Sad in a way, these are actually public domain from 1941-1943. They are beautiful Art Deco-ish Technicolor 8 minute cartoons of our Golden Age Man of Steel. The first 9 are by the famous Fleisher Brothers, Max and Dave. They later went bankrupt and Paramount took over production with their Famous Studios. The quality isn't quite as polished as the Fleisher cartoons but they're still great with their jingoistic WW II propaganda.



Beautiful and simple these shorts really speak to the heart of one of America's greatest hero icons.

I didn't know RED was based on a comic. Part of the joy of the 12 Days is that you always learn something new.

I don't describe myself as a slice-of-life fan either, but quite liked this film. You should consider giving it a shot.

You stole my thunder, PH.   I look forward to the reviews of the picks, also.

11. Spider-Man (2002)



Growing up with film and TV adaptions of your favourite heroes always meant one thing - compromise. For anyone who's watched films, there's always that feeling that some schmuck at the studio feels like he NEEDS to screw with everything in order to sign his name on it ("Hey, is there a way we could maybe give Superman a mohawk?"). But this for me was that moment when I looked at a story on a screen and went "yup. nailed it" and in a way that didn't compromise the essence of the story or character.
This WAS Spider-Man, not a version of the character filtered through the 'vision' of some Hollywood accountant with pretensions towards 'creativity'.
Plus, it was a whale of a story. Each scene built the narrative, and laid the foundations for the next, the characters made sense and had clear motivations, but at the same time were capable of nuance. Tobey Maguire's performance was outstanding. He was onscreen for the vast majority of the film, and most of the movie is his emotional journey. Willem DeFoe played Norman Osborn like he was playing Greek Tragedy, which could've been laughable, if he hadn't also imbued the character with such gravitas. James Franco set up an interesting a subtle level of personal conflict, but holy poo... J.K. Simmons as J.Jonah Jameson... looking all the world like he'd launched himself fully formed from a Ditko page, grabbing hold of every scene he was in and chewing it with vigour and gusto.

There were two things that struck me most about this film. It was the first time I'd seen a superhero film that wasn't ashamed to be a superhero film, and that final scene. A perfect little knot of tragedy and pathos that developed organically from everything that had come before. Between them, this showed me that a superhero film didn't need to be dour and 'realistic' to be entertaining, but didn't need to be dumb to be fun.

An overview of Day 2...

Batman: The Brave & the Bold-I didn't give this a fair chance at first, but after I got over myself, I came to love it. It is great fun.

Dark Knight Rises is my least favorite of the Nolan films (and I am not all that high on them as a whole) and the only one I have only seen once. It some ways it's the perfect summer popcorn blockbuster though-you can't make out anything Bane says, you can't make out anything Bale says as Batman, so you can sit back and watch all the pretty explosions and action sequences and forget about little things like plot and dialogue that get in their way. And it does have great explosions and action sequences. I like Dark Knight slightly more than I like Rises, I've at least watched it a second time on home video. Again, if they went back and edited Bale's lame attempts to speak as Batman and edited in Kevin Conroy's voice, I would like these so much more.

I've never seen Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, but aside from liking a couple of songs, I've never been a big Kiss fan. I had a couple of neighborhood kids I hung out with when I was a kid who were big into Kiss, but I wasn't. I much prefer Brutalis' replacement selection, the Flash Gordon serial, as any one who saw myc choices could have told you

I was a fan of the original Turtles comics and enjoyed the initial animated series, but I haven't followed Turtles much since then (I think it was a reaction to Vanilla Ice honestly), and never saw Turtles Forever.

I used to watch Josie and the Pussycats in syndication (it played on Sunday mornings when we lived in Enfield CT in the late 70s iirc) and enjoyed it quite a bit. The only classic Archie property I like more is Sabrina and if I were ever to collect Archie books (doubtful) it would be Sabrina and Josie (I do have a handful of issues of each I have picked up in quarter bins).

