Chi

 

 (wikipedia)

SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE 10 RINGS-2021-Watch this unintentionally funny talk fest at your risk. Shang-Chi (Simu Liu, a Canadian actor born in China) is reunited with his estranged father Wenwu (Tony Leung) and his bug up her ass sister Xialing (Menger Zhang). Dad wants to find the land of Ta Lo where his wife is. Ben Kingsley as Trevor Slattery (The Mandarin in IRON MAN 3) acts like he just stepped out of a Monty Python skit. Shang has an annoying female friend Katy (Awkwafina) who provides gravel voiced bon mots (not). The actress who used to look like Michelle Yeoh is his aunt, the guardian of Ta Lo. 

Much of it seems to be an apology for having Asian stereotypes in other films. The director Destin Daniel Cretton (from Hawaii) must have known what he was doing as this was a colossal hit. He's said to be filming a new Spider-Man movie at the time of this writing.

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Ants In The Pantry

 

 (themoviedatabase)

ANT-MAN-2015-Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) quits the company he helped found after punching out one guy, Carson (Martin Donovan). Later Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), a balding grinning yuppie ass, who now runs the company is developing Yellow Jacket, a super small agent. Somehow, Pym sets up hacker criminal Scott Lang (Paul Rudd; also credited as one of the screenwriters) as the new Ant Man after he's fired from Haagen Daz. Pym has a love/hate relationship with his daughter Hope (the always annoying Evangeline Lilly). Lang learns to talk to different ant species and spars with Hope, who blames her dad (the original Ant Man) for the death of her mother (the original Wasp). Later, Lang meets The Falcon (Anthony Mackie) at Avengers HQ. Of course, he gets some insane unfunny ex-cons to help him. The finale sees Ant Man vs. Yellow Jacket (who looks like the super villain Scorpion turned into a Trans-former). Stan Lee has a cameo as a bartender. 

It has great sfx and action sequences but like so many “action” movies today it gets bogged down by back story bullshit. I'm not sure what qualified director Peyton Reed to helm such a project but he does hold it all together pretty well. It was followed by 2 sequels.

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Excelsior!

 

 (wikipedia)

STAN LEE'S MUTANTS,MONSTERS AND MARVELS-2002-Filmmaker Kevin Smith sits down with Marvel Comics publisher/editor/creator-writer Stan Lee who talks about Spider-Man, the creation of the Marvel universe, working with artists like Kirby & Ditko, his life, marriage, superhero movies, etc. Nice interview but Smith is a little annoying with his grunts of yeah and right. Director Scott Zakarin also made THE MAN WITH THE SCREAMING BRAIN.

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Japan's Not Our Enemy Anymore...

THE WOLVERINE-2013-After saving the life of a Japanese officer from the A-bomb in WW 2,

Logan aka Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is living alone in a forest. When he gets into trouble at a local bar he meets Yukio (Rila Fukushima) who says she wants to take Logan to Japan so an old dying industrialist Yoshida (Haruhiko Yama-nouchi), the officer Logan saved can say goodbye to him. Once there Yoshida offers to transfer Wolverine's “immortality" to his body and let Logan live a normal life span. After Yoshida dies there's a big shoot up at his funeral and Yukio's granddaughter is kidnapped by  The Yakuza. Logan is shot several times but recovers and saves the daughter. They go on the run which of course leads up to the inevitable sex she has to have with the “far superior gaijin”. Later a bunch of ninjas capture the granddaughter and a stupid white woman kills her father (Hiroyuki Sanada). After Logan operates on himself,  a super metallic robot shows up but do you really think it would pose much of a threat to the powerful white westerner? 

Their fight though kind of reminded me of THE AZTEC MUMMY VS. THE ROBOT! Of course Yoshida, though thought dead is actually behind the whole thing. I didn't expect the after credits appearances of Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart. 

Director James Mangold (GIRL,INTERRUPTED) later made LOGAN also featuring the Wolverine character.

