Fantastic Four (1994)

The 2021 So Bad It’s Good Blogathon is an event devoted to films commonly perceived as bad, yet enjoyable, hosted by Taking Up Room. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the link at the host site.

Fantastic Four (1994)

YouTube viewing

I don’t recall where I first learned there would be a movie based on Fantastic Four, my favorite childhood comic book—in one of Stan Lee’s editorial “Bullpen Bulletins,” perhaps. I specifically remember seeing a flyer at my local comic shop announcing the guy who played Reed Richards would appear for a signing. 

As time passed, and it became clearer the movie would not come soon to a theater near me, I was disappointed. This was before the renaissance of comic book movies that began with Blade and X-Men and Spider-Man and continued with Iron Man and the cinematic universes of Marvel and DC. Films like Batman and Robin and Superman IV taught me to lower my expectations.

Then the FF film went straight to video, and bootleg copies popped up at conventions. At one, a dealer played it on a small TV screen and I finally caught a snippet.

I believe it was the scene with the Human Torch flying. (I say “the scene” because it’s the only one in the movie!) I recognized it as the Torch; that was encouraging, no? Maybe it would’ve looked better on a big screen. Maybe it needed to be seen from the beginning for me to truly appreciate. It wasn’t fair to judge based on an out-of-context clip from a bootlegged copy shown at a noisy and crowded comic convention.

Besides, I had seen a few photos of the cast: they got the costumes right (except the “4” logo was so low it was practically on their stomachs), the Thing was massive and rocky like he was supposed to be (even if he kinda looked made out of papier-mâché), and they really overdid it with the grey in Reed’s hair, but the most important things were the acting and the story. As long as I could believe in the whole thing, the rest wouldn’t matter. One day I would see it and judge for myself.

It couldn’t be that bad, right?

Netflix new release roundup for October ‘20

Good movies can still be found this year through streaming sites, and my site of choice remains Netflix. I suspect the overwhelming majority of this year’s Oscar candidates will come via the streamers, so here’s what I’ve been watching over the past weeks. 

—Da 5 Bloods. The surviving members of a Vietnam platoon return to Vietnam forty years later to find the remains of their commanding officer, as well as to reclaim a cache of gold they appropriated during the war. Spike Lee captures the beauty of modern Vietnam well, its cities as well as its jungles, and the story is relevant, as you would imagine one of his joints to be. Delroy Lindo’s finest work has always been with Spike, and this may be his best performance ever, MAGA cap and all. A Best Actor nomination is all but assured. Also, how wonderful it was to see the late Chadwick Bozeman one more time, in a key supporting role, to remind us what a treasure we lost in him. Even in a normal year, this would be one of the year’s best.

—The Old Guard. Highlander meets Unbreakable: a race of immortal beings live in secret, righting wrongs around the world. They encounter a new one of their kind at the same time a pharmaceutical company wants to discover what makes them tick. Gina Prince-Bythewood was known for romantic dramas like Love and Basketball and Beyond the Lights. Who knew she had an action movie in her? And this one hits on all cylinders: Charlize Theron, who has been making a pretty good post-Oscar career as an action girl, rocks it in this one: kicking ass left and right, but with a vulnerable and human side to her as well. A multi-culti cast that goes all over the world, in a movie that could be the start of a new franchise—once The Virus is under control, of course.

—I’m Thinking of Ending Things. I feel about Charlie Kaufman’s new film the way I did when I saw Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!: there was definitely a singular artistic vision here, at work in a story that starts out relatively mundane and ends surrealistic and utterly bizarre, but I’ll be damned if I can interpret any of it. My guess is it’s a meditation on aging and the deterioration and fragmentation of memory, though it seems to start as the woman’s story and ends as the man’s, which didn’t make sense. Like Mother!, I went into Thinking blind, assuming all I needed to know was the writer-director and his rep (I have got to stop doing that). Ludicrously talky, it bored me silly in places but I kept thinking well, sooner or later there’ll be an explanation for all this. There wasn’t, not that I could tell.

—Rebecca (2020). The critics were less than charitable to this latest version of the world-famous Daphne DuMaurier novel memorably adapted by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940, but I didn’t think it was as mediocre as they said it was. The set design of Manderley was thrilling, as were the location shots, and weird dream sequences aside, I found it watchable. Lily James is less mousy as the nameless protagonist than Joan Fontaine, and Armie Hammer felt a bit less cold and uptight than Laurence Olivier, but Kristin Scott Thomas as Danvers was the best part for me. It won’t make me abandon my Criterion DVD of Hitch’s version, but for what it is, it’s alright.

