I was trying to learn a little bit more about movies that were coming to DVD that I could review, because I forget things easily because I’m an idiot. In this search for upcoming horror movies, I found a website that is cleverly titled Upcoming Horror Movies. What’s good about it is that it tells you about upcoming horror movies. What a novel idea! While browsing this website, I noticed that every week they mention what is hitting DVD and/or Blu Ray, and I can add things to my queue from there. Seeing that there was a movie about a banshee piqued my interest, because the idea of wailing spirits is pretty creepy to me. One thing about this website, known as UHM for short, is that there aren’t always reviews listed with the movies coming out, so I had no idea how good this would be. I guess this could also be looked at as a good thing because I had no preconceived notion of how it would be. Or, it could have spared me from watching this steaming pile of shit.
Poor Lauren Holly…your butt looked so cool in Dumb & Dumber! Hahaha okay, this isn’t Lauren Holly, but it did give me an excuse to use the word “butt”.
The film starts with a group of medieval knights battling a robed figure, ultimately trapping the head of the figure in the box. Spoiler alert, it’s a banshee. Cut to present day, we see an actress who looks like she was hired because she looked like Lauren Holly had been melted a little bit and had fake boobs slapped onto her. Turns out, it actually was Lauren Holly, and I hate to break the news to you, but she melted and looks like she had fake boobs slapped onto her. Her character is an archaeology professor who, along with some of her students, find a box hidden at the university which contains the disfigured head of some sort of banshee-like creature. Can you see where this is going? The banshee head screams and we get to see hilarious reaction shots of what these actors would do if they heard loud sounds. This is where things get a little complicated, if by complicated I mean shitty. Oh who am I kidding, this thing was shitty from the start. Apparently the banshee scream cursed all of the characters who heard it and they all suffer from banshee-influenced hallucinations, some of them are even attacked and killed. It is determined that screaming when you see the banshee is what gives her power, so if you are quiet when you see her, you’re cool. The box was hidden years ago by Lance Henriksen, who plays Lance Henriksen, and all the characters go to him for help at his mansion that is strewn with female mannequins, which I assumed was filmed at his actual house. The banshee confronts everyone there, kills Lance, but eventually her head gets put back in the box, saving everyone from the creature.
I have a feeling that Mr. Henriksen also provided his own shotgun and robe.
Remember when I reviewed that movie Chupacabra Terror? Well, this movie is equally as shitty. These movies are terrible and the creature is completely arbitrary, but by throwing in a word like “banshee” or “chupacabra”, it’s almost like you expect someone to build upon the strange and creepy phenomenon. Wrong! I’ve also learned that Lauren Holly really has nothing better to do these days, and that Lance Henriksen really will be in ANY movie, as long as the check clears. Does anyone know Lance Henriksen’s going rate these days? He is part of a group of actors that I really believe have a daily rate for “work”, and as long as you pay them that rate, they’ll do anything. Shitty horror movie, terrible sci-fi, roof your house, mow your lawn, virtually anything. I’m going to continue to check UHM for what is going to be coming out, but I think I’ll do a little more research as far as the quality of these films go.
Pretty sure that this movie made its way into the queue as I was browsing the “Supernatural Horror” section of Netflix Instant. The horror selection is generally pretty shitty, at least as far as the lesser-known films, since there actually are a good amount of enjoyable films that I’ve already seen. I think this movie had an average rating of 3 stars, which for something on Netflix that I hadn’t heard of, is pretty damn good. I was a little hesitant when I saw that this was involved in the “After Dark” horror festival, considering I have only seen one that was tolerable. Most of them have been pretty bad, but Rampaige and I love that supernatural horror stuff, so we threw caution to the wind and gave it a shot. Oh yeah, and this one’s going to have spoilers, before all you babies start crying.
Don’t stand too close to that mirror OR IT MIGHT EXPLODE AND SOMEONE WILL COME OUT OF IT TO TRY TO FUCKING KILL YOU AND REPLACE YOUR LIIIIIIIIIFE!!!!!
