A Darkened Movie Theater

Here am at the Monaco in Huntsville (by myself in the theater) about to see Push. Why? Well because it's not in Florence, of course. I'll let you know if it's any good.

Aw, crud...it looks like I might not have the theater all to myself. Oh, well. The trailers are about to start.

In the News

Just some important news stories I thought you all might be interested in:

Action Figure Fights On Despite Loss Of Dragon Sword

5 Upcoming Comic Book Movies That Must Be Stopped

20 Superhero Movies We Hope They Never Make

Have a good week!

Wanted (2008) mini review

based on a comic book

[10/10]

Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is a loser. An insignificant nothing who can't figure out why his life sucks. He's treated like crap at his crappy job. His girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend. Life can't get much worse.

But one day he finds out the father he never knew was an assassin. Fox (Angelina Jolie) finds him and tries to convert him; Sloan (Morgan Freeman - Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) is the head of The Fraternity and convinces him to join the organization. I'll leave the rest for you to find out when you see this movie, if you haven't already.

What can I even say about a summer of comic book movies that had such a strong start (Iron Man) and got better and better with every film, crescendoing with Wanted. Maybe that's not how they came out chronologically, but Wanted was my final stop on my summer comic book tour, and for my money, it was the best of the bunch.

This is only my second 10 out of 10 comic book movie. What can I say - I'm transfixed by films where the hero starts out as some schlub, and when he discovers the truth about life, it's turned upside down (The Matrix and Fight Club are in my top 5 films - go figure.) These kinds of films resonate with me somewhere deep inside. But when a movie is brilliantly made and it reaches inside me and grabs me by the soul - that's a film that rocks my world. And the beautiful choreography and amazing cinematography of this whole movie just makes you need to catch your breath.

Addendum: I wanted to add that not long after I saw the film in the theater, I read Mark Millar's comic that it was based on.  It was interesting that the film wasn't that faithful to the comic.  And, well, it wouldn't have been able to have near the success if it tried to be.  I mean, the comic is dark.  Darker probably than just about any comic I've ever read. In the comics, The Fraternity isn't a fraternity of assassins who go about trying to kill the people who deserve it.  It's a fraternity of costumed super-villains who have done away with all the superheroes and now go about doing whatever they want. Imagine a secret gang of hundreds of Jokers let loose on the world without the Batman to keep them in check, and you can get an inkling of what I'm talking about.  To be truer to the source material would have been cost-prohibitive (all those costumes, all those super powers, all those special effects), and it would've been lucky to garner an NC-17 rating.  I think I'm glad they didn't get any close than they did - it all ended up like an adolescent angry boy's fantasy - what would I do if I could do anything I want to anyone I wanted to.  *Shudder* While I recommend the movie to anyone who can get by the violence, I personally don't recommend the comic; but that's just me.



See it if you like intense action movies or movies about truth being turned on its head.

Don't see it if you tend to avoid the blood and violence.

Special (2006) mini review

superhero movie not based on a comic

[8/10]

Do you ever dream of being different?

Does life ever have its foot on your chest, and you know you need to find the strength to stand up, but just don't know where to get it?

When a movie is really good, sometimes it's better to say less about it and let other people experience it for themselves. I was able to catch Special (here's the film's website) on Comcast On Demand last night - I had to look for it; it wasn't with the rest of the movies, it was in a separate category, "Magnolia Pictures".

Anyway, it was awesome.

Les (Michael Rapaport, Comic Book Villains) has decided to participate in some clinical trials with a new drug - a drug that's supposed to remove self-doubt. He starts taking it, and he starts to develop special powers. Or does he? Here, everyone involved in the film did an amazing job of making me wonder - does he really have these powers? (I mean really - you could see everyone's hand involved - from the writer to the director to the actors to those editing the video and the sound). And you keep second guessing...

Needless to say I was impressed.

Other cast includes Jack Kehler (Men In Black II), Josh Peck (you probably recognize him from Drake and Josh), Christopher Darga (Return to the Batcave, The Mask), and Amanda Carlin (Superhero Movie).

If you come across this film somewhere and get a chance to see it - see it.



See it if you like indie films or superhero films - or especially if you like independent movies and superhero movies.

Don't see it if your movies need to be big-budget Hollywood blockbusters.

Special

Of course, this movie never came anywhere close to here, but I just saw on the movie site that it's on Comcast On Demand.  I've liked Michael Rapaport ever since I saw Beautiful Girls.  That reminds me - I've got watch Comic Book Villains again so I can review it. I'm going to check right now to see if we've got Special on our On Demand.

