Blog Archives
Supervized
Supervized 2019
Even though I still have quite a few relatively major movies that I’ve missed out on the majority of the past year, one of the things that I enjoy the most about working on this site is finding these smaller and lower budget superhero and comic book movies. And trying to get back into the reviewing swing of things I didn’t just want to immediately tackle all the bigger releases, I wanted to seek out some of these smaller flicks that I do enjoy watching. This one was on my radar last year though I wasn’t able to get things lined up with a screener or the correct streaming service. But as of this writing it is streaming on Amazon Prime which I do have for the time being so I checked it out. There were actually a surprising number of parallels to Sky High only at the other end of the spectrum as this takes place at an old age home for superheroes rather than a high school for superhero kids. It’s rated R, has several familiar faces, but it still has a low budget feel in terms of the writing and special effects. The comedy is just a notch above fart jokes, the plot gets interesting towards the third act, but it all fizzles out at the end.
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Red Son
Superman: Red Son 2020
It’s still been difficult to try and get back into any sort of normal rhythm for this site, but I haven’t yet abandoned it. In fact, the site reached a major milestone the other day. We’ve reached 1 million total views! Thanks everyone for the continued support and visits. As for new movies, it seems like it’s mostly streaming and home video, including the DC Animated movies. I’ve always been a fan of alternate realities/Elseworlds stories, especially when it comes to superheroes. These characters have been around long enough that their origin stories are going to be multiple choice anyway. Why not allow writers to take things into more extreme directions if it’s going to tell an interesting story rather than just a slightly different shade of the same thing over and over. This takes the Superman origin story and turns it on its head. It’s similar and yet very different from the Batman Elseworlds story Gotham by Gaslight, turning Superman into a very different character rather than just injecting him into a different setting.
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Project Power
Project Power 2020
It’s already August and I’ve only just been able to watch the second 2020 superhero movie of this year. Of course it’s from a combination of things, both from lack of actual movie watching as well as lack of actual movies. This brand new movie was released straight to Netflix this past Friday and it’s a different take on superheroes and super powers, taking a more visceral approach with drugs and crime in a backdrop of New Orleans. For its part, it takes an interesting approach to the material and while it was lacking in a lot of areas, it handles things well enough to be an entertaining distraction in this absence of entertainment.
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Garfield’s Pet Force
Garfield’s Pet Force 2009
I was doing a random search on Netflix trying to find something that I hadn’t covered yet and didn’t have to pay for and one of the movies that came up was this straight-to-video kid’s movie. And one of the biggest selling points for me was that it was just over an hour long. Now, when I was a kid I liked Garfield pretty well, it was the era when Garfield and Friends played on TV and I typically watched it every time it was on, but ever since I was an adult and the seemingly awful live action Garfield movies came out, my opinion of Garfield has gone way down. So my expectations for this movie were pretty low. There was a small amount of interesting meta humor, but for the most part it was a pretty dull and uninteresting take on superheroes with Garfield characters, including several that I had never heard of before.
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Homemade Vigilante
Homemade Vigilante 2009
I’m way late to the party on this but a lot of things have been going on, both in my personal life as well as the whole virus scare in the US. But I’m still trying to keep things running here on this site and I made it around to watching the movie that won February’s Patreon poll. It’s a 2009 extremely indie film and if you’re curious about it, you can also watch for yourself as it’s currently streaming on Vimeo. This movie actually predates the trend that happened around this time with lower budget (but much higher budget than this one) films focused on self-made superheroes that don’t exactly know what they’re doing. This falls much more in line with the comedic side of things like the first half of Super without ever really going into true superhero territory while also falling back on rather dry British style humor that doesn’t always mesh with wider audiences.
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Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn 2020
It’s the start of a new year and I was able to see the first theatrical superhero release of the new decade. It’s also the first film in what may or may not come to be known the year of the woman. At least in theatrical superhero movies. After this Harley Quinn movie, there’s Wonder Woman, Black Widow, and an Angelina Jolie-led Eternals movie on the horizon before the year’s out. Harley Quinn has been one of my favorite DC characters for a long time ever since her debut in Batman: The Animated Series. Quick personal note, I’m planning on getting a Harley tattoo this year. Margot Robbie was one of the best things to come out of the Suicide Squad movie and it’s great to see her get a turn to herself, in a slightly Deadpool-esque way. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t get the box office bump that was expected, but there’s still a chance that it will have staying power. Personally, I loved the film. I loved the characters, the humor, and especially the fight scenes. And as this is a recent release, I will be discussing the film in full so here’s your spoiler warning.
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Higher Power
Higher Power 2018
This was a movie that I just happened to stumble upon while browsing through Hulu. I read the description and it sounded like it qualified for a superhero movie, and while it does skirt the line a little bit here and there, I think there’s enough that it works. There’s super powers, saving the world, a super villain of sorts, and it all takes place in present day. That’s good enough for my book. As far as the movie itself, I got the impression that it was a pretty low budget film, but the special effects and cinematography were well above its pay grade. At least, until they tried to stretch beyond their limitations, then the seams started showing. Unfortunately, the writing also didn’t quite live up to the rest of the movie. It had some really great moments, but it was incredibly uneven and took forever to really get going.
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American Hero
American Hero 2015
This post came about in part from my Patreon where each month patrons can vote on a movie (or movies) that I review here each month. This has been sitting on my list for a while, it’s an indie film from 2015 starring Stephen Dorff and Eddie Griffin. It is currently available to watch free with ads on Vudu. There’s a bit of a documentary feel to it, but that mostly feels like an excuse for the overall low budget nature of the film. It reminds me quite a bit of Sleight, though there’s a touch more of a superhero narrative in this film, enough for it to cross the line into actually being a superhero movie. Unfortunately most of the characters aren’t all that likable and they all end the film more or less where they started without much real growth.
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BlokeBusting The Essentials #91: The Meteor Man
#91: The Meteor Man
Or
It’s a….. Middle-School teacher?
Given my (essentially) middle-class upbringing in the South East of England, I feel that I’m totally empathetic towards these characters!
First Impressions
The first time I ever heard of this film was when I was looking through the list of films that Bubba had put together. Watching the trailer didn’t really help either, since it comes from a time where you actually got a trailer that didn’t give away THAT much from a film. And I’ll be totally honest here and say that the majority of the cameos are totally lost on me. There were 2 that I knew (which I’m sure you can guess), Bill Cosby and Sinbad. Yes, that means I had no idea who the gang members were. Pretty much any of them. I’m not good with that realm of culture! Anyway, onto the main cast!
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Brightburn
Brightburn 2019
While much of the marketing of this movie focused on the well known director of Guardians of the Galaxy James Gunn, it was actually from two of his relatives who wrote the screenplay and it was given to director David Yarovesky, friend of the Gunns who directed the 70’s inspired music video for Guardians of the Galaxy starring David Hasselhoff and not a whole lot else. The movie itself is quite obviously a “What if?” story as in “What if Superman didn’t grow up to be a hero, but grew up to become a villain?” It’s a story that has been done before in the comics, and to a certain extent Chronicle also covered similar ground, but this takes it into full blown horror movie territory. That turns the movie into something quite different, and yet it was still relatively predictable as to what direction it was going. Despite that, it was still a creepy, fun ride.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 