Archive for the ‘Comic strips/Super heroes’ Category
Tuesday, June 27th, 2023
As a serial discusser of movies, I often run into this thing where I find that other people put a way higher premium than I do on things being logical, or realistic, or believable. They complain about characters making a bad choice or a strange choice or not doing the obvious choice. They seem to think it’s better for characters and stories to be normal, or sane.
Yeah, sometimes, occasionally, maybe, in moderation. Sure. But there are also times when it’s an intentional artistic approach, and clearly a great one, to depict the way the world works, and the way humans behave, in a heightened manner. It can be way more interesting for characters to be extreme, to act unreasonably. It can even be more true to show life how it feels, instead of how it actually is. Or it can just be way more fun to show life how it’s not.
Case in point: LONE WOLF AND CUB: BABY CART IN THE LAND OF DEMONS (1973), the fifth of the six LONE WOLF AND CUB movies. As always it’s a story about traveling assassin Ogami Itto (Tomisaburo Wakayama, THE BAD NEWS BEARS GO TO JAPAN), a.k.a. Lone Wolf and Cub, being hired to kill someone. Usually people hire him by leaving money at a shrine. This time there’s a much more complicated method. A guy gets his attention by walking around wearing a veil with ox-head and stallion-head demons painted on it. When Ogami asks him about it the guy pulls out a sword and quickly loses a duel to him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Akira Yamanouchi, Goseki Kojima, Hideji Otaki, Kazuo Koike, Michiyo Okusu, Minoru Oki, Tomisaburo Wakayama, Yoshi Kato
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Martial Arts | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, June 21st, 2023
When Barry Allen (Ezra Miller, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN), a.k.a. The Flash, discovers that he can run so fast he travels through time, the first thing he does is what we all wish we could do: go tell Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck, SMOKIN’ ACES) about it. And his cool rich friend gives him wise, succinct advice: if it’s possible for you to change the past, such as by stopping the murder of your mother (Maribel Verdú, TETRO), it would be very dangerous, and besides, our scars make us who we are. Look at me, for example – I’m fuckin Batman!
But as Barry prepares one more desperate appeal for his father (Ron Livingston, KING OF THE ANTS), who was blamed for his mother’s death, it occurs to him that if he traveled back in time he wouldn’t have to intervene during the murder. He’d just have to make sure his mom had tomato sauce so his dad wouldn’t leave for the store, causing a burglar to believe no one was home. A loophole. One weird trick to save the Allen family. Of course, his changes cause reverberations (with the unusual twist that since time isn’t linear it doesn’t just branch off, it changes in all directions), and he spends the movie running around very fast trying to clean up his mess. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andy Muschietti, Ben Affleck, Christina Hodson, DC Comics, Ezra Miller, Gal Gadot, Jeremy Irons, Joby Harold, John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein, Kiersey Clemons, Maribel Verdu, Michael Keaton, Michael Shannon, multiverse, Ron Livingston, Sasha Calle, time travel
Posted in Reviews, Comic strips/Super heroes | 64 Comments »
Tuesday, June 20th, 2023
After watching BLACK ADAM I figured I might as well complete my DC movie checklist before seeing THE FLASH, by crossing off SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS. Not that I was against seeing it otherwise. I wouldn’t say I loved 2019’s SHAZAM!, but I was pleasantly surprised – as I said in my review, I thought it was a decent kids movie with some laughs, some monsters, and some sweetness.
Of course, I also said “I don’t really care if there’s another one or not” except that I was excited by the introduction of a talking caterpillar villain at the end. If I had remembered that I might’ve been disappointed that this sequel is not about the talking caterpillar, but also maybe I would’ve thought it was a funnier joke when he appears briefly to say he’s not quite ready to enact his evil plot yet. It is a funny followup to the previous teaser, even moreso now that it seems unlikely to ever be followed up on. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Brody, Asher Angel, Chris Morgan, Cooper Andrews, David F. Sandberg, DC Comics, DJ Cotrona, Djimon Hounsou, Faithe Herman, Gal Gadot, Grace Caroline Currey, Helen Mirren, Henry Gayden, Ian Chen, Jack Dylan Grazer, Jovan Armand, Lucy Liu, Marta Milans, Meagan Good, Rachel Zegler, Ross Butler, Zachary Levi
Posted in Reviews, Comic strips/Super heroes | 20 Comments »
Monday, June 19th, 2023
Call it super hero fatigue, call it The Rock mistrust, call it what you want, but for some reason I, a guy who has seen most comic book movies, including ones everybody says are terrible, did not bother with BLACK ADAM. Until now. I don’t know, I was trying to figure out something to watch, I knew I’d be seeing that THE FLASH movie soon, and I kinda wanted to catch up beforehand, just for the sake of completism, I guess. So I put it on.
