Blog Archives
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights 2010
Back to yet another movie my wife picked out for me at the video store. Apparently she has horrible timing, as this would have fit much better right after the first two Green Lantern movies I watched, but that’s completely beside the point. In an effort to cross-market with the theatrical release of the live action Green Lantern movie, DC Animation released this animated movie, which is a compilation of other Green Lantern’s stories similar to Gotham Knight, but this movie wraps it around a central framework based on Hal Jordan telling stories to a rookie lantern. It’s well done animation on par with all of the other DC animated movies I’ve seen to this point and I really enjoyed it.
Superman vs. the Elite
Superman vs. the Elite 2012
When I started this site, I had planned to watch only theatrical movies including all the movies that come out this year. But when I recently decided to also watch other types of releases I had forgotten to check out straight to video release dates. So I didn’t even realize that this movie had come out last Tuesday until just a few days ago, so I had to give it a look. It’s yet another DC Animated movie from producer Bruce Timm, whose name you’ll hear a lot anytime superheroes and animation are brought up. And honestly, this is one of the best of these animated movies I’ve seen so far, from the animation, to the story, to the characters, to actually getting to tell an interesting Superman story, it’s all here. It even got my wife and daughter hooked through the whole thing.
FTMN Poll and Lamb MOTM
I’ve been watching a lot of animation lately and wanted to know what you think about it? I’m a big fan of animation, both hand drawn and CG from Toy Story to Shrek to DC and Marvel animation to classics like Secret of NIMH to anime like Akira. The one thing that most people can’t get past is that it’s not a genre, it’s a medium. An animated movie can be anything from G to R to XXX, and even though popular opinion may slowly be changing, it’s still generally considered to be kids stuff.
Aside from the poll, I also wanted to plug another Lamb event – the Movie of the Month. Every month, up to 10 Lamb members choose a movie that gets put on a poll on the Lamb site (top right corner). The winner becomes the Movie of the Month and Lamb members are encouraged to watch and review it, and it’s also the topic of that week’s Lambcast. I tossed my hat in the ring this month with the movie that I enjoyed the most this past month, Gremlins 2: The New Batch. So if you want to hear me talk about the movie on a podcast, which will be my first podcast, go to the Lamb and vote for Gremlins 2!
Thor: Tales of Asgard
Thor: Tales of Asgard 2011
I was originally considering to do a mini-marathon of the DC animated movies after the response to my Green Lantern: First Flight post, but at our most recent trip to the rental store, my wife picked up this movie from the free kids movies section so I figured I might as well watch it. I really had no idea what to expect when I started it, all I knew was the tagline saying something about before there was a hammer, there was a sword. So I knew I was in for a prequel of sorts. I thought it covered a lot of the same grounds as the live action movie, and it had a lot of references to the movie, but in other places it went in a completely different direction. I generally liked it and so did Jena, but it seemed like a really odd choice for an animated movie. Especially when you consider the DVD cover which I chose not to picture because not only does it look nothing like the actual animation, but it appears to be an adult Thor, when the movie is about essentially a teenaged Thor. It’s still worth a watch if you’re a fan of Thor or the animated DC movies. It’s also a PG movie rather than a PG-13 and while it does cover some adult themes such as death and war, it does so without any blood, so it’s appropriate for younger viewers as well.
Superhero Shorts: Superman Classic
Superhero Shorts: Superman Classic
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 I’m talking with Robb Pratt, a professional storyboard artist, director, and animator who is currently working for Disney on their upcoming film Planes. He created an original independently animated Superman short film called Superman Classic which you can watch below. You can also visit Robb’s official site.
Green Lantern: First Flight
Green Lantern: First Flight 2009
After watching the mediocre live action origin story, it made me want to revisit an earlier Green Lantern origin movie, only this one was animated and straight to home video. It was also a whole lot better. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, I really love all of the DC Animation that I’ve seen so far which ranges from pretty good to excellent. They’ve covered a lot of ground on some of the better comic book stories out there without worrying too much about being a blockbuster. They’re generally all under the supervision and occasional direction of legendary Bruce Timm. The only downside I really have with them which isn’t a major downside is that they all tend to be rather short, most of them clocking in at a little over an hour. I’m still waiting for when they have the guts to make one of these animated movies for the theaters. I imagine it’s because of the decline of 2D animation. But whatever, First Flight is still a great movie.
Green Lantern
Green Lantern 2011
After watching so many Marvel movies, I thought it was only fair to come back with a DC movie. I’ve been wanting to watch Green Lantern for a while now, I’ve heard there’s a lot of hate out there for it, but from what I’ve seen of the movie so far, I thought I would generally like it. And I was right, I did like it, but at the same time, I didn’t love it. I enjoyed the animated Green Lantern movie First Flight much better, which is a shame because Green Lantern as a character has a lot of potential and this movie took several steps in the right direction, it just didn’t get all the way there yet.
Man-Thing
Man-Thing 2005
For a while, I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not to file this movie under my new “Almost Super” category. It’s pretty much a straight up horror movie, but the fact that it’s based on a Marvel comics character and the fact that it’s similar to Swamp Thing which is more easily a superhero movie, I decided to stick with my first instinct. This was one of Marvel’s early jumps into the independent film-making waters, but apparently the testing was so poor on it that it got relegated to a home video release and later came out as a Sci-Fi Channel original movie. It appears at first glance to be Marvel’s version of Swamp Thing, but it’s handled in a very different way. Man-Thing is much more like a villain, or at least a force of nature that’s been unleashed and destroys anything that gets in its way. And so it would seem to make a great horror movie villain, but they decide to stick with almost every horror movie cliche in the book to make this movie completely boring and unoriginal in the end.
Superhero Shorts: City of Heroes: Infinite Dark
Superhero Shorts: Infinite Dark
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 I’m glad to feature another machinima short from the MMO City of Heroes called Infinite Dark which was the winner of a City of Heroes held contest where among other things, he won a car! Here’s a link to the contest writeup where you can see the other entries and you can of course watch Infinite Dark right below. For his other projects you can also visit his own website at ToddWorld.com.
X-Men: The Last Stand
X-Men: The Last Stand 2006
It feels like I’ve been watching X-Men movies for a long time now, there’s been some pretty great movies, and some fairly mediocre movies, but I’m glad I’m done with them and am ready to move onto something different. It makes me glad that I’m not going to try to cram all eight Batman movies back to back to back. After two great X-Men movies by Bryan Singer, he dropped out for the chance to make Superman Returns while the helm was passed on to Brett Ratner. The movie promised a lot of things, some popular X-Men that hadn’t made it to the movies yet, and it centered around the mutant “cure” which could have brought in all sorts of layers of meaning to this movie. But instead, it’s a lot of empty action with little real depth to it all. It’s still a fun watch, but compared to the previous two X-Men movies and even First Class, it felt fairly empty.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 