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Not So Fantastic

THE FANTASTIC FOUR-1994-Scientists Reed Richards (Alex Hyde-White) and Victor Von Doom (Robert Culp's son Joseph) are conducting an experiment involving a passing comet but the experiment goes awry and Victor seems to die. Years later Reed and his big former college buddy Ben Grimm (Michael Bailey Smith) decide to test a new type of spacecraft just as the comet is going by again. They take along the sister/brother duo of Sue (Rebecca Staab) and Johnny (Jay Underwood)) Storm who's mom runs the boarding house Reed lives in. The mission goes haywire due mostly in part because a decrepit guy called The Jeweler (Ian Trigger) steals a diamond from the ship. After being bombarded with cosmic rays the group find they have acquired amazing powers. Reed can stretch his body (a really terrible special effect), Sue can become invisible, Johnny can emit flames and Ben turns into the brick like coated The Thing (stuntman Carl Ciarfallo). They also discover that Victor is still alive, now resides in a suit of armor and calls himself Dr. Doom bent on getting revenge on Reed (who he blames for his disfigured face) and his pals. He also wants the stolen jewel but The Jeweler has other plans: he wants it as a gift for "his queen", a captured blind sculptress named Alicia Masters (Kat Green). Needless to say the bad guys are stopped. Ben saves Alicia, Reed disposes of Doom and The Human Torch stops the comet from striking Earth (this scene looks suspiciously like the ending of the first 1941 Superman cartoon by The Fleischer Brothers!).

This low budget adaptation of the famous Marvel comic has nothing going for it. Everything is sub-par: the acting, the special effects, the sound, the direction, you name it. The Thing isn't bad and Doc Doom is ok except you can't understand most of his dialogue....

It seem German producer Bernd Eichinger somehow acquired the movie rights but couldn't get anyone interested in an adaptation. When he realized his option would run out unless he made a movie of it, Eichinger contacted Roger Corman who agreed to help produce the film using mainly TV actors and a music video director named Oley Sassone (though he had made a few other movies before this including BLOODFIST 3  with Don "The Dragon" Wilson). Needless to say it was never released but has been available as a bootleg for years.

Eichinger's stunt must have paid off because he produced the big budget Hollywood version (with not much of a better story line) in 2005!

Warning! At the time of this writing a new "re-boot" is in post production!

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The Fury of Hasselhof!

NICK FURY-AGENT OF SHIELD-1998-Before he became a patch wearing African-American leader of a secret US government agency, Marvel Comics character Nick Fury was a patch wearing white guy leader of a secret government agency. For some strange reason David Hasselhoff (TV's KNIGHT RIDER and BAYWATCH) is cast as Fury in this TV movie adaptation. He's terrible even when just lighting his cigar. He's too young and lacks any of the "grizzled hard-boiled roughness" that made the original tick. He seems more like comic parody.

In this Fury is called out of retirement by The President to investigate the disappearance of the body of HYDRA leader Baron Strucker (who Fury killed years before) which for another strange reason was saved in a cryogenics tank. He's joined by Contessa Valentina (Lisa Rinna) and English agent Pierce (Neil Roberts). He also meets with his former "Howlin' Commandos" buddies Dum-Dum Dugan (Garry Chalk) and Gabe (Ron Canada) and says things like "guys like you tend to cling to the bowl no matter how many times you flush" through clenched teeth while chomping on a cigar. The story revolves around Strucker's daughter (badly over acting Sandra Hess) and son (Scott Heindl) and their attempt to resurrect Hitler's "death's head virus". Peter Howarth is Arnim Zola and HYDRA agents don't wear their trademark green robes. Instead they look like CIA agents. At the end Strucker is brought back to life but fortunately for everyone no sequel was made.

Screenwriter David S. Goyer had written DEMONIC TOYS for Charles Band's company and the Jean Claude Van Damme movie DEATH WARRANT. He wrote the screenplays for BLADE (and it's sequel) and DARK CITY which were released the same year. After FURY, he was connected with several comic book projects including writing and directing BLADE:TRINITY and working on the TV series and writing Zack Synder's MAN OF STEEL. As of this writing he's working on "The Justice League of America" movie.

Australian born director Ron Hardy made FURY after a TV version of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA and an unreleased version of ROBINSON CRUSOE starring Pierce Brosnan, He later did more TV.

