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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 22, 2016 13:33:15 GMT -5
I originally intended to name only the original film as my choice for today, but my good friend shaxper made such a compelling case for including the sequel that I must bow to his wisdom. #3. Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 Spidey was my favorite super-hero as a rugrat. I wish 8-year-old Kurt could see Sam Raimi’s heartfelt movie version because it is scarily close to the movie that played in my head when I read the comics. The Lee and Ditko origin is tastefully updated and intelligently expanded but otherwise adapted beat for beat. The casting is incredible. Tobey Maguire, Rosemary Harris, and Cliff Robertson are the Parker family. J. K. Simmons and Elizabeth Banks are Jonah Jameson and Betty Brant. James Franco is more interesting than the comics’ Harry Osborne ever was. Kirsten Dunst is… tolerable as a far more sympathetic Mary Jane than I’m used to. Heck, Willem Dafoe got me to like the Green Goblin, a character I have always detested. I must disagree with shax on one point: I think Alfred Molina is fantastic as Dr. Octopus. These performances, a smart script, and breathtaking scenes of super-hero action combine to bring the saga of Spider-Man to life in a way impossible before the advent of CGI. I don’t mind admitting having tears in my eyes through much of the first movie. I was THAT happy! Cei-U! I summon the dream come true! |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,860
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Post by shaxper on Dec 22, 2016 13:42:40 GMT -5
#3. The Dark Knight (2008)For decades, frustrated comic fans sat through disappointing adaptation after disappointing adaptation hoping that, one day, a filmmaker would bring to the screen a comic character in exactly the way that they had seen in their heads for all these years. Finally, beginning with Sam Rami's Spiderman in 2002 (and you're very welcome, Kurt  ), this became a reality, and comic movies began looking and feeling a lot like their source material. Then came The Dark Knight. This is not the Batman and Joker I ever saw in my head. I doubt it's what anyone ever saw in their heads. Instead, this film transcended the source material and used Batman to depict something that was bigger than the comics. The Dark Knight is NOT a Batman film; it's an American tragedy I would place on the shelf beside The Godfather. It's a deep exploration of justice, ethics, politics, media, and heroism that couldn't be told without Batman and The Joker, and yet isn't really about them at all. I didn't leave this film thinking "Wow. THAT's Batman!" I left thinking "Wow. THAT's America!".
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Post by brutalis on Dec 22, 2016 13:44:43 GMT -5
This Tenth day i present to you The New Adventures of Flash Gordon from Saturday mornings in 1979. This was Flash and the gang presented as they should be. Never having seen the movie i was enamored with Filmation's take and a friend down the street would come over every Saturday morning to watch with me as his family only had a black and white television. This series while using repetitive scenes to cut costs nonetheless looked spectacular. The fun and excitement of this captured the serialization tone and stylings of Flash versus Ming from the comic strips and old black and white serials and managed to not dumb down the cartoon overly much (won't discuss the whackadoodle inclusion of baby dragon for the 2nd season) or become boring.
From the ship Zarkov creates to the costuming styles and the regal menace of Ming and the alien landscape of Mongo this cartoon was a true wonder for Saturday mornings. This is a series i treasure and am so glad to have the DVD's of so i may watch over and over and relive my teenage years and dream of being on Mongo alongside Flash, Dale and Zarkov and Thune and Vultan and Barin and the rest.
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Post by DubipR on Dec 22, 2016 14:14:08 GMT -5
#3- TALES FROM THE CRYPT
I loved reading the old EC Comics reprints from my friends back in my late teens. While I was never a big fan of horror films or horror comics, the stories from Gaines and company had something to wicked and edgy to them they soon became part of my collection in later years. Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horrors, Haunt of Fear, even the odd stuff like Extra! were all engaging. And the line up of who's who of talent that worked on those books... any company these days would be broke just paying them to stay on their books.
