Road to Perdition 2002

It’s time to finish off my participation in the Graphic Horror Blogathon with a bang by covering one of only a small handful of actually well received and well known comic book adaptations that I have yet to cover here on this site. And while it isn’t exactly a horror film, Road to Perdition does have enough thriller elements and more than enough striking visuals that I’m glad to share it as part of this project. It’s the story of a mob hitman on the run while simultaneously out for revenge, but more than that it’s about the relationship between a father and son and how they end up connecting with each other though these trying circumstances. Not only that, but this is one of the most acclaimed and star-studded comic book movies out there starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, and an early role from the man who would be James Bond Daniel Craig. It’s an amazing film, and if you haven’t seen it before, definitely seek it out before reading this, as I will be delving into this film in its entirety spoilers and all.

The heart of the story revolves around Mike Sullivan played by Tom Hanks. He’s a mob enforcer, and the surrogate son to the mob boss in this small town in the 30’s during the same time when Capone ran Chicago. Mike has two children, Michael and Peter. It’s also interesting that through the entire movie, it was always the father that was referred to as Mike and the son who was referred to as Michael, rather than ever calling him Mike or Michael Junior. Usually, it’s the younger of the two people that go by the shortened name rather than the long version. Anyway, Michael is very curious about his father’s rather secretive job, and when he does sneak onto one of his missions he happens to see the murder of several people. And due to this, his mother and brother are killed, and he and his father have to make a run for it as they are being targetted as well. The name of the film comes twofold, as it’s the name of an even smaller town where Michael’s Aunt lives out in the country where he can hide out for a while. And of course, it’s also another name for hell which Mike thinks he is leading his son toward through his job and his actions.

What’s really important throughout the film are the father son relationships, and not just the one between Mike and Michael. It’s set up quite early that Mike is like a surrogate son to Paul Newman’s Rooney. Unfortunately, he does have a real son, Connor played by Daniel Craig who is not exactly the chip off the old block, in fact he’s stealing from the family and covering up his transgressions with dead bodies. While the relationship between Rooney and Mike is a very warm and fatherly one, the relationship between Rooney and Connor is much colder and filled with disappointment. Paul Newman plays this role wonderfully, how Rooney wrestles with the honest care that he feels for Mike, while still unable to ignore the familial obligations to his true flesh and blood, no matter how disappointed in him he truly feels.

But the true heart of the film is the growth of the father son relationship between Mike and Micheal during their road trip around the area, to Chicago and back and eventually to Perdition. During the early scenes, Mike is rather distant to Michael, showing more affection to his younger brother Peter. Michael calls his father “sir” rather than something more affectionate. But as they spend more time together, they grow closer and open up to each other in subtle ways. Michael eventually drops the “sir” and starts calling him “pa”. There are some nice touching moments like when Mike is teaching his son how to drive so he can be the getaway driver. It really culminates during the scenes when they take refuge in a small farmhouse after Mike has been shot in the shoulder and they have a very awkward conversation that is as much bonding as they can expect from each other. But what Mike really wants out of his son is for him to not follow in his footsteps. As much as Michael seemingly idolizes what his father does, and even reads his Lone Ranger stories, it’s not the life that Mike wants for him.

There are a couple other sub plots deftly woven throughout the father son moments. While Mike is on his quest for revenge against Connor for killing his wife and youngest child, he is also unraveling a bit of a mystery about some of the inner workings of the mob headed by Al Capone. And as he gets closer and closer to the truth about what Connor is doing, he’s also being tracked down by somewhat of a rival hitman played by Jude Law hired by another high level mobster Frank Nitty. Law plays very much against type as this extremely weaselly photographer with a morbid fascination with death. He’s got this atrocious combover and tends to walk with a bit of a hunch. But there’s this coldness about the way he handles himself that makes his character all the more frightening.

In a film about the mob and hitmen, the violence is generally kept to a minimum. And when it is done, it’s either very quick, or it’s shown partially offscreen or via a reflection. One of the most fascinating moments of violence in this movie is the final act of revenge where Mike is led straight to Connor who is completely unaware and essentially helpless in a bathtub. But the audience doesn’t get to see the act itself, merely the aftermath as the mirrored bathroom door swings closed to momentarily reveal the bloody aftermath of the shooting. Throughout the film, the violence is never glorified as something heroic. But instead, it’s something that’s done only when it is necessary, and the weight of it is always felt. During the first killing in the film, the first one that Michael sees through a crack in the wall, it’s done unexpectedly and the victim falls to the ground in slow motion. When Mike brings out his Tommy Gun, it’s not something he does with glee, it’s something very deliberate as he solemnly takes the pieces out of the briefcase to assemble it.

What really struck me about this film were the striking visuals throughout, the shadows are almost another character in the way they are used throughout the film. The shadows and the rain are both important elements that permeate the look of the backgrounds and characters here. There is quite a bit more that could be delved into with this film, from the themes and visual elements, to the score and many other things. But it all comes together beautifully, and I’m glad that I finally got around to seeing this one. It’s already jumped to one of my favorites and I look forward to watching it again very soon. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Josie and the Pussycats 2001

One thing I continuously find fascinating is the year 2001. The year before had several superhero movies: Unbreakable, X-Men, even smaller ones like the Toxic Avenger 4 and the Specials. But just one year later there wasn’t a single superhero movie to be found, at least as far as I can tell, only a handful of non-superhero comic book adaptations covering a wide variety from the macabre From Hell, the teen angsty art film Ghost World, and this bright and cheery Josie and the Pussycats. Even though I never watched the cartoon when I was younger, I was aware of the show through the early days of Cartoon Network when they ran all sorts of Hanna Barbera classics that they likely got the rights cheaply. I don’t remember if I watched the film when it came out in theaters, but whenever I did see it I quite enjoyed it. And watching it again now, it still hits a lot of the right notes where it’s very self-referential with its humor which helps to hide the fairly mediocre and ridiculous plot. The music is fun and it feels very of its time without feeling dated in a bad way. My wife thought it was bizarre, and my daughter grew bored of it quickly, but I loved revisiting nearly every minute of it.

The film starts off with an opening sequence that would fit right in with a 90’s sitcom, or the classic cartoon with a happy pop song and snippets introducing all the main characters from the cartoon along with a couple shots of kittens for good measure. The Pussycats are a very down on their luck band just trying to make it in the small town of Riverdale. At the same time, there’s the hottest boy band on the planet who happen to discover something about their music which causes their manager and pilot to bail out of their plane to leave them to their doom. It sounds pretty gloomy, but it’s handled in such a tongue in cheek way that it’s pretty hilarious. The Du Jour boy band scene really nails the late 90’s boy band saturation point and it’s helped that the band is played by the likes of Breckin Meyer, Seth Green, and Donald Faison and their hit song is “Backdoor Lover”. It may be an easy target at how many non-fans of boy bands believe that most of their members are gay, but the ridiculousness of the song combined with how the actual lyrics work with the concept make it hilarious.

From their first appearance in the comics

If there’s any real downside to the film, it’s that believability is completely thrown out the window, but it’s replaced with meta movie logic. At one point the characters even question why the studio allows the band’s manager’s sister along with everyone else, and the obvious reply is “because I was in the comic” only to be quickly brushed aside as “nothing”. Even at the end of the film when the entire subliminal message plot has been thwarted, there’s a meta explanation from the government agent who had been going along with the plan earlier that “subliminal messages work better in movies” followed by the obligatory “subliminal” message within their own film. Another great moment comes right before that when the agent is shocked by the crazy white stripe in Alexandra’s hair and he calls it a “skunk on her head”.

Subtlety is not this film’s strong suit, nor would I want it to be.

The actual characters are more or less either parodies of characters or empty shells of a character. Out of the three bandmates, Josie is given the most to do as the lead singer and the one that the studio pushes to the front of the marketing. She also has the requisite love story with her old friend-who-never-saw-her-as-a-love-interest-until-he-sees-her-wearing-a-sexy-dress that plays out pretty much exactly as you might expect with the missed connections before finally coming together at the end. It’s also given that edge of humor as the studio manager Wyatt makes a call about the “message” left by the guy at the front desk while he’s right in front of Josie. It’s that level of hanging the lampshade on it which makes most, if not all of the tropey plot conventions much more palatable. Next up is Val played by Rosario Dawson who is supposedly the fun one? But for most of the run time of the film, she just becomes obsessed with the thought that Josie is overshadowing her on purpose. And to finish off the main trio is Melody aka the bright and cheery but stupid one. While there are some moments that are funny, for the most part this time around I was not taken with her style of humor at all and Tara Reid became the weakest point of the movie.

The best part of the film is also in a way the worst part as it becomes this satire against commercialism. But the way that it does this is partly through a giant sea of product placement. There is not a single scene in this film that does not contain at least one prominent product logo, and usually several. Even if IMDB trivia is to be believed and none of the placements were actually paid for, they are still ever-present and difficult to ignore. While it is part of the joke, it’s a joke that can easily wear out its welcome early on into the film. There’s also the take on the consumer culture of young people with low paying jobs but no fiscal responsibilities. Even though subliminal messages don’t actually work, within the world of the movie they work instantly, causing teenagers to throw their money at the latest fad tossed in by the record labels. But while the message is there, it’s not really enough to be taken seriously. Overall, the film is really a lot of fun especially when it’s not taken seriously. I especially enjoyed the part where Val insulted Aries Spears on his cut rate impressions. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Weird Science 1985

As things continue to slow down here despite my repeated assurances of getting back on track I have managed to watch another comic book film. I had seen this film when I was younger alongside several of John Hughes’ 80’s classics, I also became a fan of the Tales From the Crypt series several years later, and I also realized that there were several different variations of the Tales From the Crypt comic book including “Weird Science”, but I never made the connection that this was inspired by one of those EC comics until recently. I even remember watching the spin-off TV series for a while with Vanessa Angel replacing Kelly LeBrock. I do remember it being one of those early 80’s movies where computers can basically do anything even though 30 years later they’re still mostly just used for looking at cat pictures and writing about movies. While it was a fun nostalgia trip, I can say that it didn’t really hold up as being that impressive of a movie outside of Kelly LeBrock’s 80’s hotness.

In case you might not be familiar with this John Hughes classic, a couple of nerds create a magic woman named Lisa with their computer, some random government computer, and a Barbie doll that looks suspiciously like Kelly LeBrock. She has the ability to give them new clothes, money, new cars, and the attention of a few hundred of their fellow classmates while essentially being their property. But at the same time, she does care for them and wants to see them grow beyond needing her help. While she initially appears to be some sort of sex slave, she grows to become more of a big sister or hot mentor. There’s a scene early on where she more or less teaches Wyatt how to kiss, and she also plays at being arm candy for one or the other of the boys during several points in the film.

