Mystery Men (1999)

A LOOK BACK AT A DUMB, IRREVERENT SUPER HERO FILM THAT REMAINS MY FAVORITE.

Man, 1999 was such a vibrant year for film. You had movies like Being John Malkovich, The Matrix, 10 Things I Hate About You, Office Space, American Pie Fight Club, The Mummy, and even Kubrick’s last film Eyes Wide Shut. A veritable cinematic feast, if you will. I can’t think of another time period that such an impact on my taste, humor, and sensibilities.

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Boondock Saints

A LOOK BACK AT A MOVIE THAT, WHILE FUN, DOESN’T QUITE HOLD UP.

Twenty years ago a little movie from reportedly douche bag director, Troy Duffy, hit the scene.  For years to come shitty posters have lined the walls of undergrad male’s dormitories, while they all scream about how great this movie was, and how you should see it, because only they have seen it, and they want to introduce you to its amazingness… If you listen to them, and sit down with a brew to watch the movie, you’ll be entertained, sure, but that’s about it.  I still don’t get what was so damned special about this movie, and I was TOTALLY caught in the storm of it. 

For my research, I’ll look the trailer.  Like the majority of you, I only ever saw the trailer on the DVD copy my mom bought me.  At the time, I thought it was awful.  It shows the whole movie!  It shows the best scenes!  It gives nearly everything away!  And to the 16 – 25 year old crowd this movie is singularly targeted for, this is horrible.  To everyone else, thank god the trailer shows as much as it does, or no one would ever watch it.  The movie is a hard sell to the most receptive crowd, so in my opinion, the trailer does its job.  This isn’t some religious propaganda movie, nor is it insulting religion, we get that.  This movie will have fun violence that is shot differently, we get that too.  The movie has a pretty good sense of humor, we kinda sorta get that.  All in all if this was a movie coming out today, and I saw this trailer I’d see it.  I’d wait for video, but I’d see it.

I realize I came across really negative on the movie… uh… I regret nothing. 

Also I still own the DVD.

That my mom bought for my birthday…

Halloween

Back when trailers had no rules and totally ruled!

 

Man I love old trailers.  They didn’t have any rules and no one really cared about them.  Just show 3-5 min of the movie, have a guy who smoked an entire carton of cigarettes talk the whole time, and tell me the name of the movie.  That’s it. My favorite old trailer of all time is Taxi Driver. That thing is just a short 4 min summary of the entire movie, gives away everything from the movie.  Halloween is no better, and somehow, SO MUCH BETTER.

 

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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Sam’s first dive into fandom!

The end of summer always brings with it a sense of nostalgia. Even though I am not longer concerned with back to school or even the changing weather, the end of easy summer traffic and dearth of action movies still makes me wistful. In reflecting on summer’s past, I often find my thoughts drifting back to 2003. It was the summer before I began high school. I had just discovered my beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy and with it, one of my first celebrity crushes: Orlando Bloom. Because he was such a new presence, there was only so much I could consume, but I waited with baited breath for his next lead role: that of Will Turner in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

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A Hype To Remember: Hanna (2011)

A Dark, Violent and delightful surprise, with a kickin’ score!

I hadn’t been in Los Angeles all that long, really. Wasn’t acclimated to the temperature, and still thought sixty degrees was “warm.” In-n-Out was a novelty for me, and so were all the movie theater options available (you mean I can go to the theater Tarantino owns whenever I want??).

 

Joe Wright as a director was on my radar, but I had only seen his Pride and Prejudice, which I thought “was fine.” Both Atonement and The Soloist were a skip for me based on the marketing, which made the trailer for Hanna a bit of a surprise when I saw it.

 

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A Hype To Remember: Hannibal (TV)

It was a gory, three-course meal with complicated start and a ravishing finish.

My favorite television show of all time is Hannibal, the surprising NBC adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon. The show focused on FBI Special Investigator Will Graham and his relationship to Psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a relationship that the internet would lovingly dub “murder husbands.”

 

SEE??! MURDER HUSBANDS ARE REAL AND IMPORTANT!

 

As someone who enjoyed Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs, found an amusing appreciation for Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, and found himself bored by Brett Ratner’s Red Dragon, I was interested to see how NBC (of all channels) was going to take a stab at the polite cannibal.

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A Hype To Remember: Spider-Man (2002)

Raimi’s Spider-Man was a revelation, and it’s hype was an unforgettable event!

 

When I was a kid, live-action superhero movies were limited to a series of Batmen with costumes so stiff that they couldn’t turn their heads. Aside from an obscure Captain America VHS tape that I could rent from the local gas station, Marvel – my chosen comics company – was completely absent from the field.

 

Bryan Singer’s first X-Men film was a revelation. I hopped up-and-down on my way out of the theater as I explained to my father why Toad’s immortal line “Don’t you people ever die?!” was a perfect summation of the genre.

 

Much like Jason Bourne, the X-Men were just the tip of the iceberg. Two years later, the most highly-anticipated cinematic event of all time was unveiled: Spider-Man.

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A Hype To Remember: The Matrix (1999)

The Matrix presented itself as the movie that needed to be seen, and that made all the difference!

 

Y’all. I certainly liked movies a lot before I saw The Matrix, but this is the first film I remember NEEDING to see. In the trailer, Morpheus was all “No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself” and I was like “HOLY SHIT I NEED TO KNOW WHAT IT IS LET ME SEE IT.”

 

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A Hype To Remember: Batman Returns (1992)

Batman Returns turns 25 this week, and to celebrate we’re looking back at the hype for the movie!

 

My introduction to Batman Returns wasn’t typical in that I came to it much later and played the video game first. As a young kid my Batman was the Adam West Batman, so this darker take from Tim Burton never really connected. It certainly looked cool, and piqued my interest thanks to its edgier tone, but it felt “other” to the goofier Gotham I was used to.

 

I decided to take a look back at the hype surrounding this movie, especially since I don’t remember much of the marketing for it compared to the ’89 Batman film.

 

 

For some this was probably “their” movie Batman, and the trailer definitely brought the hype for that. For me, I had much of the same reaction I had for the first movie: “It’s fine.” What I didn’t expect was that in the marketing for this movie (and for the movies themselves) Gotham would feel like a tangible location and not some dressed up “insert-city-here.” That’s unique, and in my opinion one of the legacies of the Burton era of Batman.

 

Do you remember the marketing for Batman Returns? What did you think of it? Let us know in the comments below!

 

A Hype To Remember: Cars (2006)

Cars 3 comes out this weekend and it’s only fitting we talk about the surprising first movie. Ka-chow.

 

Sandwiched between The Incredibles and Ratatouille, Cars at first blush feels like a bit of a misstep. It’s a movie where vehicles are the only lifeforms and…well…that’s where the marketing pretty much lost me. Lots of racing stuff that I don’t care about? Check. A sidekick voiced by one of the “kings” of blue collar comedy? Check MATER.

 

I mean, look at this trailer…

 

 

The movie turned out to be way better than I thought it would be, walking a fine tightrope between its themes and the ridiculousness of the premise. After I saw the movie, I couldn’t help but think the trailers, marketing, and toys didn’t do the movie justice. The themes of “respecting your elders” being a “good winner,” honor, and appreciating history are very compelling, complex, and not something you would expect based on the marketing. I absolutely loved the moment where Lightning McQueen gives up the Piston Cup to help The King finish his last race.

 

Cars may not be as good as some of the other films in Pixar’s filmography, but man is it worth a watch. And with the “final chapter” coming out this week, I find myself hyped to see what Lightning McQueen faces next.