A peculiar Governor sends a prisoner off to save his beloved granddaughter from a faraway land.
My Five Favorite Comic Book Brawlers
Last week, Marvel Studios premiered “Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” to much acclaim and box office success. Shang Chi has been one of Marvel’s biggest and most prominent brawlers, a man who has mastered martial arts and proven to be a living weapon time and time again. In honor of Marvel veteran’s debut, I listed my five favorite Comic Book Brawlers, a group of hand to hand fighters that have been some of my all time favorites since I was a kid.
Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings (2021)
Director Destin Daniel Cretton’s adaptation of the 1973 action comic book is Marvel Studios in its wisest. Their inability to grab top tier superheroes from their stable has enabled them to lend a spotlight to some of the more obscure and less featured superheroes from their universe. Thankfully the focus slides over to “Shang-Chi” one of their most dynamic and down to Earth superheroes who has proven a mainstay since his inception in the seventies and is brought to life in a truly exciting cinematic debut.
The Bootleg Files: The New York Hat
BOOTLEG FILES 778: “The New York Hat” (1912 film directed by D.W. Griffith).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On multiple labels offering silent films.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: An expired copyright.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It’s already out there, but that’s not why it is in this column.
In the early years of the silent movies, the bootlegging of film prints was completely out of control. Due the primitive nature of film distribution, it was too easy for cinematic miscreants to swoop in and gather up prints and resell them as their own works, thus denying the profits that the original producers should have recived.
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Potato Dreams of America (2021) [FilmOut San Diego 2021]
A coming-of-age story about a young gay boy whose mother marries through the mail order bride system to an American to give them both a better life. Once in America, the boy grows up questioning himself and life until he finds his place among his peers.
The Good Exorcist (2018)
An unusual priest arrives on a property where a demonic presence is causing problems and chaos. As he works through the situation, he is called to do an exorcism which may be more than he can handle.
Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone (2001): Magical Movie Mode (DVD)
Harry Potter came seemingly out of nowhere over twenty years ago. It was a fantasy series that quickly blasted off in to a cultural phenomenon and began to re-think the whole fantasy genre for a new generation. Say what you want about the “Harry Potter” series. I was never a fan. But the book series and its cultural influence is powerful, as is its long, long (read: long) series of movies that started twenty years ago.