Look! It’s baby Tony Stark!

While at first glance, the film appears to be somewhat of a coming-of-age film about the two teens Gary and Wyatt, there doesn’t seem to be any real growth to the characters over the course of the film aside from a slight confidence boost. When Lisa appears, they have everything handed to them on a silver platter with the sole purpose of getting the two hot girls of the school to be their girlfriends even though they are already dating two other guys. It just so happens that those two guys are also bullies and one of them is Robert Downey Jr. The two girls don’t have much in the way of personality aside from a couple brief moments where they reveal they aren’t too happy with their current situation so that the audience feels better about rooting for them to switch to the heroes of the film. Even the self-confidence boosting moment is more of a practice in acting during one of the climactic moments when several motorcycle thugs burst into the house while Lisa tries to convince them to man-up and throw them out. But they continue to act like chickens until the lead thug starts to say things that only Lisa would have known, so they realize it’s essentially all a ploy and play along to become the heroes. Even Wyatt’s relationship with his older brother Chet is solved by Lisa turning Chet into a disgusting little toad through no real growth at all from Wyatt.

Kelly LeBrock in her 80’s glory.

One other thing I didn’t quite understand about the film was the relationship between Gary and Wyatt. Obviously Wyatt is a rich kid, but I didn’t quite understand where Gary fit in. They are both in high school, but Gary apparently stays over often enough that he has his own bed in Wyatt’s room. Also, the only scene with Gary’s parents involve Lisa freaking them out over Gary “tossing off” in the bathroom when he claimed to be “combing his hair”, something that I found quite amusing as I’ve never heard it referred to as “tossing off”, and apparently his parents are big enough Anglophiles that they knew what that meant, or just ran with it.

Loosely inspired by the Weird Science comic “Made of the Future”

There is a question especially looking at this film now as to whether or not this film is essentially about the objectification of women. Throughout the film Lisa repeatedly mentions how she “belongs” to Wyatt and Gary. There’s even a mention of a possibility of a trade of Lisa for the two douchebags’ girlfriends, and while Gary and Wyatt decline the trade to give up Lisa, they do agree to try and create a woman for the two guys which implies that they will still hold up their end of the bargain and give their girlfriends over to the two nerds.

I’m not sure I want to know whose bras those are.

But what the film is really about is more of just a party movie and a male nerd fantasy, and in that respect it still works out quite well. There’s plenty of Lisa showing up in several different fantasy roles with many very 80’s fashions like the aerobic leotard, the cut off sweatshirt, and the teased hair among many others. Kelly LeBrock is the real heart and soul of this film and without her cheeky performance as Lisa, this movie wouldn’t work at all. For now, it’s still a fun nostalgia trip into 80’s computer fantasy with some very cheesy computer graphics alongside a few great practical effects like the ever so memorable toad Chet. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

American Splendor 2003

Before I decided to watch this film I didn’t really know much about it. I knew it starred Paul Giamatti playing a bit of an average schlub, and that it was based on an indie comic book. But aside from that I knew nothing else. Watching the film I found it to be completely fascinating and unique. To try and explain it, it’s an adaptation of a mostly autobiographical comic book that combines dramatizations with actors as well as brief interviews with the actual author and some animated flourishes. I had never really heard the name Harvey Pekar before watching this even though I was vaguely aware of the name American Splendor. I found that while watching the film I was completely drawn to this very average and somewhat depressed guy and his story of his minor success. It was funny, it was touching in moments, but most of all it just felt very real.

One of the most fascinating things about this film is the use of the real life people portrayed in the film. It often cuts to this mostly white stage with the real Harvey Pekar doing narration for the film, but it’s not just narration for the story of the film, it also spends some time to comment about the film itself. One of the best moments was when there’s a scene with Harvey’s very nerdy friend with a very unusual speech pattern Toby played by Judah Friedlander. It then switches to a second camera that shows behind the scenes and we are introduced to the real Toby. It’s great because we get a chance to see how well Friedlander was able to match the look and sound of Toby, and the rest of the cast has the same level of similarities to their real life counterparts.

Along with the documentary moments, there was also the occasional use of animation in the style of R Crumb, especially as the seed of the comic book begins to grow inside of Pekar’s mind. They are often fairly simple moments, but are also quite effective. Paul Giamatti really helps encapsulate both the subtle, depreciating humor of Pekar along with his unique voice and personality ticks. There’s always this sense that Pekar just doesn’t have enough energy to stand up all the way straight, and yet he is able to lose his voice from shouting too much. He is a unique personality, he’s someone that gains a modicum of fame from his comics, but he never quits his mediocre job as a file clerk until right around the time of this film as they show his retirement party. He seemingly remains in a small apartment in Cleveland throughout his years as he lives as a borderline hoarder. He has no car and appears to relish the moments when he gets flown out to New York on David Letterman’s dime as it gives his comics a boost in sales.

The real pathos comes closer to the end of the film. At this point he’s on his third wife even though we only briefly saw his second. And a lot of the humor comes in with the idiosyncrasies of their personality quirks. Joyce has quite a few self-diagnosed illnesses, or at least the early stages or symptoms of these diseases, both physical and mental. Including food allergies and depression. She also diagnoses several of Pekar’s friends with varying mental disorders such as borderline autism, paranoia, and megalomania. But when she goes away to work on a project of her own, Pekar finds a lump which was the start of the events in their graphic novel Our Cancer Year. It’s a great moment that helps show the real strength of the bond they share that’s not always evident, as they spend much of their screen time either yelling at each other or at least having very different personalities. Joyce brings in a comic book artist to help get Pekar to detach himself from the process to help him get through the cancer treatments. That artist brings his young daughter Danielle, and while Pekar initially was against the idea, he sees the joy that Danielle brings to Joyce since they aren’t able to have kids themselves and agrees to the project as long as the artist continues to bring his daughter along. Not only that, but by the end of the film they end up essentially adopting Danielle themselves. Pekar isn’t always a character that you think you would care about, but seeing him go through this struggle and come out on top just makes you cheer for him.

The overall look of the film is also quite interesting. There is a dinginess that permeates almost everything except for the white room documentary scenes. The wardrobe generally looks like it has been worn longer than most people would wear their clothes. They aren’t obviously dirty, but there are small holes here and there, the furniture in Pekar’s apartment has cushions that are compressed with years of use and covered with scraps of paper and dishes. Everything feels almost like it’s under lit which makes it seem like he is either trying to hide the dirt, or is trying to save on electricity by using as few light bulbs as possible, or a combination of both. But by the end of the film, I was left with a deep curiosity to find out more about Pekar’s life as well as his death seven years after this film. It’s a tribute to the filmmakers as well as the writing of Pekar which inspired it that makes his extremely average existence feel extraordinary. Also, it’s a little mindboggling to find out that Danielle has grown up to become a bit of a goth artist. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Model By Day 1993

Every once in a while I run across a movie that I don’t really know anything about aside from the title, the year it came out, and the fact that it’s related to superheroes or based on a comic book. That’s all I knew about this film, and after watching it, I suddenly wanted to know a lot more about it, but couldn’t find anything else. All I know is that it’s supposedly a TV movie and the only air date I could find was on the Fox channel March 21, 1994, as well as vague (USA) release date of October 11, 1993 via IMDB. But the kicker is that this is very much an R rated film with a not-insignificant amount of nudity, some swearing, and noted Cinemax queen Shannon Tweed in a minor role. This would lead me to believe that it originally aired on Cinemax or a similar station, but I can’t find confirmation of that anywhere. This film is also noteworthy as the lead is an early role for Famke Janssen who would later go on to play Jean Grey in the X-Men films. I went in expecting a pretty bad film, and it was actually a lot more enjoyable than I expected. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a cheezy, slightly sleazy, made-for-TV movie made in the 90’s, but I had a lot of fun watching it, and Famke Janssen had a lot of charisma even back then.

If you couldn’t tell by the title of the film and what site you’re reading this review on, the story is about a famous supermodel Lex played by Famke Janssen who decides to become a vigilante at night who earns the nickname Lady X. This is right after her best friend slash roommate J gets carjacked while borrowing Lex’s car and has an unspecific eye injury that requires her to wear an eye patch for the whole movie and could ruin her chances at a modeling career. Shortly after she busts a few common criminals, a copycat Lady X starts making her way through the Russian mafia starting with the club owner that wasn’t getting along very well with Lex. Lex then gets caught up with a police detective working the case and a freelance hitman working for the Russian mafia to try and find out who the killer Lady X really is.

Surprisingly, this was based on an actual comic from an indie publisher.

The odd thing about this film is that at many points during the film, it feels like it’s halfway to a Cinemax after dark film. It never goes all the way to a soft-core sex scene, but it doesn’t shy away from having models run around topless, and the killer Lady X gives her first victim a little bit of a tease before killing him. Of course, this makes sense because she ends up being Shannon Tweed’s character. The bad part about that reveal is that Shannon really only has a small role at the beginning of the film, then disappears until the final reveal. Meanwhile, Lex’s roommate J spends plenty of time acting suspicious in a misdirect that’s supposed to make the audience think that she’s the killer Lady X. But instead, she was just trying to get a picture of the vigilante.

There are plenty of fun moments throughout the film alongside some completely ridiculous moments. Famke Janssen does a great job in the lead role, even buried within this TV movie it’s hard to deny her screen presence. There’s also plenty of odd criminal characters, like an Asian guy who prepares to bust some martial arts moves on Lady X, but instead just waggles his foot in front of her face as if he’s just trying to get her to smell it. Before she even becomes Lady X, there’s a couple German beach goons who come in and disrupt a photo shoot involving a camel and it’s up to Lex to kick some sense into them. Johnny is also an interesting character, he’s Tommy’s bodyguard as well as a hitman working for the Russian mafia ordered to kill Lady X. But since the mafia doesn’t even really trust Johnny, he ends up teaming with Lex to find the real killer.

Tell me you don’t see the resemblance.

