Into the Longbox

I saw this movie weeks ago and yet I haven't even written down my thoughts on it. I can assure you that I blocked out most of this movie in my mind, so this review will be short. So congrats reader, you won't have to deal with me rambling on and on. So, Venom. Where do I even begin with this movie? I went in expecting it to be bad. It met those expectations and exceeded them. Oh wait, that makes it sound good. What I mean to say is, it was worse than I thought. This movie is bad, in case I wasn't clear. I didn't want this movie to exist and despite the easter eggs they leave, I do not want a sequel to this. It felt like a late 90's to early 00's bad action movie. With the budget of a modern movie. It tries to toe the line between serious drama, horror, action and low brow comedy and it really fails at all of them. In this movie, it is hard to root for Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy). You are told he is a great reporter, but in what you see, he is not. Then we w...

So. After the first season, I said I wanted nothing else to do with this show. Don't believe me, here's my post . That first season was awful. Then those antics carried into "The Defenders". When Danny Rand showed up in ONE episode of Luke Cage this year, I felt that maybe they got it right. Then this show just kind of showed up out of nowhere. It's weird, but there was not the press that we have seen from all the other Netflix shows, so I thought it was weird that this just appeared. I watched the entire season and I can safely say, I really liked this season. I can't believe those words are coming out of my mouth, especially after I wrote off anything related to this show. They fixed just about all the problems I had with the first season. I will take it a step further and say that there was a change in this season that I HOPE carries over into the other Netflix shows. For the first time, a Marvel Netflix series (excluding the Defenders) was ten episo...

Recently, my fiancee asked me what my favorite comic book was. I had to think and realized I didn't have an immediate answer. With as many comic books as I own and have read over the years, I could not think of what I would qualify as my favorite comic book. When I thought a little MORE, as is my way, I couldn't just settle on one book. I had to pick five. Usually I'm more decisive, but here, I narrowed it down to five, that have their own reasons. Don't read anything into the order of how I talk about these, but below is my list. I've decided that I will write about my memories of these books and what I thought. Then I will re-read them and give my reaction to that, to see if my memories of these books are still held with such high regard. I hope I don't ruin them... Fantastic Four #348 (Marvel) My Memory: This was an issue I read early on in my budding comic book nerdiness. Ironically, it is a Fantastic Four book that barely stars the Fantastic Four....

There seems to be an abundance of riches these past few years as far as comic book shows go. I can count at least nine comic book series I have watched. JUST THIS YEAR! Thankfully with each new show that comes out, they all have something fresh to offer. This is what I felt about Cloak and Dagger. Look, I know this will sound like I have said this about a lot of things on this blog, but it is true. I've been a Cloak and Dagger fan for years. Unlike the other characters I have talked about loving before, I can't even determine when I started to like these two. I'm not even going to quantify it. I say all that to set up that I was looking forward to this show. This might be a minor complaint, but it is something I am noticing with more of these shows. There is a definite slow burn that is happening. Since it's not serialized television, you have a long running arc that goes throughout the season. What I had worried about here is that this show was a super hero show...

They're back!! I know it has been a few weeks since this book came out, but I needed to talk about it before I completely forgot. I've documented many times on this here blog that I am a huge Fantastic Four fan. Well, as of two weeks ago, they are now officially back in the Marvel Universe! After a lengthy hiatus, they returned in Fantastic Four #1. The book continued the exploits of Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm, which is a thread that has been running over in Marvel 2 In One . The reason I wanted to talk about this book is that it is rare these days that I genuinely feel something from a comic book. I've become jaded and cynical. Not much truly moves me. This issue did for a number of reasons. At least with this first issue, writer Dan Slott has lovingly acknowledged the past of the Fantastic Four while keeping an eye on the future. In what was one of the more shocking developments, Ben Grimm proposed to Alicia Masters! How has this not happened?! All the stuff the...

I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but to the surprise of no one, I watched another Marvel Netflix show. This time it was season two of Luke Cage. Honestly, I liked this season more than the first. This show wasn't perfect and it had a few flaws. However, they were a lot less glaring for me than the first season. If we want to get REALLY specific, I hated Diamondback. Hated him. He's gone, so that makes this season infinitely better. Enough with this conversation, let's get into my review. As usual, I will try to avoid spoilers, but I'm not human. They MAY happen. To start off, what I really liked was the villain for most of the season. The villain this time around is John McIver, a.k.a. "Bushmaster". Here we have a compelling villain with an understandable motivation. He is coming after Mariah Dillard and Harlem just happens to be the collateral damage. First of all, I loved the portrayal of him by actor, Mustafa Shakir. I've never seen him in a...

I will be honest. When this movie was first announced, just like with the first movie, I thought this was a reach by Marvel. Be honest, who really cares about Ant-Man? Even if he is being portrayed by the charming, Paul Rudd. Well, I ended up liking the first movie more than I thought I would. I am happy to report that I liked this movie even more. There are a number of things I think this movie did better to correct the problems of the first. Most importantly, there is not a mustache twirling villain in this movie. Ghost, who we can say is the main antagonist, is not so much a villain as someone that is in a terrible circumstance. He/She will do anything to correct that. The motivations are crystal clear and he/she is a sympathetic character. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is still a sometimes bumbling Ant-Man, but I think he has more heart in this movie. You can see that reflected in the relationship with his daughter, which is really sweet. He means well, but keeps messing things up ...