Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday (2022)

This is it, Scott Adkins official entry into the 30 Club! While we no longer display the list along with the 40 and 50 Club, it's still an exclusive club, and great that we were able to get Adkins in. This was also a film we covered on the podcast, episode 213, the "Scott Adkins Double Feature," which we did with Will from Exploding Helicopter. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof and Outlaw Vern have covered this as well.

Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday picks up where the first film left off. Mike Fallon (Adkins) is now living in Malta and still carrying out hits. To keep him sharp, he has Wong Siu-ling (Sarah Chang) as his Cato, attacking him at any moment. When his old friend Fred (Perry Benson) comes to town, looking for a lady that he met online, Fallon decides to have him help with his hits, which works great, until a hit gets put on the son of a local mob boss. Now said mob boss is holding Fred hostage while Adkins has to protect the son from all manner of assassins that are looking to claim the bounty--including his old mentor Big Ray (Ray Stevenson)! It's going to take everything in Fallon's bag of tricks to make it out of this alive.

This was a lot of fun. Some of the humor was a bit much, like when the mobster's son is covered in diarrhea after he passes a watch with a homing device on it through his system, but overall, a lot of this works. It's also a labor of love from Adkins, and that commitment shows, not just from him, but everyone else involved. The stunts are top notch, the fight scenes are electric, and the performances are exactly what you'd want to get us from action sequence to action sequence. I also liked that it was set in Malta, instead of set somewhere else and shot in Malta. That, combined with a lot of the UK inside humor (some of which I got and some I didn't), gave the film a further authenticity that got it over the goal line, especially when a movie like this needs to be made on a budget. It might be a little extreme in mixed company, and the diarrhea part probably isn't great if you're eating, but if you and some like-minded friends are looking for a fun actioner, this is worth it--again though, probably more just a beer movie than a pizza and beer movie.

I haven't seen Diablo yet, but when Jon Cross told me about it on season 2, episode 22 of his After Movie Diner podcast, it sounded like a candidate for Adkins's 30 Club post; but this one, which is a passion project of his, feels like an equally worthy one, because you can feel his desire for this to work in every scene. It's a 90-minute reminder of just how great he is, as if we needed it. Whenever we add a new member to one of the clubs, the question is, what's next for them, and in Adkins's case, we already have Take Cover and Incoming in the can and waiting to be reviewed. From there, once Diablo is a little cheaper to rent, or even better on a streaming service I already have, we'll cover that, and then I see another 10 or 11 more that need to be covered, so 40 Club is easy, as long as we get the reviews in. He's one of the best in the game right now, so it's good we can add him to the 30 Club finally.

This is unfortunately one of Ray Stevenson's final films, which is really sad, because his larger-than-life presence added an extra element to all the movies he was in, whether it was something like this, or a nine-figure-earning blockbuster like the Thor films. My two favorite roles of his have each been covered here, in Kill the Irishman and Punisher: War Zone. The moment Adkins sits down across from him while he's having his English breakfast, that presence is alive in the film, and even though he's not in it as much, you can sense him looming around the proceedings, so we know, no matter what Adkins does, he'll have to deal with Big Ray eventually. Technically Canary Black qualifies to be on the site, because it didn't make $1 million at the box office, so we could see him again. Either way, Mr. Stevenson, you truly were one of the greats, here's to you!

As a kid, the Pink Panther movies played on WSBK TV38 in Boston, usually on a TV show called The Movie Loft that aired movies when the Red Sox or Bruins weren't on. I absolutely loved them, and I loved that this film added the Cato element with Sarah Chang's Siu-Ling character. I think may favorite was Pink Panther Strikes Again, when the film looks like it's wrapping up and Inspector Clouseau is in bed with the leading lady, only to have Cato show up, hanging out over the canopy over the bed before falling in and a fight ensues. It was the hardest I'd ever laughed at anything to that point, and there haven't been many times since then that I've laughed like that. Nothing happened in this that was that funny, but it was fun enough to be reminded of it and have that element in the film. If Adkins does more sequels, hopefully they'll bring her character back for them.

Finally, we have a killer clown as one of the assassins. In real life I feel like professional clown is a noble pursuit, something very few are cut out for. Take me, for example, it's not one I could do, because I don't drive, and you need to be able to drive the small car. My favorite TV episode of all time, and one TV Guide called the greatest, involves a clown, the famous "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, where she can't stop laughing at his funeral. Similar to the scene from Pink Panther Strikes Again that I mentioned above, there are very few times I've laughed that hard. As of this writing, all of the episodes are on Hulu, so you can check it out, season 6, episode 7--and back then TV shows weren't serialized, so you don't need to have seen all the episodes before it to understand what's happening, you can just fire it up.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can get this on many major streamers here in the US, so if you have Prime without commercials, that may be the way to go; or if you don't, Tubi is the best out of the others when it comes to ad breaks. And also check out the podcast episode I did with Will from Exploding Helicopter on this one, number 213 in the archives. And finally, congratulations to Scott Adkins for his entry into the 30 Club, it was well-deserved, and the 40 and 50 Clubs await!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9669176

Pick up my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Chris Claremont's X-Men (2018)

It's almost Christmas, and you know what that means? Our annual unofficial Christmas documentary post. Since I came back from hiatus in 2019, I've done a documentary at this time every year except for two: 2020, where I was late and did the He-Man documentary in January of 2021, and in 2022, when I did the Dolph flick Pups Alone instead. Anyway, in addition to us, RobotGEEK's Cult Cinema has covered this as well.

Chris Claremont's X-Men is about Chris Claremont's run on one of Marvel's greatest franchises, and how it wasn't one of Marvel's greatest franchises until he was given the book, and did amazing things with it. The documentary looks at his rise at a young age in Marvel, how he was kind of given X-Men because it wasn't doing well, his work with John Byrne, Louise Simonson, and Ann Nocenti that gave us so many classic X-Men storylines, and then Marvel's push to make more money, saturation in the market, and the rise of youngsters like Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld that led to Claremont's exit. Overall, the legacy he left is massive, and comics wouldn't be the same without him.

This was a fantastic documentary, but my biggest complaint--and one that Freddie Young at Full Moon Reviews shared when he was on podcast episode 189 with me--is that it could've been longer! You can probably count on one hand how many times I've wanted a movie to be longer, but at 71 minutes this film could've used another 20 minutes of background. What it gives you though is the genesis of how the modern X-Men came to be, and how it cemented itself with Spider-Man as the number one properties Marvel had in the 80s going into the 90s. One area that they didn't get into was the post Claremont period, especially in the 2010s when Disney bought Marvel, but Fox still had the rights to the X-Men, so Disney had Marvel diminish the X-Men in the comics in favor of the Avengers so younger audiences would be less inclined to see the X-Men movies. Because this came out in 2018, it couldn't have foreseen the Disney purchase of Fox and how that dynamic may be changing now, but I think Disney trying to diminish his legacy was an important element they left out. They also left out, as far as I remember, that Claremont came back to Marvel to work on new X books. Beyond that though, this is what you want from a movie like this, especially if you grew up reading the X-Men comics like I did.