More on the other side.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
YouTube viewing

You have to hand it to Russ Meyer. He knew exactly what he wanted to see in his movies, and he got it, time and time again: sexy chicks with big tits—yet his films weren’t pornos, and sometimes, they weren’t even erotic. His women weren’t put on pedestals; they were active and did things; sometimes bad things, true, but they were rarely boring.

As a cartoonist, I’ve drawn sexy girls in the past for my own amusement, and occasionally for publication, sometimes clothed, other times not. I’ve wanted to make an erotic comic book; I even wrote a script for a story about a stripper, but I never had the cojones to actually draw it and publish it.

Putting one’s sexual fantasies on display is not an easy thing, not even these days, where public exhibitionism is more common than ever thanks to the internet. I know the things that turn me on are not as unusual as I once might’ve thought (and none of your beeswax), but in my prose at least, I’ve loosened up somewhat in that category thanks to a writer friend whose stories have lots of steamy sex scenes. She and I have had long conversations on the subject. Still, I’m no E.L. James by any stretch.

Being attracted to sexual imagery and afraid of it at the same time has been the American way for generations, and it’s certainly been a long-running subplot in the history of film. The underground cinema of the 50s and 60s chafed at the restrictions against nudity and depictions of sexuality in general, and Meyer was one of the filmmakers at the vanguard.

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
YouTube viewing

Sure, a movie about a black guy who kills cops and gets away with it looks really good right now... and I can’t help but feel churlish for wanting to criticize a movie like Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, which even in its day hit like a bolt of lightning and set the stage for the blaxploitation films of the 70s. Still, it’s worth discussing as a film, independent of its wider cultural impact. I’ll do my best.

Chicago native Melvin van Peebles was working as a cable car grip man in San Francisco in the 50s when, in conversation with a passenger, he got the idea to make movies. A few fledgling attempts at some short films led to an unsuccessful attempt at breaking into Hollywood which led to an extended stay in Europe for awhile, meeting avant-garde filmmakers, making some connections, gaining experience.

In 1968 he made his first feature, The Story of a Three-Day Pass, in English and French, which led to a gig at Columbia Pictures, where he made the comedy Watermelon Man in 1970. MVP, however, craved greater creative control over his work.

The Wild Angels

The Wild Angels
YouTube viewing

Roger Corman is still alive and making movies! This Variety piece from last December discusses his latest projects and how he’s adapted to the technological changes to the industry—and even during the quarantine, he’s encouraged others to keep making movies.

To go into his career as an independent producer-writer-director, including discussing the many film superstars who started out with him when they were nobodies, would take way too long, so let’s focus on one aspect of it: his association with indie production company American International Pictures.

Founded by Samuel Arkoff & James Nicholson in 1954, their mandate was finding low-budget films that could be released as double features for the burgeoning teen market. Their first release was a Corman production, The Fast and the Furious. (Fun fact: Corman licensed that title to Universal in 2001, and when the long-running sports car franchise became a hit, Corman got a tiny piece of the profits.)

Corman had spent the 60s making adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe stories with Vincent Price and even spent a little time at Columbia Pictures. Then one day he became aware of motorcycles.

Walkabout

Walkabout
YouTube viewing

Walkabout is actually an Australian co-production with the UK, helmed by an English director, Nicolas Roeg, but it’s plenty Australian enough. Next year will mark its fiftieth anniversary, and time has been good to it. As recently as 2016, Jenny Agutter and Luc Roeg (the director’s son) spoke to The Guardian about the making of the film.

Here’s a brief explanation of the Australian outback and here’s a short video of it from 2014. I find it both beautiful and terrifying in its starkness: it’s pure nature untamed, as far removed from civilization as you can get on Planet Earth and it dares you to survive there if you can.

Director Roeg gets it all in his film: the bleak and harsh landscape mixed with the breathtaking beauty of its plant and animal life. I found myself thinking of the experimental film Koyaanisqatsi in the sense of the contrast between the modern, “civilized” world and the primal world of nature. Indeed, Roeg encourages that contrast in the editing; in one sequence, the hunting and slaughtering of an animal is juxtaposed with a butcher in a meat market.

