Blog Archives
Graphic Horror: The Scribbler
The Scribbler 2014
For a couple years now I’ve avoided falling into the trap that nearly every other movie blog falls into during this time of year: reviewing horror movies for October. But since I started my Graphic Horror tag this past March, I thought it was due time to go further into the very shallow selection of horror movies and thrillers adapted from graphic novels and comic books. To kick things off, I’m taking a look at the movie that just released on VOD a couple weeks ago adapted from Daniel Schaffer’s comic the Scribbler. The story itself is a weird mix of Girl, Interrupted, Fight Club, and the Cell. Katie Cassidy in the lead role was one of the best parts of the movie, though I thought things got a little muddled in the direction. It also had a rather surprising and unusual turn towards the end that I will be discussing, so spoilers abound. Overall I enjoyed it, but the concept felt a bit stronger than the execution.
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Mercury Man
Mercury Man 2006
It’s October, so you know what that means? Horror movies! And this year I am going to be no different, but before I get to some horror and thriller movies based on some graphic novels, I used my free month of Netflix to check out a superhero film that I didn’t have on my list and hadn’t seen around anywhere else. It’s a Thai movie from 2006 that could easily be considered a Thai variation of a Wuxia movie which I don’t cover here, but still draws enough inspiration from Western superhero movies that I thought I had to include it. It also follows pretty closely to the standard superhero origin story, though with a lot more martial arts fight sequences rather than superpower showcases. Also, while the film is mostly in Thai with subtitles, when the villains are speaking to each other, they tend to speak in heavily accented English for reasons I never quite understood. It was different enough to be a refreshing change of pace compared to most of the superhero movies I see, but in the end it still followed the same basic story arc.
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Superhero Shorts: Super Zero
It seems like it’s been a little while since my last installment of Superhero Shorts, where I take a look at a superhero themed short film and ask a few questions of the creator. But I’ve got a couple for you here in the near future starting off with Super Zero here today from writer/director Mitch Cohen where he takes the zombie apocalypse and throws in a schlubby gamer geek with a knack for gadgets and brain cancer who ends up being a Bad-Ass Zombie slaying superhero. As usual, you can watch the short below, or you can visit Mitch’s YouTube channel.
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Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer 2007
I can honestly say that I don’t remember much about the release of this movie. I was a fan of the first Fantastic Four and I was looking forward to seeing what happened with the sequel. I was glad that they were bringing in the Silver Surfer and Galactus even though I had heard that they had turned him into a giant cloud. I don’t remember if I knew about the minor controversy with Doug Jones doing the motion capture and speaking role during production, but replaced by Laurence Fishburne’s voice afterwards. It came after a middle of the road movie and featured one of the most popular characters from the Fantastic Four, but it failed to generate enough interest and barely cleared its budget domestically. I still consider the first movie to be a guilty pleasure of mine and I expected more of the same out of the sequel. And while there is still some of that fun charm that I enjoyed in the first movie, it ends up working against itself more often than not. And on top of everything else, it fails at way too many of the necessary superhero tropes. There’s a weak villain, a weak climax, and a sacrifice that neither had weight nor real impact.
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Orgazmo
Orgazmo 1997
This is one of the very few movies that I included in my 100 Essential Superhero Movies that I hadn’t seen before, but enough people voted for it in the poll that I included it sight unseen. It came from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creative types behind the juggernaut that is South Park which I was a fan of. I say was not because I no longer like it, but I just haven’t watched it in years. So with the recommendation of my readers and my enjoyment of South Park I went in expecting to really enjoy this movie. Unfortunately, most of the comedy did not make me laugh at all, and when you take the humor away from this movie, there’s not a whole lot left to grasp onto. Not to mention that it’s a somewhat of a movie about the porn industry without any female nudity aside from the occasional sideboob though I suppose that’s supposed to be part of the joke and I knew about that wrinkle going into the movie as well. And underlying the plot line about this clean cut Mormon entering into the seedy porn underworld is the side story about him actually becoming this crimefighter Orgazmo. It just never added up for me.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014
I wasn’t really planning on seeing this movie in theaters, it had a lot of negative hype surrounding it as it was from (director Jonathan Leibsman) and producer Michael Bay, the early buzz around the movie was that they were going to be aliens, they weren’t going to go with the full Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles title, the turtles themselves had really weird noses, and it had the critic’s bane Megan Fox in a major role as April O’Neal. It didn’t help once the reviews started coming in either. Outside of a couple positive reviews, including one from Today, I Watched a Movie whose taste is often similar to mine, everything was coming back negative and further diminishing my desire to see this movie. But I was overruled by my family and to my surprise, it wasn’t the crapfest I was anticipating. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not an amazing achievement in cinematic history either but I wasn’t counting the seconds until the movie was over and I caught myself enjoying the moments between the turtles and other things here and there.
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Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four 2005
I recently talked briefly about this movie in my top 10 guilty pleasure superhero movies list even though it had been years since I had seen it last, I also think that it is one of the last few big superhero movies that I’ve yet to review here on this site along with its sequel, Elektra, TMNT, and just a couple others. While I did enjoy it the last time I saw it, I’ve had years of internet loathing to soak its way into my brain as well as years of quality cinema, superhero and otherwise to better allow me to see the flaws in this movie and boy did I ever. Of course, behind all the bad writing, dated special effects, and questionable casting choices there is still some fun to be had watching this movie and above all else, it’s still the Fantastic Four.
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The 10 Best Superhero Movies of All Time Blog Relay
I’ve always been a fan of blogathons and there’s one type of blogathon that has really captured my imagination as far as ways to make it a bit more interesting for me. Some may say that I like to overcomplicate things, but when it comes to these relays there is the idea that it becomes this ever-changing list, but there are some items that stick around for a long time, and others that come in a go out a bit more often. I wanted to take this concept of a blog relay and twist it in such a way that it has a definitive ending. That when all is said and done, there is a single top 10 list that is agreed upon by the most members. But before I get into the rules and what not, I will start out with my own list that’s not specifically just my favorites, but what I think are the best superhero movies of all time.
Pizza Man
Pizza Man 2011
This is another one of those lesser known, indie superhero movies that flew under the radar for me. And to be honest, I don’t often go digging for these gems, but I always keep an eye out for them to cross my path and this one did through one of my favorite movie sites to read Today I Watched a Movie who picked this up at Wal-Mart and gave it such high praise that I had to check it out, and so I picked it up for myself a few days later and it sat on my DVD shelf for a couple months before my wife finally put it in our DVD player for us to watch. I’m not as fully sold as TIWAM was, but it’s still a solid superhero send-up with a fun plot and quite a few recognizable characters.
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100 Essential Superhero Movies – Indie Comics
I decided that I wanted to make a list of 100 superhero movies that I thought were the essentials, the ones that everyone needs to see at one point in time if they want to be a fully fledged superhero movie afficionado, and while I am having guest bloggers this month help me fill out the list, there are many much more obvious choices that were easy to make and I’m here to share some of those with you. I’ve made a few different lists from Marvel and DC comics, but those aren’t the only two companies out there that make superhero comics, and now it’s finally time to take a look at some of the other superhero movies that come from comics outside of the big two.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 