I started collecting comics in earnest around the time Claremont was being forced out by Marvel's heads, which is something I had no idea about, but I knew the name Chris Claremont. All the back issues, all the great storylines he conceived, like Dark Phoenix and Days of Future Past, and all the great characters he had a part in creating, or like Wolverine, developed after they were created by someone else. X-Men as a property wouldn't have been worth Fox buying the rights to in the first place if it wasn't for Claremont's work, and even with Disney trying to diminish it, after a lackluster 2023, it's now those same X-Men characters that they're hoping will help right the ship. Another way to think of it though, the fact that the MCU was able to be as successful as it had been without the X-Men, and without Spider-Man to start, is a testament to their ingenuity, but also testament to the legacy and shadow cast by Claremont; but also I think too, the fact that the Fox adaptations of his stories and characters wasn't as successful shows that you can't just recreate someone else's work. I saw he did get a thank you credit for 2019's Dark Phoenix, but I wonder if he couldn't help the other Fox productions because he was under contract with Marvel? Another area this film missed.

What they didn't miss was Claremont's focus on female characters. He said in the film that when he created a character, he asked himself "could this character be a woman?" The volume of female characters he created was immense, and really filled a gap in Marvel's universe, one that was really apparent when the MCU started and we didn't get a female-helmed film until Captain Marvel. The thing is though, with Fox having the rights to Storm, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, etc., it wasn't like they were jumping to make any female-helmed films either. It was a massive missed opportunity I think, but now that Disney and Marvel Studios no longer have the excuse that a lot of their best female characters are with Fox, let's see what they put together in the coming years. The other legacy of Claremont's work, is the large amount of young women who grew up comic book fans. Hopefully Marvel Studios will lean into that legacy more.

In my review on the Image Revolution documentary, I talked about how much I loved Jim Lee and Rob Liefield in the early 90s, but this film paints a different picture of their role. A big part of it was the higher-ups were more interested in making the X-Men property bigger than just The Uncanny X-Men, but with each new book, Claremont was spread that much thinner, until it was all taken away from him and split up. Would the bubble have burst if the Marvel execs hadn't been so keen on maximizing dollars? Sure, I wouldn't have had that iconic X-Men #1 five cover set, and maybe we don't get Deadpool or Cable from Liefeld, but the two of them left to form Image anyway, which hastened the bursting of the bubble that we eventually got. If instead of four Spider-Man books, and five or six X books, we had one of each that we as fans could focus on--and only one cover of each issue, and not an overly expensive milestone issue--maybe us kids would've stuck with it. We have this idea that businessmen, especially billionaires, are really good at business, but more often than not, they're just really rich from generational wealth, and just want to make as much money as possible on one thing, then move onto the next, not worrying about who might be left in the wake. Someone running Marvel properly in the early 90s might've handled that all differently, and maybe we don't get the bubble burst.

Finally, mixed in with the images of comic book panels and people giving interviews, the movie had cosplayers dressed as some of the most well-known X-Men. Cosplaying is an art I've always appreciated, to just take characters and make them your own like that is great. It's like visual fan fic, or like me in my novels, where I create my own ideas inspired by other things I've seen and heard. In Philly it's particularly interesting, because the convention center is located across the street from the Trader Joe's where I often go on Saturdays to get some groceries. It's common when we have cosplay conventions for people to pop in to get stuff while in their full outfit. And it makes sense too, because I know for me, wherever I travel, if there's a Trader Joe's, I can get stuff cheap--for example, if you're ever in San Francisco, that Trader Joe's and Target are both Godsends compared to how expensive the rest of the city is. And Philly's no different. If you're here for a cosplay convention, and you need a cheap snack and a drink, you're much better off hitting the Trader Joe's, than overspending at Reading Terminal Market. As an aside, if you're in Philly and want to get a cheesesteak, don't get it from the Market, they're all mediocre at best. Let me know if you're in town, and I'll point you to the best spots.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can get this on Tubi, Prime, and other major streamers. If you're a comic book fan, this is a must, but I also think for non-comic fans, to see the origin of some of these stories and to get a better sense of how the business worked in the 70s and 80s, it is really interesting.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7929156

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

The Fantastic Four (1994)

This is one I'd been meaning to do for a long time, and once I saw it was on YouTube, I bumped it up in my queue. Then for the DTVC Extra I was looking at MCU Phase 2, and thought I'd watch the 2015 Fantastic Four debacle, and decided I finally needed to watch this as well for comparison's sake; and then for the review, I put it here, one day after producer Roger Corman's birthday.

The Fantastic Four is based off the Marvel comic of the same name. In this iteration, Reed Richards (Alex Hyde-White) is in college with Ben Grimm (Michael Baily Smith) and Victor Von Doom (Joseph Culp), when some intergalactic phenomenon is happening and Richards and Doom invent a device to tap into it. Things go wrong, and we think Doom dies. Years later, Richards thinks he has it right, so he and Bailey plan to go into space this time, and they decide to take Sue and Johnny Storm (Rebecca Staab and Jay Underwood) with them, despite them having no training or experience. It's okay though, no training would prepare them for what happened: they all get special powers! Turned out Doom didn't die though, and he wants their powers so he can use them for his evil ends. Will he succeed?

I didn't hate this. It had some flaws--like making Sue and Johnny Storm much younger, and then still having them fly on the ship; or the whole thing with the Jeweler kidnapping Alicia Masters, which felt rough considering she's blind--and was funny because they did a POV shot from her POV when she's blind!--but beyond those flaws, this is closest to the source material--and they wanted to be closer, because they wanted the Jeweler to be Mole Man, but they weren't allowed to use him--and the 90s TV movie feel took me back to movies like Trial of the Hulk, which was fun from a comfort food standpoint. As far as casting, I liked everyone they had, and other than Ioan Gruffudd, who I feel is the perfect Mr. Fantastic, I don't think anyone cast in these parts since have been better (which isn't to say I didn't like Alex Hyde-Smith here in that part, I definitely did). For someone who grew up in the modern world of comic book movies, this might hurt your sensibilities, and I get that; but that 2015 one had a $120 million budget, and it's an objectively inferior movie to this. Which means as you're watching this, you can't help but wonder how this would've been with a bigger budget. Could it have been an all-time great? Maybe not a top 10, but maybe one that gets onto those click-bait-y "Most Underrated Comic Book Movies" articles or "Top Non-MCU Marvel movies."