We see a Dr. Gina McVey, played by Lena Headey, looking at the x-ray of a rare disorder where a man’s heart is on the right side of his body instead of his left. We follow the doctor to a family dinner, which is rudely interrupted by a mirror mysteriously breaking. The next day, Gina sees her exact double in the same car as she drives, and thinking that’s weird, follows that person home. She goes into this double’s apartment and sees pictures of herself with her own father, and is freaked out about this. As she drives away, Gina gets into an accident. After the accident, Gina asks to stay with her boyfriend since she is still rattled and confused by the events of the day. Her boyfriend looks exactly the same, but something seems different about him. Weird, right?! Other people who were at the dinner are also having strange experiences involving mirrors mysteriously breaking, and the whole movie just kind of gives you a sense of unease, and that something freaky-deaky is going on. What we find out throughout the course of the movie is the fact that every time a mirror breaks, it is a doppleganger coming out into the world, and Gena’s friends and family are slowly being replaced. We Gina goes back to the apartment of the “double”, she sees her own dead body laying in the bathroom. It turns out that when Gina went to investigate the double in the beginning of the movie, the original Gina was killed by the double, and every time we saw Gina after that scene, it was actually the double! But she forgot all of that shit because of the car accident! But the car accident fucked with her brain! So when she goes back to the hospital to give herself a physical and see if she is healthy…WE LEARN THAT HER HEART IS ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HER BODY INSTEAD OF HER LEFT! THE X-RAY FROM THE BEGINNING WAS ANOTHER DOUBLE! CRISS ANGEL MIIIIINDFREEEEEEAK!!!!!!!!!
Now you’ll know what all of your outfits will look like if you are bleeding from the head on the floor of a bathroom while also suffocating from a plastic bag.
Those might seem like sarcastic capitalizations back there, but they are genuine. The movie itself was about 90 minutes, and the discovery that she really is the double happens about fifteen minutes before the movie ends. You could kind of predict that something weird was going on with the friends and family, but that reveal took me by surprise. Add to that the nice tag at the end with the x-rays, which I had to explain to Rampaige, I was quite entertained. The movie was a slow burn towards that final reveal, and even though it was slow-paced, I was still engaged. Maybe it was because it was made in the UK and I wanted to think it was cooler because it was made by British people, but who knows. I was also really glad to see a movie deal with the concept of dopplegangers, which to me are terrifying. Not so much the idea of a duplicate of you trying to kill and replace you, but just the idea that there is an exact duplicate of you out there, somewhere, doing what they want to do. The mythology of dopplegangers being harbingers of death is pretty interesting too, like the fact that Abraham Lincoln claimed to have seen and dreamed of a doppleganger. Maybe it was because I had expected so little that I enjoyed it so much, but all that matters was it was short, it had a fun twist, and I would recommend it to others.
In the never-ending quest to gain more readers, I decided to start perusing what WordPress had to say about increasing your daily views, and learned some terrible things. One thing that they mentioned had to do with the so-called “tags” that are associated with each post. WordPress claims that the best amount of tags to have for each post is between 5-10. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! I have at least 500 tag on every single thing I post, so I’m fucking up big time in that respect. I figured that the more tags, the higher the possibility of someone accidentally finding my site, right? Who the fuck knows. Another thing that they mentioned was include links on my blog to other people’s blogs, because they then might return the favor. I have considered this, but ultimately, I wouldn’t want to lead any readers astray. Did I just mean to type “ashtray”? No, I meant to say “astray”. What I’m trying to say is that there are very few websites that I check with any regularity because they are websites I consistently enjoy. I have no idea what other people might enjoy, so I feel weird encouraging someone to check out something that even I don’t check with any regularity. Hopefully no other reader’s take this personally and can see where I’m coming from before I get lots of hate-mail. Even though I know this isn’t going to help and since I already teased you guys with it, the following websites are all linked up to my Google Reader. If you think there are any websites I’m really missing out on by not checking, feel free to post a comment.
Maybe you’ll like some of those, maybe you won’t. I’m not trying to back them up, I’m just telling you what I check, okay?! Before I say goodbye, I’d also like to encourage you try to subscribe to my posts via the new little box to the right of this post. I know some people have mentioned issues with subscribing, but that new thing on the right is new, so I think you should give it a shot. Oh, and make sure you add me on Twitter for all your Wolfman needs! Smell ya later.
