Looking back on.. Archives » Page 8 of 18

Super Mario Bros Movie 1993 is Cyberpunk sexy Nintendo

11/19/201701/28/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

At a video rental store I saw the movie of one of my favorite video games, Super Mario Bros so I decided to rent it. I guess since I was a kid I thought it was ok but I was never interested in watching it again and I didn’t understand what I had really watched. I guess I just thought live action movies were different from their animated counterparts. This movie is seen as fodder but it was a weird one so after watching it again I can honestly say this is an awesome movie.

Why yes, there’s a Rave scene full of techno punk outfits and in general the whole Dinohattan City is cyber punk inspired and frankly it looks amazing. This grim future you would expect from various movies in the 80s, in fact this movie still feels very well stuck in that decade even if made later. The grim visuals of the movie are nothing like the video game but that doesn’t matter since its visually appealing and unique.

Ted Bear Duology Movies aren’t bad

11/18/201701/28/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

Looking back on..

When the movie Ted came out I wasn’t interested in it since I’m not a big fan of Seth MacFarlane and it felt like a low brow comedy. It wasn’t until a few years later when I was recommended the movie by someone I didn’t expect to and was told it was not what I expected that I finally decided to check it out one day and that one day finally came so let’s take a look back at the Ted movie Duology and see if it’s worthy of being a franchise.

Now I can’t say the movie isn’t something I didn’t expect but it did do the things I thought it would be doing a lot better. The humor even if childish does get a few laughs and overall I enjoyed watching them, I can’t say they were amazing by any means but there are plenty of things that I liked.

Original Batman Live Action Quadrology 4 films in continuty gothic vs neon

10/28/201701/26/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

Looking back on..

The four Batman films from the 90s even though I guess technically the first one was released in 1989 all share a continuity, now most people like to draw a difference between the Tim Burton films and the Joe Schumacher films and while there are definitely differences between them three is no denying that the four films are meant to take place in the same universe and are not as tonally different as people like to believe so let’s take a look back at them.

Too bad there is no easy way to tell this saga apart and since fans divide the films as mentioned above it hasn’t helped the situation. We’ve seen box sets of the films called as the Legacy collection and also the Anthology so I guess that’s the best we have unless we want to call it a quadriology or tetralogy. The movies do go nicely together when they use the logos to differentiate each movie as each one has a very iconic batman shield for that movie.

Villainous show Shorts on Cartoon Network are refreshing

10/21/201710/25/2022 Luigi Kawasaki

Looking back on..

Coming from flash animated webisodes, some which have now been lost to time, Villanos was able to get a shot at making some shorts or miniseries for Cartoon Network Mexico’s app and so we got ten different episodes around a minute or so. These became rather popular and renamed Villainous for other markets, while the original name would be translated as just “Villains”.

I started seeing a lot of these characters so I was tempted to check them out and so I did including the webisodes. The webisodes for the most part look like your normal flash cartoons that you’ve come to expect from the internet, the main thing going for them is the character designs as most of the humor falls flat.

Tales from the Cryptkeeper, the prefect Crypt cartoon

10/15/201701/26/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

Looking back on..

Horror Comics by EC got a live action anthology show on HBO with Tales from the Crypt where many of the stories from the comics where adapted, While not for kids, the cryptkeeper was so iconic and charismatic that just like Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger, he became a pop culture figure that kids loved and so it got an animated adaptation for kids. How did the transition go?

Tales from the Cryptkeeper was clearly a spin-off that might even be in continuity since the theme song is basically the same and the voice actor of the cryptkeeper is also kept from the HBO show. Unlike the stories in the adult show this one featured more stories with classic horror monsters and fairly tame stories that only have a spooky visuals and characters but being more of an adventure story

Mighty Max Cartoon, dare I say a secret gem based off the Toyline?

10/14/201701/26/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

Looking back on..

Polly Pocket playsets had become a hit so it was decided to make a boys version that instead of houses and whatnot would feature things “boys” would like such as monsters, aliens and dinosaurs; and so Mighty Max was born. It was a successful toyline in the UK so it eventually got a cartoon. The original character was changed as well as his backstory to better fit what a cartoon was supposed to be, while the huge sales of the toyline didn’t exactly translate into huge ratings it did well enough to get a two season 40 episode run so let’s take a look back at it..

The story from the playsets was changed as mentioned and while I was not a big fan of the change I could live with it. The re-design of Max with the baggy shirt totally fit the 90s and made him look cooler. I wasn’t a big fan of making him the chosen one since the original idea of him just stumbling into worlds for no reason and having to escape was more appealing but oh well, we still got some of that anyway. We also got two companions with VirgiL and Norman who give him someone to interact with and were fun, they weren’t in all episodes as Max’s Mother and his friends Bea and Felix also guest in a few episodes.

The 90s Addams Family live action movie Values can’t be topped

10/13/201701/26/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

Looking back on..

It’s October Friday the 13th so it’s too good of a day to not talk about something spooky and what better way than to talk about the Addams Family which have mostly become forgotten since their last big boom when their two films had in the 90s. The family seems to have been forgotten by pop culture for the most part when in the 90s it seemed like they were here to stay and successfully made the jump from old tv show to a movie franchise.

Both films actually do an excellent job portraying the quirky family on the big screen in a way that you don’t normally see, not only does it pay respect to the source material but it actually enhances it and makes it its own thing. All the characters seem to have been born to play those roles and are the definitive versions of those characters. The humor is very well balanced and strangely dark for such a mainstream movie