As a story, I didn’t completely get why Agutter and young Luc get there in the first place: in the beginning we see them on what looks like a picnic in the outback with their dad, and then all of a sudden it’s like Dad goes bananas and takes out a gun and shoots at them? And then he sets his car on fire and shoots himself? Director Roeg offers nothing in the way of an explanation, and ultimately it doesn’t matter—he had to get the kids in the outback and lost somehow—but the way it unfolds is bizarre.

Agutter and Luc’s nameless protagonists adjust to their situation better than you’d think: no freaking out at the reality of their situation—one minute being on a picnic with Dad, the next struggling to survive in the midst of a wasteland after seeing Dad commit suicide. You’d almost think they were on holiday at times.

You know what became of Agutter after this—Logan’s Run, American Werewolf in London, among other things (apparently she was also in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the first Avengers movie too); and Luc Roeg went on to become a producer (he worked on We Need to Talk About Kevin)—but I wanna talk about David Gulpilil, who portrayed the Aboriginal dude who encounters them during their sojourn. To me it didn’t even seem like he was acting; I thought he was real.

Walkabout was Gulpilil’s first film; he was seventeen at the time. Roeg found him when he went location scouting in the Aboriginal community of Maningrida, in Arnhem Land, where Gulpilil went to school. Walkabout made him a sensation. He’s been in some big movies since: Crocodile Dundee (of course), The Right Stuff, Peter Weir’s The Last Wave, the Hugh Jackman-Nicole Kidman romance Australia, plus some TV work. He was born in the Northern Territory district as a Yolngu and is also known as a ceremonial dancer, singer and tracker, in addition to being a children’s book author and a mentor to other Australian indigenous peoples.

Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Endgame 

seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens, NY

I was gonna pass on this. One friend said on Facebook he was gonna go watch a French New Wave movie playing in his town instead of Endgame (I believe he said it was Cleo From 5 to 7). I was willing to wait until it came to cable, at the very least. Then I rewatched Infinity War and Guardians 2 and Thor: Ragnarok on Netflix out of boredom (not all at once) and decided I needed to tell my grandchildren I was there for Endgame, or some such bullshit excuse. And in all seriousness, I truly wanted to know what would become of the Guardians.

As little kids, we would dream about our favorite Marvel comics becoming movies, but we never conceived it would happen by turning civilization into fans. Fans of the characters, mind you; the kind who would wear a Captain Marvel t-shirt or write a college paper about the Black Panther or eat Pez from a Groot dispenser but not buy the actual comics. Then the movies came: Blade, Spider-Man, X-Men, etc. Some were cool, some sucked, but none of it prepared us for the era that began in 2008 with the first Iron Man film and culminated this year with Endgame. Props to Kevin Feige and everyone at Marvel Studios for creating a series of movies that captured everyone’s imagination — and in so doing, conquering the world.

Shazam!

Shazam!
seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens NY

Earlier this year we talked about the superhero formerly known as Captain Marvel, now called Shazam — one of the oldest active characters in comics history, with a wide and devoted fanbase. He was the first superhero to make it to the big screen. He and his supporting cast spun off a ton of merchandise at the peak of their popularity. When DC Comics acquired the rights to the character, he enjoyed a new wave of popularity in the 70s. A big reason why was his television incarnations.

Filmation was big on Saturday morning and weekday afternoon television in the 70s and 80s. While their animation style looks primitive compared to, say, Teen Titans Go, never mind the great WB adventure toons of the 90s, lots of kids from my generation remember them fondly. They also made live-action shows, and their first was Shazam!, in 1974.

Adventures of Captain Marvel chs. 10-12

Chapters 1-3 Chapters 4-6 Chapters 7-9

Superman was created for DC Comics in 1938, and once it took off, the publisher was really concerned about imitators. There were some running around in the late 30s, but when Captain Marvel took off and was as huge as it was, DC chose to pursue legal action against Fawcett in 1941, which included a failed attempt to stop the Adventures of Captain Marvel serial.

The case didn't come to trial until 1948. Fawcett won, but DC appealed three years later and won. Fawcett settled out of court, paying damages and cancelling all CM comics.

In 1967, Marvel Comics created a completely different "Captain Marvel" character of their own and trademarked it. Over the years, the CM name has been passed down to several different Marvel characters. The one in the upcoming Captain Marvel movie with Bree Larson is the latest version.

In 1972, DC licensed the rights to the Fawcett superheroes, but because Marvel now held the trademark on the CM name, DC had to call their new book featuring the original CM Shazam! As a result, younger audiences thought that was the name of the character in long red underwear with a thunderbolt on his chest.