In 1989, HBO, before it became the TV powerhouse it is now, was dabbling with major original programming. Stuff like 1st & Ten and the Ray Bradbury Theater, along with tons of comedy specials (which I loved and devoured) were coming on, but some of Hollywood's best directors (Richard Donner, Robert Zemeckis, Walter Hill, & David Giler) took the EC Comics stories and made a brilliant anthology series that was not seen on TV at the time. Taking the stories from all of the EC library and spinning them into pure horror and twisted dark gold, Tales from the Crypt was a must watch when it came on. Sevens season and a huge roster of guest stars and directors that were dying to work on an episode. Johnathan Kassir voicing the now iconic Crypt Keeper, brilliant Danny Elfman music... I still pull out my DVDs and re-watch them over and over
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 22, 2016 15:05:53 GMT -5
#3 The Avengers
I lack originality, but what can I say... This was a near-perfect superhero comic movie. It juggled so many plates at once without breaking a single one!!! It's a movie that any action film fan could enjoy, without knowing anything about these characters; it is respectful of the spirit (and almost the letter!) of all the heroes it features; it gives us characters we can care for; it has very cool action scenes, funny lines, a sense of camaraderie, drama without cheap pathos, a cheerful overall mood... and most of all, I think it shows enthusiasm for its subject. Who still remembered that a flying aircraft carrier was such a cool concept??? Whedon did!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2016 15:38:53 GMT -5
On the tenth day of Christmas I give you Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas....  Snoopy and the Peanuts gang always bring a smile to my face, and there was no Peanuts special I looked forward to more than A Charle Brown Christmas. The soundtrack by the Vince Guaraldi trio is the soundtrack of Christmas as far as I am concerned (the only addition I make is the Bowie/Crosby version of Little Drummer Boy). It's not Christmas without A Charlie Brown Christmas for me, and it encapsulates everything I love about the Peanuts. -M |
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 22, 2016 15:52:53 GMT -5
3. 300
cos its badass
There, I said it. Cos it is.
How do you quantify a movies affect on you? Well buggered if I know. I'm certainly not eloquent enough to explain as well as some here, I guess that's painfully obvious to those of you wading through this. At heart I'm pretty simple, I don't expect Shakespeare from action movies, I'm incapable of analyzing the political/societal/psychological ramifications of the directors/producers/actors work and determining its merits in the grand scheme of things. I go to movies to be entertained, and if they happen to be based on a comic, well all the better, I derive a lot of satisfaction from adaptations being successful, like I'm part of an exclusive club that has some ownership in the source material.
I love Miller's work (most of anyway). I like Snyder's work (most of anyway). I love this film, all of, regardless of historical accuracy, directing, acting, or Millers relative sanity. I love movies with larger than life, real MAN heroes (John Wayne, Clint, Arnie's Terminator(ha ha see what I did, use a robot as an example of REAL man...punk ass fool) or Predator etc etc), probably because they live a code I always wished I could live up to, one of the reasons I still read superhero comics.
I've no idea how accurate the Spartans holding those gates against thousands is, but I do remember it reminding me of a story by David Gemmel, starring Druss the Legend which I loved, as well as similar Conan stories Id read over the years. Reading some reviews on the net right now while hunting images I see comments about it being pretty but ultimately empty, but for mine, a movie about men willing to give their lives, for their country, for their compatriots, for an ideal like freedom, well how much more do you need, how is that not all you need. The dialogue was excellent, giving us plenty of quotes to bore work colleagues with...THIS...IS...SPARTA... yeah boi. I loved how Snyder used the slow motion shots, I loved the humor in adverse situations, like Spider-Man quipping away, and I loved Gerard Butler and Lena Headey. As a comics fan I love how they used shots straight from Miller's book.