What's Up with The Dark Knight?

Just saw the list of IMAX theaters that The Dark Knight was re-released to today. Is the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center on it?

Nope!

What's up with that?!?

Hmmmm...is it worth it to drive all the way to Nashville to see it on the IMAX? I'm still kicking myself for not going to V for Vendetta.

Upcoming: Push, Afro-Samurai, Wolverine and the X-Men

News, news, news...

I happened to be reading Entertainment Weekly yesterday, and caught that Afro Samurai: Resurrection (sequel to Afro Samurai) is on is on Spike this Saturday night at 9 pm Central. (They're showing the full 2 hours rather than breaking it up like they did the last one). Once again it stars Samuel L Jackson, but the sequel adds Lucy Liu to the mix. (Shoot - I got the uncut version of the original for Christmas, and still haven't watched.  Good grief.)

Also, Wolverine and the X-Men premiers Sunday at 1 pm Central.  Wow; that's a weird time.  It looks like they're showing two episodes back to back.

And here's the trailer for a movie that looks pretty interesting.  It reminded me of Heroes, but I'll just have to go see it. It's called Push.

Mystery Men (1999) mini review

based on a comic book

[10/10]

Call me crazy, but Mystery Men is, in my opinion, the finest superhero movie ever made - so far, it's the only superhero film I've rated a 10 out of 10. Why? It's not easy to put into words. The directing is excellent. The acting is wonderful. The casting is perfect. The cinematography is just Amazing. The writing is genius - the only other notable film among the writer's other credits include the nauseating The Return of Swamp Thing, so I don't know if he had a flash of genius, or if the script evolved during production.

The movie begins with Champion City's greatest hero (Captain Amazing - Greg Kinnear, Blankman) having to bail out a group of second string superheroes (Mr. Furious - Ben Stiller; The Shoveler - William H. Macy, Batman Beyond, Superman: TAS; and The Blue Raja - Hank Azaria), as they once again get their butts kicked while trying to fight crime. The three would-be crimefighters are later joined by The Bowler (Janeane Garafalo, Southland Tales), The Spleen (Paul Reubens, the Penguin's father in Batman Returns), The Sphinx (Wes Studi), and Invisible Boy (Kel Mitchell) and summon the courage to work through their individual issues and work as a team fight the evil Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush). [Claire Forlani (Mallrats) has a small part, and the incredible Tom Waits (Wristcutters: A Love Story) has an excellent cameo.  Other notables include Eddie Izzard (My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Blueberry) and Doug Jones (Hellboy, Hellboy II, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Men in Black II, Monkeybone, Tank Girl, Batman Returns)]

This movie has everything - some great superhero lines, a Disco gang, an insane asylum, a Corvette Limo. It even solves the mystery of how a simple pair of glasses can work as a disguise for Superman.

The Mystery Men were born in the pages of Bob Burden's Flaming Carrot Comics. All of the heroes in the movie originally appeared in this title, but the Mystery Men never even had their own comic until after the movie came out.


See it if you are in any way, shape, or form a fan of comic books.

Don't see it if you don't want to lighten up and suspend disbelief for a few minutes.

Hellboy Hawking DirecTV

I saw this commercial last week and about fell off the couch laughing.  It cracked me up for some reason.

The Spirit (2008) mini review

based on a comic
[6/10]

Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht) is The Spirit.  He's the hero of Central City. But what is he? Is he dead? Is he alive? To be honest, I had some trouble following it; partly because it was convoluted, and partly because it had trouble keeping my attention and I think I may have dozed off a few times (you know, like you do in school, when you're sitting at your desk and suddenly you jerk awake, knowing you just dozed off for a second or two).

Maybe the film is an homage to the comic, and the comic leaves as many questions unanswered. Maybe the film is an homage to film noir, and that's why there's so much over-acting and corny dialogue.  Either way, you can tell I was a bit disappointed.  It's an interesting experiment, but not as good as it could have been (or should have been). I'm not sure what the film was trying to be, or what it was trying to do.  Was it campy? Was it an homage? Was it film noir?

The film is, of course, based on the Will Eisner classic comic book/strip The Spirit.  It was directed by Frank Miller (who you might remember had co-directing credits on his Sin City movie).  Samuel L. Jackson (Iron Man, The Incredibles, Unbreakable, Afro Samurai) plays Octopus; Eva Mendes (Ghost Rider) is The Spirit's first love - Sand Seref. Paz Vega (you may remember her from Spanglish) is the enchantress Plaster of Paris, Scarlett Johanssen (Ghost World) plays The Octopus's right-hand woman Silken Floss; Jaime King (Sin City, upcoming Sin City 2, Bulletproof Monk) is Lorelei Rox, and Dan Lauria is Dolan (he had parts in Smallville, Static Shock, and Batman Beyond) - he's the dad from The Wonder Years, if you, like me, were struggling to remember where you knew him from.