When all is said and done, it’s difficult to actually call this a good movie. There’s just so much going on here; Lex and her new career as Lady X, a killer copycat that shows up seemingly a few days after she does, a police detective that’s on her friend’s original case as well as the Lady X case who ends up falling for Lex, the whole Russian mob angle with Tommy and Johnny, and to top things off it spends plenty of time supposedly behind the scenes of Lex’s modelling career. The tone is hard to get a real grasp on, it alternates between trying to empower women while at the same time exploiting them. For every time we get to see a woman kick some ass, we get to see a woman’s ass, or breasts, or a group of women in their underwear. Not to mention that besides Lex and J, none of the other models get names, or even lines. And the soundtrack is another reason to think that this was just one soft-core sex scene away from being Emmanuelle. Even the Lady X costume looks pretty ridiculous, it’s a purple helmet, sunglasses, boots, and a bustier, essentially it’s the Racer X costume with more cleavage. Meanwhile, the killer Lady X costume is almost the same only instead of the helmet and sunglasses, she just basically has a nylon over her face. It’s silly, it’s ridiculous, it’s cheesy, but there were plenty of moments that I really enjoyed. If you’re a fan of Famke Janssen, there are worse ways to spend an hour and a half. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

The Lone Ranger 1956

The more I look into the history of the Lone Ranger, the more I question my decision to include the Lone Ranger in my list of comic book heroes but not Zorro. They’re both period heroes that hide their identity behind masks. Neither one have super powers, they only have their trained fighting abilities to help them out, they also have their calling cards, with Zorro’s slashed Z and the Lone Ranger’s silver bullets. Also, neither one were originally comic books; Zorro started out as a serialized pulp novel while the Lone Ranger began as a radio drama. The one thing I can fall back on is that while Zorro transitioned into films well before it made it into a full fledged comic book in the late 40’s, the Lone Ranger became a comic strip in the late 30’s which were collected into comic books in the 40’s and eventually included original stories all before its first feature length film in 1956. This came out near the end of the long running TV show and included the two main stars of the series. I’m not familiar with the show myself, but I would imagine that it follows a fairly similar format as this film does. For the most part, it was a fun enough film that didn’t have anything wrong with it per se, but neither did it ever stand out as a great film.

Something else that this era of filmmaking tends to have an issue with, especially for Westerns, is the portrayal of Native Americans. Often they are shown as bloodthirsty savages that would just as soon scalp a cowboy as they would light a peace pipe with them. But aside from the broken English that they speak, they are portrayed relatively fair in this film. There’s one of the braves who is more aggressive towards the White Man and is named Angry Horse, but it’s also established several times that it’s the White Man who keeps breaking their treaties and promises. Their tribe can only be pushed so far until it’s time to push back. The tribe’s chief Red Hawk is reasonable towards the Lone Ranger and Tonto, but is also wary of them since there is someone trying to blame their tribe for attacks on the cattle of the local ranchers. Even Tonto gets a chance to hold his own during one of the fights, unfortunately it’s one where he’s greatly outnumbered and almost gets strung up before the Lone Ranger comes to his rescue and shoots the rope in classic gunslinger fashion.

There are quite a few interesting points about his character when compared to the more recent Lone Ranger film, though the recent one is extremely forgettable. Here, he is never once seen either without his mask or outside of a costume. Both films also involve a secret silver mine, though this one has a much simpler plan surrounding it. Here, Kilgore uses a cattle drive as a front to transport dynamite that he somehow tries to pull off as thunder to the local tribe. But he does have another part of his plan where his men actually do put on redface and pose as members of the tribe to frame them for killing the cattle. Clayton Moore handles the role of the Lone Ranger rather well, considering he’s had several years of experience in the role. He also was great when he donned his old prospector costume and plays on the sillier side of things, like when he questions a rodeo cowboy and his trick lasso. He gets right up next to the guy while the lasso encircles them both and only gets tangled up as he tries to leave.

The action beats are mostly few and far between, there is the big fight scene with several of Kilgore’s men and Tonto, though that’s rather one-sided. Later on, there’s also a one-on-one fight between Angry Horse and the Lone Ranger. Angry Horse has convinced some of the tribe to kidnap Kilgore’s daughter in retribution and the Lone Ranger has to best him in combat, or something along those lines. There’s also a bit of a mystery plot as the Lone Ranger and Tonto have to discover Kilgore’s entire plot. They enlist the help of Rodriguez who joins Kilgore’s men to help with the cattle drive. Unfortunately, while keeping an eye out for anything unusual to report back to them, he is basically caught overhearing about the TNT. But instead of just killing him right there, it follows him later that evening at the inn. He hears a knock on his door, which he keeps in front of him as he opens it, and is shot through the wall. Considering the present day perception of this series being aimed at children, it ends up being a more mature filmmaking choice that works quite well. But in the end, it still feels relatively simplistic. There are some nice strides towards cultural sympathy towards the Native tribes while still perpetuating the stilted dialogue. The movie has elements of a mystery, a western, and hints of a superhero or at least vigilante, but it only covers each of those genres superficially. It doesn’t do anything particularly wrong, but it also doesn’t do anything particularly well either. And for the record, it is for the moment available to watch on Hulu. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

From Hell 2001

Next up on the chopping block is the first of many Alan Moore adaptations, though I have covered most of the later ones already here. This is a fictionalized account of the Jack the Ripper murders in the late 1800’s in London’s East End. I will say that one thing this film did do for me is renew my interest in the actual Jack the Ripper case, at least for a few hours of Wikipedia and Google video searching. I find it interesting that last year or so there was someone who claimed to have used DNA evidence to “solve” the murder, and yet none of that was enough to make it into the Wikipedia pages a year later. The film is more of a thriller mystery with Johnny Depp put center stage with his slightly eccentric character, though much more dialed back than most of his characters in recent years post Jack Sparrow. I had heard mixed things about this adaptation, and I fall on the line that I thought it was greatly dumbed down for audiences even though I have no experience with the comic, but I was intrigued by the mystery slightly. And since this is a mystery film I will give warning that I will be discussing the killer as presented in this film in case you would rather watch the film and be surprised.

The film generally jumps between following Johnny Depp’s Detective Abberline and the group of prostitutes who become the victims of Jack the Ripper led by Heather Graham in a passable but still laughable lower class English accent where she plays the pretty one alongside four other more average looking “unfortunates” who are plagued by a couple rough pimps that don’t really offer protection from anyone but themselves. Depp is the one who leads the investigation and eventually solves the case, though he must keep the truth a secret for various reasons which are varying degrees of absurd, all while he occasionally gets high on opium to go on vision quests that will supposedly help him solve the murders.

The first issue with this film is basically everything surrounding Detective Abberline. Depp does a decent job at playing the detective, though the opium addiction doesn’t add anything interesting to his character at all aside from the chance to give the film some visual flair with his hallucinations, though none of them are honestly very interesting at all. On top of that, he feels out of place using a more modern style of detective work and criminal profiling. While it does line up that the police at that time did use many very similar methods of detective work still used today, there was still an air of modern sensibilities that felt out of place. There was also an odd sense of racism and classism surrounding the interactions between Depp and his higher-up, as he dismisses the initial hunch that it was a learned Englishman committing the crimes and suggests that it was a tradesman or a Jew tradesman. Though this is also somewhat reversed during the scene where there is graffiti on a wall that references Jews and the higher-up orders the writing washed off for fear that mob justice would go after the local Jewish in retaliation.

What does help the film along is the mystery aspect, though there are a few misdirects along the way which seemed like they were exactly that: simple misdirects rather than elements to add intrigue to the story as a whole. There was the obvious repeated use of the automatic stair release on the killer’s coach that also felt like a bit of audience hand-holding to spell out when it was the Ripper’s carriage even if it wasn’t always the Ripper riding in it when you’re able to see the man’s face. The explanation as a whole was also a bit convoluted and far fetched. To sum it up, the Prince of England liked to have dalliances with the underclass and would obscure his identity so he could mingle unnoticed, he ended up falling for a prostitute who he married and they had a child. Since this was a legitimate child and heir to the throne, the bureaucracy that protects the Royal family took the woman out of the equation and eliminated the prostitute witnesses one by one. But instead of just kidnapping/arresting them one by one or as a group, they use an elderly surgeon who uses it as an excuse to enact this ritual befitting the Freemasons. The same surgeon who has been giving advice to Abberline about the murders. It all just seemed a little too far fetched, though Ian Holm plays the role of William Gull excellently. He’s able to transition from the helpful surgeon to the dark eyed murderer fabulously.

As often happens with these types of movies, there has to be the addition of a romantic sub plot. And here it’s the relationship between Depp and Graham who was both far more attractive than the other unfortunates as well as the last to die, if she technically dies at all. While the film does leave a small amount of ambiguity, after the final murder where the body is completely mutilated, Depp finds a note where she was supposed to meet him at a specific pub. The note says that she was planning to take the infant heir from the orphanage and go to the small village where she grew up and had mentioned to Depp earlier in the movie. There was also another French prostitute that had joined their group near the end and was with Graham at the end who could have been killed in her place, but the final moment where we get to see Graham and a slightly older Alice as the infant had grown a few years is also possibly just from another one of Depp’s opium visions.

What is impressive about this film is the amount of detail that is unfortunately wasted to some extent. For the first four murders, the wounds are presented exactly as the records from the real Jack the Ripper killings show them to be. There are other moments as well such as the notations of the crime scene in the final murder are verbatim from the actual crime. Unfortunately, with all of the other dramatic liberties taken with the material, those moments of veracity ultimately don’t ring true unless you’re someone already familiar with either the case itself or the trivia section of this movie. The visuals also may have lost their impact over time, there were a few moments that caught my eye, like the flashing blade of the first killing, and the use of the colors green and red, though it wasn’t enough for me to read deeper into them. The film was enjoyable, but it’s not something that I forsee leaving a lasting impression on me. The biggest thing that it did for me was ignite an interest in the real case of Jack the Ripper which is still fascinating over a hundred years later, though this feels like a watered down version of what likely really happened. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

It’s the New Year and that means that it’s time to look back at the previous year that has passed. And along with most movie sites I’ll be taking a look back at the films that came out this year and sharing my top 8 films. That may sound like an odd number, but there have been only eighteen films by my count released here in the US this year that I would classify as a superhero film or was based on a comic book. In the recent boom of superhero and comic book films, this is actually the smallest number of films released since 2009 as the number has been steadily growing since shortly after 2000. And because of that, I was actually able to watch them all before the end of the year! There were some good films this year, some surprises, and several disappointments. But there are eight films that I wanted to share once again with you as my personal favorites.

#8 28 Minute Epic

This is an extremely indie film made for a mere $4,100 as mentioned in the opening credits. It’s a little bit Kevin Smith’s Clerks, a little bit James Gunn’s Super, and a little bit of Meet the Parents thrown in as two guys working at a porn shop have the worst day in their lives and the best day in their lives all rolled up into one. The humor wasn’t always a hit with
me, but it went places that I never would have expected it to go and I had a good time with it. Not only that, but it’s currently free to watch at their site 28MinuteEpic.com, it’s worth a shot.

