Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film. Enjoyable but not terribly in-depth documentary about what the title says it is. Some decent interviews and spotlights on some interesting looking obscure films, but otherwise, kind of empty.
110. Element Lad
109. Mon-El
Kind of a variation on the New 52 version of his costume, which is a first since I started LoSH Month.
***
I watched about 30 minutes of Cool World. What an awful turd.
Followed that later in the day with The Last Winter. I watched all of it, but it wasn’t great, despite some awesome actors (Ron Perlman, Connie Britton, Kevin Corrigan). It’s an apocalyptic global warming movie with a pack of ghost moose that eat people or something. And cause global warming. Or something.
108. Phantom Girl
I went with the animated version of Phantom Girl here. I remember liking her on the show quite a bit.
***
Bad Kids Go to Hell. I watched this simply because Ben Browder from FARSCAPE is in it. His role – while pivotal – is less substantial than his appearances in episodes of ARROW or DOCTOR WHO, which he was barely in. Judd Nelson is in this movie more than Browder is. No one wants to see Judd Nelson. In anything. Ever. Anyway, the movie is a murder-mystery version of the Breakfast Club, but filmed like an MTV reality show. That may be the saddest phrase I’ve ever written. Remember when movies used to aspire to be like MTV music videos? Anyway, this movie isn’t good, but it’s also not bad enough to recommend.
Hit & Run. Relatively bland comedy with some really great car chase sequences and likeable characters. Thin on plot, but I liked it. Your mileage may vary.
Naked Gun. Hadn’t seen this is years. Still holds up. Perhaps even better now. It’s also kind of fun to watch O.J. Simpson get beaten to hell throughout.
107. Dream Girl
Dreamy.
***
Slumber Party Massacre. This was about an hour and fifteen minutes.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Action packed, funny, exciting and all around awesome. Ghost Protocol!
Chasing Sleep. Creepy and weird Jeff Daniels movie. Lots of atmosphere and tension, with Daniels as one of the only actors onscreen for most of the movie (he’s always great anyway) and set almost entirely in one location. Worth watching.
Dreamscape. Early-to-mid 80s Dennis Quaid sci-fi movie. Can’t go wrong with that. And hey, Dreams!
***
Huh. Slumber. Sleep. Dreams. Dream Girl. I took a three hour nap. Just a weird confluence of events.
106. Matter-Eater Lad
He eats matter.
105. XS
This is the one Legionnaire I actually know stuff about. She is Barry Allen (The Flash)’s granddaughter, and she was a semi-recurring character during the Zero Hour-era Flash comics, a time in which I was reading that particular book.
I changed her costume to reflect her lineage.
104. Wildfire
I went “Classic Iron Man” for his look here, combined with his Legion Lost armor.
****
Watched the Zombieland Amazon pilot. It was okay. There were 1 or 2 laugh out loud moments, but it was mostly just existing. I think the biggest mistake is in continuing the story of the characters from the movie but with an entirely different cast. While the lead has a certain Jesse Eisenbergness about him, the girls are complete non-characters and the Woody Harrelson stand-in does not live up to his predecessor. But mostly it was just unfunny, but not painfully. Not good, but not bad enough to complain about.
103. Star Boy
Once again, the general lack of diversity in the Legion leads me to draw this version of the character. Plus, the costume is a little snazzier.
***
Stitches. An Irish comedy/horror movie about a gross, unfunny, untalented clown named “Stitches” who dies in a freak accident at a kid’s party. 6 years later he returns from the grave to take revenge on those same kids. It was ridiculous and over the top, funny and gory. So I dug it quite a bit. Also, it was kind of accurate to clown culture. Clowns generally paint their make-up design on eggs to hold the copyright/trademark and then preserve the eggs. And of course, whenever a clown dies before finishing a performance, he’ll rise from the dead and the jokes are never funny the second time. True facts.
I also watched a particularly heavy and dark episode of The Rockford Files. Definitely broke out of the formula. I’m liking the show anyway, but hey, we hit some “Rescue Me” level of shit here. Y’know, for 1976 or whatever.
102. Sun Boy
I was unaware this was out, but I watched Superman Unbound. It’s not good. It’s better than Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and Public Enemies, and Green Lantern: Emerald Knights. That’s not saying much. But it might be the best looking DC direct to DVD animated film. The credits list Eric Canete as being involved, so I might be biased.
I also spent some time this weekend watching various Spider-Man cartoons on Netflix. Caught some Spider-Man ’67 (the one with the theme song), the series before “Amazing Friends” and Spider-Man Unlimited.
Unlimited gets a bad rap. I’d avoided it until now based on how bad I heard it was. I watched like 5 episodes in a row and enjoyed them quite a bit. The animation is crap, but the story was fun and engaging, plus Spidey’s humor is strong throughout it. Teaches me to listen to people.
Finally, a quick wrap-up of Jack Reacher. It’s fun. I’m not a Tom Cruise fan at all, and the plot and characters are fairly generic, but it’s got a sense of humor about itself (including one of the funniest fight scenes I’ve ever watched), a nice car chase, Michael James Raymond and Werner Herzog. Cruise does a fine job doing his thing. Herzog is pretty great as the villain. I’ve seen some of his movies and an interview with him years ago, but not enough to really remember his voice and mannerisms. Comedian Paul F. Tompkins does an impression of him on various podcasts and holy crap it is frightening how dead-on it is. Either that or Herzog is doing a caricature of Tompkin’s caricature. Either way, it’s worth watching this movie just for him.
101. Andromeda
Eh. Fun costume, though.
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. I saw this in the theater as a kid, and I enjoyed it. It’s still funny enough. But in all seriousness, boobs. Just, boobs.
Currently watching Jack Reacher. It’s enjoyable enough.