See it if you're a comic fan and want to see a feature based on comics legend Will Eisner's The Spirit or want to see Frank Miller's directorial debut.

Don't see it if, if you hate to see such great talent wasted, or based on Miller's comic writing and Sin City, you expect this to be really good.

Watchmen Comes to Life

Because Moore brings gives his characters such depth, making them feel as if they're real-life people, I sometimes think of Watchmen as a story describing what might happen if people really did decide to dress up, become superheroes, and fight crime. Well that era has arrived. The most recent Rolling Stone has a story about Real Life Superheroes.

In other news:

The Edge talks about the Spider-man musical.

You've probably already seen the X-Men Origins: Wolverine site and trailer. It looks awesome.

XIII finally hit the news with some real info; it'll be on NBC in February. Here's the story; I've put the mini-series dates to the right under Premiers/Releases.

The Hulk fights Thor and Wolverine this January. Marvel has the trailer and some clips.

Well, here's hoping I get the chance to go see The Spirit tomorrow night.

I'll leave you with a trailer for a video game I may just have to buy. Think it'll come out on the Wii? *sigh*



Batman - Arkham Asylum

Punisher: War Zone mini review (2008)

based on a comic

[7/10]

It's been so long since I've seen the last two Punisher movies, I don't remember anything about them. Guess I'll have to go back and rent them and write up my reviews. This third attempt at starting up a Punisher franchise may be the best of the three, despite the poor reviews it's been getting.

Punisher: War Zone follows the basic premise of the comics - the family of Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) is killed by the mob. He then takes the law into his own hands, becoming judge, jury, and executioner to those who are getting by with the current system. And in this version, he meets up with Jigsaw (Dominic West, 300), his comic book arch-nemesis.

This film has quite a different feel than then other Marvel films that have come out in the last few years - it's a lot darker, a lot more violent, and much more bloody. As a matter of fact, it's one of bloodiest movies I've seen in a long time - maybe moreso than 30 Days of Night. (Which made me wonder why that couple brought their 5-year-old kid; but who am I to judge?)  As a matter of fact, the intro showed the Marvel Knights logo rather than the regular Marvel logo. They also made a decent attempt to try to pull the comic book in - introduction of villain Jigsaw, and ally Micro(chip) (Wayne Knight, Justice League). 

It's a bit difficult to find the right words to describe this movie. I can't really say it was fun or enjoyable, but I guess it was as enjoyable as a movie this dark can be. It's a decent mindless action flick. I wasn't blown away (ha!) by it, but there are some excellent action sequences (the movie opens with an adrenaline rush), and there are some funny lines, and some good scenes.  There were some things that took away from the action, though.  Some plot points were a real stretch.  Yes, it's based on a comic book, so you accept certain things about the world, but when you play with the story, you can really screw it up.  I won't spoil the story with the details, but it left a little to be desired.

And, hey, did you know that Doug Hutchison (Loony Bin Jim) had a part in Batman and Robin?


See it if you like mindless movies with a lot of action, and can handle a lot of blood.

Don't see it if you like your superheroes who believe in a little less bloodshed.

Eddie Murphy as the Riddler?

I don't know...didn't we learn our lesson with Jim Carey? Well, if anyone can pull it off, Christopher Nolan can.

Trailer Park of Terror (2008) mini review

based on a comic
[2/10]

I remember hearing about this a while back, I happened to notice it was on Comcast On Demand, and I was kinda in the mood for a horror movie tonight, so I thought I'd take a look.

I want my $4.99 back.

I think it was supposed to be funny. It wasn't.

I think it was supposed to be scary. It wasn't.

It had decent production values.

But it's just kinda dumb.

A low point in the career of Trace Adkins. The only other actor I recognized was character actor Tracey Walter (Bob the Goon in Batman, and some voice work in Teen Titans and Justice League).

It's based on the Imperium Comic, which appears to be an anthology.



See it if...I don't know; I guess if you like horror movies that are kinda dumb (it's not even bad in a good way).

Don't see it if you've got 30 Days of Night on DVD.

Spider-Man Horror

This is why I wish I had 48 hours in my day.



Spider-Man: Web of Shadows