Thanks for readin', ya tin plated yahoos!

Stan Lee Has a Cameo!

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN-2012-Hollywood couldn't stop when they were ahead could they? I'll say Sam Raimi's 2004 version wasn't perfect but he did a good adaptation. Why not 10 years later did they have to "re-invent" the whole thing over again?? The makers of this could have cut to the chase at least and just included a brief introduction on how the old web-head came to be but no they had to start all over again although the origins are basically the same. This time however nerdy science brain photograph taking Peter Parker has a mysterious missing father (Campbell Scott) who was once friends with the one armed Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) now head of a technology corporation working with spiders. Flash Thompson is still the dumb muscled bully but when Peter after gaining his super powers humiliates him in front of the whole gym it's Peter who gets in trouble and receives a stern lecture from his doomed Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen). Hey! Someone has to defend bullies, right?

But in fact Peter is kind of a fuck up, acting very dysfunctional and even forgetting to do things for his devoted Aunt May (Sally Field). Later Peter strikes up a relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) who's father (Dennis Leary, Dennis Leary? Really? At least THE DARK KNIGHT had Gary Oldman) of course is the police captain trying to arrest the crime-fighter. Andrew Garfield is a total failure in the title role who instead of being the wisecracking hero is more like a smug bully himself. Connors later turns himself into The Lizard but of course instead of a being a lizard man it's a huge mutated CGI monster. The stupidest part is how The Lizard finds out Peter secret ID. After one of their encounters he finds a camera stamped "property of Peter Parker"!

Director Marc Webb (who also made the romance  (500) OF SUMMER) should stick to making Jesse McCartney videos. Unfortunately this was a hit and Part 2 is in post-production at the time of this writing. Too bad no one told him the phrase: "With great power comes great responsibility"....

Sorry for the rant...thanks for reading!

Remember Agents of S.H.E.E.S.H.?

MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.-2013-This series adapted and produced by THE AVENGERS director Jess Wheldon (who directed this pilot) for ABC TV is about the special agency featured in most of the Marvel Comics movie adaptations. Despite being killed in THE AVENGERS, special agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) is back from the dead and leading the special force against a hacker group called "The Rising Tide". They also investigate a guy named Mike Patterson (J. August Richard) who has superhuman powers. The explanation why Coulson is still alive is that his death was a faked set-up to make The Avengers fight harder but obviously there's more to it. 

Ming Na-Wen plays Melinda May, their weapons expert/ pilot. Brett Dalton is the SHIELD agent asshole of the group. Chloe Bennett plays a hacker named Skye who joins the group at the end of this episode. It's set in the Marvel universe and there are brief references to some of it's super guys but it could be the Charlton universe as far as I care!

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Ghost Rider

GHOST RIDER-2007-This adaptation of the Marvel comic isn't very good. It takes forever to get started and when it finally does it's pretty incoherent. 

Nicolas Cage (who I've been told took his last name from comic book hero Luke Cage) is Johnny Blaze, a daredevil motorcycle stuntman who sells his soul to the devil (Peter Fonda, sounding a lot like David Carradine) to save his father who dies anyway. Eventually his head turns into flaming skull and he fights crime and three evil riders. Not learning from the mistakes of Ang Lee's THE HULK, some genius thought it would be good to bring in Sam Elliot to growl out the legend. Eva Mendes is equally unfortunate as Blaze's reporter/long lost love. 

This was not director/screenwriter Mark Steven Johnson's first encounter with a Marvel superhero. He'd previously messed up...I mean made DAREDEVIL with Ben Affleck. Still the movie did well enough to spawn a sequel in 2011, GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE.

The real deal!

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When Capt. America Throws His Mighty Shield...

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER-2011-Marvel' s famous WW 2 hero is finally given the big budget Hollywood treatment.

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans from THE LOSERS) is a patriotic wimpy guy who tries several times to join the army but always comes up 4-F. His best friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) makes it easily and goes off to war. Eventually a German doctor (Stanley Tucci) picks Rogers to be the US army's test subject in their "Super Soldier" experiment. Hugh Weaving is fine as Johan Schmidt aka The Red Skull who with his Nazi based group Hydra plans to destroy the world. He's assisted by Dr. Armin Zola (Toby Jones from HARRY POTTER AND THE DEADLY GALLOWS) looking a lot like Truman Capote.

