The Social Bobcat is back, and this time he brought a whole case of whoop-ass. Join Ryan and MikeS as we talk about the surprisingly well-developed sequel to the 2011 film that came flying out of Indonesia like a boot to the head. In this installment, we ponder sequels that increase the scope and breadth of the original and stand-alone just fine. And somehow still manage to kick a metric ton of ass.
I officially entered a new phase of life on Saturday when I went to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) with a cohort of second graders in support of my nephew's birthday. I'm now an uncle who goes to movies he didn't select. It's a good thing.
I am not anti video games, but I can describe my relationship to gaming as "apathetic". The how's and why's of this phenomenon are uninteresting and best served in a dedicated blog post. But even when we got our first Nintendo Entertainment System, I didn't have any Mario-related games. I was spending my money on comics and tapes at the time. Aside from a brief flirtation with a Wii and Mario Kart, never got into it.
As Jamie and I discussed after the movie - the 90's were the wild west for cinema in the US. Indie cinema and the *flavor* of that indie movement were a truly big deal. It was also a rich era for a semi-mainstreaming of international cinema as the same theaters that carried those indie pics also brought in some European film and Hong Kong cinema. I'm not saying no theaters do this anymore, but it was much more a part of your standard film scene at the time.
And if you didn't see it in theaters, you might still find the movies for rent - maybe not next to Robot Jox at Blockbuster, but in the go-go 90's Austin film rental scene, I could walk across the street from my dump of an apartment and get whatever I wanted at I Luv Video.
But, as mentioned before, I just never picked up the films of Wong Kar-Wai. I was too busy watching Chow Yun-Fat kick ass or whatever. I was still a dude in my 20's. Grant me peace.
In this installment (3 of 3) we discuss the third, incredibly tedious and somewhat horrific act of a movie wherein a superhero debuts and immediately decides cataclysmic collateral damage is no big whoop while he fights his daddy's pal.
Danny of Superheroes Every Day has launched a PodCast! And we're the first guest! In this installment (2 of 3) we discuss the second act of 2013's, uh... uneven Super-film, Man of Steel.
this is the most pretentious possible Tarzan poster
Watched: 04/10/2023
Format: HBOmax
Viewing: First
Director: Hugh Hudson
I can only imagine what the pitch meeting was for this movie, and I can totally see how it happened.
In 1981, Hugh Hudson had directed Chariots of Fire, a movie that was a smash hit about pasty British guys running foot races and worrying about religion. Like, you couldn't escape the movie, which I watched on TV once when I was sick as a kid and immediately erased from my memory. But it was a big @#$%ing deal when adults went to the cinema.
I'm sure it's great. But it was an unlikely hit, and won Best Picture. Career made for somebody.
So when the director of the footrace movie comes to you and says "we're gonna do Tarzan. But now it's a prestige costume drama about how Tarzan is, in fact, a very sad ape man. He is not a super-human living among men, continually pursued by hot women and fighting weird alien threats and large animals. Instead, he's a kind of skinny French guy who does stuff you've seen apes do at the zoo. But, you know, it's quite sad" I guess you trust and give that guy a sack of cash to give it a go.
If you don't think you know Al Jaffee, you do. He was one of the staples of Mad Magazine for decades and decades. He's the reason you were always trying to properly fold the back of your Mad into thirds.
Jaffee was 102, which means he saw almost *everything* comics had to throw at the world. He would have been about 17 when Superman arrived, fer chrissake. His first work was published in 1942, and he joined Mad in 1955. He delivered art to Mad until the end of 2019. Mind-bending.
As a cartoonist, Jaffee didn't just do fold-ins. He also delivered classic Mad bits with a pitch and tone that informed the comedic sensibilities of the many generations who read his work. I, myself, always appreciated the Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions, which it probably took me decades to deprogram myself from emulating.
That longevity and variety of offerings means Jaffee brought laughs to folks for 80 years. I mean, I've lost a lot of time putting this post together just because I've been reading Jaffee's work. It holds up like crazy!
Well, Danny of Superheroes Every Day has started a podcast. To kick things off, he's selected (1) the film Man of Steel (2013) and (2) me as his guest (!) for what is a 3-part discussion about the film.
Even at three-parts of about 40+ minutes each, I'm aware of at least two points I didn't make, so that's to say there's a LOT to say about this stab at superhero flicks by the studio that brought you Catwoman and Green Lantern. Sure, they did those Nolan-Bat-flicks, but we know who they really are.
I framed this watch party as a "birthday surprise" as my birthday is next week. So, until folks clicked on the watch party link, they had no idea what we were watching, so rather than me receiving a birthday surprise, I delivered one in the form of ol' Jack Burton.
To be fair, Big Trouble in Little China (1986) is a tough sell. It's an action comedy that looks more or less like a straight action movie of the mid-80's and only occasionally winks to say "we're kidding here". Also, by this point, 80's action movies were almost beyond parody, so having a lead hero who is all unsupportable braggadocio and a female lead who is an exposition-dumping, hard-headed crusader - you kind of have to listen to what and how people are delivering their lines to get "this is a joke".
Explaining why something is funny, of course, makes it immediately not-funny. And so Big Trouble in Little China is not a movie I've often shared with people. But, you turn 48 once. And why not enjoy a movie again you liked when you were 11?
It's just not to everyone's taste, or in alignment with everyone's expectations, and that's okay. I would say that if you haven't seen it since you were a kid, it may be a very different movie than what you thought it was at age 12 or whatever.
