The way these serials kept people coming back to theaters to see them were by repetition and a steady stream of it. If you can appreciate the kitsch value and camp behind “Commander Cody” you could probably ignore the inherent repetitive storylines that follow it. Commander Cody is doing something top secret. There’s a villain who is spying on him. Commander Cody is also spying on them, oddly enough. The villain’s gun wielding henchmen take Commander Cody’s sidekick, the spunky Joan, hostage. Cody then has to go and save her, and wins the day. These serials deliver what the audience wants, even if it can get kind of tedious; especially since the compilation of “Sky Marshal of the Universe” episodes amount to almost four hundred minutes total.
Tag Archives: Crime
Dirty Lies (2016)
Like many others in Los Angeles, Josh is an unpaid intern desperately trying to make it. When his boss has him go pick up a highly valuable necklace, he figures he’ll save some time and picks it up early. While the necklace is in his possession, his housemates through a party that quickly turns to a home invasion. Co-written by Jamie Marshall and Matthew L. Schaffer with Marshall also directing, the film builds a home invasion/heist story with double crosses and not one clear cut innocent character.
Dark Angel: The Ascent (1994)
Full Moon offers their take on “Innocent Blood” with the tale of a vigilante demon and her hapless doctor boyfriend who proceeds to fall in love with her despite her demonic underpinnings. Angela Featherstone is insanely sexy as Veronica, a young demon who hangs out in hell sorting out sinning souls with her father, a dutiful monster who wants her to step in line and follow his orders. Veronica is restless though, and seeks to visit the Earth realm to see what it looks like. After fighting with her father once more, she escapes with her loyal German Shepherd to the outer world. There, she discovers the world isn’t that different from hell, save for the fact that the sinners and pure evil are able to hide among the civilized, rather than be punished.
Mario Puzo’s The Godfather: The Complete Epic 1901-1959 (2016)
After presenting various cuts of “The Godfather” trilogy over the years presented on television, HBO has decided to offer up their own version of Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather” entitled “The Complete Epic.” Clocking in at a little over seven hours and presented in HD, the idea for “The Complete Epic” is that “The Godfather” and “The Godfather II” are spliced together telling the entire saga of the Corleones chronologically. They then injected a lot of deleted and or extended scenes for the purpose of exposition and further elaboration on plot points somewhat evaded and under explained in the aforementioned films. As well, what’s considered “The Complete Epic” does not include the often maligned “The Godfather III.”
The Devil’s Dolls (2016)
A police detective investigating a serial killer takes a box of dolls with him. His daughter gets her hands on them, and then turns them into jewelry which gets spread around town by well-meaning buyers. Soon the wearers turn evil and things become bloody. Written by Danny Kolker and Christopher Wiehl and directed by Padraig Reynolds, The Devil’s Dolls takes the possessed item idea and multiplies it, sending multiple cursed/possessed items into a community to wreak havoc.
Captain America Civil War (2016) [Blu-Ray/Digital]
It’s amazing what kind of feat the Russo Brothers have pulled off. Not only do they offer up a pseudo-sequel to the continuing saga of “The Avengers” but they also manage to squeeze in a superhero epic, and revenge saga that stretches out over the Marvel Cinematic Universe without ever missing a single beat. “Captain America: Civil War” finally brings the Marvel Universe full circle creating something of a wider scope now that Marvel has been able to acquire and introduce superheroes and characters that were long thought to be incapable of appearing. In just a two and a half hour movie, we’re able to watch a full fledged tale of friendship unfold in the face of a revenge plot, while being given marvelous and overdue introductions to iconic Avenger The Black Panther, and Marvel’s long awaited iteration of their iconic superhero Spider-Man.
The PC Thug: In The 90’s, “Darkwing Duck” is the Superhero We Needed
The nineties were a peculiar time. The comic book industry was coming out of the huge success of Alan Moore’s “Watchmen,” and Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” while a bunch of young artists formed Image Comics and gave us a slew of new superheroes and avengers, all of whom were dark, bloody, brooding, and hairy. All the clean cut awe of Superman and Captain America went out of style giving way to a decade of muscle bound heroes with pouches, giant guns, massive swords, and a lot of angst that came with their back story. Even a very nineties hero like Spawn was made even more nineties being transformed in to a gun toting bad ass in his own movie. For a decade where superheroes were all doom and gloom, Disney seemed to play off of that trend by offering up a goofy satire called “Darkwing Duck.”