Tommy Lee Jones is the skeptical Colonel Phillips and Hayley Atwill (the recent THE PRISONER remake) is the out of place English female officer Peggy Carter. Dominic Cooper is Howard Stark. Cap also gets help from the un-named Howlin' Commandos (Timothy McDonough as Dum Dum, Derek Luke as Gabe Jones, Kenneth Choi, JJ Feild and Bruno Ricci).

Of course it's a great action film and Evans is good in the lead role especially in his handling of the pre-super soldier Rogers. The weird twist ending features Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury. Co-executive producer Stan Lee has a cameo. Great closing credits!

Strange that this well done adaptation was made by director Joe Johnson (HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS, JUMANJI) after the overly gory THE WOLFMAN. Whoa! I can't wait for THE AVENGERS!

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Better Thor

THOR-2011-I really wasn't prepared to enjoy this movie and so maybe I liked it a little more than some. There were a 1000 ways for the filmmakers to screw it up but instead they did a pretty good "Hollywood job" with it.

Chris Hemsworth is the hammer yielding Norse god from the Marvel comic book. In Asgard he's a very arrogant thunder god who starts a new war with the frost giants and is banished by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) to Earth. But the real culprit behind it all is his jealous half brother Loki (Tim Hiddleston).

Natalie Portman is kind of miscast as Jane Foster, a scientist who becomes his love interest and Rene Russo is Thor's mom Frigga. Stellan Skarsgard is an archeologist who eventually figures in the future AVENGERS movie (a post end credits scene also features Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury). Even the Warriors Three are featured. Ray Stevenson is Volstag, Tadanobu Asano is Hogun and Josh Daniels is Fandril. Of course Stan Lee has a cameo as does J. Michael Straczynski who developed the story.

Actor-director Kenneth Branagh did a better job adapting this than he did Frankenstein.

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Iron Ass

IRON MAN-2010-2-This film is the biggest joke of 2010! Iron Man is reduced to a clown in this talky nonsensical hit which is too long, over acted and just plain annoying. The first 30 minutes had me wondering if I was actually watching an Iron Man sequel or weird promotional short about Tony Stark.

Still in Academy Award nominated mode Mickey Rourke (with Russian accent) shows up as Whiplash, a revenge seeking super villain but the initial fight is him against an Iron Man-less Stark. Don Cheadle returns as Rhodey Rhodes and dons the War Machine armor to battle a drunk Iron Man in a lounge at the Stark Expo in Flushing Meadow Park. Samuel L. Jackson has a bigger role this time as Nick Fury who says witty things like "I've got my eye on you". Scarlett Johansson is the Black Widow (this is also unfortunately seems like a major introduction for a her character). Sam Rockwell is Justin Hammer, Stark's moronic villainous rival and Gary Shandling plays a senator who wants the Iron Man suit turned over to the evil US. Oh yeah, Gwyeth Paltrow is back as Pepper Potts who somehow becomes in charge of Stark Enterprises.

Later Whiplash programs War Machine to go after Iron Man and the all out climax begins when giant Transformer like robots are let loose. Director Jon Favreau (from Queens, NY) plays Happy Hogan. I hope he sticks to acting.

Also with John Slattery, Kate Mara, Leslie Bibb, Clark Gregg and the voice of Paul Bettany. Stan Lee has a cameo and there's a post credit scene relating to Thor.

I have to admit though Downey plays a great asshole

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Cavedog Like!

HULK WORLD/PLANET HULK-2010-This Marvel Animation Production is based on one of their graphic novels. In it the Hulk is banished to another world by Iron Man and other Earth superheroes. He winds up on a planet where gladiator type fights take place between different alien warriors. Guess who becomes the champion? It's entertaining with action and drama and Beta Ray Bill even shows up in the arena! It premiered on the Disney cable channel XD.

