Blog Archives
Ultimate Avengers 2
Ultimate Avengers 2 2006
While I’m still moving at a bit slower pace than I planned to, I’m still moving through the animated Avengers movies before writing down a full fledged review for Age of Ultron, though if you can’t wait to hear my thoughts I was on a recent Lambcast where I discussed it with several other Lamb members. The sequel to the animated Ultimate Avengers brings back the entire cast along with newcomer Black Panther. The sequel tries to amp up the action, the danger, and the consequences but it’s difficult to do with the way this cast of characters is portrayed. It doesn’t help that the Chitauri aliens aren’t any more interesting than they were in the first film. The result it a lot of the same old same old that just doesn’t have a big payoff at the end. There’s nothing terribly wrong with this film, but it doesn’t do anything new, fresh, or exciting throughout its entire runtime.
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The Glaring Reality of Women Superhero Movies
While I was beginning to write my latest review for a superhero movie I watched that was recently released on home video, it made me think about Women-led superhero movies and how it’s been so long since anyone has dared to make one, either on home video or in theaters. That movie happens to be the first movie that has been released in the US that’s led by a female superhero since 2009’s DC Animated Wonder Woman. If you’re curious, the movie is Barbie in Princess Power. Yes, it took a Barbie movie to break this streak. By my count there have been 80 superhero movies released in the US between 2010 and April 2015. This is the only one led by a female superhero. If I expand my search just a little, there is at least one other that I am aware of from a couple years ago in Japan called Nuigulumar Z but that’s it. When you look at theatrical features the prospects are even more grim considering the last female-led superhero movie was all the way back in 2005 with Elektra and the next one isn’t due until 2017 with Wonder Woman, that’s twelve years. Think about this: if a girl was born in 1999, she would not have been able to see a superhero movie led by a woman in the theaters until her 18th birthday.
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Book Nights: The Heart Does Not Grow Back
The Heart Does Not Grow Back
by Fred Venturini
It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a book on here, mainly because I don’t seek out what I perceive to be a very small subgenre of fiction outside of comic books. It doesn’t help that my past experiences have been bad to mediocre, but I’m never one to turn down something for free so I accepted the offer to review another piece of superhero fiction. The brief description had me interested, it seemed like there were some horror elements and it wouldn’t be a straightforward superhero origin story. What I ended up with was a superhero story that was one of the most original takes on a superhero that I have ever seen, on screen or off. It’s got coming of age elements to it, and the main character is someone who I could relate to probably more than I should care to admit to. It also has some well written moments of tension during some horrifying and gruesome moments that feel all too real. It’s a fairly short novel, and while I expected to take a couple weeks to read through it, I managed to finish it in less than a week.
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Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis 2015
And right onto the first new release of the year. This seems like it’s one of the first follow ups in the DC Animation home video releases as it almost directly follows last year’s Justice League: War. Even though Son of Batman was also part of DC’s New 52 continuity, that movie felt much more self-contained where this really felt like a sequel, especially when I did revisit War shortly before watching Throne of Atlantis. While Aquaman is often the butt of many jokes, he is actually a popular and powerful member of the Justice League and long since deserving of his own movie. There are a few jokes tossed at the king of the sea’s expense, but for the most part it’s a typical origin story with a very similar tone and feel to War, with a few of the same voice cast returning along with some new and familiar voices like Rosario Dawson who got upgraded from Artemis in the Wonder Woman movie to Wonder Woman herself, and Nathan Fillion returning to voice Green Lantern. I thought it was a decent sequel to War, but if there’s one aspect of superhero movies I have had my fill of, it’s origin stories and this didn’t really do anything different or interesting to set it apart from any of the dozens of other origin stories I’ve seen already.
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Top Superhero & Comic Book Films of 2014
It’s the beginning of a new year and time to look back on the year that was, and in most movie communities that also means awards season. I tend to be a bit of a completest when it comes to lists so I’m really glad that this year I was able to accomplish my goal to watch all 29 superhero and comic book films that came out in 2014. There are a few in here that have questionable release dates where some people got to see them early in festivals and small screenings, there are also a couple questionable inclusions and a couple questionable exclusions. But it is my list and I do have my reasons for not including some of them, like Transformers which has been a comic book, but it was a toy line and cartoon before then, and Noah which was adapted into both a comic and feature film simultaneously. And on the other side of things Birdman has a questionable connection to superheroes, but it does capture superhero culture within Hollywood, Edge of Tomorrow was originally a novel but was adapted into a Manga before the film adaptation came about, and the Lego Movie isn’t exactly a superhero movie though it does have superheroes in it. But whatever, I just want to celebrate the films that I enjoyed this year and forget about the ones that I excluded for now. In fact, I had such a great year in general, that I couldn’t narrow down my list of favorites to 10 so I have a couple lists for you so I can feature just over half of the films that I saw this year, excluding the brilliant documentary Legends of the Knight because it made my list last year.