I've never seen Danger Diabolik, but it sure looks intriguing. I've also not seen the 1949 Batman serial, but I would like to at some point.

Commented on Mystery Men on day 1, my feelings haven't changed in 24 hours

I loved Nick Hammond's Spider-Man on CBS in the 70s. I rarely got to see it though, as it aired on the my dad's late night at the market (he was a butcher, each one had 1 night they had to stay to close and run the meat dept. and his night was the night Spidey was on which meant I didn't actually get home with my folks until after it had aired that day). I caught some in summer reruns and watched the whole thing later, but haven't watched it in years. I loved the Spidey sense effect as a kid though.

I enjoy the Hellboy movies, and am due to re-watch them now that I have finally read my way through most of the source material. I am probably a bigger Hellboy fan now than when I watched them, so their status among favorites could change if/hen I get around to re-watching them.

I watched Smallville from the get go. My wife (who was just my girlfriend at the time) was much bigger into it, and as we spent part of the year half way across the country form each other, it was one of our date watches, that we watched together on the phone each week when we were apart. It was also one of the shows I watched on VHS over and over again when recovering form abdominal surgery to fill up the days and avoid thinking about how much pain I was in, so it has a lot of strong memories associated with it, and I love that it mostly adapted the Legends mini late in its run, but I haven't watched it at all since it went off the air and that's probably the biggest reason it didn't come close to making my list.

Road to Perdition is a great movie and a better graphic novel, but I have only experienced each one once.

Batman Beyond is the only Timm show I don't love. It's ok, but once you take Bruce out of the Batsuit, I just lose interest (happens in the comics too, for me Bruce is Batman, it is who he is not a suit he puts on, someone else can't wear the costume and be Bruce, so they can't be Batman no matter what they are wearing any more than could put on my father's clothes and be my father). So it is well done and Timm is a maestro, but I just have no interest in the concept or the character to draw me to it. What I have watched of it, only interested me on that craft level, not on a story level.

Batman (1989) got some consideration from me. It was the first movie I ever bought tickets for in advance and attended the midnight premiere of. I had followed the saga of its development in the pages of the Comics Buyers Guide, agonized over casting choices, rented and watched Clean & Sober to see if Michael Keaton could do serious (he could) and fretted and anticipated this more than any movie since The Empire Strikes Back. And I loved it. It has, however, fallen some in my estimation over the years, keeping it off my list.

Men in Black-enjoyed the first movie, but not really any of the sequels and never felt inspired to check out the comics (or the animated series). It was a fun date movie at the time, but never rose above that for me.

I Like American Splendor. I find it more it more interesting than entertaining though, and I tend to place Pekar among those creators I read because I feel I should rather than among those I have a strong desire to read. His stuff is amazing from a craft perspective and so personal it is compelling, but sometime sI feel like I am intruding/eavesdropping on someone rather than being entertained when I read stuff that personal, so it always leaves me with mixed feelings rather than satisfaction and the after joy of being entertained.

I've seen a handful of the Filmation Aquaman toons. I own the DVD, but I've never gotten around to watching them all. I should, as I have liked what I have seen, but like the other DC Filmation stuff from that time, it works better in small doses for me as it is a bit formulaic.

Fleisher's Superman made #2 on my list, 'nuff said.

Red was a fun movie, and I always find something interesting in the Warren Ellis stuff I read, but there is a lot of stuff by him I like better than Red.

I shared my thoughts on 300 in my Day 1 overview as well, and again, nothing has changed.

I really enjoyed Spider-Man. I saw it during that recovery period form surgery, and it was one of the first times I had left the house after the surgery during my recovery to do something, so my desire to see it overcame the depressive funk I was in post-surgery, so again it has a lot of emotions tied to it, and I like it a lot. I like he sequel more though, and its another I haven' watched in probably a decade, so it didn't come close to list, but I certainly understand the appeal of it for those who chose it.

And that wraps up Day 2's thoughts.

-M