Thinking of my own experience with the Fantastic Four, my earliest memories are one of the cartoons, either the '67 one or the '78 one, and I feel like it was mixed in with things like Space Ghost, Birdman, and Thundarr the Barbarian on a Hanna-Barbera morning cartoon show--and when I say morning, I mean like really early, like 6:30a before my mom took us to nursery school. From there you'd see the Fantastic Four everywhere. Human Torch hung out with Spider-Man. Any kind of Marvel product, like a lunch box, would have them included. When I started collecting comics myself in the late 80s, Fantastic Four wasn't one I bought, but it was understood as one of the major cornerstone ones for Marvel, the one that started the modern age of comics at that time. From there though, Fox bought the rights to Fantastic Four and X-Men, and then Disney bought Marvel, and the focus became the MCU, of which Fantastic Four, because it was owned by Fox, wasn't a part of. Watching this movie from 1994 reminded me of how big a deal they were, and how much of a shame it is that they haven't been around for the growth of the MCU. The biggest omission has been Dr. Doom, who is Marvel's best baddie. We know now that there's an MCU adaptation in the works, so we'll see how it does, but at this stage, between the MCU's growth from 2009 and 2019, the only Fantastic Four we got was the sauteed in wrong sauce 2015 reboot; and now as things have waned a bit, they might be looking at the new Fantastic Four to be one of the ones to bring them back. Is it too late though? We'll see in 2025.

Out of everyone, I think Rebecca Staab was the most like her comic book character. It was weird that her character was a high schooler at the beginning--played by a younger actor--because I think if she'd been in college with Reed, Grimm, and Doom, it would've made more sense. When she brings out the iconic Fantastic Four uniforms, and she's already in hers, it was the big reveal moment we didn't get in the others because they weren't the same iconic ones we grew up with. It was interesting that Staab was the one wearing hers for most of the time, the idea almost like "young men watching this aren't watching it to see Jay Underwood or Alex Hyde-White in spandex," but it was also a reminder that she was one of the bigger female comic book heroes, and has been left on the shelf for a long time. In 1994 she would've been one of the first on the big screen, after Supergirl, as we were one year before Tank Girl, two before Barb Wire, and Batgirl doesn't appear in the Batman films until 1997's Batman and Robin--so on top of predating everyone but Supergirl, she also would've been the only one who's superhero moniker was "woman" instead of "girl." Instead, this was shelved, so Staab and her portrayal of Sue Storm/Invisible Woman didn't get to have that part in history. Another reason why Disney should clean this up and put it on Disney+.

Our film's one Hall of Famer is the great Roger Corman, whose production company Concorde-New Horizons has produced some of the greats from the late 80s/early 90s that we love, in particular the Bloodfist films. He was also instrumental in molding the action genre with his 70s exploitation films, especially the ones starring Pam Grier. One thing that's interesting when you look at the documentary on this film, Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's the Fantastic Four, which we've reviewed on the site, is Lloyd Kaufman said he was approached to make this film too, and turned it down because he wanted Troma to focus on their own characters. Corman on the other hand went for it. He swears that this was supposed to be released until Marvel killed it, which sounds closer to right when you watch the movie, but what it did was allow the rights holders to renew their option so they could work with Fox to make the bigger budget one ten years later and make more money. The comp is probably Cannon with Captain America and Superman IV, and what Corman did that they didn't, was he didn't pump too much money into this. He easily could've gambled, thinking this was his big opportunity, and put more money of his own upfront, which he would've lost and probably would've ended his production career. But that's why he's been in the business so long, he doesn't take gambles like that. This is only his 32nd tag on the site, but sometimes I find a film he produced that I forgot to tag, plus he has so much out there that we could review, that 40 and 50 Club and beyond isn't out of the question, it's just a matter of if I can review them all. Happy Birthday Mr. Corman, you truly are one of the best to ever do it.

Finally, for this last paragraph, I wanted to reflect on the evolution of comic book movies over the past 30 years since this was made. In 1994 we had the first two Superman movies and the first two Batman movies as the standard of quality for films, plus the '60s Batman, The Incredible Hulk, and Wonder Woman as the standard for TV shows. You could make the case that as successful as a lot of the comic book movies in the intervening 30 years have been, none of them are really better than those standards--that 30 years later they're still the standards--and I think the reason why is so many movies want to be Superman--Kevin Feige said he watches it for inspiration before starting any new MCU project--so how can you be better if you're trying to emulate it? And who wants to try being Tim Burton's Batman and take that gamble? The Joker was a gamble, and the fact that it paid off should be the thing studios are looking at, because it's not in either Donner or Burton's shadow. TV on the other hand has been a little better. While those three shows really stand up for me, you can look at Daredevil and Arrow as two that reach that standard, plus some of the Disney+ mini-series have been good too. On the other hand, have any of them really changed the zeitgeist the way those three have? If I say "you won't like me when I'm angry," or if a TV show shows a person spinning around to transform into a new outfit, or has a fight with flashes of "boom!" and "pow!" on the screen, we know instantly what that means and what it's referring to. Is there anything about Daredevil, Arrow, or those Disney+ shows that have had that kind of effect on our culture? At least the MCU films have had some of those kind of inroads--if I reference Wakanda everyone knows what I'm talking about, but even that is a remake of Superman--a fantastic one, done really well, but a kind of remake nonetheless. Deadpool is another one that hasn't exactly followed the standards, so maybe that's the one this summer that will change the game, but again, it is interesting to think that in the 30 years since this came out, Donner's Superman and Burton's Batman are still the standards. The special effects have gotten better, but the stories haven't kept pace.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently YouTube or a bootleg DVD is the best way to see this. Hopefully Disney+ will get a version on their site between now and when the 2025 MCU film is released. Yes, it has its shortcomings, but it's also the most faithful version of the comic to this point and deserves to be seen by the world--and the PR boon Disney could get by leaning into it is something the really need right now.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109770

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Corrective Measures (2022)

Last year at this time, Ty and I covered this film as what was then our second episode together looking at Bruce Willis's recent DTV films, episode 116 We're still looking at those films, only now we've also branched out to other stars, like Bruce Dern, not so much because we've given up, but we found we needed to mix things up with how rough some of those DTV Willis flicks can be.

Corrective Measures is based off of a graphic novel, where an electromagnetic pulse has gone off and given some people superpowers. As with most cases where people have superpowers, some are heroes, and some are villains, and for the villains, they get dumped in a maximum security prison run by the corrupt warden, Michael Rooker. The most dangerous criminal housed there is powerful telepath "The Lobe" (Bruce Willis). Rooker decides to blackmail Willis into giving him some of his wealth so he can retire, which Willis sees as his opportunity to try to break out. At the same time, we follow Diaz, an empath who probably doesn't belong there, but now has to navigate this corrupt, violent situation, just as everything is about to hit the fan.

I don't want to say I didn't like this, but it felt like the second or third movie in a series of films about this superhero world, if that makes sense. Like people with superpowers stuck in prison doesn't feel like where I want to start, because all of them are trapped without the use of their powers for most of the film. On the other hand, we're in an actual world where the superhero genre is locked into this big tent/big budget blockbuster or streaming TV series event kind of thing, so to have something in a unique universe outside of Marvel or DC, have it be lower budget and on a smaller scale, is refreshing. I also like Willis as the baddie, and Rooker as the warden, their interplay really anchored things--but again, it would've been cool if there was a previous film where Willis's character is caught and sent to prison first, as such a big villain should have more of the film. I also liked Brendan Mejia as Diaz, the nicer character that we as the audience could focus on and follow, and his interactions with both prison doctor Haley Sales (who you may remember as Cable's wife in Deadpool 2) and fellow inmate Tom Cavanaugh (veteran of The Flash series). Overall, one thing you can say about this, is it's not a throwaway EFO Willis flick, this one was more earnest, and that helped it.