#7 Batkid Begins

This is a documentary about a simple wish that ended up going viral and becoming an extraordinary event in San Francisco that was seen all over the world. The actual filmmaking behind the documentary isn’t anything all that special, but the story itself is just so captivating and touching that it makes it worth watching in and of itself. Miles is a young boy battling cancer whose wish was to be the real Batman. And the Make-A-Wish foundation just happened to get all the right people involved to make a child’s wish into something that we can all get behind in one way or another.

#6 Justice League: Gods and Monsters

This was one of three Warner Premier DC Animated movies that were released this year along side several other more kid-oriented DC Animated movies, it also marked the return of Bruce Timm as writer for this alternate universe Justice League. It had several interesting ideas and alternate histories of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, but much of it was lost on me as someone with only a passing knowledge of the expansive DC Universe. But it was still a quality animated release as the Warner Premier movies usually are.

#5 Avengers: Age of Ultron

This was ultimately a disappointment for a lot of people, and one reason why I didn’t give it a full written review on release was because I needed some time to let it sit and give it another watch before giving it a fair shake. That still hasn’t happened yet but even as a “disappointment” compared to the original Avengers which I consider the best superhero movie ever made, it’s still a pretty great movie. I don’t think I have to go too much into it right now, but since I haven’t done a written review, the link above goes to my appearance on the Lambcast where the film was discussed.

#4 Batman vs. Robin

I already mentioned Warner Premier and their DC Animated movies just a couple spots earlier, and this is one of their first real ongoing storylines aside from the loosely connected Justice League movies War and Throne of Atlantis. This focuses on the father/son relationship between Batman and his biological son Damian Wayne alongside the reappearance of the Court of Owls who may have had a hand in the death of Bruce’s parents. It has some interesting themes, great performances, and well done action sequences.

#3 Ant-Man

This movie had a pretty sordid history before it ever hit theaters. There was talk about this being Marvel’s first failure as it lost its writer director, fan favorite Edgar Wright in exchange for Peyton Reed who was probably best known for the movie Bring it On. But Reed and star Paul Rudd was able to bring together a great action/heist/comedy with some of the most amazing shrinking effects ever seen on film. One of the few downsides was the major underplaying of Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Pym in favor of a romantic sidekick.

#2 The Subjects

This movie was a complete surprise to me, it was another indie film made by writer/director Robert Mond that takes a very different look at super powers and superheroes. Here, eight strangers take part in a drug test that ends up giving them each different super powers. But they soon find out that learning to control these abilities is a lot more dangerous than the movies make it out to be and the movie takes on the tone of a thriller. It’s just such a different take that I completely fell in love with it. The low budget gets in the way in places, but I easily looked past it for the story and the concepts involved.

#1 Kingsman: The Secret Service

This movie was an early release this year and one of the first big success stories. I was already a fan of many of the adapted works of Mark Millar as well as the films of Matthew Vaughn and this just came together in all the right ways. The action was intense, the humor was spot on, and Taron Egerton as the lead was brilliant. Everything in this film came together as the right kind of jab at a James Bond movie for someone who has seen almost no James Bond movies.

So there’s my list, was there anything that I left out that you think I should have included? Leave a comment and let me know. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Tamara Drewe 2010

This is one of those movies where I end up drawing a bit of a blurry line as to what I consider a comic book movie and I realize that I don’t think I’ll ever come up with a set of criteria that won’t be too exclusive without also being too inclusive. But similar to Dick Tracy, Tamara Drewe actually started out its life as a weekly serialized comic strip that ran in the UK newspaper the Guardian starting in 2005. Then it was released in a collected form as a graphic novel in 2007 and then just a few years later it was turned into a movie. It’s a loose retelling of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd but that’s not really a story that I’m familiar with so any references and allusions to it would have been lost on me. There were some funny bits, but the more I think about the film, the less it really sticks with me.

The movie more or less follows a year in this small town in England where a famous writer lives on a little farm, and a young woman named Tamara Drewe comes back after her mom’s death to decide what to do with her mother’s house. She has a past with this town and many of the other characters in the film and she has grown up hot, after a nose job of course. And literally every male character wants to sleep with her. Not only that, but it seems to essentially be the entire focus of her character. She does have ambition where she wants to become a journalist, but there is really no momentum for that goal. Instead, it’s just used as a device for her to engage in a relationship with a man. Near the beginning, she goes to a concert where the band has a fight and essentially breaks up on stage over a women, and she mentions that she’s a journalist sent to interview the drummer. But instead of actually going through with an interview, it’s just an opening for them to start snogging. And later on in the film, she starts writing a book, entirely offscreen, and it only comes up again when she starts screwing the older, married writer Nicholas. Even with her introduction to the other characters, she comes to this writer’s retreat wearing a tight shirt and very short shorts and every man’s gaze is directed towards her along with a very overt symbolism where Nicholas pops open a bottle of Champagne right above his crotch when he sees her.

The annoying comic relief

Throughout the film, there were also a pair of characters that were quite possibly remnants of the Far From the Madding Crowd. They were two teenage girls with nothing better to do than gossip about their teen rag, fantasize about their favorite band, randomly egg cars, and sneak around eavesdropping on everyone in the neighborhood. They were generally annoying, had nothing at all to do with any of the characters minus a couple significant plot points, and yet we spend way too much time with them. The one bit of humor that was great, especially since it was entirely a background gag, was when the two of them are talking with each other, one is smoking a cigarette. She puts tosses it into the trash bin as they continue talking about something else, and when the trash can comes into frame again at the end of the scene, it’s on fire. There’s no mention or reference to it within the scene, it’s just a random thing happening in the background. Which is exactly what these two characters felt like they were in regards to the overall story, except for the fact that the film kept forcing them into the foreground.

From the original comic

Tamara Drewe is the main character of the film, and more or less the driving force of the story, except for the fact that her only reason to exist is to be the object of affection for almost literally every other man in the movie, minus the walking reference to the source material: the struggling writer trying to pen a novel about Thomas Hardy, or biography, or something like that, it’s not entirely clear nor does it really matter. Aside from him, there are three men in the movie. There’s the farm boy played by Luke Evans. His family used to own Tamara’s house, and he used to sleep around with Tamara back when she had a big nose, and it’s pretty obvious that they will end up together from the moment they first see each other. There’s the drummer, played by Dominic Cooper in a very stereotypical version of the rock star who lets fame and wealth go to his head. And there’s Nicholas who is really more of a main character than Tamara in terms of his character development and arc. He’s a writer, but doesn’t really care for the art of writing anymore, his novels are popular trash. He’s a long time adulterer who doesn’t really seem to care for his wife outside of her cooking skills, even though he’ll go straight into a routine apology every time he gets caught with his dick out, so to speak. And even though there are several flashbacks and moments where it seems like Tamara and Nicholas would have nothing to do with one another, there’s always that little bit of obvious tension between them. Like when Tamara takes her drummer boyfriend to Nicholas’s book signing, where it’s immediately obvious that the only reason she is there is to rub him in the face of Nicholas, even though nothing of the sort is remotely said about it. Honestly, the most interesting character dynamic is the one between Nicholas, his wife, and the struggling writer.

There are several visual cues to her nasal fixation before the reveal of her nose job.

There are a few touches of visual flair spread throughout the film. There are handfuls of split screen moments that may or may not have been intended to help simulate the look of a comic panel. They’re often used in conjunction with flashbacks which unfortunately often choose to focus on Tamara’s large, hooked nose which also paints her even more in a negative and shallow light as someone who’s only focused on her looks. There are also a few surprises near the end of the film, they’re not exactly twists since they don’t have any impact on the rest of the story, but there are a few things that you might not expect to see happen in this kind of story. And while I feel like I’ve been railing against this film for most of the review, it’s not a failure of a film. It’s entertaining to watch, it has its funny moments, but the more I thought about it and the more I broke it down, the more it came up lacking. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Heavy Metal 2000 2000

It’s been a while since I’ve participated in a blogathon that I didn’t host, but when I saw the O Canada Blogathon over at Speakeasy all the way back in October I figured I could come up with something Canadian to join in. Although my first two thoughts were shut down for various reasons, I knew there was a very obscure Canadian independent film called Sidekick, but it’s also so obscure that I’m having trouble getting my hands on it. I also knew about a French/Canadian production called Crying Freeman, but looking into it I realized it was based on a manga rather than a comic and I’m holding off on those for the moment. So last on my list was this one. I had watched the first Heavy Metal last year but hadn’t heard good things about the sequel and since I didn’t care for the original all that much I didn’t have high hopes for this one. And for the most part my fears were right.

When compared to the first film the biggest difference besides the difference nearly 20 years makes is that instead of being an anthology film of several shorts linked together, this film is comprised of a single story. There isn’t any giant green orb, instead there’s just a green shard that may or may not actually have any connection to the orb. Likely not since Heavy Metal itself isn’t specifically an ongoing comic with a single story, or even a series of interconnecting stories. But instead it’s more of a magazine that has collections of comics, stories, and artwork so it does actually make sense that this film doesn’t directly follow the previous Heavy Metal movie in any way, shape, or form. But besides the story connection, the voice work also suffers quite a bit. Where the original had a voice cast that had many connections to SCTV at the time, including the likes of John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Harold Ramis, the sequel’s claim to fame as far as voice actors go came down to Michael Ironside as the voice of the lead villain and Billy Idol in a smaller role.

The story of the film also wasn’t exactly taken from the pages of Heavy Metal, but was a comic called The Melting Pot by Simon Bisley, Eric Talbot, as well as Kevin Eastman who is most well known as co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It wasn’t until several years after the film was made that there was an extended version of the comic released as the entirety of an issue of Heavy Metal magazine. The lead protagonist of the film, Julie was drawn based on Kevin Eastman’s wife at the time Julie Strain in both the comic and for the film, not only that but she also voiced the character. Unfortunately, Strain is best known as an adult and softcore film actress and that level of acting definitely shows in her portrayal of Julie here. She’s generally flat with very little emotion or believability. Michael Ironside is the high point of the voice cast, as would be expected, but he’s really hamstrung by the dialogue that tends towards amateurish attempts at adult humor then end up feeling more childish than actual mature adult humor. As the villain Tyler, Ironside has lines like “I could say I’ve died and gone to heaven, but that wouldn’t be true” or mentioning how a fight to the death really makes him horny. There are other similar moments of cheesy adult humor, there’s a hapless engineer who gets kicked off of Tyler’s ship but not killed for some reason, and reluctantly joins Julie and her quest. While they are at the big spaceport, he ends up buying a robotic sex doll whose features take up way too much screen time in return for a very silly oral sex joke when their ship is crashing.