In 2011, DC finally said the hell with it and officially changed his name to Shazam. I imagine many fans, however, still think of him as CM.

Let's conclude the serial:

Adventures of Captain Marvel chs. 7-9

Chapters 1-3 Chapters 4-6

At his peak, Captain Marvel was huge. He appeared in Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures, and by 1944, sales reached a staggering 14 million copies.

All those sales also meant merchandising. A recent book catalogues the vast depth of dolls, figurines, toys, costumes, and other items made to promote CM and the Marvel Family of characters.

CM had, and has, a devoted fan following, and among the biggest fans included none other than Elvis Presley! Specifically, he dug Captain Marvel Jr. and modeled himself after him. Here's a detailed history of the Elvis/CMJ connection.

Vintage TV fans will remember Gomer Pyle and a certain catchphrase of his. Did you also know Jim Nabors cut a record called Shazam!, in character as Gomer?

CM has been referenced in songs, other TV shows, other films, books, and more. To pick one example among many: the 1950 film The Good Humor Man (which co-starred TV Superman George Reeves!) has a CM fan club as part of the story line, which Fawcett took advantage of with a promotional tie-in comic.

When the Shazam! movie comes out, I'll talk about CM on television. For now, let's return to the serial:

Adventures of Captain Marvel chs. 4-6

Chapters 1-3

As I said last week, Captain Marvel was created by CC Beck and Bill Parker at Fawcett Publications, which originally worked in pulp magazines before adding comics in 1939. CM was originally called "Captain Thunder" when Parker thought him up. By the time Whiz Comics hit the newsstands a year later, his name was changed to Captain Marvel. I've mentioned here before how Beck's original rendering of CM resembled actor Fred MacMurray.

The name "Shazam," which Billy Batson says to transform into CM, is taken from historical and mythological figures — Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury — and CM is endowed with each of their powers and abilities.

CM's stories always had a whimsical feel to them. His rogues gallery of villains included your standard mad scientist (Dr. Sivana), evil counterpart (Black Adam), even a talking worm (Mr. Mind), but they rarely came across as "evil" as, say, the Joker or Doctor Doom. They felt more like a nuisance than a genuine threat.

And then there's CM's supporting cast. You might know about his sidekicks Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. You may even know about the talking tiger. Do you know about the racist comedy relief character, or the fat old man comedy character, or the CM "clones," or even (I swear to god I'm not making this up) the giant pink rabbit? They were all part of the canon for many years. 

We'll talk more about CM's popularity next week. For now, let's return to the serial:

Adventures of Captain Marvel chs. 1-3

In anticipation of the Shazam! movie coming out in April, I thought I'd spend Saturdays this month taking a look at the last time the superhero Captain Marvel appeared on the big screen (not to be confused with the upcoming Marvel movie with Bree Larson), in one of the most celebrated serials in film history. At one point CM was as big as Superman or Batman. He's one hero who definitely deserves the Hollywood treatment.

A brief primer: Captain Marvel was created in 1939 by CC Beck and Bill Parker in Whiz Comics, published by Fawcett. Young Billy Batson, an orphan child, gets chosen by the ancient wizard Shazam to be his super-powered envoy on Earth, with abilities drawn from historical and mythological figures throughout human history, fighting evil.

Republic Pictures were known for their serials as well as their Westerns and B pictures. John Wayne started out there, as did Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. They adapted CM for the big screen because Superman was unavailable.

This will be my first exposure to an old-time theatrical serial. Who's got the popcorn?

New release roundup for January '19

I really wanted to write about these movies in more detail, but it was just easier to provide quick summaries for them this month. You already read about To Be Continued, a last-minute insert.

- If Beale Street Could Talk. I read the James Baldwin book many years ago and thought about rereading it before seeing this adaptation from Moonlight director Barry Jenkins. I changed my mind because I had read there were some differences. Virginia said she found it tough to sit through. It's not, not really; it's just intense. Jenkins emphasizes the love story at its heart, and does a good job of retaining Baldwin's literary voice. Strong performances, lush cinematography. Jenkins did it again, folks. There's no stopping this guy.

- Glass. I honestly didn't think this was as bad as the critics made it out to be, though there were more than a few head-scratching moments. Give Night credit for keeping this character-based as well as not making the final battle a CGI cartoon fest full of rubbery figures. (For the record, I saw Split on cable months ago, so I knew what to expect.) James MacAvoy is scary as hell in a role both physically and mentally demanding; I can't begin to imagine how one would prepare for such a role once, much less twice.