We're now at 14 Bruce Willis flicks on the site, which, when I started in 2007, I wouldn't have believed that there would ever be that many Willis DTV flicks that I could review, let alone another 20 or so after that that I could do (though to be fair, one of the Willis flicks I've reviewed is Die Hard, and two others are Expendables and Expendables 2, and those aren't DTV flicks). Watching Randall Scandal has put those later Willis DTV flicks in a new light, plus I'm not sure how many of the Willis ones Ty and I have covered that I'll review--if you're wondering, there 8 more that we've covered that I haven't reviewed yet. Those numbers definitely put Willis in the 30 Club if I were to do them all, which would mean automatic induction into the Hall of Fame, and that's something we'd have to think about--the point could be made that his contributions to DTV just with Die Hard alone should get him in, considering how many DTV flicks use the Die Hard paradigm. A movie like this though, where even in his limited capacity he's absolutely fantastic, is a reminder of the great movie star he was, and why he was that. It was nice to see it here, and unfortunate that we couldn't have had more.

Rooker's back on the DTVC, his last film being another Willis flick, White Elephant. He's as great as you'd want him to be as the corrupt warden with his straw hat and his Southern accent. He's more known for his role as Yondu in The Guardians of the Galaxy series, and I imagine those roles pay him out more than he got for this. Unlike Willis, who I didn't expect to see here as often, I figured Rooker would have a ton of roles like this in DTV flicks that would allow him to rack up the tags, but he went the other way, not just with Guardians of the Galaxy, but Suicide Squad and F9. Still, anytime we can get him, and he's chewing the scenery left and right, it's a good thing. Hopefully we'll see him some more on here in the future.

This was an interesting year for comic book movies, and blockbuster franchises in general. There was an overall sense of fatigue that led to many of them either not making their budget back, or not making enough to turn a profit. It's weird to think that 25 years or so ago, outside of Batman movies, comic book movies were more likely to be done like this than as $250 million events that expect to earn $1 billion in worldwide gross. I think that's why I didn't want to be tougher on this, because I like that it even exists at all. If you look at 2008, the first year of Marvel Studios producing their own films with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, we also had Punisher War Zone, a lower budget, limited release film under the Marvel Knights banner. At the time, when Marvel was experiencing so much success--in '08 we also had The Dark Knight, which dominated the year, but by '12, that had flipped and The Avengers outdid The Dark Knight Rises--they could be forgiven for not leaning into what Punisher War Zone brought, and forgiven even more in 2011 when another Marvel Knights film, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance pulled in $132 million on a budget of $57 million, considering they were about to pull in $1.5 billion the next year with The Avengers; but now that they've had a tough year, those films and what they meant might be worth revisiting. Instead of three movies that all need to pull in $1 billion, what if the focus is on one, and the others go limited release on a smaller budget? Either way, the point is, this film brought me back to a time when you could have lower budget comic book movies, and hopefully we'll get back there.

Finally, this is another Tubi Original. We've done like three so far on the site, and I do appreciate the space that they open up in the market, so I've decided to tag them. We'll see how many we get from here, if they end up getting into the exalted status of a PM or Cannon, or if we end up with only a few more. Based on what they have to offer, it could really go either way I think. One that I have teed up is Murder City with Mike Colter--another comic book adaptation connection, I loved him in Luke Cage. In this new world of streaming with seldom a physical release, it'll be interesting to see how Tubi is. Do they take things down and vault them, or do they leave things up in perpetuity so we can always get them--and will they ever, if a film is popular enough, consider a physical media release? The thing is, with how the streaming industry is in general, there isn't a space to give them the benefit of the doubt, but at least we can enjoy what they have for as long as they have it.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Not only can you get this on Tubi, but it's also listed as being on Amazon Prime, so perhaps outside the US this is available as well. I think I like the concept of it and the existence of it more than I like the film itself, but I think it could still be worth a watch. And you can go back to 116 in the pod archives to see what Ty and I had to say about this.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15391770

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

City Hunter aka Sing si lip yan (1993)

This is one I watched a few years back when I was doing my Gary Daniels list on Letterboxd, and I planned to review it soon after, but it never happened. And then late last year, I was a guest on Scott Murphy's All 90s Action, All the Time podcast, and we were covering this film, so I watched it again, with the plan to review it soon after as well. Now with Daniels's 60th birthday coming in a few days, I figured this is as good a time as any to get it done.

City Hunter has Jackie Chan as the hero, Ryo Saeba, based off of the Manga comic of the same name. He gets a job to track down a rich newspaper magnate's daughter, who ends up taking a cruise, meaning Chan has to follow her onto it. The problem: terrorist Richard Norton and his gang, led by his head henchman Gary Daniels, are taking the cruise hostage so they can extort the rich people onboard for their money. Now it's up to Chan to be the fly in the ointment. He's not alone though, we have a baccarat player who's also an expert card thrower, and a government agent undercover as a young lady hoping to pick up some rich businessmen, who are also able to help him. Will they ultimately prevail?

There are a few places to go to with this. Let's start with the action and martial arts. Exactly what you want from Golden Harvest starring Jackie Chan. Some really inspired scenes, culminating in a great finale between Chan and Norton. We also had the iconic scene with Chan and Daniels where they played Street Fighter characters, giving us a sense of what it would be like if Daniels ever got to play Ken. The other place to go is the comedy, and one could make the point that a lot of it didn't age well: we have homophobia, gross chauvinism, with a dash of racism thrown in; beyond that though, I think some of it just wasn't funny. Bits would go on past their saturation point, leaving me wanting the old Vaudeville hook to come off-screen and pull whoever was in the joke off the stage. Some of the humor did work though, especially with Chan, who is not only a fantastic martial artist, but also a great physical comedian, and he delivers that Buster Keaton vibe you want when you see Chan on the tin--and like Keaton, who did black face in College, Chan employs some brown face here when he plays Dhalsim in the Street Fighter scene, but I digress. I think between the novelty of seeing Daniels and Norton together in a Jackie Chan Golden Harvest film, plus the level of the martial arts, this is worth checking out, even if some of the humor will make you cringe a bit.

With Daniels turning 60 in a few days, it's interesting to look at this one from 30 years ago, when Daniels's career was in its earlier stage. Even more interesting is, only two years after this, he did Fist of the Northstar, which was the one he expected to catapult him to the big time, but unfortunately didn't end up working. From there though, he spends the next 10-15 years putting together one of the greatest DTV CVs ever, with films like Bloodmoon; the "three Rs" of PM, Rage, Riot, and Recoil; and Cold Harvest. But then something happens, the 2000s come, and guys like Seagal and Van Damme drop down to DTV, and while someone like Dolph was able to survive, Daniels was given fewer leading roles, in some cases needing to settle for religious films shot in Thailand. He wasn't alone in this though, Rothrock and Wilson also suffered a similar fate, the only thing was, it seemed like Daniels came out on the other side in a bit better place, getting some starring roles again in films like Skin Traffik, Misfire, and Rumble. But when we come back to this one, he has a smaller role, but you can see where he was going, and it's not a surprise that he'd get a part like Kenshiro in Fist of the Northstar, the surprise is that he never quite made that big screen level.