Lastly, very important on the Pakehafulla Scale of Rewatchability this scores a perfect 10, its a gift that keeps on giving. |
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 22, 2016 15:58:34 GMT -5
#3 The AvengersI lack originality, but what can I say... This was a near-perfect superhero comic movie. It juggled so many plates at once without breaking a single one!!! It's a movie that any action film fan could enjoy, without knowing anything about these characters; it is respectful of the spirit (and almost the letter!) of all the heroes it features; it gives us characters we can care for; it has very cool action scenes, funny lines, a sense of camaraderie, drama without cheap pathos, a cheerful overall mood... and most of all, I think it shows enthusiasm for its subject. Who still remembered that a flying aircraft carrier was such a cool concept??? Whedon did! You dirty rotten...you had to put a clip in didnt you...now I have to go watch it again dont I...and now I might just have to change a choice cos you reminded me how much I loved this... ...stalks off muttering to self... |
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Post by foxley on Dec 22, 2016 17:50:16 GMT -5
3. Gotham
This is the live-action Batman TV series I have been waiting my whole life for. And it turns out not to be about Batman at all. Go figure. This is a pitch-perfect prequel to the Batman story. Young hero cop Jim Gordon comes to Gotham, and finds that surviving on the mean streets of Gotham involves making compromises. And every compromise comes with consequences. The mobs are one of the few forces keeping the peace on Gotham's streets, but the mobs are going to war: both against each other, and against a new breed of criminal that are starting to appear in Gotham. These new crooks aren't exactly supervillains, but they are something that could eventually turn into supervillains. And caught in the middle of this are Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock. This program is a complex cop show with superhero overtones. The morality is black and grey, as suits Gotham City. Jim's decision to spare Cobblepot's life may have been morally the right thing to do, but it will have major consequences for Jim down the track. The cast is universally excellent. Even the child actors, who are often the weak link in a show. David Mazouz is properly intense as the young Bruce Wayne, conveying a sense of someone who is truly traumatized; and Camren Bicondova is perfect as the young Selina Kyle, a feisty street kid who takes crap from no one.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 22, 2016 18:10:56 GMT -5
Batman: The Animated Series.
This is, in my opinion, the single best Batman entity ever put on film. Possibly the best Batman thing ever. So why is it number three? Well because one and two have had more effect on me for a longer period of time. But Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and company distilled Batman down to his essence, made use of the best of most of the various incarnations of Batman and created magic. While you can quibble with a decision here or there in random episodes, overall this is simply an amazing and nearly pitch perfect series.
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Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
Posts: 3,958 
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Post by Crimebuster on Dec 22, 2016 18:28:25 GMT -5
3. American Splendor
I'm a huge fan of Paul Giamatti, and I love the style of this film, which not only breaks the fourth wall, but pretty much doesn't even acknowledge the fourth wall exists. Sequences where the actors wander mid-scene off set to strike up conversations with the real people they are playing are just brilliant. I have only just dipped my toe into the wealth of comics Pekar left behind, but I look forward to spending some quality time tracking them down and savoring them.
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 22, 2016 19:30:29 GMT -5
#3. Guardians of the Galaxy ( 2014)
 A great movie for a few reasons- It introduced a lot of Marvels history and backstory in a Star Wars type space opera for the ages. So many new characters that are deserving of their own movies are on screen together for the first time and the general public loved them. I like all the easter eggs that are thrown in for the hardcore Marvel fans- The Celestials, Infinity Gems, Thanos, Ronan the accuser, The Nova Corps, man- this movie had it all and also a great soundtrack using the songs of the 70's. It acted like a springboard for many stories and was that Warlocks cocoon in one scene ? Rocket raccoon made me have a few belly laughs in this movie. It jumps to #3 because it had so much to absorb that with each new viewing , you see something you missed the last time.
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Post by String on Dec 22, 2016 20:03:57 GMT -5
#3 X-Men Animated Series
What started with cameos on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends finally became a full-fledged reality on Oct. 31, 1992 with the premiere of the X-Men animated series. My friends and I, X-fans through and through, were beyond excited for this. And we were not disappointed. From Wolverine's 'Bub' to Rogue's 'Sugah', over five seasons, the show tackled diverse themes from religion to discrimination while loosely adapting such classic X-stories as Days of Future Past, the Phoenix Saga and even the Phalanx Covenant. A wide range of the cast of characters, heroes and villains, were on display. It became part of the pinnacle of the X-dominance of the 90s and it was Heaven. These days, I think the show has aged into fine wine cheese. The animation style is highly reminiscent of it's release and the episodes are still entertaining even if certain elements and qualities within them (reminders of a decade gone bye) bring slight chuckles to me. Plus, it has one of the quirkest, catchiest theme songs ever. For whenever I hear it, I find myself humming it for quite some time afterwards. While the follow-up X-cartoons never had any of the tight continuity that existed between the various DCAU series, this show was the foundation block for those shows and even the other Marvel cartoons that followed. And it's still a strong foundation after all these years.