- Stan and Ollie. A nice tribute to one of the all-time greatest comedy teams in their twilight years. While I'm not a huge Laurel & Hardy fan, I could tell Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly captured the feel of their routines down well. Jeanine Basinger called L&H "a married couple, without the marriage," and this film captures that, the bickering as well as the love and respect. Virginia liked it too (we have yet to seriously disagree on a movie).

Hard Boiled

Hard Boiled
YouTube viewing

The 90s were a great time to work in video retail — for me, anyway. Quentin Tarantino made being a video store clerk cool, and the store I worked in for much of the decade had a primo selection of independent and foreign cinema. Our clientele appreciated us for this.

This made me want to keep up with the current filmmakers building reputations outside the boundaries of Hollywood: Mike Leigh, Lars von Trier, Hal Hartley, Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodovar, just to name a few. One of the hottest directors during the decade, one championed by us film nerds, was a fella from Hong Kong named John Woo.

I admit, I jumped on the bandwagon for Woo late, after he made his American debut in 1996, with the film Broken Arrow. If you were a film nerd then, though, it was damn near impossible to avoid the buzz surrounding him.

This was partly due to the rising interest in Asian cinema in general, especially the chop-socky kind: Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Michelle Yeoh were also crossing over to the Western market around this time (plus filmmakers like Ang Lee and Wong Kar-Wai, who appealed to the Film Forum/Angelika crowd).

You will always see a moment like this
in a John Woo film.

Tarantino made it clear his films owed a big debt to Asian cinema, and lo, his disciples did go forth and spread the word, from their churches of VHS and Betamax, to their customers, and the word was Cool.

Woo made high-octane crime flicks, with levels of violence that would make Sam Peckinpah gasp. Woo's films were among the first where I understood the importance of letterbox.

In those primitive days before every television was formatted in widescreen proportions, I remember hearing my video store co-workers use phrases like "aspect ratio" and "pan and scan" and "two-three-five to one" and learning from them that how you watch a home video matters, especially if it's a tape of a film by a certain kind of filmmaker, like Kubrick, or Cameron, or Woo.

Many film nerds from my generation agree that one of Woo's best is Hard Boiled, starring Chow Yun-Fat, the Robert De Niro to Woo's Martin Scorsese, a star who also crossed over to Hollywood.

In Hard Boiled (story by Woo), he's a loose cannon cop who inadvertently crosses paths with an undercover cop while investigating a smuggling ring. It's a grand guignol of blood and bodies falling in slo-mo and bullets, bullets, bullets. It's not for the faint of heart, but man, is it fun to watch!

In searching for pics for this post, I discovered that Woo wants to remake another one of his classic HK films, The Killer, for American audiences. (Lupita Nyong'o? Talk about an out-of-the-box choice!)

My fear is that Woo's brand of ultraviolence won't have any traction today, in an era where PG-13 films reap wider audiences than R-rated ones. Then again, given how crazy PG-13 films can get with the violence themselves, maybe it's not an issue anymore. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
seen @ UA Kaufman Astoria 14, Astoria, Queens NY

I guess it was only a matter of time before I got sucked into the world of Harry Potter.

I never got into the series of books, or their film adaptations, for reasons I went into here — and yet, I can tell you the basic, most rudimentary things about the character without having read a single page or watched a single frame. I guess that's how you know an IP has blown up.

From studying novel writing, I've learned a bit about J. K. Rowling. I know she created Potter at a time in her life when she was down and out, for instance.

Credit where credit's due: she tapped into something in the zeitgeist that touched adults as well as young adults, something that comes along once a generation; I still remember seeing folks — ordinary-looking people, not stereotypical fans — read those colorful hardcover bricks on the subway and wondering what the deal was.

This was when my definition of "young adult," in terms of the book industry, was rigid. I understand now that just because they're written for kids and teens doesn't necessarily mean they're written down for them. Maybe that's partly why adaptations of The Hunger Games and their ilk have become so popular in Hollywood.

The point is, I didn't give a fiddler's fart about Potter when it first took off. So why have I gotten involved with him now?

Like many great stories, it began with a girl.

Avengers: Infinity War

Avengers: Infinity War
seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens NY

It never occurred to me I could see Avengers: Infinity War with anyone else. Not that I was so psyched to see it, like I would have been twenty years ago, but even now, after the new wave of superhero movies have broken the bank time and again, I still thought of this, however unconsciously, as a niche pleasure, not something "ordinary" people would dig.