This is our first Jackie Chan film on the site, after almost 1200 posts. I know he doesn't do a lot of DTV stuff--and this technically isn't DTV either--but you'd think we'd at least have a Wild Card post or something like we've had for guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sly Stallone. I think the big reason why we haven't seen more in his case, is he doesn't have a lot of films like this that have other names, which is the kind of the thing we have to review it whether it went DTV or not. Due to issues with the director, Chan said this is one of his least favorite films, but his martial arts and stunt scenes are what you want from him. What's interesting, if you compare him with Daniels, this is also two years out from Rumble in the Bronx, the movie that got him fame here in the US, and led to a string of big budget Hollywood hits, so while it didn't work out for Daniels, Chan was that marquee Hollywood name for a time. For me, that's what got me to go back to his Hong Kong stuff like this film, after seeing Rumble in the Bronx in the theater, and fortunately as a result of that success, more of it became available. If this ends up being the only time we see Jackie on here--or if we don't see him again for another 1200 posts--at least we got him this one time on the DTVC.

The other Hall of Famer in this was Richard Norton in what is now his 25th film on the site, meaning the 30 Club is on the horizon for him. He's probably one who should've been there sooner, but we tend to lose him for months at a time, and often review films like this one where he's a secondary name to someone like Daniels, which is too bad, because he's big enough on his own, as he demonstrates here. Between the total scenery chewing of his baddie, to the great final fight with Chan, it's all there, everything we love about Norton. One thing that's helped him in recent years has been the advent of YouTube and the availability of some of his rarer titles on there. Something like a Blood Street that I had trouble tracking down, I can now find on YouTube and get reviewed on the site. I think as we wrap up guys like Daniels and Dolph, we'll have more openings for guys like Norton, so it'll be cool to get some of those up on here.

One thing I realized when I reviewed Operation Seawolf a few weeks back, is I'm reviewing Dolph films at a greater clip than Gary Daniels films, and the proof is there in looking at the archives: my last Daniels post was in early December, and since then we've done three Dolph films. I could make excuses, like how Dolph has had more films come out recently and I've needed to prioritize them, but I've also had movies like this in the can for a while now that also have needed a review. Either way, we're now at 57 films for Gary Daniels, three away from joining Dolph in the 60 Club--and joining Dolph as the only stars to have as many films as they have years on the planet--and he's still the only other member of the 50 Club with him. I don't know how much the lack of Daniels has been my fault though. If you look at his IMDb bio, Repeater just came out on Tubi, so I can get that one in; but The Gardner is still only available to rent, Astro wasn't that great and is one I'm reviewing just because it's Daniels, and then he has a couple more religious films, which I do plan to do at some point since I've already done one of his others, but how do you make them a priority when there's so much else out there. All that to say, we'll get Daniels in the 60 Club, but Dolph my still put some space between them for first and second most tags all time.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, you can stream this free on Tubi here in the States. That version is the Hong Kong release with English subtitles I believe. There's also an American cut with dubbed voices that may be more your speed, and I think that may be on Amazon. No matter how you see it, this is a fun one that you'll want to check out. And also you'll want to check out the conversation I had about this with Scott Murphy on his podcast All 90s Action, All the Time. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to it on your favorite podcatcher.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103950/

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

The Return of Swamp Thing (1989)

Back in March I had Mitch from The Video Vacuum on the podcast to talk about directors Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski, and for our Wynorski portion we discussed this film. It was one that I hadn't seen before, which I couldn't believe, especially since I like older comic book movies. In addition to us and The Video Vacuum, among the 100+ critic reviews on IMDb, this has been covered by Fred the Wolf from Full Moon Reviews, and RobotGEEK's cult cinema.

The Return of Swamp Thing takes place after the first one, where Swamp Thing is still doing his swamp thing, and Louis Jordan is back trying to make his own swamp thing like creatures. At the same time, his stepdaughter, played by Heather Locklear, comes to his swamp mansion to try to make amends. Back at her home in LA, she runs a plant shop, and has a thing for plants, so when she gets saved by Swamp Thing after a nightly stroll brings her into the path of some deranged swamp locals, it's love at first sight. Now she and Swamp Thing need to work together to bring her stepfather down, but of course, she can't last long without being a damsel in distress, and next thing you know she's strapped to Louis's machine. Can Swamp Thing save her in time?

 

This is a great time. For me it's up there as one of my favorite comic book movies. Different from the Wes Craven first one, Swamp Thing is more of an action hero here, which works better for me. At the same time, Wynorski turns up the tongue-in-cheek factor, and then brings in influences from old sci-films from the 50s and 60s. One in particular was when we saw all of Jourdan's botched experiments, one of which would have been the frightening reveal in one of those old movies, but he throws out a bunch of them as a form of dark humor. On top of that, Heather Locklear seemed to really get what Wynorski was going for with this, and played her part accordingly, which helped complete the overall vibe. This may not have had a billion-dollar budget with teaser trailers and stingers and whatever other stuff modern blockbusters had, but it was still a lot of fun.

Out of the great schlock auteurs, Wynorski is one that we haven't covered as much on the site, I think in part because he doesn't have as much action as a lot of the others, and we've tended to lean more toward action over time. That doesn't mean he's any less great, and despite the lack of quantity here, the quality has been big, between now this one, Chopping Mall, and Hard to Die, which led to the formation of the DTVC podcast after I was a guest on Drunk on VHS and we discussed that film. A distinction that he has with another great schlock auteur, Albert Pyun, is that they've both done a comic book movie. With the sheer volume of Wynorski out there, this definitely won't be the last time we see him here, but this film was a reminder of how much more I should be doing his work, because say what you want, his movies are often a lot of fun.

 

As I mentioned above, Heather Locklear was great in this as well. Mitch and I were trying to figure out how she was cast in this, and I think at the time she was known as a Soap actress, even if they were nighttime Soaps, and at that time that was a bigger issue than it was when she was on Melrose Place, when she started getting big budget Hollywood roles. It's amazing to think that that would have been the bigger decider on whether or not she got parts, as opposed to the range and ability to do comedic parts that she showed us here, but that's Hollywood for you. I was thinking this'll probably be the last time we see her on the DTVC, but a quick scan of her IMDb bio turned up Double Tap, a DTV flick from the late 90s that has been covered already by the guys at Comeuppance and Bulletproof Action. Something for us to look forward to.

