COMIC BOOK CATCH-UP: THE FLASH (2023) *** ½

From the opening title scene of the titular speedster zipping by the old school Warner Brothers and DC logos, to the overblown and overstuffed finale, The Flash is a blast.  The opening sequence where The Flash (Ezra Miller) comes to Gotham City to back up Batman (Ben Affleck) is simply awesome, and the scene where he uses his super-speed to save an entire NICU ward from a collapsing hospital while simultaneously eating breakfast has a fun tinge of Buster Keaton-style humor.  This stretch of the movie culminates with a fun mini-Justice League reunion, which is nice, seeing how this is probably the last time we’ll see them on screen together. 

The plot is busy, but breezy.  The Flash discovers if he runs fast enough, he can go back in time.  He decides to use the power to go back and save his mother from being murdered.  Naturally, he saves her but winds up screwing up the space time continuum in the process. 

Despite his offscreen antics, Miller is terrific in this, especially during the scenes where he plays off of a younger version of himself.  Some of his scenes together are hilarious, like when The Flash 2.0 gains his powers and immediately abuses them.  Other humorous touches (like the Back to the Future references) offer up big laughs as well. 

Oh, and let’s talk about how good it is to see Michael Keaton as Batman again.  He never received a proper trilogy, and we were swindled out of seeing him in The Batgirl movie, so this is likely his swan song as the character, and he doesn’t disappoint.  Sure, a lot of the time the script is trading on our nostalgia for the character, but honestly, I have to say it was a fair trade. 

The main flaw is that the finale is a bit too chaotic and overblown.  While the brief glimpses of the Multiverse versions of your favorite DC characters are fun, they don’t really amount to anything more than fan service (and most are rendered with chintzy CGI).  At least the final stinger is good for a laugh.  

Sure, it may have a few missteps down the homestretch, but The Flash is still in the running as one of the best comic book movies of the year.

DC EXTENDED UNIVERSE RANKING:  

Batman v Superman:  Dawn of Justice: ****

Man of Steel:  ****

The Flash: *** ½ 

Aquaman:  *** ½

Wonder Woman:  *** ½

Justice League:  *** ½

Shazam!:  ***

Suicide Squad:  ***

The Suicide Squad:  ** ½ 

Black Adam:  **

Shazam!  Fury of the Gods:  **

WW84:  * ½ 

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn):  * ½

TUBI CONTINUED… WRAP-UP

So, what did I learn from watching 365 movies on Tubi in 365 days?  I learned it’s possible to have only one streaming service and be mostly content with the uh… content.  There’s some good stuff on Tubi, and there’s a lot of crap, but it’s MY kind of crap.  I don’t know if I can in good conscience cancel the various streaming services I pay for and chuck it all for Tubi, but it WOULD theoretically be possible to do so.  

Tubi, for my money, is the closest you can get to that old mom and pop video store feeling.  The kind that carried the weird kinds of crap the big names dare not rent.  Because of that, I will still continue to frequent Tubi, mostly because you just never know what kind of weird shit will turn up on there.  However, I don’t think I could do it on a daily basis again.  

Before I close the door on this column, I did a little data crunching and was surprised by the results.  You might not give a rip about these stats, but I kind of got a kick out of them.  

In the past year on Tubi I have watched…

365 movies in 365 days… including…

41 movies with the word “Massacre” in the title…

29 Ultraman movies…

27 Fake Amityville movies…

13 Lingerie Fighting Championships…

17 movies directed by Mark Polonia… and…

15 movies directed by Dustin Ferguson

Also, here’s the Ten Best and Worst Tubi Discoveries of the Year…

Ten Best: 

