’t gotten in the habit of doing is to make this first paragraph of the film review an interesting little caption on what is to come in the rest of the review. It’s the first thing someone reads when they’re looking at the post from another page and yet just like I’m doing right now, I use this precious space talking about some random topic. But at least for the regular readers, I hope that’s just an interesting quirk that adds to my personality. Yesterday evening I looked up the movie to finish out this loosely themed collection of superheroes with guns and/or classic pulp heroes that started with The Punisher movies, and ends with The Shadow. I don’t remember when I first saw The Shadow, it has been many years since I’ve seen it but I remembered enjoying it. Watching it again now I notice a lot more little things that are an interesting little spin on the traditional superhero, it has a lot of noir charm, and an impressive cast of actors. The Shadow still holds up quite well in my eyes.
The Green Hornet
The Green Hornet 2011
I had never really been familiar with The Green Hornet other than the fact that I was aware of the old television series that had Bruce Lee as Kato, but I never knew if it was supposed to be a fun campy show or if it was more serious than the Adam West Batman television show. I’ve also been a big fan of Seth Rogen as well as Michel Gondry and I really enjoyed the movie the first time I saw it. Watching it again I noticed a lot more flaws than I originally saw, but it’s still a pretty fun movie. I was especially happy that I got the chance to watch this movie on blu-ray and I don’t that often get to break out the blu-ray player for something other than a DVD.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 