SHUT. UP. I’m really not sure if there are a bunch of babies crying right now, but it seems like every damn day, Marvel editor Stephen Wacker is posting tweets that he gets from irate fans. It seems that comic book fans are cranky…about something, all the time. Add to that the whole “controversy” over the DC relaunch of all of their titles, and you get a bunch of people acting like stupid babies. I think the biggest problem with any sort of subculture, and possibly every “culture” in general is a sense of entitlement. People think that because they like something that puts them in the minority, they are the only ones who get to enjoy them and the creators of those things better do things the way they want them done. Before we get to comics, which has one too many ways to disappoint fans, let’s try something a little more polarizing: REMAKES. Not even just remakes, but also adaptations. The announcement of pretty much any sort of remake of a movie or adaptation of a comic generally causes an immediate reaction from people of “HEY THAT’S SOMETHING I LIKE, AND HAD NO INVOLVEMENT IN THE CREATION OF, BUT I’M CRANKY FOR WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING WITH IT!” Goddammit. As an example, a movie like John Carpenter’s “The Thing” has a prequel/remake coming out later this year and people are fucking pissed. I’ve loved the movie since I first saw it, which, admittedly, has only been a few years. Imagine how pissed the people are who have loved this movie since it originally came out decades ago finding out that some “new jack” likes the same thing he likes. I’m sure I could do a Google search and find plenty of people who would have that response, and completely dismiss that a classic film that John Carpenter made was FUCKING BASED ON A MOVIE THAT WAS MADE DECADES EARLIER. Not nearly as many people talk about the original as much as the Kurt Russell version, so if people protested what John Carpenter was doing, we wouldn’t have the classic he produced. I understand that this is an exception to the rule, but to me, it shouldn’t matter. I’m sure there are people who love the Adam West Batman movie and were pissed at both the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan movies which most people would argue were creative and interesting films. So why did I use the word “comics” in the title of this post? It’s all about entitlement. If hearing horror movie fans bitch and moan about people in Hollywood making decisions that they don’t agree with wasn’t bad enough, comic book fans seem to be even worse. Even though characters like Batman or Spider-Man are some of the most well-known characters in the world right now, it’s typically because people have seen movies or cartoons, as opposed to gaining knowledge through the media that spawned these characters. Of course comic book sales fluctuate over the decades, but despite the fact that some of the characters were created before they were even sperm in their father’s balls, comic book readers find the need to insult the people bringing comic books to the forefront of pop culture. I thoroughly enjoy Watchmen and knew that there didn’t need to be a movie based on it. I still went to see the movie, and though it was visually interesting, it felt hollow. Did I furiously type a thesis towards Zack Snyder for how he ruined Watchmen? No. Okay, well of course I talked shit about it here and there, but that’s besides the point. The point is, having a shitty movie based on something I like doesn’t make me enjoy the comic book itself any less. Seeing a shitty Ghost Rider movie didn’t make me enjoy the comics any less. Why can’t people understand that film, TV, and literature are all mediums that existed before these people could vent their frustrations relatively anonymously on the internet? I apologize for using movies as specific examples, but I feel as though that’s a little bit easier to grasp, allowing more people to understand my point. In a few months, every single DC comic book is ending, with many of them starting over from zero. Let’s say, in theory, someone has every single issue of Action Comics ever printed, which is over 900 issues. Just because there will be new numbering on the issues, what’s stopping someone from enjoying all of their 900 issues? How does a title, or different artist, or different writer, or different storyline stop ANYONE from enjoying what they loved so much, other than out of spite? What causes people to send messages of anger to the people who created some of their favorite issues of comic books, proclaiming how they will never buy anything from Marvel ever again, just because the story is going a way that they don’t approve of? Do you think that anyone cares how long you’ve been collecting comic books for or the fact that you’ll never give a company any money? They don’t. For every one person who throws a tantrum and leaves comics behind, there lies the possibility of gaining people who get turned onto comics. This is not at all to say that creators don’t care about their fans, I know they do, but it’s always the people who are cranky that feel their voice needs to be heard because somehow it was THEIR face that was spat upon. But, then again, I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH CREATING THE THINGS I ENJOY AND HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT’S RIGHT OR WHAT’S WRONG. If any company employs people to make executive decisions about their characters or stories, and that person with the decision-making power pitches an idea to kill off every character for good, and other people who work at the company agree with the idea, how do I have any right to start saying mean things about them on the internet? It’s the same kind of insanity that exists with people sitting on their couches talking about what they would do if THEY were the coach of their favorite team, but rather than applying themselves in any way, shape, or form, or left shouting at a television. Maybe the creators of all of these stories know how insane the “fans” are and choose to only highlight the negative ones because if they only showed off the good ones, it might seem like they were bragging. I feel like I might be getting a little off-track or possibly redundant, but ultimately I think all of this boils down to the fact that people who are fans of anything, whether it be music, movies, books, or comics, think that something is owed to them. Nobody owes me anything, because they already gave me hours upon hours of enjoyment. What is comes down to is there’s really just one thing I’d like to say to anyone who had anything, no matter how minimal, to do with creating the movies, comics, TV, and art that have given me hours of entertainment: THANK YOU.
Faces lined up? White text on the bottom? What is this, the late 90′s?! Oh, right, it is! The day and age where all you needed for a scary movie was a black background and the title of the movie in white. Throw some pretty faces on there, and who the fuck knows what you’re going to be seeing? Along with Mimic, this is another one of those movies that I saw on VHS, one time, and remember nothing about it. Although while watching, I did remember shit about a dog, and yes, there is still shit about a dog all these years later. Even though I fell asleep once while watching this, I still think I remember most of the story! Whether or not that story made sense is up for debate, but it sure was a story…kind of.
Did I mention you get to see Affleck in a cowboy hat?
