Something, something, last time, let's go.
Superhero Movie
The film-
All right, so, we had the superhero rom-com, now, the parody phase.
Produced by David Zucker of Airplane! fame, this, like the Scary Movies, is sort of a big screen MAD Magazine.
It is what it is; you love these, or hate 'em, and this particular one won't change your mind either way.
As a comic fan, I'm tickled that Marvel's films are chiefly represented here.
The history-
Comedy Central.
Hancock
The film-
Will Smith has powers, but he doesn't want to be a hero, and Justin Batemen is like "come on, do it", and Will Smith is unkempt, and drinks....and then some bullshit sends it all off the rails where Justin Bateman's wife is secretly super too, and...ah, phooey.
The history-
From here...
So, check out "Nobody Loves Harry Hembock", I consider it not only to be my best story to date, but I truly believe it to be superior to the Wil Smith film "Hancock", which bears striking resemblences to my story, but I wrote mine first, and again, mine's better.
Grounds for a lawsuit? Fuck it, the schadenfreude of it being a critical flop, and box office dissapointment is enough to warm my heart. *Evil grin*
...and, from here...
Finally seen it for free on TV.
Harry Hembock is better.
And I'm really not one to blow my own horn, Hancock really stunk.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
The film-
I dunno, the characters were as good, the effects were more razzle-dazzle, but...it lacked something..I just didn't like it as good as the first one.
Watchable, but forgettable.
The history-
N/A
Kick-Ass
The film-
Kill, Hit-Girl, kill!!!
Ahh, this is more like it.
This makes the pain of Lightspeed go away.
Nice.
Very nice.
The history-
N/A
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
The film-
Jesus, comic-geekdom and a decent chunk of the internet lost their fucking minds over this thing.
I just thought it was cute, and worth one viewing.
*Shrug*
The history-
Ayep, this is another cultural boat that passed me by, I guess...
The Green Hornet
Eh, I liked it.
Britt Reid being a sort of goofy male Paris Hilton who slowly finds it within himself to be a hero, I thought was a clever cute way of updating the whole "millionaire playboy", shtick to make sense in our times.
And, oh, look, Cameron Diaz!
See? She's everywhere.
I suspect her of owning a TARDIS.
The history-
I remember the Green Hornet & Adam West Batman crossover as a kid.
Defendor
The film-
Yep, really dug this one.
Worth owning even, I think.
Anything Woody Harrelson, I'm signed up.
About a mentally challenged fella who takes on a superhero persona, and well...any more would give it away.
Of the two indies, this, and the one coming up, I have a helluva time deciding which I liked better.
Both blow "The Specials", out of the fucking water, that's for damned sure.
The history-
N/A
Super
The film-
Fuckin' great.
'Nother one I'll gladly buy.
Tch..sss...yeah, this might edge out Defendor, but by a fly's cunt hair....
About a guy distraught over his wife leaving him, and, after having what he thinks is a holy vision, dons a costume, and fights what he sees as crime.
Mild spoiler, IMO, this film really takes off when "Boltie", finally shows up.
I fell in love with Boltie.
Bigger spoiler, the flick takes a jarring dark turn at the very end, like, almost "Very Bad Things", dark.
But, that's really no more/less than Harry Hembock, so, it suited my tastes fine.
You may not like your comedy this black.
Just giving you a heads up.
The history-
N/A
Okay, that's everything new, let's loop back around, and fill that gap between Condorman, and Dick Tracy.
Blankman
The film-
The idea of a low-rent superhero was sound, heart was in the right place, but, this is the "White Chicks", Wayans-es, not the "I'm gonna Git You Sucka", Wayans-es.
Poopie.
The history-
Remember when Damon Wayans was funny?
Shyeeet.
Hero At Large
Totally check this out if you haven't.
All the observations on Hollywood, and action figure merchandising, and media stuff updates just as well to this modern crop of superhero flicks, and this hardly dates at all.
Consider this the charming uplifting inspirational mirror opposite to "Super".
John Ritter is just great.
He's that guy you wish were your neighbor, or uncle, y'know?
I still fuckin' miss him.