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The 10 Best Superhero Movies of All Time Relay Results
When I started this relay I wasn’t entirely sure how it would end up. I’ve seen these Relay blogathons come and go and I thought it was an interesting idea, but it felt too much like just a rotating top 10. Some names would stick around for a while, others would quickly get replaced with little rhyme or reason outside of the individual blogger’s taste. So when I came up with the idea to do my own relay, I wanted to create some additional rules that would give a definite end to the relay. Some found the rules to be a little bit too confusing, while others understood it a bit more clearly. I think it ended up somewhere in the middle. If I did this again, I would make things a little bit more simple, but I would still keep enough of it so that it did have a definite finish line. But it has reached that finish line and so I’d like to share the final top 10 Best Superhero Movies of All Time as decided by a group of 18 different bloggers who have taken their own turn in the relay.
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Birdman
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) 2014
It’s a rare occasion that I get the chance to watch a movie that has Oscar buzz surrounding it. I missed out on my chance last year with Blue is the Warmest Color which lost it’s chance due to the release schedule making it ineligible to be France’s choice as a Best Foreign Film nominee. But when you look at movies that specifically take a look at superheroes, really the only other time that was in consideration was back in 2008 with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. And many people claim that film as being the reason why the Oscars changed their rules to allow up to ten films in the Best Picture category was strongly due to the fact that The Dark Knight didn’t make the cut, but probably would have if more films were allowed. I haven’t seen nearly enough potential Oscar nominees this year, and the only ones that even have a small chance at entering into the big categories are this one and possibly Snowpiercer which also has a similar struggle because of its release date. But as for Birdman itself, it has some strong performances from everyone in the cast, and there are some impressive storytelling decisions in the direction of this film. It’s one of those films that I can tell has a lot to dig into that a single viewing can only scratch the surface, but it’s one that I greatly enjoyed and can’t wait to watch again in the near future.
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5 Films That Should Be Superhero Movies
There’s a couple movie releases that have been making the rounds on the festival circuit and have been slowly rolled out into wider releases that sound like they should be full-fledged superhero movies. So, I thought I would take a look back at a few more movies that should be superhero movies solely based on their titles. I don’t do a lot of parody posts here, but I do like playing around with photoshop so I thought I’d share with you what I think these movies should really be. Enjoy!
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This Week In Superhero TV: 10/20 – 10/21
Another short week before Constantine’s pilot comes out at the end of this week and I have no idea when I’m going to get around to watching it. I am also running behind on watching Tales From the Crypt season 3 so it won’t be up tomorrow, though I hope I will be able to finish it by the end of Saturday. Anyway on to the actual television episodes that I will be talking about here. After a good showing by Gotham last week, it’s back down into the dumps again, but Flash and S.H.I.E.L.D. are both going very strong. Flash is really starting to remind me of a more superheroic version of Buffy which is funny because S.H.I.E.L.D. is the one that’s helmed by Buffy alums, or at least Whedon team members. Still, overall it was a good week and I’m interested in seeing what Constantine has to offer tomorrow and if I can keep up with watching four shows a week and still have time to watch movies. Here goes!
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TV Nights: This Week in Superhero TV 10/13 – 10/14
Yes, I know it’s a short week based on the title of this article but I’m technically only covering the shows that came out on Monday and Tuesday as I haven’t caught up with Arrow and Constantine doesn’t start until next week. Instead of cluttering my site with all of these shorter articles covering the superhero TV shows that are coming out this year, I decided to put my thoughts on all of them in a single post. Though Constantine’s pilot will get its own post next week. It’s been a good week with all the shows firing on all cylinders for the most part, either continuing their high standards, or in the case of Gotham showing some improvement. It’s a close call as to which show I like the most as both the Flash and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are really nailing what it means to be a superhero television show.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 