Rose McGowan’s character is on her way to a ski resort with her older sister, played by Joanna Going. When they get there, they realize everyone’s dead, including their maid and a local police officer. Upon being discovered by some of the other police dudes in town, played by Ben Affleck, Liev Schreiber, and Nicky Katt, we learn that something spooky is going on in this town. The find the name “Timothy Flyte” scrawled on a mirror, and through contacting the FBI, are able to get Timothy, played by Peter O’ Toole, along with a military team into town. Timothy writes for a tabloid magazine and was writing about some being or creature or something capable of living underground and wiping out entire species and civilizations. I guess these are the “phantoms” that the title refers to. For the most part, the phantoms ingest living creatures, gain all the knowledge which those creatures contain, and are then able to replicate practically any living thing. That’s why a dog keeps popping up! The phantoms kill most of the people I already listed, but the survivors discover they have avoided death because this underground being wants more people to know about it and fear it. However, the phantom monster thing hasn’t taken into account the fact that it has the cellular composition of petroleum, or something, and Dr. Timothy Flyte exposes that weakness to infect the creature with a bacteria that eats petroleum. When the creature ingests this bacteria, it instinctually replicates it, resulting in the creature’s demise. Dr. Flyte goes on to tell the public the truth about this creature, and when we see two people in a bar debating whether he was telling the truth, we see one of the victims of the phantoms alive and well, indicating that the creature managed to survive.
This scene involves Timothy Flyte confronting the creature, who replicates all of the citizens of the town. Coincidentally, the amount of people the creature replicates is more than the amount of people who saw this in theaters.
It’s a rare occasion when typing out the description of the movie that it sounds better than the actual film was to watch. Obviously based on that description, this movie can be passed off as another indistinct creature-feature that could have gone straight to video. Probably would have been better than way, because even in 1998, this movie didn’t even make $6 million at the box office. I think that knowing it was a monster movie, in retrospect, is something that made it a little bit more enjoyable. It was reminiscent of The Thing in the whole isolation/shape-shifting kind of way, but had that late 90′s kind of charm with the “technology” aspect, as well as the whole idea of killing something with a bacteria it will unknowingly replicate. I don’t generally point things like this out, but I can’t give it the WORST rating because I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the special effects. One of the characters was killed by getting his brain sucked out through his face, and the body looked pretty cool afterwards. The dog segment was kind of silly, but we get to see Ben Affleck trying to go back and forth between two vans with a dog looking at him, and Affleck is fucking terrified. Pretty silly. There’s also a lot of corpses found that looked like they melted that I enjoyed. This movie wasn’t great, and it wasn’t good, and it was barely watchable. Sadly, I’ve sat through far worse.
Shia LaBeouf is a stupid douchebag. Well, I think he is, at least. I’m sure you assume that this line of thinking is unwarranted, but after I heard his (possible) response to being offered a role in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I’ve hated him. I’ve heard conflicting reports on what his response was, but the one I heard first was that he was no longer interested in being a sidekick kind of role and was only leading man material, due to the success of Transformers. This is so dumb, because if you’re offered a role in Indiana Jones, you take it, no matter what. However, after explaining this story, I’ve heard other people say that they’ve read interviews where it was the exact opposite. It even says on Wikipedia that he signed on without reading a script, but I don’t trust that bullshit! Considering I’m not a fan of his, you might be wondering why I watched this movie. I did too, until I remembered that it was directed by D.J. Caruso, who is the most recent attachment to the idea of a movie or TV series based on the comic book “Preacher”. not having seen any of his other movies, i figured I’d give this one a shot.
“Hello? Lady on the phone? You sound an awful lot like an embarrassed Julianne Moore.”
Shia LaBeouf plays two roles in this movie. TWO I SAY. He plays one stupid loser dude, and he plays the stupid loser dude’s dead brother. While alive, that brother was involved in the military or something. When his brother dies, the stupid loser dude checks his bank account and finds a shit ton of money. When he goes to his apartment, he finds tons of weapons and bomb making supplies. Something wacky is going on! When he hears a cell phone ringing, he answers, and a female voice says the FBI is about to break in. The voice was right, and now stupid Shia ia apprehended under suspicion of terrorism. Meanwhile, there’s another lady who gets a mysterious phone call from the same voice that is explaining that her son will be in trouble if she doesn’t cooperate with phone voice. After a series of wacky events take place that allows Shia to escape FBI custody, he meets with this other lady, played by Michelle Monaghan, and they are both all “WTF IS GOING ON?!” and oblivious. After multiple contacts with phone voice lady and a series of strange technological coincidences, such as traffic lights allowing their escape or automated construction equipment or messages for these two appearing through video screens in town, they learn that all this shit is being done by a sentient computer! Fuck! Those are the worst kinds of computers! Not only is it a sentient computer, it’s one that was built by the government in response to monitoring cell phones and emails for terrorism that has become so much of a nationalist that it has instructed multiple individuals to take part in the assassination of the president through the use of crystals that will be exploded by the sounds of a trumpet. That sentence is one of the most ridiculous plot points I’ve ever typed. Eventually some federal agents learn about this computer and attempt to kill it, while it also attempts to kill them, in a scene that’s a mix between Wall-E and 2001: A Space Odyssey, while Shia tries to prevent the assassination attempt by shooting the ceiling, causing himself to get shot. Sadly, he lives, and the computer has been destroyed.