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Post by Pól Rua on Dec 22, 2016 20:23:42 GMT -5
3. Batman: the Animated Series![]()  If you didn't live through the 70's and 80's, it's really hard to describe the impact this series had. In the 70's, parents suddenly started paying attention to kids' cartoons and the glorious, non-stop action of 'Jonny Quest' and 'Space Ghost' gave way to the sanitized and heavily-censored 'Super Friends' of the 70's... and then the toy companies paid attention and we had a decade of non-stop hard-sell toy ads... So suddenly, we had a series that gave its viewers credit for being intelligent, that actually CARED about looking visually sharp (taking its cues from the Fleisher Superman shorts) and actually tried (and succeeded in) telling complex, well-scripted stories. These days, of course, things like this have become somewhat ubiquitous, to the point where it can be difficult to see just how revolutionary this all was. One moment that struck me profoundly was when I was watching the first episode, 'On Leather Wings'. There was a scene where several characters - the Police Commissioner, the DA, the Mayor and a Police Detective - are in the Mayor's office discussing how they should respond to a series of attacks where it looks like Batman may have been responsible. It's a taught, well-written scene, dramatically-lit and framed, with a great voice cast... but beyond that, it's a scene in a kids' Saturday morning cartoon where four men in suits, standing in an office, have an intelligent discussion.  This would have been UNTHINKABLE 5 years earlier. "Kids don't have the intelligence to appreciate this. They have short attention spans. They don't appreciate subtlety. Couldn't we just include more fistfights and pyrotechnics instead? Does having a well-structured story really matter THAT much?" And when Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Mitch Brian and Kevin Altieri saw that, they said, "Yes. It DOES matter. Kids are as smart as we give them credit for being." And so, with that in mind, we got years' worth of GREAT Batman stories when, even at their worst, were pretty good. The BTAS guys redefined characters who'd fallen out of favour, like The Riddler, The Penguin and Mister Freeze. They introduced Harley Quinn, who's almost certainly the best new character DC has created in decades. And they did it on a weekly basis for FOUR YEARS. Since 1989, Warner Brothers has released seven (eight if you count BvS) Batman feature films, and as far as I'm concerned, they've all been pretty lousy overall. Meanwhile, in the space of four years, the BTAS crew released 86 weekly episodes and 2 feature length movies, almost every one of which was superb, and spawned a throng of series, creating the 'DC Animated Universe'. That's a hell of an achievement.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 22, 2016 23:21:29 GMT -5
Day 10 brings Dick Tracy. No, not Warren Beatty; Ralph Byrd. That's right, I'm talking about the 1937 serial, from Republic.
Ralph Byrd was perfect for the tough detective. He looked like a cop, was great with the action, and was a good actor. The serial is tons of fun, with plenty of action and real mystery at the heart of it. The serials often didn't do mystery well; but, not this one. It feels like the early days of the comic strip, minus the deadlier violence. It also has amazing stuntwork and several of the stunts were later stolen/homaged in the Indiana Jones series and elsewhere. There is a boat chase, where Tracy has to go between ships being pushed together, by tugs, that was restaged in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The villain, the Spider, has his own flying wing and secret base, which were later used for the Republic serial Fighting Devil Dogs (whose villain, the Lightning, would influence the look of Darth Vader). This has everything a kid or a kid-at-heart could want. Byrd returned for 5 more serials/films (3 serials, 2 feature films) and then the original tv series. He is the true measuring stick for the cinematic version of the character, something even Warren Beatty acknowledged in this special, with Leonard Maltin:
Byrd is less well known as the cinematic version of DC Comics' The Vigilante, in the Columbia serial.
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), this became a reality, and comic movies began looking and feeling a lot like their source material.