1. Lingerie Fighting Championships 31:  Booty Camp 2

2. Lingerie Fighting Championships 37:  Back to the Mansion 

3. Lingerie Fighting Championships 28:  Sindependence Day

4. Lingerie Fighting Championships 36:  Booty Camp 4 

5. Lingerie Fighting Championships 34:  United We Stand

6. L.A. AIDS Jabber 

7. Lingerie Fighting Championships 21:  Naughty n’ Nice 

8. Lingerie Fighting Championships 30:  Born to Be Wild

9. Lingerie Fighting Championships 29:  A Hot Midsummer Night’s Dream

10. Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend 

Ten Worst:

1. All Jacked Up and Full of Worms

2. Bikini Hackers 

3. Cocaine Shark 

4. Werewolf Bitches from Outer Space

5. After School Special 

6. The Manson Family Massacre

7. Space Vampire

8. Savage Vengeance 

9. Mt. Misery Rd.

10. Amityville Hex 

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, Mitch… you just spent the last year of your life watching Tubi movies.  You should really take a break or seek psychiatric help.  And you know what?  I think I will take a break from streaming movies on a daily basis in 2024.  

HOWEVER… that’s just another way of saying instead of streaming movies on a daily basis, I will be watching movies on a physical media format on a daily basis in 2024.  That’s right, folks.  I’ll be back on my bullshit next year (or… tomorrow) with a new movie-a-day column called Let’s Get Physical where I try to watch 366 movies in 366 days (it’s a Leap Year after all).  

Happy New Year, everyone!

TUBI CONTINUED… CAROUSH3LL (2023) **

Well, we’ve finally made it.  We’ve come to the end of the year-long Tubi Continued… column.  I don't want to pat myself on the back, but watching 365 movies on Tubi in 365 days is nothing to sneeze at.  Because of that, I wanted to finish out the series with a bang, so I picked a movie that I thought couldn’t miss, the third film in the CarousHELL saga, CarousH3LL.  I was wrong.

A rabbit carousel animal crashes an Easter party and kills everyone.  Meanwhile, Duke the killer unicorn carousel horse (the voice of Steve Rimpici) is trying to reconnect with his half-human half-horse son, Robbie.  A one-eyed killer (director Steve Rudzinski) with a grudge against Duke enters the fray and makes an uneasy alliance with the rabbit to take Duke down. 

I was a fan of the first film and, to a lesser extent, Part 2.  This one was a bit of a disappointment, but the first ten minutes are pure CarousHELL gold.  There’s a three-way sex scene where the killer rabbit and a couple go to town on each other that goes on for a long time.  (Note:  That’s not a criticism.)  This scene is made all the better since Jessa Flux looks smoking hot in and out of her sexy bunny cosplay.  Folks, this will probably go down as the sex scene of the year.  Too bad it’s all downhill from there. 

The big misstep is the sidelining of Duke for much of the action in favor of director’s eye patch-wearing character.  When Duke is front and center, it’s moderately fun.  When Rudzinski takes center stage, the film sinks.  Also, some long, dialogue-heavy flashback scenes are repeated twice for some reason.  (Most likely to pad out the running time.)  The switch away from carousel animals to sports team mascot types of characters late in the film feels like an attempt to capture the furry market too. There’s also a random wrestling scene that’s just sort of there. 

The kills this time around include decapitations, scythes entering various locations of the body, eye gouging, heart ripping, face chopping, and unicorn horn impalement.  Nothing cuts as deep as the onslaught of bad puns though. 

AKA:  CarousHELL 3.

TUBI CONTINUED… AIMEE: THE VISITOR (2023) **

From the looks of things, I thought this was going to be Charles Band’s riff on M3GAN, given his propensity for movies about killer dolls.  As it turns out, it’s a different animal altogether.  AIMEE isn’t a killer doll, but an AI program who, according to the opening title card, is the first AI generated actress in film history. 

A hacker named Keyes (Dallas Schaefer) receives a package containing a highly advanced AI named AIMEE.  She looks like a slightly more sophisticated version of one of those video poker dealers and basically acts like Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie.  (She even goes so far as to call Keyes, “Master”.)  AIMEE eventually falls in love with Keyes and protects him by killing FBI agents who try to hack into his system.  Naturally, when Keyes gets a flesh and blood girlfriend (Faith West), AIMEE becomes jealous and goes on a killing spree. 

