superheroes | the m0vie blog

312. The Incredibles – Bird Watching 2022 (#230)

Posted on November 12, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Deirdre Molumby and Graham Day, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, we’re continuing a season focusing on the work of one particular director: Brad Bird’s The Incredibles.

Bob Parr was living an exciting life as the superhero Mr. Incredible, until a change in public opinion forced him to hang up his tights for good. Settling down to start a family with Helen, Bob still yearns for the adventure and excitement of his youth. Out of nowhere, a mysterious woman appears with an offer that seems too good to be true, drawing Bob back into a life that he never fully abandoned.

At time of recording, it was ranked 230th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: animated, Brad Bird, cartoon, deirdre molumby, graham day, holly hunter, infidelity, pixar, podcast, superheroes, The 250, the incredibles | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “Morbius Was Bad, Black Adam is Worse”

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching movie reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a five-minute film review of Black Adam, which is in cinemas now.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Black Adam, Dwayne Johnson, film, Movie, review, superheroes, the escapist, the rock | Leave a comment »

297. Steel – Shaq Week 2022 (-#47)

Posted on July 30, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, this time with special guests Niall Glynn and Graham Day, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, we’re doing something a bit unusual. To round out Shark Week, we are marking Shaq Week. So today, ending the week with Kenneth Johnson’s Steel.

Following a horrific accident during weapons research, John Irons returns home to South Central Los Angeles to discover that some of the weapons he helped design have been making their way into the hands of the local gangs. Unable to accept this, Irons crafts a superhero persona for himself, vowing to protect the local community as the vigilante Steel.

At time of recording, it was ranked 47th on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The Bottom 100 | Tagged: African American, annabeth gish, basketball, comic books, graham day, Judd Nelson, niall glynn, podcast, shaq, shaquille o'neal, Steel, superhero, superheroes, The 250, The Bottom 100, Warner Bros, warners | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Thor as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s One True Superhero…

Posted on July 1, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the looming release of Thor: Love and Thunder, it seemed like as good an excuse as any to take a look back at the character of Thor within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and what makes him unique within the shared universe.

Interestingly, Thor is perhaps the only major character within the shared universe who feels like an old-fashioned superhero rather than a product of the military industrial complex. This is particularly apparent within Kenneth Branagh’s Thor and Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, both of which are essentially stories about Thor being exiled from or rejecting the structures of Asgardian society. The result of all this is interesting. In a universe where so many heroes are defined by their relationship to the armed forces, Thor actually feels like a superhero.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 9/11, escapist, in the frame, militarism, military, superheroes, the escapist, thor, thor: ragnarok | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” as a Critique of the Marvel Power Fantasy…

Posted on May 13, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at what the film says about the larger thematic preoccupations of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is built around the superhero power fantasy, with much of the franchise focusing on the idea that its central characters should be allowed to do whatever they want, to bend the world to their tremendous wills. Multiverse of Madness is an interesting and deliberate deconstruction of this power fantasy, focusing on a superhero who has internalised that idea to a dangerous degree, while teaching another character that perhaps the ends don’t always justify the means.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: doctor strange, doctor strange in the multiverse of madness, escapist, in the frame, marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, mcu, power fantasy, superheroes, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! Your Feature Presentation – “What Does The Batman Say About Super Heroes?”

Posted on March 15, 2022 by Darren

The Escapist have launched a new pop culture podcast, and I was thrilled to join Jack Packard for the sixth episode. Jack and I discuss The Batman.

Filed under: Movies, Podcasts! | Tagged: jack packard, superheroes, the batman, the escapist, Warner Bros, your feature presentation | Leave a comment »

277. The Batman – This Just In (#67)

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Graham Day and Niall Glynn, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, a new entry: Matt Reeves’ The Batman.

Bruce Wayne is in the second year of his war on crime in Gotham, and things are not improving. Indeed, the city is thrown into anarchy when a new villain calling themselves the Riddler begins targetting city officials and threatening to unmask the city’s darkest secrets. Can Bruce survive what is coming? Can the Batman? Can Gotham?

At time of recording, it was ranked 67th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: action, america, batman, ben affleck, catwoman, colin farrell, cowboys, films, gangsters, greig fraser, incels, joker, mass shootings, matt reeves, Movies, niall glynn, Penguin, politics, power fantasies, reviews, riddler, Robert Pattinson, superheroes, the batman, trump, violence, Zoë Kravitz | 1 Comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The Batman” as an Argument for Superheroes…

Posted on March 6, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist on Friday. With the release of The Batman this weekend, it seemed a good opportunity to take a look at the film, and what it says about the state of the superhero genre.

The superhero genre is arguably the dominant mode of American blockbuster cinema, the prism through which the populist form must be viewed in its present incarnation. Perhaps the superhero is best understood as a descendent of the classic pop archetypes like the cowboy or the gangster. However, very few superhero films actively engage with what that transition actually means, what makes the superhero a more modern American archetype than the cowboy or the gangster. The Batman is the rare superhero movie engaged with this question.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: america, archetypes, blockbuster, comic books, cowboys, escapist, gangsters, pulp, superhero films, superheroes, the batman, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Tangled Ethics of “Spider-Man: No Way Home”…

Posted on December 17, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. This weekend marks the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, so it seemed like a good idea to take a look at the movie’s big themes and ideas.

On the surface, No Way Home feels a lot like recent nostalgia plays like Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, in that it’s very much an appeal to the memory of a pop culture object. However, No Way Home has certain advantages over these movies, in that it’s a film that seems to be trying to be about more than just recycled imagery. However, it never seems like No Way Home is entirely sure what exactly it is about and what exactly it is trying to say about that.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: comic books, immigration, in the frame, jon watts, metaphor, no kill, spider man, spider-man: no way home, superheroes, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! Podcast 616 – “Eternals”

Posted on November 11, 2021 by Darren

Podcast 616 is a podcast looking at the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I was thrilled to be invited to join Dan Owen for a discussion of Chloé Zhao’s Eternals, which is a movie I enjoyed considerably more than most.

It’s a fun and broad discussion, which delves into questions around auteurship within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the paradox of superheroes, the question of power, and the challenges in adapting concepts like the Deviants for the big screen. It was really fun to roll up my sleeves and delve into this discussion with Dan, which allowed me to chat about everything from my blind spots with certain characters to the way in which the plot and themes of Eternals feels true to the spirit – if not necessarily the art – of Jack Kirby.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.