Blog Archives
Turtles Forever
Turtles Forever 2009
And finally wrapping up this month of animated movies that’s seeped slightly from July into August I’ve reached another milestone. This is the last animated film that I currently have on my list. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any others out there, I know there’s plenty if I expand to foreign comics, but I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten every English one. As for the actual movie, Turtles Forever came out of an event that was done for the 25th anniversary of the Turtles and so they made this TV movie based around the current series that started in ’03 and was airing on CW4Kids. The main focus of the movie was to bring the 80’s animated series into a connected continuity with the 00’s series, and apparently to also make fun of it. There’s a ton of meta humor that often gets in the way of telling any sort of real story, but that’s ok because it is a ton of fun to watch. Especially if you’re someone who grew up with the 80’s Turtles and even if you’re like me and have never seen a single episode of the 00’s Turtles.
Read the rest of this entry
Filmwhys #54 Surviving Desire and TMNT
Episode #54 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film podcast where my guest is Alia Miller from the Super Zero Podcast and What She’s Having Podcast who asks me why I hadn’t seen Surviving Desire, one of Hal Hartley’s early films that takes a unique look at a specific type of relationship. And in return, I ask her why she hadn’t seen TMNT, the 2007 animated film in between the original live action turtle films and the recent live action/CGI hybrid film-soon-to-be-films.
Read the rest of this entry
TMNT
TMNT 2007
It’s already April of 2015 and I still haven’t followed through with finishing up the 100 Essential Superhero Movies that I finalized back in June of last year. I still have a few more to get to and will also be updating the list for 2015 to include some significant films that came out last year and remove a few that just barely squeezed their way onto the list. This film is often overlooked nowadays as the original 1990 live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the one looked at through nostalgic eyes, and any newer fans of the franchise can look to the current Nickelodeon series or heaven forbid, the Michael Bay produced franchise starter. It was a modest success with a moderate budget but plans for a sequel never materialized. It’s a bit of an oddity in itself, it loosely sequelized the original three live action movies from the 90’s and yet was entirely animated, it also shied away from using the full title and instead opted for just the initials. Something that was akin to the early reports of the Michael Bay version dropping the “mutant” part of the equation and opting for “alien”. And while the story isn’t very deep, it was a lot of fun to revisit these characters an a relatively updated format while still holding true to most of their roots.
Read the rest of this entry
Superhero Shorts: Casey Jones the Movie
Welcome back my friends to another edition of Superhero Shorts, where I feature a superhero themed short film and ask a few questions to the creator. This time around I’m talking with Polaris Banks, who spent a few years creating a fan film centered around Casey Jones from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, only not quite the version from the children’s cartoons, but the version more true to the original comic books. As usual, you can watch the movie below, or you can visit the official website.
Read the rest of this entry
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990
It’s Tuesday night and our stack of movies from the video store is not getting any smaller so I decided it was time to put in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live action movie. I have seen all three turtles movies when they first came out, probably in theaters but I don’t remember for sure. I had also watched and loved the cartoon series, so the worse parts of this movie may very well get glossed over with nostalgia, just a fair warning to anyone looking for a hard hitting review. And this movie has a lot of nostalgia and some surprises to my less than stellar memory. It’s a lot more violent than you may first expect, but it still has a lot of that late 80’s and early 90’s style humor.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 