An introverted barista becomes a vibrant and outgoing drag queen when he finds an alien wig that transforms him into a super-shero alter ego who must fight against the evil threatening to take over the town.
When the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most morally ambiguous anti-heroes are all individually sent out on the same black ops mission, none of them expected to wind up on a team. The makeshift group, affectionately named The Thunderbolts, find themselves threatened by a mutual enemy that wants to see them, and a seemingly harmless man named Bob, stricken from existence. This premise helps Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts* stand out from the rest of their superhero offerings. And yes, the asterisk in the title serves a purpose.
Normally, we’d bring you a bunch of random shorts all under one theme and from a variety of filmmakers and producer. This week, I’m bringing you a fantastic group of short films about superheroes because well, it’s San Diego Comic Con and everyone has heroes on the brain.
A hero from another dimension lives as a homeless man who drinks too much on the streets of Los Angeles. A wannabe influencer finds him and decides to tell his story by shadowing him no matter how dangerous it gets.
I’d be lying if I said that I’m the biggest Scooby Doo fan around. Hell, I’m still stunned that Hanna Barbera has placed so much stock in the franchise for so many decades, but I digress. I had high hopes going in to “Scoob!” as every generation is introduced to Scooby Doo once again in some new form, and “Scoob!” seemed like the right avenue. Not only does it give us a new vision of Scooby Doo, but it makes tweaks to the mythos that I liked, while also establishing a shared Hanna Barbera universe. And yet, at the end of it all, I’d still rather have seen “Scooby Doo on Zombie Island” or “Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost,” again.
As a Hanna Barbera geek, I have to say “Mask of the Blue Falcon” hit all the right notes. I didn’t just have a good time with the surprisingly clever vehicle for the Mystery Inc. crew, but I also had so much fun pointing out all of the Easter Eggs. And yes, every single Easter Egg within “Mask of the Blue Falcon” is a reference to a Hanna Barbera cartoon from the sixties and seventies. I’m just disappointed we didn’t see anything referencing “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids.” What? It’s an obscenely underrated Scooby Doo wannabe, darnit!
I will never understand the reasoning behind Frank Miller ever wanting to direct his own superhero movie. It’s not that he’s directing a movie, either, it’s that he’s directing a movie in the style of Robert Rodriguez’s fast and cheap process where he merely places his cast in front of a green screen for ninety percent of his film. And we must endure a hundred minute crime thriller with people that stumble around a CGI world. Frank Miller has no idea how to grasp at anything other than dark, violent, and gritty thus he takes Will Eisner’s groundbreaking comics and tacks it on to his “Sin City” neo-noir universe. Miller doesn’t outright say it to us, but Miller wants us to very much believe that “The Spirit” is a shared universe with “Sin City.”