Fourth time’s a charm for Marvel who have finally stopped trying to retrofit their banner first tier character Captain America and just outright accepted that for better or for worse their most iconic superhero is meant for his time period, a time during world war II where Cap Am could mostly come to use to bring down the Nazis and the evil Hydra. Who better to bring this retro character to the big screen than Joe Johnston, a man who successfully brought us “The Rocketeer” in the early nineties? Much of that same child-like enthusiasm and movie serial aura is carried over in to this new version of Captain America where Marvel finally gets it right.
Tag Archives: superhero
The Fantastic Four (1994)
Say whatever you want about 1994’s guilty pleasure “The Fantastic Four” but I’ll take it any day over the god awful big budget films released in 2005 by director Tim Story. There may not be much of a budget to draw on, but at least there’s Dr. Doom in all of his glory and much of what made the comics so readable back in the early nineties. Plus, while much of it is generally in line with the kid friendly tone of the big budget films, director Oley Sassone opts for a darker tone that works much more than the big budget successors in the next decade.
The Green Hornet (2011)
Yes, I’m sure when Bruce Lee came to America, he dreamed of having the American remake machine take what was once a dignified television property that made his career and turn it in to a bonafide vanity project for someone like Seth Rogen. I’m sure he’d love the fact that rather than take his entire project seriously and transform the Green Hornet in to a truly adult and complex superhero epic like “The Dark Knight,” it would instead become another version of “Rush Hour.”
A Tribute to Superman: The Superman Movie Report Card
From the best and worst from the Superman mythos, I mull over all of The Man of Steel’s cinematic offerings including his DC Universe Animated films, and beyond. Superman has the distinction of being one of the very first superhero movies that became a blockbuster showing critics and skeptics alike that a superhero movie can depict the lore of its character with an adult tone and dramatic tension. With a fine director like Richard Donner at the helm, and a cast like Marlon Brandon, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, and Christopher Reeve, “Superman: The Movie” was the start of something big, and also showed what could happen when a studio lost sight of its goals for franchise success. Beyond the live action films there were also the mixed animated efforts that were hit or miss for most fans, but still gave us the man of steel in all of his glory. With “All Star Superman” on the way, we hope for big things and yet another fantastic depiction of the Last Son of Krypton.
The Cape
It’s almost as if someone from NBC got together with writers and thought “Okay, we tried superheroes as real world individuals and we all saw how that worked out. Now how about we just drop the pretenses and dive head first in to the superhero genre?” And that’s exactly what happened. Even I as a major “Heroes” fan in the day–and trust me “Heroes” was all I talked about during the first season–can admit that after the season finale of season one, the show fizzled and deflated with startling speed. So it is only natural NBC would want to go for the superhero fad yet again, but this time diving in to the cheese without the attempts to recreate the success of “Lost.”
A Tribute to Superman
In anticipation of the much anticipated animated adaptation of “All Star Superman” in stores this year, and the upcoming Zack Snyder/Christopher Nolan re-boot of the Bryan Singer re-boot “Superman Returns,” we have taken the time to voice our love for the character Superman and ponder on his more unique and endearing aspects that will surely be ignored in favor of the man of steel lifting tanks and destroying buildings with one force of breath. We hope Zack Snyder can invoke much of what made “Watchmen” so excellent and stow what made “300” so absolutely vapid and dunderheaded. Or at least find a balance. With that we continue to our “Superman Tribute.”
There was a journalist over five years ago who wrote an article about Superman who mocked the Man of Steel openly, and oh so sternly explained that among Superman’s fans, you’d be hard pressed to find any who would openly admit to being a fan of Superman in public. Oh how wrong he was and how wrong he continues to be. I’ll admit as a fan of Superman, that he is not the most popular hero in modern pop culture. In a world of cynicism, violence, and dread, the more enduring characters are all the darker ones with demons and shades of turmoil, all donning Bat costumes, garnering giant white skulls on their chests, or waving around claws from their knuckles.
Cinema Crazed's Top Movies of the Decade (2000-2009)
Personally I could care less who thinks when the decade ended or began. Many people are saying that the decade actually began in 2001 and ended in 2010, others are saying it began in 2000 and ended in 2009, while many are oddly insisting the decade began in 2000 and ended in 2011. I could care less who thinks what anymore. Since we basically missed the boat on posting our thoughts on our favorite movies of the decade back in December of 2009, we’ve decided to finally catch up and post our top films of the decade starting from 2000 and ending on 2009. That’s that. We’ve spent the last three months trying to figure out how to best voice our thoughts on our best films of the first decade of the millennium, and we figured we may as well just post our list embedded in one big article.