Anyway, Ritter plays a struggling actor who takes a gig dressing up as Captain Avenger to help plug the movie of the same name by showing up at theater openings, and signing autographs for the kids and such.
One day, he stops a robbery, and becomes a media sensation, whilst the cynical producer of the film seeks to exploit/corrupt him.
All the while, he (Ritter) courts Anne Archer, and keeps trying to pay the rent.
Great little movie.
They don't make 'em like this anymore.
The history-
80's HBO, and fond childhood memories.
Seen it again very recently, it holds up.
Super Fuzz
The film-
Total fucking schlock, but, I loved this as a dumb little kid.
So, a cop gets exposed to "red plutonium", in a nuke test, endowing him with super powers, which he loses whenever he sees the color red.
What powers, exactly?
Um....everything.
He's virtually a God.
He can even come back from the dead once the red goes away, and his powers come back.
So, he's pretty much unstoppable.
Yes, you're reading that poster right, Ernest Borgnine was in this fuckin' thing.
The history-
HBO again.
If you had HBO in the early 80's, you pretty much saw Superfuzz 30 times.
The Greatest American Hero
The pilot/show-
Yeah, fuck it, it was an hour long show, and some anime films establish a movie can be 60 minutes, so, I'll squeak it by to cheat it.
Great show, rediscovered on SyFy recently.
The history-
From here...
Wish I could say I was into this as a kid, but, I was a superhero snob after Superman, and couldn't get with the idea of a dude who couldn't control his powers, and flopped around all slapstick-y.
Joke got old quick for me.
Dad loved it though.
Wish we coulda shared that, but I was a little prick.
Well, SyFy marathon-ed it recently, and it was fucking great.
And I love the theme.
Great show.
Y'know, looking back, I think I subliminally absorbed a lot of this for Harry.
Hmm...
Also, this.
The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai:
Across The 8th Dimension
Wow, they REALLY don't make movies like this anymore.
I strain to even summarize what this is about....
Um, well, Peter Weller is Buckaroo Banzai, a test pilot/brain surgeon/rock star who fights crime in his spare time, and whose rock band is also his gang of heroes.
Also, one of his gang is an artist, and makes a Buckaroo Banzai comic book, so Buckaroo is known as a comic book superhero in his world as well as a musician.
His deceased dad co-invented the "oscillation over-thruster", which vibrates/scrambles matter with a laser so you can pass through it, and access the 8th dimension, which is the universe that exists in-between the atoms of solid matter of our universe.
The aliens of this dimension don't like this, and hijinks ensue.
A lot going on in this baby.
I've hardly scratched the surface.
This vies for the title of ultimate cult movie, I think.
Did I mention the fashion and music OOZE 80's?
The history-
HBO again.
You needed the multiple viewings to get this thing.
Anyway...this.
Barbarella
The film-
"Eeew, eww, Hanoi Jane!".
Ah, eat an extra-crispy bucket of dicks, wouldja?
Fuck politics.
Everyone's.
All of it.
Everywhere.
Anyhoo...
Buckaroo joyously oozes 80's, this joyously oozes 60's.
If this can't give you a giggle, and a smile, and maybe a couple boners, you're probably dead.
The history-
This.
The Puma Man
The film-
Um, a dude gets an amulet from ancient astronauts who educated the Mayans...or..something, and sorta becomes a z-grade "Greatest American Hero", but Mexican, or Italian, or..something...
Budget wise, the schlockiest one I've reviewed of all of these....but, it still has more entertainment value than fucking Lightspeed.
The history-
They did an MST3K of this, check it out sometime.
Favorite line, Tom Servo adding the lyrics "when..you want..the flavor of bacon in a dip!", to the Puma-man theme.
Rat Pfink A Boo Boo
The film-
"Remember Boo-boo, we only have one weakness".
"What's that, Rat Pfink?".
"Mm...bullets".
Yeah, I didn't misspell that up there, that's the real title, that box cover fixed what wasn't broken.
So, this is by Ray Dennis Steckler, who also did "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living, And Became Mixed Up Zombies".
You all remember that one, right?