There was a point early on when I honestly wondered, “Am I gonna be the guy who likes this movie?,” ’cause the set up kinda had me going. But it pretty quickly shifted to that feeling you get at the climax of a big wannabe blockbuster you’re not into. A bunch of loud noises and bullshit. Oh well. I will have some nice things to say about it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Sztykiel, Aldis Hodge, Bodhi Sabongui, DC Comics, Jaume Collet-Serra, Lorne Balfe, Marwan Kenzari, Noah Centineo, Pierce Brosnan, Quintessa Swindell, Rory Haines, Sarah Shahi, Sohrab Noshirvani, The Rock, Viola Davis
Posted in Reviews, Comic strips/Super heroes | 23 Comments »
Thursday, June 15th, 2023
On May 5th, 1983, future Superman actor Henry Cavill was born in St. Helier, Jersey. While he was in his crib, on June 17, 1983, the definitive cinematic Superman met Richard Pryor.
Boy, I hope I’m not trying people’s patience too much with this series. I believe 1985 is the earliest retrospective I’ve done previously, and I thought that went well, but what I’ve really realized looking at 1983 is how many of these movies feel just a little bit before my time. I remember being alive then, but I was only aware of a little kid-sized slice of pop culture. I was hearing all about Salacious Crum, but not BLUE THUNDER or anything starring Burt Reynolds. My friends born a few or several years before me, people who are older than Generation Ewok, have attachments to some of these movies, characters and actors that I just don’t.
So I hope it’s not getting annoying. Even if you forgive me for not caring about James Bond or TRADING PLACES, the camel’s back could break when I confess that I don’t really care that much about the Christopher Reeve Superman movies either. I’m so sorry! Let me explain. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Annette O'Toole, Annie Ross, Christopher Reeve, David Newman, DC Comics, Giorgio Moroder, Leslie Newman, Margot Kidder, Pamela Stephenson, Richard Lester, Richard Pryor, Robert Vaughn
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Comic strips/Super heroes | 50 Comments »
Wednesday, June 7th, 2023
SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE is the first sequel to SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, the brilliant 2018 movie I still believe is a watershed moment for computer animated features* as well as super hero cinema. I’m happy to say that ACROSS is a worthy sequel that finds a smart way to build on the first film’s clever multiverse premise and push its revolutionary visual style into the stratosphere. Miles gives me the same “it’s weird to see him taller” feeling as real kids I’ve seen grow up, and the series’ already astonishing artistry has also experienced a growth spurt. Honestly the gimmicks and the eye candy would be enough to make this a classic, but they’re not the only reason these movies have become a phenomenon. They’ve also given us characters to really care about as they live their lives in that perfect Spider-Man intersection between regular every day problems and universe-shattering super shit.
This one works particularly well on the level of a teen movie. You may remember that our main characters Miles Morales/Spider-Man (Shameik Moore, Raekwon on Wu-Tang: An American Saga), and Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld, 3 DAYS TO KILL) exist in different realities. As in, different dimensions, timelines, worlds, whatever. They met when a super-collider brought Gwen and people from various other realities into Miles’s, but now they’re apart, trying to get through life as their reality’s Spider-Person. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Tyree Henry, Chris Miller, Dave Callaham, Greta Lee, Hailee Steinfeld, In Association with Marvel Comics, Issa Rae, Jack Quaid, Jake Johnson, Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, Karan Soni, Kemp Powers, Luna Lauren Velez, Oscar Isaac, Peggy Lu, Phil Lord, Shameik Moore, Shea Whigham
Posted in Reviews, Cartoons and Shit, Comic strips/Super heroes | 41 Comments »
Monday, June 5th, 2023
From what I’ve read, “SHIN” can mean new, true, or God. SHIN KAMEN RIDER – which I saw at a Fathom Events screening last week, and it’s playing again tonight only, check local listings – is the third and (as far as we know) final movie in the “SHIN” series by Hideaki Anno. Best known as the visionary director of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, Anno kicked off this live action thematic trilogy with 2016’s SHIN GODZILLA (which he wrote himself and co-directed with Shinji Higuchi). It was a strikingly reimagined Godzilla with memorably bizarre monster work (as Godzilla evolves through multiple stages of development) and the best and most detailed portrayal ever of a government bureaucracy tackling the problem of a giant monster.
Next was SHIN ULTRAMAN, directed by Higuchi and written by Anno. I haven’t seen that one yet because I skipped it when I realized the second night screenings were dubbed, and it doesn’t come out on disc until next month. But the “Shin Japan Heroes Universe” concept is just meant as a brand name for merchandising, not an MCU-style shared universe, so I knew whatever happened to the new true god Ultraman in his movie would have no bearing on SHIN KAMEN RIDER, and I made sure to read the fine print on the listings this time. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Hideaki Anno, Minami Hamabe, Mirai Moriyama, Shinya Tsukamoto, Sosuke Ikematsu, tokusatsu
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Martial Arts | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, May 17th, 2023
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 is the finale to the Marvel’s Celluloidical Ubiquity’s best trilogy. It’s one of the few from a writer/director, and one with the most directorial personality, but it’s also very accessible to less dedicated viewers of comic book movies. It exists off in space, pretty separate from the other Marvel business, other than building off of things that happened to the characters in the two biggest MCU crossover movies, which are quickly summarized for our convenience.