This is the villain of the movie. I repeat, THIS is the villain.
FUCK THAT. It sounds even more ridiculous in retrospect that when i was watching it, and even while I was watching it I knew how ridiculous it was. Okay guys, I get it, what if our fear or terrorism drives us to the point that we could even consider the president a terrorist because of how loose of a definition we have for “terrorism”. But, fucking seriously? I assume I missed a couple plot points as to why it was planted for Shia to be set-up as a terrorist, but it doesn’t really matter because, well, “computers”. Just blaming everything on computers just makes the whole plot more acceptable as far as the filmmakers were concerned. The voice of the robot killer thing was Julianne Moore, who I’m hoping took her name off of the movie because she realized how stupid and convoluted it was. The only redeeming thing, and it was only mildly redeeming, was the fact that the beginning of the movie took place in Chicago, and it seemed as though they were using actual street names and train stations. For example, at one point, Billy Bob Thornton asks for a roadblock at Granville and Sheridan. Those are real streets! Also, the computer tells Shia to get off at the Wilson stop while he’s on a train, and when he gets off, it actually looked like the Wilson stop for the Red Line train. Other than that, this movie was garbage, and I kind of hope that Mr. D.J. Caruso is no longer allowed any Preacher involvement.
I did this last year and am sad to do it again. Well, not sad to do it, as much as I’d prefer to have actually gone. I guess another reason I was sad to do it was because I felt some sort of obligation to do it again, but hadn’t really seen any videos that made me excited. That is, I hadn’t felt excited, until today. I decided to make this whole post because of how awesome this first video is, which I HIGHLY recommend you watch.
I mean, I don’t know who the fuck this Andrew Garfield character is, other than he was in The Social Network, but goddamn. To see him look like he’s practically on the verge of tears over how excited he is to be playing Spider-Man just kind of gives you the chills. Well, there’s that, or maybe I’m just a nerd and it got ME excited. For those of you who have seen the trailer, I am not too blown away, but I definitely do enjoy the POV stuff. Since we’ve already seen Spider-Man swinging around rooftops, something new had to be attempted to make it exciting, and I think it was pretty successful. I’ll wait until another trailer, maybe some footage of the Lizard, before I make a decision on my level of excitement.
Hey! Don’t forget that The Walking Dead starts up again this fall! I know, the first season was only 6 episodes, which is why it’s exciting that this next season is twice that! Maybe the footage isn’t actually all that exciting, but I just don’t want anyone to forget that the last seasons was great, and hopefully this season is just as good.
Do I really need to explain why I’m posting this video? I mean, come on, look at that dog. It’s awesome. As I’m typing this, the convention isn’t technically over, so it’s entirely possible that something cool might debut in the next few hours and I’ll have to update this post. Hopefully I don’t have to do that, because I’m lazy.
I had started defending this movie from the moment I found out Chris Evans was cast. With Captain America being one of my favorite characters, mostly due in part to Ed Brubaker’s writing, I had every reason to be hesitant. After hearing the news about his casting an after watching the movie “Sunshine” a shit ton of times, I was really looking forward to every detail that was released. From the first snapshots taken on set, to the first official images, to the first poster, to the first trailer, all I felt was…”meh”. Really wasn’t too impressed, no matter how badly I wanted to be. Despite the fact that I wasn’t too impressed by anything I had seen, knowing the influence of comic book creators on the film, I knew that it just HAD to be good. Lucky for me, I was right. I was right as shit.
Aww, he’s just a wittle guy!