So when I told Virginia I was gonna see it — alone, by implication — there was this awkward pause for a second. We had seen Black Panther together, but even that almost didn't happen: when we tried to pick out a movie, I had said to her something like well, you're probably not interested in an action movie... are you? 

Turned out she was willing. She didn't grow up a superhero geek, you see. She had no sentimental ties to BP or any other long underwear types, so why would I think this might interest her — or so my logic went.

Ready Player One

Ready Player One
seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens NY

I have so much to say about Ready Player One that I'm dividing this post into segments. It's much easier for both of us. Trust me.

1. The internet and internet culture

2. Ernest Cline's 80s vs. my 80s

3. Steven Spielberg's 80s

4. Columbus

5. RP1 the movie

Pacific Rim: Uprising

Pacific Rim: Uprising
seen @ Movieworld, Douglaston, Queens NY

You know how in those old Godzilla movies, he stomps all over Tokyo but it's never as serious as it looks because it's SO OBVIOUS the sets are just models? Ever wonder what that might look like if it were real? Well, watch Pacific Rim: Uprising then, preferably on the biggest screen you can afford.

At first, seeing the jaegers (the robots) and kaiju (the monsters) battling it out amidst a giant cityscape is breathtaking as well as terrifying, though they do make a point of saying the population was safe in underground shelters, so one can watch the fights guilt-free!

After awhile, though, even these scenes have an air of artificiality to them, and not just because jaegers and kaiju don't exist (as far as we know).

They're almost too real. Jaegers, when operated by their two pilots, run, throw punches, even get tossed around like humans, even though they're hundreds of feet tall. It's the old comics cliche: how can something so big move so fast? As for the kaiju, you can see every scale on its hide, every tooth in its wide, wide mouth, every drop of water as it rises out of the ocean.

There ought to be some sort of medium in which these kinds of movies can look better than dudes in rubber suits yet maintain a level of... I dunno, low-budget, B-grade cheapness, for lack of a better term? Then again, maybe I'm still wedded to the way SF movies looked like back in the 80s, when I grew up. I'm sure that puts me in the minority. Fine, I'm used to it.

Uprising, regrettably, is little different from the first PR film. It wasn't until the final twenty minutes or so that I started to get into it. Eh. I knew this wasn't Black Panther. I just wanted a mindless action movie and that's what I got.

How about that John Boyega, huh? His ascension from no-name to rising action hero has been pretty quick, but that's what two Star Wars movies will do to you. Even when he played an inner-city hoodlum in Attack the Block, he had a certain magnetism that has turned into a youthful exuberance and strength that's nice to see. I hope he expands into other work: maybe a Shane Black-style crime comedy, or a Kathryn Bigelow-type war movie. He has definite potential.

There's this young girl in my writers group named Anna who has been hyped for Uprising for weeks, talking about the actors, the director, the previous film, all sorts of details, etc. Last Sunday, we talked about the movie and wouldn't you know it, she was let down big time.

We both agreed that Boyega was great, but killing [SPOILER] was a tremendous mistake. Anna also hated [SPOILER]'s heel turn, though it didn't bother me as much because I barely remembered the character from the first film. She said she complained to director Steven DeKnight on Twitter, saying he should've gotten her to write the screenplay! I guess that's the risk that comes with high expectations.

Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah

The Time Travel Blogathon is an event devoted to films with time travel as a plot point. Ruth and I thank you all for participating. The complete listing of bloggers can be found here and at Silver Screenings!

Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
YouTube viewing

It will not surprise you to know a Godzilla store exists in Tokyo. It opened last fall, in the Shinjuku district, and though I don't read Japanese, I can tell from looking at the pictures there's no shortage to the depth and breadth of merchandise available. Take a look inside with this video (it's in English).

With the forthcoming release of the new Pacific Rim movie, now seems like a good time to talk about what the Japanese call kaiju, or as we called them when I was a kid, giant monsters. They wreak havoc on our cities in the movies, leaving mayhem and destruction in their wake, and we love them for it. What's the big deal, anyway?

Black Panther

Black Panther
seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens NY

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the Black Panther in the pages of Fantastic Four in 1966 — issue 52, for those of you keeping track at home (inciting a trend that would one day be the bane of Chasing Amy's Hooper X).

He seemed to be a villain at first: inviting the FF to his fictitious African nation of Wakanda to "arrange the greatest hunt of all time," only the FF themselves, in a four-color twist on The Most Dangerous Game, turn out to be the hunted.