Honestly the story is pretty simple. A weird powerful dude apparently called Adam Warlock (Will Poulter, SON OF RAMBOW) flies in from space and tries to abduct the talking raccoon Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper, THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN), instead putting him in a coma; when his friends try to resuscitate him they figure out from code in his cyborg parts that Orgocorp, the company that enhanced him from regular raccoon into Rocket, was trying to reclaim him as “proprietary property,” and now his body will shut down if they don’t get some security code. So the Guardians get help from former member Gamora (Zoe Saldaña, THE TERMINAL) to break into the company’s headquarters, and then to get information in a place called Counter-Earth (an experimental re-creation of an American suburb populated with animal-human hybrids) to save their friend and battle his cruel creator, the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji, JOHN WICK CHAPTER 2). Along the way, of course, there are complications, battles, many running gags and bits, and (new to this volume) some very grim but also sweet flashbacks about Rocket’s origins and his friendship in captivity with very innocent cyborg otter, walrus and rabbit lab animals. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bradley Cooper, Chris Pratt, Chukwudi Iwuji, Dave Bautista, Elizabeth Debicki, Heidi Moneymaker, James Gunn, Judy Greer, Karen Gillan, Maria Bakalova, Marvel Comics, Nathan Fillion, Pom Klementieff, Sean Gunn, Sylvester Stallone, Vin Diesel, Will Poulter, Zoe Saldana
Posted in Reviews, Comic strips/Super heroes, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 27 Comments »
Wednesday, November 16th, 2022
BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER has so much more to live up to than just being the next Marvel movie. As the first sequel to a genuine cultural phenomenon, meeting everybody’s expectations would’ve been a high bar. Then its beloved star Chadwick Boseman died unexpectedly and the whole story was reworked to make supporting character Shuri (Letitia Wright, THE COMMUTER) the lead, while the cast and crew mourned, and also dealt with a pandemic. And they kept it on the down low how the fuck it was even gonna work; I will of course be discussing how the fuck it works, so this will be a HEAVY SPOILER review.
Luckily it was Ryan Coogler at the helm. His best movie CREED shows that he’s a not only a highly skilled filmmaker, but one capable of investing a franchise type movie with deep personal meaning. And I think he’s done about as good as anyone could have in his situation, creating a sequel that I don’t think flows as well his first one, but that builds off of it, reminds us of what we loved about it, introduces new worlds and yes, turns mourning into commercial art. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, Dominique Thorne, Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong'o, Martin Freeman, Michael B. Jordan, Ruth E. Carter, Ryan Coogler, Tenoch Huerta Mejia, Winston Duke
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 59 Comments »
Thursday, September 1st, 2022
It seems to me like Sylvester Stallone has been talking up this retired super hero movie SAMARITAN (not to be confused with THE SAMARITAN) for ridiculously long. That’s because, I’m reading now, it was intended for a theatrical release in November of 2020. A pandemic happened, it got delayed, Amazon bought MGM, now it’s finally out, but released straight to Amazon Prime. I can see why they’d do that – it doesn’t have the scope people expect from theatrical movies, but it’s also not a serious indie movie, or a cheapie where he shot all his stuff over a weekend and green-screened him in with the other actors. I think it’s a mid-budget movie! Like they used to make!
In my opinion SAMARITAN doesn’t go the distance to completely working, but honestly it’s much better than the bullshit I always pictured. Off brand super heroes aren’t all that appealing to me, and Stallone playing one kinda seemed like a concession. He’s keenly aware that super heroes have replaced his style of action hero in the popular imagination, so playing one sounded like a sad “Okay, kids, I guess this is what you want then” surrender. What I didn’t really consider is that Stallone already played super heroes in JUDGE DREDD and DEMOLITION MAN. It turns out SAMARITAN is sort of like that type of movie for the Old Man Stallone era – scaled down, grittier, with some melancholy to it. And, admittedly, without the satirical elements that have helped those survive in our memories. But it’s more interesting than I expected. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abraham Clinkscales, Bragi F. Schut, Dascha Polanco, Henry G. Sanders, J.J. Perry, Jared Odrick, Javon Walton, Julius Avery, Martin Starr, Moises Arias, Pilou Asbaek, Shameik Moore, Sophia Tatum, Sylvester Stallone
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 18 Comments »