In early 1940′s Brooklyn, there’s a skinny kid with health problems that consistently prevent him from entering the Army, and that kid’s name is Steve Rogers. After a scientist overhears the fact that he continually tries and is rejected, he is offered the opportunity to enlist, thanks to an experimental division. After all the possible candidates for “Operation: Rebirth”, it is determined that Rogers is the best candidate for the procedure, because what he lacks in physical prowess, he more than makes up for in dedication, courage, and a sense of what’s right. The procedure is a success and he is transformed into a super soldier, but sadly, the one person who held the secret to the experiment was killed by a spy during the procedure. I should also explain that there was one other success in this project, but it was being conducted in Germany with the scientific division of the Nazis, and that man was Johann Schmidt, played by Hugo Weaving. The serum is intended to unlock the latent potential in an individual, and in Rogers’ case, it made him a super soldier, but with Schmidt, it gave him super-strength in addition to a bright red skull for a head. Some might call him “Red Skull” because of how much those physical characteristics make him stand out of a crowd. From the birth of Red Skull onward, the film focuses on the evil, scientific division of the Nazis that refer to themselves as “Hydra”, rather than making the bad guys straight-up Nazis. Apparently the Nazis have had it hard enough as it is. Steve’s ranking officer, Colonel Chester Phillips, played by Tommy Lee Jones, doesn’t seem to give a shit about the success and considers the project a mistake, but luckily Steve gets the opportunity to show his strength and power as a mascot known as “Captain America” in order to raise funds through USO shows across the country.
It just looks like someone went into Photoshop and found the Muscles tool and cranked that shit up as high as it would go
Despite the success that Captain America has, his routine falls a little short when he travels to visit the soldiers involved in World War II. When Rogers hears of a fellow soldiers, including his childhood friend James “Bucky” Barnes, played by Sebastian Stan, Steve takes it upon himself to single-handedly make his way behind Hydra lines to rescue them. After Colonel Phillips sees the success of Rogers, he allows him to take a squad of soldiers, which include Bucky, to go on all sorts of awesome, crazy, Hydra killing missions. Even though the team accomplishes a lot, he unfortunately can’t prevent Bucky from dying on one of these missions. Realizing the severity of the situation, as well as learning of Red Skull’s plan to harness the energy of an extremely powerful, mystical object known as the “Cosmic Cube”, Captain America really steps up his game. After learning that Red Skull is going to try to destroy practically the entire eastern seaboard, Rogers is able to finally catch up to Red Skull, and getting too overwhelmed by the power of the Cosmic Cube, he is “destroyed”…or something. Being the only one who can stop the plane, Steve takes it upon himself to crash the plane into the Arctic Ocean, rather than allow it to destroy all the cities in America. He “dies”, and everyone is sad. However, we then see Steve wake up in a bed, supposedly in the 1940′s. BUT…after freaking out and realizing it is a trick, Steve escapes into the middle of present day Times Square, and then Nick Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson, says something along the lines of “Are you ready to be in an Avengers movie next summer?”
You guys forgot that this actress was British and has one of those guns that blows things up behind her! You idiots!
The most effective scene in the entire movie when it comes to solidifying Captain America/Steve Rogers is one that you can see in the trailer. When Colonel Phillips tosses a “live” grenade into a group of soldiers at boot camp, everyone runs away, except for Steve, who dives on top of it to try to save other people. That was an effective scene in the trailer, and is just as effective in the movie. It’s difficult to try to explain why Captain America is such an enjoyable character, and it’s that state-of-mind, that self-sacrifice, that courage is what drives him and everything he does. Chris Evans was able to really capture that essence in the ways I knew he would. He was funny when he needed to be, vulnerable when he needed to be, and beat the shit out of Nazis when he had to. Oh, and by the way, I’m just going to make things easier for myself and refer to all of the bad guys as Nazis. What was I saying? Oh yes, Evans was awesome at punching Nazis. In fact, all of the actors and actresses were really enjoyable in this movie, and despite not naming her earlier, I’d like to point out that Hayley Atwell was good as Peggy Carter. My one complaint with Steve Rogers, and it was something that couldn’t be avoided, was when Steve was a scrawny kid before the experience. I’d say he is small for 30% of the movie, and half of that time it is pulled off really well, the other time things looked kind of weird. Unfortunately, that was the nature of the beast, and it certainly had to be a more drastic difference in size with this film than something like Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man. Other than that, all of the effects were really convincing, and the “gloss”, if you will, of everything really added to the sense that this movie took place in the 40′s as opposed to present day.
A little bit of trivia is that this is the first film that Hugo Weaving didn’t require any makeup for
There were quite a few instances where the comic book nerdery came out and I would internally say “OH MAN IT’S THAT GUY FROM THAT THING THAT HAPPENED ONE TIME”, but I prefer not to mention them all. I can’t help but point out one of my biggest delights, which was knowing that Captain America’s secret squad was actually the Howling Commandos, which included Dum Dum Dugan. Seeing Dum Dum getting broken out of the Nazi camp was awesome, and seeing the Howling Commandos so their thing, despite not being called that, was still great. Another moment was also seeing the actual first issue of Captain America, featuring him punching Hitler in the face, being used as part of the USO campaign that Rogers was involved in. One thing that I think made this film standout from all the other Marvel films was the passage of time. Most other stories have involved a series of events taking place that are all directly related to one another, and Event A causes Event B which causes Event C, and the movie’s over. The time between Operation: Rebirth to the first time Steve fights Nazis is over a year, and once he takes charge of the Howling Commandos, we only see a montage of some of their missions, which we are to assume takes place over weeks, if not months. I guess it just kind of helped show Cap as a symbol of good who is continually proving himself, rather than someone who gets kind of thrown into things.