Tyler also had way too much hair for having Michael Ironside’s voice.

The other slight departure from the first film is the surprising lack of nudity. Where it was a very frequent occurrence in the first film, this film only has about four relatively brief moments of nudity and sexuality, and only one of those comes close to a moment of actual sex. Instead, the gore factor has been upped quite a bit as Tyler is basically a crazed, bloodthirsty maniac who kills whenever he feels like it. The actual story barely even seems to matter, or make much sense for that matter. It just seems like an excuse to string together a bunch of action scenes together with Tyler at the forefront. Essentially he has found a key to the fountain of immortality, but the key makes him go insane. Julie happens to be from a planet where some of the water from the fountain was hidden ages ago which allows Tyler’s scientist to extract this water from the bodies of the planet’s inhabitants and create a potion of strength and regeneration that Tyler swills any time he gets injured and/or nearly killed. Somehow he also manages to become leader to a giant tribe of lizardmen and it all doesn’t make much sense until everything is somewhat explained at the very end.

It doesn’t take a whole lot of time before Julie’s costume gets ripped to show a lot more skin.

The animation itself is a combination of CGI and traditional animation, where the CGI is mostly used for all of the space scenes including all the various spacecraft. The traditional animation is fairly standard, and the CGI is ok for its time but doesn’t really hold up anymore. There’s also many moments of explosions that are either done with CGI or stock footage, but they are used in conjunction with the traditional animated backgrounds and do not sync up at all. It is unfortunate that this film didn’t live up to its potential. There is room for a more adult animated story, especially one with sci-fi elements, but this had a weak story, a weak voice cast, and couldn’t even live up to its predecessor. It’s not a complete failure, once the exposition finally starts kicking in and you can start to understand what’s been happening during the first two thirds of the film there are some worthwhile concepts, and a bit of a surprise twist. But for the most part it’s really not worth tracking down for any reason, even the music was a bit of a letdown. There were a few bands that I recognized and enjoyed, but none of the music felt very iconic and it was rarely integrated into the scenes very well. In fact, there’s an early scene where Julie’s planet is getting attacked and it should be an emotional scene as Julie cries out for the people who are dying around her, but when it’s backed by a death metal song the tone feels much more like an action movie that’s laughable rather than devastating. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Friday Foster 1975

As February nears its end, it’s time for me to wrap up my short lived celebration of Black History Month in superhero and comic book movies since this is absolutely the last one that I could find. It’s a mid-seventies Blacksploitation film starring the great Pam Grier along with a very impressive cast for the time and film company possibly most well known for their exploitation films like Blacula. The film itself was based on a serialized comic strip of the same name that ran for just four years and actually ended the year before the film was made. Considering I don’t have an extensive background at watching many exploitation films aside from the parody Black Dynamite I don’t have much to go off of, but this ended up being a rather fun watch. Even without the experience of those films to go off of, it was bogged down a bit by a rather nonsensical and drab plot as well as a lack of any notable action or nudity which I would have thought would be more present in one of these types of films.

Friday Foster is a fashion photographer who is very much like Lois Lane except that she isn’t supposed to be an investigative reporter, things just seem to happen whenever she’s around. When she goes to take a photo of the arrival of the richest Black man in the world, Blake Tarr and there happens to be an assassination attempt that she gets sucked in the middle of. It doesn’t help that one of her friends just so happens to be dating one of the men who tried to kill Tarr, dies when he gets home to her, and she gets killed a few days later at a fashion show while Foster is there. One of the more frustrating things about this mystery plot is that it’s not really built as a mystery at all. Yes, there is a mystery that you don’t know who is behind these killings or what their end goal is, but there aren’t any clues or leads. Instead, Foster just goes from one mishap to another and doesn’t really get an solid answers. And any of the answers that she does get end up being complete and total red herrings when the plot is finally revealed at the end.

From the original comic strip by Jim Lawrence.

What was rather underwhelming coming into this film was the sense of the exploitation genre that it seemed to very much be a part of. While there were a few moments of nudity, none of the scenes were presented as being very titillating, even though a couple were very unneeded. There were two moments that were part of the fashion shows where we get to see the models changing and undressing backstage and both of those moments are presented very clinically, as if it were just a model casually changing her clothes without any added presence or flair. The best use of nudity was likely the shower scene, but while it was presented with more sensuality, it was also shown a little more tastefully, and as Foster was being attacked it added a sense of extra vulnerability as she ran out of her apartment in nothing but a towel. The violence is another thing, there are plenty of people getting shot, stabbed, and otherwise killed in this film, and while there aren’t any spurting buckets of blood or gore, there is that sense of danger and mortality where pretty much any character besides Foster had a chance that they might get killed.

Really, the most impressive thing about this film is its cast. The main heavy that was stalking Foster for most of the first half of the film was played by Carl Weathers just before he would go on to play Apollo Creed even though here he doesn’t even manage to get a single line of dialogue. There’s also Scatman Crothers as a rather amourous old minister, the Love Boat’s Ted Lange in a small role as well as the Millionaire from Gilligan’s Island Jim Backus, and in probably the best role Eartha Kitt as the head fashion designer in charge of this big fashion show. She very much just plays up her typical broad Eartha Kitt persona but it is still a treat to see on screen. And Pam Grier herself in the lead role shows off her charisma and charm in the best way possible. It would be a lot harder to watch this film if there was anyone else playing Friday Foster.

While most of the film’s plot revolves around this convoluted murder conspiracy plot involving the wealthiest Black man in the world, some random Black senator, a minister, and some other random high profile Black leaders which are essentially just referred to as such. Blake Tarr believes the senator is behind it, the senator believes Tarr is, and we ultimately find out that it’s basically just some random guy who has been working with both of them. But he’s also the most unassuming background character where there was no hint whatsoever that he could have been behind everything. It would have made just as much sense if they would have caught Carl Weathers and pulled his mask off to reveal this guy and cue him saying “And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for you meddling photographers!” Aside from this “mystery” plot, there is plenty revolving around Friday Foster’s love life, but that’s all played up for humor since pretty much every guy in this film besides her boss and the Apollo Creed who’s trying to kill her wants to date her. She hooks up with Blake Tarr in the middle of the film, she has a random pimp who has the hots for her, and she has a romantic/friendly relationship with the private detective she’s working with played by Yaphet Kotto.

Friday Foster and “Black Howard Hughes” Blake Tarr

Before I wrap things up here, I did want to make a mention of the soundtrack. For the most part, it is exactly what you would expect from a 70’s Blacksploitation film with the disco influenced rock that would almost fit just as well in a porn movie. But the problem is through the overuse of the guitar riffs through a talk box that often completely overpowers whatever else is going on in the scene. There’s also several instances of the main Friday Foster theme song, which again is good in its own right, but the repetitiveness doesn’t do the song or the movie any favors. Even with those downsides and the problems with the plot, the fun of the cast and especially Pam Grier in the lead made this an enjoyable watch for myself and worth a look if you’re curious about the Blacksploitation era even if there may be plenty of much more worthy examples out there. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night 2010

I’m continuing my two pronged attack of watching horror movies based on graphic novels as well as movies from 2010 with yet another film that for some reason wasn’t on my list. When this movie first came out, it came and went without me hearing very much about it one way or the other aside from a very vague idea that it was a pretty bad film and that it starred Brandon Routh, one time Superman. The film surpringsly reminded me quite a bit of Constantine and the more I looked into it, the more similarities popped up at me. Like Constantine, Dylan Dog was based on a comic book about a supernatural investigator who wasn’t really supernatural himself. The film changed several aspects of the comic including moving the locale from London to New Orleans, changing the sidekick significantly, and changing the darker tone and social commentary to more of an action mystery. They both even have Peter Stormare in a small role as well as a character named Gabriel. On the downside, Constantine is a much more visually stylistic film while this film tries to fall on the comedic noir side of things which is an incredibly odd choice and doesn’t even manage to do that very well. And it’s a shame because it is directed by Kevin Munroe who did a great job on the 2007 animated TMNT.

Dylan Dog jumps into the story where he has already given up his profession as supernatural mediator more or less. Instead of giving us an origin story, it has him years or possibly just months after giving up that role and becoming much more of a traditional private detective who generally just takes pictures of infidelity. It’s not until a random murder of a rich, old, white guy by a werewolf followed shortly by the murder of his sidekick that brings him back into the game. In the world of Dylan Dog there are basically three varieties of supernatural: The vampires who are also referred to as Truebloods, the werewolves, and the zombies. And apparently New Orleans is absolutely crawling with them, but there’s still the trope that the undead have to keep their presence a secret from the rest of the world, despite the fact that there are enough zombies in the city to have a bustling “chop shop” dedicated to replacing rotting limbs, and zombie-specific restaurants and supply depots. And the zombies also generally don’t have any way to hide their rotting appearance and smell the way that the vampires and werewolves do.

From the original comic with his slightly insane partner Groucho.

Like many of these types of movies, there is an audience surrogate by way of the daughter of the murdered old man, i.e. someone for Dylan to explain the world of the movie to. But if that weren’t enough, it also brings his murdered sidekick back to life as a zombie a little less than halfway through the movie so he can have yet another audience surrogate to further explain the rules of the undead. His sidekick is played by Sam Huntington who was also his sidekick of sorts when Routh played Superman and Huntington played Jimmie Olsen. In this film, he plays a mix of Olsen and Shia Lebeouf’s Chas from Constantine. They even wear practically the same type of outfit with that silly cap no one in their right mind actually wears in real life outside of 1920’s newsboys. And if that sort of exposition wasn’t enough, there’s also plenty of noir-esque narration from Routh to fill in any more details that they may have left out. The only problem is, Routh doesn’t really have the type of voice that benefits that style of narration. Instead of giving it a noir feel, it’s much more dry and ultimately boring.

One of the few smartly framed moments.

