“Iron Man” Fifteen Years Later: The Tech Superhero We Didn’t Know we Wanted

Recently I was on Tik Tok, and I came across a comic book content creator who was under fire from commenters who took issue with his claim that before he became a big screen hero, Iron Man was not at all popular. It’s quite the comical turn of events because if you were a fan of comic books in the late eighties throughout the nineties, Iron Man was not popular. Out of all the superheroes running during that time, Iron Man was at best a third tier superhero.

While The Punisher, Spider-Man, and X-Men were selling huge for Marvel Comics, Iron Man was low on the totem pole in terms of status and popularity. His series was constantly cancelled, rebooted, and restarted, while his alternate War Machine became the more celebrated of the pair. While he was respected as one of the Avengers’ founders, he just wasn’t a popular or even appealing character.

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Superman is Still the Hero We Need

Superman has always been deemed as something of an antiquated superhero by many, but I’ve always turned to him in my need for a good superhero fix. Ever since I was seven, I devoured everything and anything that had Superman featured. That also included Richard Donner’s “Superman: The Movie.” It not only featured Superman, but it featured one of the Supermen that I grew up with. Along with the Max Fleischer Superman, and George Reeves Superman, Christopher Reeve was the big dog in the superhero universe. Reeve’s boyish charm and staunch determination made Superman a hero you could look up to and depend on.

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“Super Mario Bros: The Movie” 30 Years Later: The Baffling Feature Film Adaptation

Kids today will soon know their Mario Brothers as CGI animated sprites in the upcoming “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” I, for one, am psyched. But back in 1993, my Mario Bros. (beyond the video games) were found on television and in the movies. After Captain Lou Albano and Danny Wells ended their run as Mario and Luigi in “The Super Mario Brothers Super Show!” in 1989, the studios decided to finally bring the Super Mario world to the big screen in 1993. Said movie was called “Super Mario Bros: The Movie.”

You’d probably think: “How they could possibly get such an easy concept so wrong?”

But they did. They really did.

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J.K. Rowling Steals Shit (or How a Bigot Got Rich Off of Other People’s Ideas)

Many years ago my good friend Felix asked me if I’d write about J.K. Rowling for his site, which I gladly obliged. That article is long gone now and, frankly, I’m a much better writer so I proposed taking another swing at it. When I originally wrote it I focused on the most obvious issue with Rowling. Since then, though? Oh my god, the flood gates of negatives regarding her has been opened nonstop.

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Chyna’s Hollywood Detour to Ruin

In 2001, Joanie Laurer had departed her precedent-breaking reign in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF – later to be renamed WWE) under the name of Chyna and was hoping to start a new career in movies. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, she acknowledged she was not going to give Meryl Streep a run for her money.
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The Broad, Disappointing Strokes of “Avatar”

Reposted from December 31st, 2009

There’s something about shooting fish in a barrel, and if any modern equivalent of a movie which lent itself to post-modern bashing more than Avatar does, you might only have truly smug equivalents of Stepin Fetchit, and those examples are self-aware.

Example: The gold toothed robots in Transformers 2. Clearly, they either knew what they were doing and did it anyway, or they simple didn’t know and it was perceived that way, but there’s no way a rational and cognizant person can not watch those robots and think, ghetto stereotype. But then, that opens me to my own criticism from the straw man who says, “I didn’t see that, you did, you f___ing racist!” Well, I asked my friends, so bite me. I hadn’t actually seen the flick until recently, where my thoughts were confirmed. Too busy watching shit that matters, I suppose.

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Everything Ends, and so should “The Oscars”

I’ve been an avid Oscar fan since I was five years old. I’ve watched every single show since I was a wee lad, and I’ve always had a good time with the energy and love for movies. Over the years the Oscars have tested my devotion to the entire process what with the politics and unusual decisions for its awards. It always took top priority when I was growing up, and now it’s rare that I watch the entire ceremony in one sitting. Now in 2022, “The Oscars” seems so antiquated, especially when they’re still refusing to acknowledge interesting, and unique filmmaking in favor of the same old stuff we’ve seen a thousand times already.

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We Don’t Talk About Tatum Enough

Most recently I was discussing the “Scream” movie series with someone online, and while discussing Tatum Riley, they made the statement that she literally contributes nothing to “Scream.” I completely disagreed. Not only is Tatum Riley a major contributor to the fate (and genesis) of Sydney Prescott, but she’s easily the most important character of the first “Scream,” barnone.

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