I’m still trying to figure out what that “A” on his helmet stands for. I mean, his name is Steve! There’s no “A” in Steve!
The reason I feel that I didn’t have high hopes for this movie is because nothing can really be adequately be captured in a few seconds for a trailer. The trailer shows quite a few scenes of him running and jumping, but it’s all out of context and not that impressive. I remember saying about the Incredible Hulk movie that one of the best part was seeing Tim Roth’s character run faster, jump higher, and hit harder than everyone else, which is what the appeal of the action sequences were in this film. I could probably watch Captain America beat the hit out of Nazis all day. He punches a guy, throw his shield at a bunch of guys, hit them all, drop kick a guy in the chest, then jump over a tank, then catch his shield, then smash someone with it. That might not be EXACTLY what happens, but close enough. Just to reiterate, I was nervous the action scenes wouldn’t be cool because of the trailer, but they were all awesome. Similar to Thor, this movie served as a prologue to the upcoming Avengers film, but this film was far more entertaining than that one was. It was slow in parts, but once it picked up, I just didn’t want it to stop. Thor was a little anticlimactic, or at least, you only recognized the film as a first step towards the Avengers movie, whereas this movie felt like a complete story that could stand on its own. Well, except for maybe the whole waking up in present day thing, which could have been confusing. I think this might be the first superhero movie I’ve seen since the first X-Men that made me want to go out later that night to see it for a second time. Instead, I’m writing this review to encourage you all to go see this movie, then punch some Nazis in the face.
Alright, so, you see that poster up there? Well, it’s funny, because that poster is almost exactly the same as what the cover of the DVD is. The cover of the DVD is what caused Rampaige and I to stop on it momentarily to see what it was about. The biggest difference between the poster and the DVD cover? Well, if you Google the cover, you’ll see that exact poster, but at the top, you’ll see the faces of the three ladies in this movie. I’m serious! They realized how shitty this movie was and figured the only way to entice people to see it was with the promise of at least one, if not all, of the ladies on the front losing their clothes. I mean, hell, I’m pretty sure that’s why Rampaige wanted to watch it. Okay, well, that might not be entirely true. However, when I stopped long enough to see the description, we saw that it took place in some town that had the word “cave” in the name. Not only that, but it also supposedly took place in Kentucky! Whoa! Caves + Kentucky + three ladies who look like they have loose morals = SOLD!
I pulled pictures directly from the films website because look at how stupid that border is! HAHAHA.
There’s seven college-aged people discussing how they are going to go on a hike, and they all go on this hike! Remember that movie Wrong Turn? Well, imagine that premise, except with these seven people instead of those other ones you saw in that other movie. Nothing redeeming or entertaining happens to any of the characters, so I’ll just try to remember how they all die. Let’s see, there’s four guys, and the first guy gets killed after having sex with his girlfriend because his face gets smashed with some sort of pickaxe or sledgehammer or something. The girls he just had sex with, yes I said girls, because he finished having sex with his girlfriend and then another one jumped out of the woodwork, well the two of them get kidnapped by the “redneck” character. One of the ladies gets killed after being captured, and one of the guys gets killed trying to rescue the alive lady. That alive lady escapes, but only long enough to fall off of a cliff and get run over by a truck. That means there are three left, I think. One guy gets hit in the head with a stick that was thrown at him, causing his neck to break. He gets dragged back to the redneck’s hideout or something, and the other two characters try to rescue him. Broken neck guy gets killed, and the only living lady smashes and kills the redneck with a pickaxe, but gets stabbed by the bad guy in the process. We’re down to just one guy left who tries to leave in a car, but noticing a problem, pops the hood. A machete pops out at him from under the hood, and when we see the wound in his stomach, the film abruptly and harshly starts the credits.
“Actually, we got hired to NOT show our boobs, thank you very much!”
There are some things you kind of come to expect when it comes to horror movies, and you end up just taking them for granted. Two things you can generally count on is some amount of sex, as well as some amount of violence. No matter how bad a movie is, seeing an arbitrary sex scene or a gruesome, bloody death makes it almost worth watching. This movie was failed on all accounts. First of all, it was shitty, with bad actors and bad dialogue. One character just kind of yelled “BEER!” for the first ten minutes while another character poured beer onto the seat of a lady he liked and then drank the beer. Ya know, because it got him that much closer to putting his actual tongue in her actual butthole. At this point in the movie you can kind of throw out all expectations of it being good, however, seeing the way the female leads were dressed, kind of assumed it was an excuse to see hooters. It should also be mentioned that the description of this movie on Netflix used the term “gory”, so you can see why I expected that. Despite the characters having sex and talking about sex and just talking about butts a lot, there’s not gratuitous nudity. Not even any essential nudity! Okay, fine, we can move past that, because there’s bound to be gore, right? Wrong. Two character get smashed in the head and you can’t really see anything, another is run over, two are stabbed, and most of the kills happen off-screen. It’s almost like some of the actors even knew how terrible this movie was and tried to make it comedic. There were a whole bunch of fart jokes, and just nothing really made sense. It was a pile of shit. No blood, no boobs, no reason at all to watch this terrible, terrible movie.