On top of the entire undead world that the film is introducing, there’s also this overarching mystery surrounding the death at the beginning of the movie and this mysterious missing artifact called the Heart of Belial. The biggest problem is that the mystery is not the type of mystery that the audience can solve. It’s the type of mystery where Dylan basically bounces from plot device to plot device where he is told point blank the next piece of the puzzle, then when he thinks he has all the pieces, the film throws in a twist that turns everything he knows upside down. There’s a relationship between a vampire and a werewolf, he visits a random friendly vampire who just straight up tells him and the audience everything they need to know at that point, and it’s all followed by two twists slash betrayals that essentially come out of nowhere. There’s Taye Diggs playing the hipster vampire lord who came into power after Dylan’s fiancee was killed. Her death was the inciting event that led to Dylan giving up his supernatural practice and Diggs also reveals that he was the one behind it in order to play Dylan get rid of the vampire elders at the time. Not only that, but it’s also revealed at the very end that the girl that hired him comes from a long line of monster hunters as was the one who wanted to release this world destroying demon Belial so that he can destroy all the undead for her. And since the movie had been building up this “relationship” between her and Dylan, the expected move would be for her or Dylan to realize her mistake and force one of them to kill her, since killing the one who resurrected Belial is the only way to contain him. But even that isn’t done, instead she is just killed by what feels like a random pack of werewolves even though they were technically connected to everything.

I mean, you can’t mistake the similarity as accidental.

There’s just so many things this film does wrong that it’s hard to cope with it all. And the worst part is that it’s not an awful movie. The acting for the most part is pretty flat, especially from Routh, the girl whose character and actress name are unmemorable and not even worth looking up, and Diggs. Sam Huntington’s role is a little fun as he has to cope with being the undead, but not one of the cool undead, just one who is hard to kill. He fills the role that’s a mix between the complete comic relief of movie Constantine’s Chas with the durability of TV Constantine’s Chas. The special effects weren’t anything to write home about either. The look of the werewolves felt much closer to the 80’s Teen Wolf than anything done past 2000. There were hints of interesting cinematography here and there, but overall the film was just uninteresting. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Vampirella 1996

Continuing on into Graphic Horror March, I decided to go a little ways back and check out this 90’s B-movie based on a comic that I know very little about except for the very iconic-and-barely-there costume that the main character wears. This was a Roger Corman production two years after his only unreleased movie the Fantastic Four and directed by Jim Wynorski. The film is more or less what you might expect from a Roger Corman production, it was made on the cheap, the acting is passable, there’s a couple explosions, and there’s a couple moments of gratuitous nudity. For the most part the plot was nonsensical as was the costume design. It never devolved into the so-bad-it’s-good territory, but there wasn’t much in the film that was good enough to latch onto. It was a bizarre mix of a space movie, a revenge story, a vampire movie, and cop movie all rolled into one, but all of the elements of the film were just half-assed and unmemorable.

To start things off, Vampirella looks more like a low budget sci-fi film as it takes place in space. Actually, it’s quite a bit reminiscent of Superman’s origin with a handful of things switched around. Here Zod and his cronies are replaced by Vlad and his cronies. And to make things even more spectacular, Vlad is played by Roger Daltry. And while Zod-err Vlad is being arrested and ready to be sent into space vampire jail, he breaks free and kills the entire high council before hijacking a space ship and heading off to Earth. Vampirella is the step daughter of the council elder so she takes the logical step of following them to Earth to enact her revenge. But this is where things get a little weird and aren’t exactly explained until later in the film, she ends up getting stuck along the way on Mars and has to hibernate for three thousand years before hitchhiking back on a manned mission to Mars. There’s also a side plot where the son of Van Helsing is part of this high tech, militarized operation out to rid the world of vampires and a Queen of the Damned-esque bit where Daltry is moonlighting as a Las Vegas rock star. But at its heart this film is just a basic vampire hunter movie mixed with a bit of a revenge tale.

Daltry’s Vlad at his Vegas show. No idea why he’s made up like that.

One of the first noticeable things about this film is the awful choices in wardrobes. While on Drakulon, the fashions are ridiculously mismatched. Vlad is wearing a puffy pirate shirt with a leather vest, one of the elders is wearing a toga that looks like it was made out of some awful curtains while another one is wearing the equivalent of a high school production’s version of Merlin’s magic robes complete with the stitched on moon and stars. On top of all that, Vlad’s minions look like they’re dressed ready to go to an 80’s hair metal concert. And when Vampirella finally makes it to Earth, we get to see her in her “iconic” outfit that barely resembles how she’s represented in the comic. And while it’s entirely possible that recreating that outfit exactly would be completely impractical to move around in without popping out of it every few minutes, what they ended up with looked more like an orange vinyl cross between a bikini and suspenders with a cut that was very unflattering to Talisa Soto’s attractive body. And if that wasn’t enough, she refuses to wear anything else besides an overcoat for the entire rest of the movie. What’s even more bizarre is that there seem to be production stills with Talisa Soto wearing a much more comics-accurate costume that actually looks quite good, which is baffling why they went with the one that appears in the movie.

She seems as baffled by her costume as he is.

It doesn’t help that Vampirella doesn’t start off on a good foot when she gets to Earth. While she does very randomly rescue a nerd holding a very early 90’s computer for some reason and give him a thrill of a lifetime, it never makes sense that he figures out that she is a vampire and spells it out with constant Freudian slips before coming up with her comic book name after she leaves. Her name is Ella and she’s a vampire, therefore Vampirella. In fact, she basically never refers to herself by this name throughout the entire movie, but everyone else seems to come to this conclusion on their own. And when she discovers the first minion, he appears to be leading a very normal life as a schoolteacher and professor. He has a wife and kids and appears to be making an honest living when she doesn’t care and kills him anyway. It’s entirely plausible that he has been killing people to feed off of their blood since the film doesn’t present any other alternative, but it also doesn’t allow him to offer any alternative. The same situation happens when we meet the other supposed hero of the film, Adam Van Helsing and his team of operatives called Purge. He interrupts her first attempt at killing Vlad and captures her while two of his goons appear to be ready to rape her during transport. It’s not until later on when the two obviously fall for each other because of reasons.

Seriously, why couldn’t they have used the one on the left?

It’s fairly easy to pick this film apart, there’s even this extremely odd plan of Vlad’s where he is using Drakulon technology to harness these invisible satellites that he has somehow placed in orbit all across the globe. When activated, the satellites would shoot out these carbon particles to create nuclear winter, aka they will make the Earth go dark so that the vampires can roam free. There’s a few other mini-subplots like this that don’t really contribute to the film very much, like the officer of Purge who doesn’t trust Vampirella until the very end after she proves herself. Or the high tech sun gun that they spend an awful lot of time setting up but only use once for what basically amounts to a gag where the nerdy scientist bags a kill. And for a film where the main character is known for wearing next-to-nothing, there’s not very much nudity either. There are only a couple moments and they are fairly brief and not all that titillating. As with most of these types of films, the acting from everyone is extremely flat with very little emotion. The fight scenes are nothing to speak of, and while Talisa Soto looks great, it’s very difficult to look past that ridiculous outfit with the completely pointless white collar. Truly nothing to speak of. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Her first issue cover drawn by Conan legend Frank Frazetta

Danger Diabolik 1968

There’s one genre of superhero movies that I don’t have very much experience in just yet and that is the 60’s era of Eurospy movies. There was a large number of these pseudo James Bond-esque spy movies that are all over the place. Some of them involve masked spies, some involved less heroic protagonists, some were based on European comics from the time, and then there’s this one that combines all three of those. Diobolik was an Italian comic created by Angela and Luciana Guissani in ’62 where it ran for several years before this film was optioned by noted producer Dino De Laurentiis (and many years afterwards). The film also has the recognition of being the last televised episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 excluding the recently Kickstartered reboot series. But knowing that, it was surprisingly much more entertaining and watchable than most movies featured on MST3K. It was incredibly bizarre at times, but the director Mario Bava had a great visual eye, and the film had a fun mix of comedy and innuendo befitting an Austin Powers movie without the overt winks to the audience.

Diabolik himself is essentially what Batman would be if he were a master criminal rather than a master vigilante. He has a literal cave filled with gadgets, an elaborate safe, as well as a few 60’s era accouterments like a giant, circular, rotating bed and double rainfall showers with mod deco hanging frosted glass that are just big enough to cover the naughty bits. The film itself centers around three different heists that become increasingly more elaborate and difficult as well as one more random bit where he blows up several tax records buildings.

Going through some of the individual heists there are plenty of fun moments. The first heist seems like a typical set up for a skilled thief, the government is transporting ten million dollars in newly printed US currency, but they’re using a decoy. The armored car merely has $10M in blank bills while the actual money is placed in an expensive looking Rolls Royce driven by three officers dressed as members of high society. But Diabolik is on top of it and blows a Joker-esque plume of colored smoke and lifts the Rolls with a giant net and a crane. The second heist probably gets the most screen time where Diabolik goes after this giant emerald necklace for his love and partner Eva which is holed up in this fancy castle surrounded by dozens of guards even though we only really see about five. The final one is the most ridiculous as it involved much of the country’s gold reserves melted into this giant 20 ton ingot to be transported by train. Diabolik goes through this elaborate plan involving several different explosions and an underwater scuba craft plus a dozen or so balloons to steal the ingot.

From the original comic

What does work well throughout this film is Bava’s visual style. Nearly everyone in this film doesn’t seem like they’re just standing around, instead it seems like they are all deliberately posed for maximum artistic effect. The sets were also chosen for their stylistic flair rather than any utilitarian aspects. It feels very 60’s with plenty of vivid color, geometric shapes, and sharp lines. The women also tend to display plenty of skin without any actual nudity. Eva herself plays an indirect role in most of the heists either as a look out, the one scoping the scene, or the getaway driver. When things get too hairy, Diabolik usually tells her to run away, but she’s also the one who tends to be the one to come back if Diabolik himself gets in a little too deep. As a character, Diabolik is an odd creature. He’s a man of very few words, he doesn’t even speak until about 20 minutes into the movie. He plays it cool and loose, but he’s also not hesitant to gun someone down. He is supposed to be likable in a way, but he’s just robbing for the fun of it. There isn’t the Robin Hood aspect where he’s stealing from criminals, instead he’s stealing from the government who seems to be fairly inept, but isn’t portrayed to be corrupt at all. The only bit of “good” that he does is when they put a million dollar reward out on him, he retaliates by blowing up all the tax buildings with the tax records so the country doesn’t have to pay their taxes.