It's interesting to think this came out the same year as Batman, a movie that changed what we thought comic book movies could be. I remember myself as a ten-year-old going with my friend, expecting the Adam West version of Batman, and being utterly shocked. What we see here in Wynorski's film is more of that comic book feel, I could imagine this being a series of drawn panels I would've been reading at that time, and it's a bit of a shame how post this period we don't have that much anymore. Ang Lee tried for it with his Hulk, but it was too literal and didn't work for me. I like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies for that vibe, but they don't quite hit that note the way this does for me, as they still leaned more in the Hollywood blockbuster lane. That then begs the question of where this sits on the comic book movie list for me. I think might it crack my top three after Batman '66, The Punisher '89. Other comic book movies among my favorites are Batman Returns, Superman II, Blade II, and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Out of those, I think maybe Batman Returns and Superman II are better than this one, so maybe I just need to see them again in case there's some recency bias. Also of note, The Punisher came out this same year, but didn't get a theatrical release. You have to wonder how that may have influenced the comic book movie world.

 

Finally, in the film's opening credits we see a comic book panel with the Joker and what looks like Scarecrow. Going back to the fact that Batman comes out this same year, I think prior to that DC wasn't as protective over Batman, so the characters were more available for things like this. Only a couple years later in 1991 when I was collecting the DC Cosmic Trading Cards, Batman was conspicuously absent, with even Superman included (boy had the mighty fallen there, with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace hurting that franchise two years before). With the way that Batman has been getting darker and grittier since Burton's film in '89, it would be nice to see if they could swing the pendulum back. I know Affleck's Batman was less that, but could we get a Batman where he's just a comic book hero the way Swamp Thing is here? It doesn't have to be the '66 TV show level, but maybe we don't need 3-hour dark epics, maybe we don't need a Joker who's all deranged and deformed. The reality is though, I think I'm in the minority on this, as most people who like modern comic book movies never liked comics.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is available on Tubi, which is a great deal. Seeing a schlock auteur like Wynorski tackle a comic book like Swamp Thing is a lot of fun, and well worth checking out. Also check out the podcast I did with Mitch on this, episode 94 in the archives, it was a great conversation.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098193

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

The Image Revolution (2014)

Continuing our Christmas tradition of looking at a documentary, I found this promising one on Tubi. As a huge comic book fan at the time all of this was happening, I had a good feeling about it. In addition to us, our friend at RobotGEEK's Cult Cinema, and our friend Francis Rizzo III at DVD Talk (host of the KilmerKast podcast), have looked at this, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought.

The Image Revolution looks at the founding of Image Comics in the early 90s. What was the comic book landscape at that time, and what caused the industry's biggest talents to jump ship from Marvel and create something on their own. From there, once it was founded, how did these guys who now had complete control over their output manage? There were breakout successes, bumps in the road, conflicts between the members, but ultimately these seven founders did something to change the comic book industry that still endures, as one of their newer talents, Robert Kirkman, proved in creating the hugely successful Walking Dead comic books.

 

This was pretty fantastic. It captures a moment in time when these guys were rock stars. As a comic book collector at that time, I was in it, but that was also 30 years ago, so I didn't remember it all, and also was too young to understand the ramifications of everything that was happening. The film also had the perspective of time, as these guys who were mostly in their late 20s/early 30s--and Liefeld was only 25--are now in their 50s; and we get a sense of everyone's distinct personalities, as opposed to seeing them all as one collective, which I think is important too. McFarlane never went back to the big guns like DC and Marvel, maintaining his independent roots throughout; while Jim Lee is now the Publisher and Chief Creative Officer at DC. With the current ecosystem where Marvel and DC rule with their movies, the reminder that it wasn't always that way, and that Image put a big hurt on them at one time, is a good one for us, especially as both Marvel and DC have only become more corporate since then.

I was 12 in 1991, and I used to blow my allowance every Sunday at the local flea market, haggling with guys in their 30s and 40s to try and make my $10 go as far as it could. I remembered when Todd McFarlane's Spider-man book first came out; then when Rob Liefeld's X-Force--which I had to buy five copies of to make sure I got one with each card--plus an extra so I could open it and read it; and then when Jim Lee's X-Men with its five covers that I had to buy all of, it was like these guys couldn't make anything bad. And then I started noticing they weren't drawing their books anymore. What happened? Were they off for a month? Extended hiatus? This was before the internet was widespread, and my parents didn't have the money for a computer back then, so it took some time before I found out in a Wizard magazine what had happened. What's interesting is, as I got older and into high school, I grew out of both the Marvel and DC books I'd read, and the Image ones I picked up, but I did remember before then that Image had the publication schedule problems they described here--when am I going to get the next Youngblood or Brigade? But then also there were other publishers out there like Valiant that were putting out great stuff. My $10 was stretched too thin, so I started spending my allowance on Taco Bell and Mortal Kombat on Friday night trips to the mall. What was cool about this documentary, was I could go back in my mind and see where I stepped off the train, but also follow where it went after I got off and get the rest of the story.

 

Other than Liefeld who was born in '67, and Jim Valentino who was born in '52, the rest of the Image guys were born between the late '50s and early '60s. I guess like the way I'm on the cusp of Gen-X and Millennial--an Xennial--these guys are also cuspers, Generation Jones, and when I look at it, this cohort is responsible for a lot of the cultural and entrepreneurial innovations I grew up with in the 90s. From a music standpoint, Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna all fall in this group; Quentin Tarantino does as well, which was a huge influence on how we view movies; and then you have these guys shaking up the comic book industry. I think this film did a great job in tapping into that creative energy. Before they formed Image, they were already blowing up all the standard comic book conventions that came before them. They were racier, more in your face, and as a kid at that time, I was eating it all up. I'd dig through old back issues from earlier times at the flea market, and while I liked a lot of what I saw, it wasn't punching me in the mouth the way Liefeld, Lee, McFarlane, et al were (and I name those three, because I read their stuff the most at that time. Marc Silvestri and Erik Larsen were a couple others I was big on.) The film makes the creation of Image almost an inevitability, as these guys were selling tons of books, yet getting no recognition from Marvel for it, so something had to give. 

Out of all of them, Rob Liefeld was the one I read the most, and even though when he left Marvel Fabian Nicieza continued on writing for X-Force, it wasn't the same without Liefeld's illustrations. The documentary shows Liefeld's Levi's 501 jeans commercial, and I remembered that when it aired, saying "hey I know him!" I also wondered why he wasn't drawing Cable and Deadpool, not knowing how all of that worked with rights and licensing. The thing about Deadpool now, is he's on the level of a Spider-man, and for me it's cool to know that I saw when he first appeared and watched him grow to this stature. That's one thing I remembered about Liefeld's Image books, they were really good, but he had no one on the level of Cable or Deadpool in them. He said in a different interview that Marvel was guarded on how much they let other books have Spider-man and Wolverine in their issues, so he decided to just make his own in Cable and Deadpool. At the time I thought the problem was he couldn't create a new Cable and Deadpool for his Image books, but what this documentary shows is, Liefeld, at 25, was stretched too thin in trying to run his new company and get three books out at the same time--but there was also an underlying sense in his interviews for the documentary that he had a youthful impetuousness that made him think at that time that making another Cable and Deadpool would be a piece of cake, that he could make tons of them, when that ultimately wasn't the case. Still, like Jim Morrison after The Ed Sullivan Show said they couldn't go on again after he said "get much higher," and he said "yeah but we've already done The Ed Sullivan Show," Liefeld can say "I've already made Cable and Deadpool" too.