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TV Shows From 2010

I only watched three TV series regularly this past year. Here they are:


THE WALKING DEAD-Everyone has probably heard about this AMC original production which tries to expand on the story lines laid down by George Romero's DEAD series and it's countless imitations. It's ironic that a once great cable station like AMC which horribly edits it's films and has more commercial interruptions than TBS would produce an original series that contains so much graphic violence and gore. A cop awakens from a coma (like in 28 DAYS LATER) and goes around the US trying to find his family and any other survivors. There's way too much CGI gore and most of the characters just argue and emote while occasionally fighting the living dead. The first season was only 6 episodes (how much faith did AMC have in this project before airing it?).




MOGULS AND MOVIE STARS-This was a great seven part original series produced by TCM that covers the beginnings of movie making up until the late '60's. Many old silent shorts are used plus interviews with filmmakers, writers and technical crews. Even TCM host Robert Osborne has a few things to say. It covers peep shows, Edison, Chaplin, the studio heads, blacklisting, the threat of TV, the demise of the studio system and a lot more. Some subjects are glossed over or left out, still it's well made and informative. Christopher Plummer provides the narration.



THE AVENGERS-THE WORLD’S MIGHTIEST HEROES-Maybe I’m a sentimental old fuddy duddy or just an immature “big kid” but I really enjoyed this animation based on the characters featured in Marvel Comics. It features all the “original” members (Iron Man, Capt. America, The Hulk, Ant Man, The Wasp and Thor plus The Black Panther). Other characters like Hawkeye, The Black Widow, Nick Fury and Doc Samson appear. There are a lot of super villains with The Leader, Baron Strucker, Modok and Hydra leading the way but SHIELD is basically presented as a force not to be trusted.

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Make Mine Marvel! Part 3

X-MEN 3: LAST STAND-2006-Although I read a lot of bad reviews for this hit second sequel I really enjoyed it. There are some rough spots but what movie is perfect? Nearly everyone returns including top billed Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Halle Berry as Storm, Patrick Stewart as Prof. X and Ian McKellan as Magneto. Famke Jansen's Jean Grey is even resurrected as Dark Phoenix. Kelsey Grammer is The Beast. Michael Murphy is a scientist who has invented a cure for mutants. Magneto (acting more like the comic book version than ever before) doesn’t like it and puts together a mutant army to overthrow the world. The finale is great. 

Director Brett Ratner helmed all three RUSH HOUR movies and made many music videos early in his career. He was the executive producer of the first season of TV’s PRISON BREAK. 

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Make Mine Marvel?-Part 2

FANTASTIC FOUR 2: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER-2007-The mostly miscast four (Ioan Grufford as Reed Richards, Jennifer Alba as Sue Richards, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm) returns to save the Earth from the high-flying Silver Surfer (voice of Lawrence Fishburne), herald to the planet devouring Galactus (unseen here). Director Tim Story injects a little more humor this time (and still delivers on the action scenes) but the over all story is not very good.

Andre Baugher is a cardboard army officer who decides it’s better to trust Doctor Doom than the FF. This means the film really takes a downward spiral as Julian McMahon returns to chew the scenery. Kerry Washington is back as Alicia Masters and Stan Lee has a cameo.

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Make Mine Marvel?

FANTASTIC FOUR-2005-The future super team (plus Victor Von Doom who is engaged to Sue Storm) goes into space and gets bombarded by cosmic rays. They begin to exhibit strange powers. Wow! This is kind of similar to a comic book Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created in the early ‘60’s!

Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd; Lancelot in KING ARTHUR) gets insulted a lot for being a detached egghead. Human Torch Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) is a wise-ass moron who makes you wish he'd really go up in flames. (well at least there's no Herbie the robot) Sue Storm (miscast Jennifer Alba) mostly walks around naked (but she’s invisible of course). The future Doctor Doom (Julian McMahon) likes to whisper and chew the scenery. In this version he doesn’t wear a suit of armor. He becomes one instead! Only Michael Chiklis’ Ben Grimm (aka The Ever Lovin’ Blue Eyed Thing) captures any spirit of the original comic. He needed funnier lines though. The action scenes and SFX are well done though except maybe for Mr. Fantastic’s stretching power. Director Tim Story had previously made BARBERSHOP and TAXI.

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