The music from Ennio Morricone who just won his first Oscar this year was a lot of fun, though it did occasionally get repetitive. There were about three main themes that would go back and forth, from the action spy theme to the sexy time theme as well as the odd 60’s beach party style theme. Plus, every time Diabolik’s car would come on screen, he would get his own great little guitar riff. Diabolik’s costume was also rather unusual. It was essentially a full body, black scuba suit with the area where the goggles would be cut out like a reverse domino mask, and he also had an alternate white costume that he used in the emerald necklace heist so he wouldn’t stand out against the white walls of the castle as he was scaling them. The effects and stunts tended to be hit and miss, there was quite a bit of obvious green screen during most of the interior driving shots, while the long shots featured a couple nice looking Jaguars. All in all, it was a very fun watch, from all the incredible visual elements to the self-effacing comedy from the government agents. It felt quite a bit like an inspiration at times for Austin Powers, especially during the scene where they are literally naked underneath piles of loose money. It’s worth a watch either by itself, or at least via the MST3K episode. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Round three of my current project of superhero podcast reviews where I’m taking a closer look at some of the many superhero and comic book movie podcasts out there and seeing how they align with my own tastes. I’m still going with my regular listens though this time it’s a much more recent show having debuted within this past year. I generally listen to a lot of different podcasts, mainly indie movie podcasts, but I’m always looking to grow my subscription list so if you have or know of a superhero-focused podcast, primarily on the movie side of things, give me a shout in the comments or on Twitter so I can make it a future review.

Meanwhile…

The Basics

Website: Meanwhilepodcast.Libsyn.com
Episode count (as of 6/11/16): 17
Episodes listened to: 12
Release schedule: Weekly, typically on Wednesdays
Episode Length: between 45 minutes to 1:15
Audio Quality: Clear
Language rating: PG-13 with occasional swearing depending on the guest
Spoilers: Yes
Production format: A single friendly discussion specifically focused on the serial or movie at hand with a single break for a produced comedy commercial related to the feature.

The Format

Host James Thompson brings on a different guest for each episode as he works his way chronologically through every notable comic book movie ever made, starting with the movie serials from the 30’s and 40’s, he’s currently made it to the 70’s and into the feature films. The tone of the episode can vary from guest to guest, but it’s usually a very lighthearted examination of the feature and you can tell that most of the guests are his real life friends and they have been recorded live rather than over Skype which always gives a more personable feel to it. It’s not always just jokes as he does do his research to bring in interesting tidbits of information here and there. The commercials are also a nice bit of fun that break up the conversation a little bit and it helps that James has a voice that captures that old-timey radio spirit.

Comics vs Movies

It’s still early in the show’s life but he’s already managed to cover a great deal of variety covering all of the serials based on comic books (excluding the Shadow and Dick Tracy since those started as radio and a comic strip respectively) and hitting a wide range of comic book movies from the late 60’s from the campy Batman to the campy Danger Diabolik and even the campy Barbarella. Ok, maybe the 60’s was primarily camp, but the genres were varied in their camp. While most of the discussion is focused on the feature, Thompson spends some time talking about the origins of the comic book and some of the differences between the film and the comic. One of the more interesting episodes was one on Blackhawk with Michael Sullivan who was old enough to have actually read Blackhawk comics as a kid in the 50’s and shares some of his first hand experiences.

The Verdict

As with the previous two reviews, James has also been a guest on my own Filmwhys podcast, but unlike the others I have also been a guest on his show where we discussed Danger Diabolik. James is a great guy so I’m a little biased, but what really sold me into his show is how much it feels like how I started this site. He has a specific goal in mind and it’s a slightly narrower focus than mine, but also stricter since he’s going in chronological order. I’ll be very curious to see how his perspective on these films changes as he gets to see them evolve with a much clearer insight as to where they came from. Even though this is a relatively recent show, James has been a podcaster previously so he brings that experience to this show so that it feels much more like a fully formed show rather than how most shows this young do.

Meanwhile… Subscribed

Filmwhys Spotlight where Bubbawheat shines a light on an underappreciated superhero film through the eyes of the fans who love it. This time around we are discussing the Edgar Wright theatrical bomb that is now a cult favorite with several of its biggest fans. Joining me are Stefan Gagne, a webnovelist whose work can be found at StefanGagne.com, Amy Taylor, writer and director of the webseries Jess Archer Versus which can be found at their YouTube channel, Debbie Rolf, podcaster who can be heard on her podcast You Haven’t Seen?!, and Nikhat Zahra, blogger and podcaster who can be heard on her podcast Across the Universe, the Chicks with Accents and her currently inactive film blog Being Norma Jean.

Click here to listen, or as always you can listen and subscribe to the show through iTunes, Stitcher, GooglePlay Music, or PodOmatic and as always I appreciate it if you give the show a like, thumbs up, and a review however you listen. I also have a Filmwhys page in the main menu of this site where you can read the origins, find information on how to be a guest on the show, and also the show archives where the shows go to (eventually) after they are rotated off of the regular PodOmatic feed. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

Wrinkles aka Arrugas 2011

Going full on into animation month here as I have decided to jump back and forth between animation geared for adults and those geared for kids. After checking out the latest kid’s Lego Justice League film I decided to check out this Spanish animated drama about an old folk’s home. And even though the original language track is often preferred by cinephiles, when I saw that Martin Sheen was in the English voice cast I decided to watch the English dub. And while I didn’t really know anything about this film aside from a couple recommendations and a quick mention of Alzheimer’s, I was surprised how much I loved this film. It alternates between making you laugh and making you cry in a heartbeat, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Wrinkles centers on Emilio, an elderly man who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and has gotten to the point where his son and his son’s family are no longer able to cope with his bouts of not realizing what’s going on. So they place him in a home for the elderly where he becomes roommates with a friendly con-artist named Miguel who shows him the ropes after getting a 10 from him that he claimed he was collecting for the home. Miguel essentially takes Emilio under his wing, but there’s also an underlying sense that he needs someone else there who can appreciate his antics like sending a woman off in the wrong direction towards the telephone to watch as she soon forgets where she’s going.

What this film does quite expertly is how it turns from showcasing the humorous nature of these situations and conditions to the sad reality of them and it does so on a dime. One moment you’re laughing along with Miguel as this woman looks back and forth between two doors on the opposite side of this hallway, but it lingers just long enough for it to sink in and make you recognize the loniness of this woman who wants to call her family who doesn’t visit nearly often enough. The home is filled with these colorful characters whose mental ailments are presented as being quirky, like the goofy looking old man who merely repeats the last thing someone says, or the old woman who sits by her window fantasizing that she’s on the Orient Express. And the film itself indulges in those fantasies, showing us what they see through their mind’s eye where we get to see this young woman on a train with a cigarette in a long holder. Or when Emilio himself sees his young wife and son during their visit to the beach via a photo on his nightstand.

Very similar designs are used in the movie, only we also see Emilio and Miguel as conductors.

But what really makes this film stand out is the progression between Emilio and Miguel’s friendship across the film. During their introduction, Miguel sees Emilio as another mark as he cons a ten out of him. And afterward, he’s mainly seen as an audience for his pranks and cons, someone else who can be in on the joke. But over time it develops into more than that until we get the moment where Miguel spends his entire stash of money he’s conned over the years to get a convertible so they can have a night out on the town, only it’s ended abruptly because out of the three of them, only Emilio has ever driven but his condition gets the better of him. And in another moment of humor followed quickly by shock, when asked if he’s driving on the wrong side of the road, he decides that he should get out to check. It ends on a sweetly sad note with a touch of Groundhog’s Day as Miguel finally rights some of his previous wrongs before realizing how much he really has grown to care for Emilio.

While it’s tough to judge how a film presents a disease like Alzheimer’s if you’re someone who doesn’t have any first hand experience with it, the film is almost always shown from Emilio’s perspective where you can see some of the ways that the disease messes with your mind. One of the most interesting scenes is during gym, which also has one of the best moments of humor with the attractive female nurse followed by this poignant reminder of this disease slowly and silently eating away at Emilio. When they are passing the ball around to each other as exercise, without warning Emilio’s brain stops understanding the word ball and instead hears a nonsense word lob and can’t parse exactly what’s happening until later on when he looks back on it. We also get to see its effects in other ways, like when he starts to wear his sweater over the top of his jacket, or when he doesn’t recognize his own grandson during the Christmas visit. But through it all, there’s a sense that Emilio is perfectly normal and there’s nothing really wrong with him, he just gets confused sometimes. And those sometimes just slowly become more frequent and more severe. He also has to spend much of his days staring at his own future in the form of Dolores and her husband who is more or less no longer there. Dolores doesn’t even have to be in the home, but she is there for her husband.

Their convertible just before their very short joy ride.

There are just so many things that this film does right, from the fantasy sequences to the humor, to the moments that grab at your heartstrings. One of the only negatives that I would give this film is the payoff to a brief running joke about one resident who secretly keeps a puppy, sold to him by Miguel of course, only Miguel has to frequently replace the puppy because it “gets lost”. And during the final scene, we find out what likely happened to those previous puppies even though this one was luckier thanks to Miguel’s Groundhog’s Day bout of kindness. On top of that, the animation itself is quite striking. It’s fluid and the style is easy to read but also in a style all its own. And while I didn’t watch the original Spanish language, Martin Sheen and George Coe both give great performances. It’s truly worth taking a look at if you’re able to find it anywhere. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

It’s time once again for me to look at another superhero themed podcast and give you the details along with my personal perspective on it. I’ve been an occasional listener of this podcast for a long while now, and they’re another podcast that has a large back catalogue. After this, I have just one more podcast that I’ve previously listened to before moving on to submissions and random searches. If you host or are just a fan of a current podcast whose main focus is superheroes or comic book movies let me know and I’ll cover it in a future edition of Superhero Podcast Review. You can reach me in the comments section, on Twitter where I’m @Bubbawheat or e-mail me at Bubbawheat@msn.com. Now that that’s out of the way, onto today’s review.

Superhero Speak

The Basics

Website: SuperheroSpeak.com
Episode count (as of 7-9-16): 163 plus many bonus episodes
Episodes listened to: 15ish
Release schedule: Weekly on Tuesdays
Episode Length: 1:00 – 1:30, typically very close to 1:00
Audio Quality: Clear
Language rating: PG
Spoilers: Yes
Production format: A single discussion with a group of comic book fans that covers a range of comic book, movie, and TV news topics as well as some discussions on specific movies or shows. Also, they often have interviews with comic book creators, writers, illustrators, and some actors/directors.

The Format

The three hosts: Dave, Ben, and John have a superhero themed discussion each week unless they’re busy having an interview with anyone from indie comic book creators to actors or directors. Most of the talk on non-interview episodes tend to be centered on general news of the week, but there is very much a friendly banter that comes across as three guys who are good friends and have known each other for a long time. There is plenty of humorous speculation about what might happen across comics, movies, and TV as well as occasionally more serious discussions along those topics as well. Their interviews are varied and often have hosts missing due to schedule conflicts, but are always fun and while I didn’t listen to any recently, while there is some promotional discussion on the product they’re working on currently, there is also quite a bit of more random discussion so you get to hear the more normal side of their guest rather than just their PR side.

