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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.
Robocop
Robocop 1987
This movie wasn’t on my original list of movies to watch for this year, it’s not a traditional superhero movie, and I personally considered it more of a sci-fi movie. But I recently read what was originally intended as an April Fools joke at Fog’s Movie Reviews as one of his Movies That Everyone Should See. He thought that it wasn’t that great of a movie with too much cheese and too much violence, but he wrote the article very seriously expecting the commenters to balk at the movie’s inclusion alongside classics such as Citizen Kane, Big, and Stand By Me. But instead of balking, the comments heartily agreed with the inclusion except for a few outliers who realized it may have been an April Fools prank. It definitely made me want to see it, and so I did. As I mentioned, I was initially reluctant to include it, but it did spawn a comic book series, and when compared to a superhero like The Punisher, he’s got a better costume, similar firepower, and more of what could be considered super power. So here we are.
The Spirit
The Spirit 2008
Finally getting around to watching our rental copy of Frank Miller’s The Spirit. It’s funny that I watch and write about all of these superhero movies, but as far as comic book artists and writers I don’t really know all that much. Although I suppose I know a heck of a lot more than the average person, I know exceedingly few compared to a comic book fan. I’m familiar with the name Frank Miller largely due to his work on Sin City with Robert Rodriguez, and then instead of Sin City 2 which seems to be in development hell as it was rumored to be worked on shortly after the release of the first movie and yet seven years after its release there’s still no word on it. Instead Frank Miller went on his own to create another movie very similar in style to Sin City, only it features a classic noir detective character called The Spirit.
Superhero Shorts: Super Powers
Superhero Shorts: Super Powers
In this series I’ve already taken a look at a good spectrum of different videos, a parody, a comedy, a serious video, a new video. This week I’m taking a look at a short series of videos from TheMrMenagerie which showcases various special effects done by himself with a bit of humor added to it in a series called simply Super Powers. Below I’m featuring the first episode featuring the power of fire. And once again I was lucky enough to get a hold of TheMrMenagerie to ask him a few questions which you can read below my review.
The Punisher
The Punisher 2004
I’ve been a fan of this movie ever since it came out, I’m not sure if I saw it in theaters, but if I didn’t, then I saw it shortly afterwards. I have yet to see the extended edition of this movie but I would really like to sometime. Extended editions aren’t always improvements to the movie, I know several times that I watched the extended edition of a movie without realizing it, and I know in the case of Superman: The Movie, it felt like it was too drawn out and I think I would have preferred watching the theatrical version rather than the extended edition. But other times, movies get cut down for other reasons and the extended edition is actually the preferred version, like in the case of Daredevil. But since I already own the regular version of this DVD, I went ahead and watched it tonight instead of watching The Spirit that we rented last night so I could finish up the non-trilogy of Punisher movies. There were a few scenes that I didn’t care for as much as I did when I first watched the movie, but I still enjoyed it a ton more than either of the other Punisher movies I’ve watched this week.
Punisher
Punisher 1989
It was Sunday morning, and I hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep. When I got up I realized that Jena had made her way into our bed at some point during the night. I’m a very heavy sleeper by the way. Considering how little my wife enjoyed Punisher: War Zone, I decided to let her out of watching this movie which by my understanding was just as bad of a movie and just watch it by myself downstairs while they slept. This was on my list of 33 of the worst movies, but when I watched it, it didn’t seem that bad to me. I mean, it wasn’t a great piece of cinema by any means, but it was a solid if fairly generic 80’s action movie. And as I looked through some of the trivia, I was surprised that this has the second highest body count of the three movies at 91 kills, War Zone comes in first at 97, and the Thomas Jane version comes in at a paltry 45. This also has the benefit (or possibly detriment) of having a few brief nude scenes, but then half of them are of Dolph Lundgren.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 