Whoa boy, this is going to piss some people off. I thought it would be easier to make this list, but it was a pain in the ass. Some of these were obvious choices, but there’s clearly one that is going to come as a surprise, but having a top 5 sounds better than a top 4. I’ve also made sure to include movies that are similar in tone to each of the top film choices that I hope by including, you might get a better sense over what I was trying to say. After typing up this list, as well as the reasons, I decided to add in that whole “contemporary” thing. Other than the first “Superman” starring Christopher Reeves and one of the Tim Burton Batman films, I really can’t say the impact they had. It’s my assumption that they were memorable just for the fact that they were made in a time where comic books were viewed slightly differently. That being said, I still wouldn’t include them in my list, but it’s mostly just because I don’t think any of those films were all that great. Here are my choices, in no particular order, well, other than alphabetical:
The Dark Knight (2008)
Not just one of the most successful comic book movies of all time, but one of the most successful movies, of any genre, of all time. This movie is also one that doesn’t need to credit its success to the titular character, but in fact, practically everything but his performance is what makes this film great. No performance can hold a candle to Heath Ledger’s in this movie, but both Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman do come close. The city is even a character in it of itself, really giving you a sense of depravity and hopelessness of this world. This film took the idea of superheroes and showed you it didn’t have to take place in some otherworldly environment which certainly seems to have set the mold for most contemporary superhero movies.
See Also: X-Men: First Class (2011)
Road to Perdition (2002)
This is the one I wasn’t sure about including, but here it is. The reason why I chose it was to show the diversity of “comic book” movies. Having actors like Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and Jude Law lending their talents to this film really showed that it doesn’t matter what medium the source content was to convey the original ideas, because if it’s good stuff, it’s good stuff. Granted, I’ve never read the original graphic novel, so the movie might be nothing at all like it, but, well, that’s a post for me to make at a different time.
See Also: A History of Violence (2005), American Splendor (2003)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)
THIS MOVIE IS SO FUCKING AWESOME. If I had made a top five list of last year, this film would have been on it. This movie really established a style on its own, thanks to the directing of Edgar Wright and his collaborations with the original author Bryan Lee O’ Malley. The biggest reason it finds its way on the list is because it is one of the very few films that not only mimics the source material meticulously, but I feel it even surpasses the comic. The reason being that the original story took place over six books, and when I read them, I wasn’t all that impressed and was a little underwhelmed after reading all the “hype”. The film was able to take the (almost) complete story and edit it down to under two hours. Dare I say that this movie is flawless? I think I dare.
See Also: Hellboy (2004), Punisher: War Zone (2009)
Sin City (2005)
I think it’s sad how often this film is overlooked as a huge visual achievement. I think the comic itself is typically spoken fondly of because of the story, and not to discredit the artwork, but it isn’t necessarily what stands out. However, I can’t of any other comic book film that was able to so accurately recreate the look of a comic so well, to the point that Frank Miller even got a directing credit. The story was still really entertaining, but the lengths that director Robert Rodriguez went to make the film look like the comic is incredible.
See Also: 30 Days of Night (2007), 300 (2007)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
I was tempted to say the first film was in my top 5, but this film was able to take the same elements that were used in the first, but by skipping the introductory elements, this film was able to sneak its way in. It’s hard to both have fun with a movie and give you an emotional connection, but this movie really hit the nail on the head. You enjoyed seeing Spider-Man swinging from rooftop to rooftop and kicking ass, and felt genuine disappointment when he threw out his suit. Not only did you feel disappointed personally, but were conflicted with understanding of wanting Peter Parker to be happy. By the end of the movie, you were both exhausted and energized after riding such an emotional rollercoaster while also enjoying Spidey kicking ass.
See Also: X2 (2003), Iron Man (2008)
You might notice that, although reviewing and enjoying the three comic book based films that came out earlier this year, Captain America: The First Avenger has yet to come out, as well as the potential that The Avengers has for next year. Some of you might call that a copout to not include those movies, and you’re exactly right, but I also think it might be just a little too early to tell how well they hold up. Feel free to leave comments about what some of your favorite comic book movies are!