Comics vs. Movies vs. News

These guys do have an in with a small comic book publishing company so they tend to have a large number of comics industry guests, often more indie guys. But they have also talked to a few actors and directors, like an early get for them was Doug Jones. They’ve also talked to the director of indie film Real Heroes. Their non-interview episodes run the gamut where they’ll talk about everything from movies to comics to television, even the occasional Hollywood gossip when it involves those known for superhero properties. But through it all, there’s a definite thread of guys who are fans of comic books in general, and even when they’re talking about movies and TV, there’s going to be a thread of comics entering into the discussions.

The Verdict

As I have said many times, I’m not that big of a comics guy. As such, I’ve only listened to one or maybe two episodes where they interviewed someone within the comics industry. And as I will often re-state during the verdict section of these reviews, this verdict is about my personal taste in podcasts, other tastes may vary. For their regular episodes, they do cover enough movie and TV news to keep me interested and I typically find their back and forth banter quite funny. They also have some interesting speculation, like on their most recent episode, they liken the comics trend that’s been expanding the Spider-Man universe on the heroes side as being the potential for something similar to the Green Lantern Corps. I often tend to skip over this one in my subscription list, but every time I do listen I rather enjoy it.

Superhero Speak Selected Episodes

Lady Death 2004

I feel like I’m already halfway through this month of animation and unfortunately I’ve hit the first snag. Things have been going pretty peachy so far and I just hope that this isn’t a portent of things to come. I also want to make a quick mention of Hulu where I watched this film. Recently it has been pushing its paid subscriptions so hard that you can barely even get past the front page without signing up for a free trial. They do still have a large number of movies available to watch without a subscription, but it’s not intuitive on how to get to anywhere to search for them. But if you aren’t scared off by this review and want to watch it for yourself, just click right here and go straight to it. But the film itself has a few moments of gorgeous artwork, but aside from that is just a jumbled mess with bad voice acting.

Lady Death starts out in typical fantasy non-specific dark ages where there’s a war going on. Well, technically the film does one of the laziest and unnecessary tropes where it actually starts in the middle of the story with Lady Death leading an army of demons in an attack on Lucifer himself, but then switches straight into an origin story that should have been the actual start of the film. It wasn’t even as if there was much action in the opening to help quicken the pacing. It was mostly just set up that wasn’t needed, and there was a time jump that was quite unclear until it finally gets back around to the point that started the film. It also combines a couple other cliched plot points that are the focus of most of the story. The main character, Hope slash Lady Death is seeking revenge on her father who turns out to be Lucifer, and she does so seeking revenge for the death and capture of her lifelong love Niccolo.

But one of the worst things about this film is apparent after only the first few minutes and continues throughout the rest of the movie. Because it is set in the past, the writer and/or director decided that they weren’t allowed to use contractions in their speech. There may have been other elements of the dialogue that contributed, but when all contractions are removed, it’s much harder to speak and make it sound natural. So as a result, the dialogue of the entire movie sounds stiff and stilted as the voice actors are forced to talk in this unnatural way.

There’s also this weird line of sexuality that takes it as far as it can go without crossing that PG-13 barrier even though the film tosses blood around as if it were nothing. There is no nudity, but there is a strong focus on sexuality and sensuality surrounding Lucifer and Lady Death. During her training montage where she essentially fully transforms from her human form as Hope to her more powerful form as Lady Death her hair turns from blonde to white but her clothes also become more and more revealing until she ends up wearing essentially a bikini and thigh high boots. And while it may be slightly embarrassing to admit noticing this, but the way her nipples were treated never entirely made sense. They would appear and disappear at random, and they would often appear in slightly different positions from scene to scene. And again, since there isn’t any nudity, it’s just the outline of her nipple that’s supposedly visible through her bikini. There’s also a couple moments during the big war between two armies of demons where they break for the night and she takes the time to change into a silky negligee and sleep in her four poster bed with silk curtains. Lucifer also has his own moments where he is surrounded by a harem of barely clad succubi.

The plot itself is nothing to write home about either. It has fleeting moments of great visual cinematography and the occasional gorgeously detailed backgrounds, but the essential nature of it is a typical revenge tale that’s been seen in fantasy over and over again. Lady Death has great power within her and she must learn how to wield it in order to defeat her father. Along the way she gains a couple companions by way of a pair of hell hounds and a giant man to train her in the art of swordplay. She defeats a demon lord to usurp his army and has to confront her love who has been released by Lucifer only for her to be forced to kill Niccolo by her own hands. Even the battles themselves are rather lackluster, aside from a few moments of gushing blood and decapitations, the swordplay isn’t exciting. Lady Death also has some telekinetic ability via these blue flashes of lightning that emanate from her eyes. When she first attacks the demon lord who is also a giant slug creature, he catches her in mid air, but when she comes back at him she does the exact same thing but this time he doesn’t put up any defense at all.

There’s really just not much to recommend about this film aside from some character designs. And it’s a bit of a pity because the concept of Lady Death sounds like a fascinating concept. She’s the daughter of the devil who comes into her own powers, but it’s told in such a lackluster way that it’s not very interesting at all. And that combined with dialogue that sounds more like a mediocre English dub of a Japanese anime than the actual US production that it is, all makes for an unfortunately lousy movie. It reminds me a little bit of Heavy Metal, but that had better dialogue and wasn’t afraid to push their sexuality to nudity, even though it fares only slightly better overall. I will say that it wasn’t a total mess, but it’s really difficult to get past the dialogue which is consistently bad throughout the movie. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.

The Haunted World of El Superbeasto

It’s not even halfway through the month and I’m already at my final fully animated film aimed towards grown ups until the Killing Joke comes out later on this month. And unfortunately, like Lady Death, this one fell flat for me though for completely different reasons. It actually reminded me quite a bit of Jay and Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie as it had a very similar juvenile sensibility only this was much more liberal with the nudity and gore which makes sense as it was directed by Rob Zombie. Straight up comedies are occasionally difficult to review objectively because humor is such a subjective thing. But when it came to my sense of humor and this movie’s sense of humor, they only lined up about 3% of the time. The rest of the time I was either cringing at the jokes made at the protagonists expense, or marveling at how they managed to get Paul Giamatti and Rosario Dawson in these roles. There was plenty of horror homages and felt like it was trying to recapture some of the early Ralph Bakshi animation, but it just fell completely flat for me.

We’re introduced the the world of Superbeasto where he is an actor and director casting for a new movie where he tosses out older actresses who are caricatures of well known actresses from history only they are caricatured to the point of grotesqueness. Of course, he picks the most young and curvaceous women with no regard for their acting ability and we soon find out that the casting is actually for a porn. Not only that, but for some reason when the full moon comes out, the two women turn into monsters that Superbeasto has to kill. So right off the bat, our protagonist is a sexist, egotistical killer. Not exactly the guy you want to get behind in a movie like this, and it doesn’t get any better. Through the entire film, Superbeasto is completely self absorbed and only interested in getting himself laid or getting himself an acting job.

Our other main character is Suzi X and is much more like a typical action hero. She wears an eye patch, has an arsenal of weapons, and a robot companion who can transform into vehicles, carries plenty of gadgets and utilities for her, and is also in lust with her. It’s the butt of many different jokes where the robot is constantly sweating while staring at Suzi X’s assets, often gets an extendable cannon erection, and later on transforms into a car where he can grope Suzi’s ass while she steers with his penis analogue. She does at least have one of the best musical numbers during her completely unrelated side mission where she is stealing Hitler’s head in a jar while being chased by an army of Nazi zombies. The chase song is completely literal where the lyrics comment on what is actually happening on screen. She’s also voiced by Rob Zombie’s wife Sherri Moon Zombie and actually does a decent job. She really has a voice fit for cartoons which is surprising that she hasn’t gone on to do any other voice roles.

From the original Superbeasto comic, written by Zombie.

Throughout the film, there’s almost always one of two things on screen, and usually both: cartoon nudity and horror homages. In the strip club that Superbeasto goes to, it’s filled to the brim with caricatured horror movie icons like Jack Torrence from the Shining, and the chestburster alien from Alien among a couple dozen others, some are quite recognizable, others less so, and he even manages to get some inside homages from his own original horror movies. The nudity itself seemed like it was played more for comedy than sexuality, especially when we get to the strip dance of Rosario Dawson’s foulmouthed character Velvet Von Black. During her dance, she sticks her thumb in her mouth and basically blows up her breasts and buttocks as if they were balloons and teases Superbeasto so he rushes the stage with a visible erection only to be knocked to the ground by her endowments.

The villain side of things is a little bit better, though only for the spirited performance by Paul Giamatti. His plan is quite a bit on the fantastic side of things where he’s seeking a woman with the number of the beast marked on her body so he can marry her, have sex with her, and become a powerful demon in the process. Somehow. His minion is a large gorilla with a screw in the top of his head that apparently makes him smart, but only while it’s in there, something that really only comes into play for a threat and a later gag at the end. Another moment of humor that connected was when the gorilla was sent out after Velvet, he has to take the elevator where the frenzied rush of the entire movie is stalled with a very Droopy Dog inspired elevator operator who attempts to make small talk with the creature. It was entertaining every time it was used, though it was undercut during the ending with a jump back to the movie’s traditional style of random nudity and nonsense.

Overall, this is a movie that just doesn’t work on very many levels, unless you fall into its very specific sense of humor. It tosses a lot of horror genre imagery with boobs and butts everywhere you look, but none of it is really presented in a sexualized way, even when the music itself comments on a catfight between two women ripping their clothes off with the lyrics “It’s ok to masturbate to cartoons”. It is worth noting that the original music made for the movie was done by Chris Hardwick’s project Hard and Phirm with Mike Phirman and this film came out just a year before Hardwick started Nerdist. The plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and it’s even worse that the protagonist is someone you don’t care about. Even the villain who’s named Dr. Satan gets a bit of sympathy because he was bullied by Superbeasto in high school and essentially gets bullied by him again at the end. It has bizarre, Ren and Stimpy-esque imagery at times, like Beasto’s overweight uncle wearing a thong who then turns around and lets out a horde of rats from his ass. If that kind of joke sounds like your sense of humor, it might be worthwhile to check this film out, for everyone else I’d say to skip it. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.