*Checks Google* aww, fuck, he died a couple years ago.
Anyway, this is a damned near no-budget spoof on the Adam West Batman series.
Steckler, who never used scripts, was making a whole other movie, and got sick of it 40 minutes in, and abruptly changed it into this halfway through.
Ehh...once you have the funny reveal of the heroes, it kinda peters out.
A couple of the songs are listenable though...
The history-
I learned about this on "The Incredibly Strange Film Show", which I highly suspect got its title from Steckler's magnum opus.
Anyway, this.
Fuck yes.
Black Scorpion
Hey, y'know, these may have been straight to video/Showtime junkers, but...they were funny, and gave me a helluva lot more entertainment than some of the crud Marvel/DC were sharting out in the 90's.
And, the dame was a honey.
I wouldn't exactly recommend these now, but y'know, just sayin.
The history-
Showtime.
And, Sci-Fi replayed these, I think before kicking off the short-lived series version.
Black Scorpion II
The film-
Ditto the first one.
The history-
Ditto again.
And, that's all of that.
Up next, miscellaneous animateds.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Superhero Flicks, Part 15: All The Rest (Part 4)
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12 comments:
Wow. You really did leave no stone unturned . . .
Hm. Hellboy 2. I had mixed feelings about that one. Lots I liked, lots made me go 'yehhh . . .'
Oddly? I LOVED the bit where HB and Abe get drunk and depressed over their girl troubles and start singing Barry Manilow. Fuggin killed me.
:D
Ach, Blankman, Christ . . .
What happened to ya, Damon?
Some comedians just get into their thirties and lose their spark, ya know? Marriage and kids kills 'em too, unless they started out with that as part of their shtick.
Remember when Eddie Murphy was funny? AND edgy? AND didn't have a fucked up prosthetic fatsuit fetish?
I work with people now who were born and grown without having ever known any other Eddie but the one we endure today. Sadness.
I still get little twinkles of that young SNL Eddie in Donkey.
Um...sorry, I can't come up with a witty rejoinder to liking that bit in Hellboy.
I both giggled and groaned at that scene.
Oh, me too. But I chose to embrace it.
Nice call back to that song with the 'Hellboy, she had twins!' freezeframe look of stupified shock at the end, too. Again, a moment of . . . 'are . . . are they frigging kidding?', BUT, I chose to dig it.
But, to put that in perspective, I'm a big fan of HB as a work of Mike Mignola's, not as a franchise concept, and never really cared overmuch for the movie interpretations.
How about the cartoons?
But I hate the animated Hellboys even more. A live movie maybe can't look like the comic come to life; animation has no such excuse.
Tough noogies, 'Cheeks'. I do not need your flashy redesigns.
Ever see the animated 'Amazing Screw-on Head'? THAT's Mignola animated done SO right.
Weird--you were going the same direction as me with the next post!
Oh, and 'Cheeks' is the deviantART nom de plume of the guy who did the animated character designs. I don't know if you already knew that.
Aw, I liked the little bit of the one cartoon I saw, but I never ever read the books for comparison.
No...didn't see Screw On Head..or, did I?
There's flickers of it...
I 'unno.
Well, see, glad this all came up, this changes the flow of the next review...
NEVER READ THE--!!
(chokes, sputters, collapses backwards out of seat, mouth a'froth)
. . .
You MUST read the Hellboys. MUST! I mean, if you'd only ever seen the movies first, you've done yourself a grave (heh-heh) disservice. They're pretty much the most gorgeous thing in comics ever, at least as far as someone of my content/art-style tastes is concerned.
GEET THEM!
*Amazon searches*
Sss....it's a lot though....
Someday...
Volume 1 is a buck eighty used though...
Yeah, he pops them out pretty slowly, but he's been doing them since 1994 . . .
And these days he mostly has other artists do the heavy lifting, because he's writing HB and the BPRD spinoff title.
Worth it, though. But watch it, you pick up Seed Of Destruction, you won't be able to stop . . .
(even if it does have John Byrne's sweaty fingerprints all over it--the series really takes off and gets its own voice after Mignola started doing all his own writing on the second volume)
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