 

Going back to Liefeld, one of the best moments of the documentary is when he says "we killed Superman! We broke Batman's back!" referring to a desperate DC, having fallen behind Image in the early 90s, taking extreme measures to make themselves relevant again. They also talked about how speculators had moved from baseball cards to comics around that time, and I remember people who never collected comics buying that Death of Superman issue thinking they'd be rich in 20 years. I was 13 then, and not long for the comics book world--I was already so disillusioned with it that I didn't even bother with that Death of Superman thing. It seemed any possible milestone was a three hologram cover set at $5 a piece. Whether the bubble was going to burst with comic speculation or not, I was priced out before it happened, and never really came back--except for a blip in the early 2000s when I bought up some of the Deadpool comics. At the time, as only a 13-year-old, I didn't put two-and-two together and see that Image was forcing DC to kill Superman; but also, I think as a 13-year-old I didn't get how much Image influenced my understanding of the ownership of my creations years later. I remember a panel in an early Spawn issue where McFarlane depicts the arms of the major DC and Marvel characters reaching through prison bars, while his Spawn was completely free. When I wrote A Girl and a Gun, with the plot that my main character Justin was adapting comic books for TV, I decided to create my own comic book company, Aries Comics, and my own characters to go with it. I didn't realize where that impetus came from though until I watched this documentary, and saw that panel again. I think in a lot of ways my cusp Xennial cohort are the inheritors of the legacy of Generation Jones, and that's no more apparent than in the success of Robert Kirkland, who is about six months older than me--and like the founders of Image, it was only fitting that he was told by them that a comic book about zombies wouldn't work, only to prove them wrong.

Will from Exploding Helicopter often jokes that I tend to give MA theses when I'm breaking down films as a guest on his podcast, and this review is turning into one of those, so I probably should wrap this up. I think this film does a great job of capturing a moment in time and a movement toward independence, and whether you were there for the ride or not--or like me, got off the ride earlier on--this has a lot in it to enjoy. Right now you can get it on Tubi and Pluto, also Shout Factory on Prime. If you're watching it for free like that, it's definitely worth it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294916

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

 

 

Behind the Mask: The Batman Dead End Story (2015)

I thought I'd extend my new Christmas tradition of doing a documentary to "Christmas in July," especially since I have a lot of documentaries, in particular this one, that I've seen that I thought would be worthy of review on the site here. In addition to us, our friend at RobotGEEK's Cult Cinema has covered this, so you can go to his site to see what he thought. Now, without any further ado.

Behind the Mask: The Batman Dead End Story is the story behind Sandy Collora's Batman Dead End short film that took the comic book world by storm in 2003. After directing some commercials, Collora decides to make a short film as a demonstration of his skills. His idea is a Batman movie where he fights the Joker and a Predator. At the same time, Collora's mother is dying of breast cancer, forcing him to split his time between shooting and visiting her at the hospital. When the film is released, it gets a screening at Comic Con, and the rest is history. From there Collora was the hottest property in Hollywood, but instead of taking some entry level films he doesn't like, he tries to strike out on his own, and while he doesn't get the success he expected, he has the sense that he's doing it his way.

 

I really enjoyed this movie. I hadn't heard about Batman Dead End before this, but seeing it now after, I get why there was the buzz. Collora made the Batman movie we as fans would have wanted, and had he had the chance to make a feature-length Batman, we can only imagine how that would have turned out. There's also an element of "pride goeth before the fall," that perhaps Collora was a bit too full of himself and hurt his career in the process; but the film handles that really well, giving us all angles of Collora's life, including the loss of his mother. When we see the video of him speaking before an audience at Comic Con, where even he's now embarrassed by how he came off at the time, there's a sense that he can be forgiven for any brash--maybe arrogant--behavior, considering the price the film took for him to make, and then seeing how successful it is, it had to be a massive flood of emotions. Beyond all of that, I think Collora exhibits the independent spirit we love from directors here at the DTVC, so it's fitting to spotlight this documentary on him.

One thing this documentary does really well, is it tells us not only who Collora is, but also spotlights the talent he had working with him. This wasn't just a fan film done by a bunch of amateur filmmakers who just really had a passion, Collora and his team were professionals, and some of the best at their crafts. The shame is, often for a lot of these guys to get work that pays enough, it has to be on big budget projects where the studios set the rules in an attempt to be as big tent as possible. What Collora shows us here is, if these guys ever got the keys to a major studio big budget picture, it would be better than we could imagine. Unfortunately it feels like the film industry has been going even further in the other direction from 2003, meaning we're even further from ever seeing something like this as a feature-length come to fruition.

 

The one name that came to mind when I watched Collora in his interviews, was Albert Pyun. The big difference between those two, was Pyun tried to make it in the studio system with Cannon, and got burned multiple times in seeing his vision taken away from him, which was what Collora fought against, ultimately hurting his chances of getting some of the bigger James Cameron-style productions he ultimately wanted. The other difference between the two, is Pyun got to make Captain America, and almost Spider-Man as well (Pyun said they didn't have the budget to make it look as good as they wanted, and it ran into the same issues with using wires that the Spider-Man Broadway encountered). In looking at the current comic book movie landscape, you have to feel like Collora belongs there, that the natural progression after Dead End would have led him to being one of the in-demand directors to tackle a half-a-billion dollar Marvel extravaganza--but at the same time, you also have to feel like Collora would have wanted nothing to do with that, because it was the sanitized Disney-fication Marvel that we're seeing on the screen, not the comics from the early 90s that inspired the Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity War sagas. Disney and Warner don't want Collora's visions of what these films should be, because they aren't big tent enough, they would want him to make their visions for them. By the same token, if Collora doesn't want Hollywood, maybe there is a Pyun-like DTV career out there for him where his vision can flourish on the screen for us. I'd love to see what he can do in more films.

For me though the biggest thing that makes Dead End short film work is the inclusion of the Predator, aka "Big Red." In the video of Collora addressing the fans at Comic Con, he shouts out "is that how Batman is supposed to be done?" and when the crowd only gives him a tepid response, he shouts "I can't hear you! Is that how Batman is supposed to be done?" and they cheer. When he saw that video all these years later he was embarrassed, but he also had a great point. That was how Batman was supposed to be done. Clark Bartram was a great choice, a stunt worker and body builder who looked the part and could do all the action scenes. I also liked that there was no origin story here. We all know who Batman is, just dump him in an alley and put him up against the Joker and a Predator. The fact that we don't have 90 minutes of this is a travesty. When you look at the time this was made, we'd just come off of Bat-Nipples in Batman and Robin, but at the same time, the comic book genre on the Marvel side was getting a resurgence. We wanted a Batman redux, and Collora gave us that much more than the Nolan/Bale trilogy we had coming after this, and I'm sure also better than the Robert Pattinson Batman we have coming next year. The reality is though, as long as those mediocre "yeah, but what if?..." Batman adaptations pack theaters, there will never be the impetus to give us a feature-length big budget Collora Batman, which is too bad.

 

Finally, I thought I would use this paragraph to describe what my perfect Batman movie would be. It's hard to say, because Batman has so many great villains, plus you throw in the Predator. Who do you choose from between the Joker, Penguin, Riddler, or Catwoman; plus baddies like Egg Head, Mr. Freeze, or King Tut; not to mention I loved the Joel Schumacher Two-Face played by Tommy Lee Jones, with the really colorful other half of his face, and his Poison Ivy played by Uma Thurman. Maybe what it would be is a Wacky Races kind of event, where Batman and Robin in the Bat-mobile have to race cross-country, with all the other villains and the Predator racing against him. Imagine the fun cars that each villain would have. Or maybe we just remake Predator 2 with Batman and the Predator trashing Gotham City, while all the villains sit and watch. My hunch is, now that Disney owns the Predator, a Batman movie is the furthest from their mind. They're probably going to jump-start the franchise so they can plug up the theaters with another film: add that to Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, and their own Disney properties, and they can choke the life out of the competing studios by taking over all the screens. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of my writing, you can screen Behind the Mask: The Batman Dead End Story on Tubi. Not only is it a compelling watch, but it does remind me of a time before the Disney-fication I described above, when the film industry was more open and less bid tent-ish. Collora is a true independent spirit, and this film both celebrates that, and gives us a great account of what it took to make his great fan film.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3181178

And if you haven't yet, check out my novel, Chad in Accounting, in paperback or on Kindle!

Captain America (1979)

I had been meaning to watch the Reb Brown Captain Americas for a long time, so once I saw that they were on Tubi, I had to give them a go. From there though, I wasn't sure if I should review them, considering they're TV movies, and the only real connection they have to our site is that they star DTVC Hall of Famer Reb Brown. But then, with this weekend being the 4th of July holiday here in the states, I thought, what better way to celebrate, right? So here we are looking at a TV movie on the weekend of the 4th. In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has also done this as part of his Captain America-Palooza, so you can go there to see what he thought.

Captain America has Reb Brown as Steve Rogers, a guy fresh out of the Marines and looking to relax and drive his van up and down the coast of California. But then a friend from the past calls, and when said friend turns up dead, all bets are off. At the same time, Rogers's dad's old research partner calls him over to show him the FLAG serum his dad was working on. When the baddies that killed Rogers's friend almost do the same to him, the dad's partner needs to use the serum to save him, turning him into: Captain America! The baddies won't know what hit them.

 

I'm a bit of split mind on this, because this film is every bit the 70s TV movie it's supposed to be, from pacing to special effects, and so it's hard to compare it to a cinematic counterpart; but at the same time, Reb Brown is Captain America. It was like this is the part he was born to play. So then we're left with this thing that should have been a weekly TV show a la The Incredible Hulk or The Amazing Spider-Man, but wasn't, so this pilot and the film after it are just what remains of something that wasn't finished. I think in comparing it to the MCU Chris Evans Caps, in the 70s they couldn't make the suit the way they can now. That bright shiny thing wasn't doing anyone any favors, and when you compare it to the Hulk who was just Lou Ferrigno painted green, I think it had more camp than the show may have wanted. By the same token, it was exciting to see Brown don the suit and start taking down baddies. Ah, what could have been...

We often look at a stars career here on the DTVC and examine how they ended up in the DTV world. Here we can see what happened for poor Reb Brown. This was supposed to be it, the series that propelled him out of his frequent guest star roles and into his own series. Playing someone as iconic as Captain America on a weekly TV show would have opened so many doors for him--so much so we may not have had him here in the DTVC Hall of Fame, though Adam West played Batman for three years and still became a staple in DTV films. In watching this I couldn't get over how much he was Captain America, even when he wasn't in the suit. I saw that Reb Brown did an interview on YouTube with The Nerdery back in 2012, and he explained why the show never happened. Universal lost the rights to Captain America, after which Marvel wanted $50,000 per episode to use him, compared to $2,500 per show for The Incredible Hulk. From there we know that Marvel sold the rights to Cannon, which led to the Albert Pyun cinematic adaptation in 1990. In my mind, that seems short-sighted, because a TV show in 1979 could have led to all kinds of merchandising that would have made Marvel much more money--or the show may have fizzled after a season or two the way The Amazing Spider-Man did. I just imagine me as a child going to school with a Reb Brown as Captain America lunchbox, and think about how much better my life could have been. In you're curious about the interview, you can check it out here.

 

In the trivia there was also mention of possible crossovers with the other two Marvel series at that time, which also would have been too amazing for words. That's what made comics so great, the idea that I could read an issue of Spider-Man and see Cap help him; or even better, Daredevil and have Ghost Rider show up. When I look at the success of Arrow, I see the same thing: they started with the Green Arrow, added the Flash, and it grew from there. Now we're stuck with the MCU, but one thing I did like was how they had their Daredevil series, and in the second season they introduced the Punisher. The problem with those series though was they were 13-hour movies, and by episode 8 or 9 I would hit a wall. The idea of a more episodic Captain America that was kind of like the Six-Million Dollar Man is definitely more appealing to me; and then throw in crossovers and I think it would have been perfect.

One thing the film did that I think rankled some feathers was they took liberties with the origin story. He's no longer the WWII soldier given the serum and then frozen in ice. I was okay with it though. This is its own thing, I thought it was a better product of the 70s the way they did it here. For me, I'm more upset that the Silver Surfer and Adam Warlock weren't in the Infinity War movies than I am about a TV show about Captain America that redid his origin story. It is a slippery slope though, because sometimes we need that origin story as an anchor in order to buy the rest of what we're seeing. I think that was more important for Chris Evans's Cap, because I needed something like that to believe he was the hero; whereas Reb sold it for me the moment he drove his van into the first scene. (And I am aware of why Silver Surfer and Adam Warlock couldn't be in the Infinity War movies, but that doesn't make me any less disappointed that they made the movies without them.)

 

Finally, I want to touch on that point I keep making about how Reb Brown looks the part of Captain America, because it is iffy territory to say that a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed, beefcake is the perfect Captain America, right? It reinforces this idea that "American" looks a certain way and dismisses the many different ways that "American" can look. On that score, I've always thought Steve James would have also made a perfect Captain America. The build, the martial arts ability, and the screen presence all add up to gold in my mind. We live in a world now where I think that's a possibility, but back when this was made--or even when American Ninja was made, where Steve James was passed over for the lead in favor of Michael Dudikoff because Duds had that "all American look", aka blond-haired and blue-eyed--it would have been a non-starter to cast a Steve James as Captain America. It's a shame, because like Reb Brown, where it would have been nice to see what he would have done with Cap in a weekly series, the same is true about James, but at least with Brown we got to see it for two TV movies, while with James it never would have been considered in his lifetime, which is too bad.

And with that, it's time to wrap this up. While Brown is great here, I think it's important to keep in mind that this is still a 70s TV movie. While it's available on Tubi, I think it's a worth a watch, and a great way to celebrate the 4th, whether you're an American or not.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078937

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