AI is a very hot subject nowadays, and I’m sure there was a kernel of a good idea lurking somewhere in the script.  However, all the scenes of Keyes doing his computer hacker shit feels like something out of a ‘90s movie.  Likewise, the film itself resembles a throwback to Band’s old Full Moon movies like The Killer Eye.  That’s not exactly a bad thing, but I think the script could’ve used an upgrade.  Sure, there are some amusing bits here, like when AIMEE connects to a Roomba and turns it to a killing machine.  It’s just that it doesn’t help when most of the movie is devoted to interchangeable scenes of a guy talking to his computer monitor.  

Maybe if this was more in the vein of a Surrender Cinema movie it would’ve been more effective.  There are a couple of nude scenes (West looks particularly great), but if Band amped up the sexual tension, it could’ve been an OK updating of all those ‘90s Skinamax flicks.  (Essentially swapping out the VR gimmick for AI.)  I did like the part where AIMEE analyzed her master’s porn-watching data and created his “ultimate” fantasy though.

COMIC BOOK CATCH-UP: SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS (2023) **

Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu are gods who come to Earth to steal a stick from a museum that gives them back their magic powers.  Shazam (Zachary Levi) and his extended family of superheroes are the only ones who can stop them.  Little do Shazam and company know, the magic stick also has the ability to take away their superpowers.  With Shazam the last superhero standing, he must then prevent the sisters from destroying Earth (or at least Philadelphia). 

There are some ideas here that are funny, but there’s no real comedic follow through.  Consider the scene when Shazam goes to a therapist (actually his alter ego’s pediatrician).  It starts off with a good idea, and yet it contains no real jokes or laughs.  Levi, who did a fine job in his first go-round as the character seems to suspect the material is weaker this time out, so he tries to overcompensate his schtick, which quickly gets tiresome.  Mirren is thoroughly wasted and Lui’s role is paper thin. 

Also, there’s just some stuff that makes no sense.  One of the gods has the ability to make buildings move around like a half-assed Inception wannabe.  My question is, do the people inside the buildings move around too?  Did the filmmakers think about that, or did they think it was just a cool visual and move on to the next scene?  All the stuff with the sentient ink pen reeks of juvenile Harry Potter shit too. 

The fight scenes lack punch as well (no pun intended).  Even potentially fun sequences fizzle out quickly.  I’m thinking specifically of the unicorns vs. mythical creatures fight that almost instantly stops before it starts, but not before descending into a foul-mouthed Skittles commercial. 

I don’t know.  Maybe it was time for a regimen change at DC after mediocre muscleman movies like this and Black Adam.  It doesn’t bring anything new to the table and is sorely lacking the charm of the admittedly fun original.  

DC EXTENDED UNIVERSE RANKING:  

Batman v Superman:  Dawn of Justice: ****

Man of Steel:  ****

Aquaman:  *** ½

Wonder Woman:  *** ½

Justice League:  *** ½

Shazam!:  ***

Suicide Squad:  ***

The Suicide Squad:  ** ½ 

Black Adam:  **

Shazam!  Fury of the Gods:  **

WW84:  * ½ 

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn): * ½

COMIC BOOK CATCH-UP: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 (2023) ***

With his pal Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) dying, Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and the Guardians of the Galaxy go off in search of the only being (who’s evil, of course) who can save him. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 goes back and forth between the present-day quest to save Rocket and the scenes of Rocket’s past, told in flashback while he’s lying on his death bed, and it makes for a choppy narrative.  The scenes of Guardians breaking into spaceships and getting into skirmishes with aliens is fun, but it lacks the swagger and joy the previous films in the series had.  Rocket’s scenes are downright depressing, and will pull at your heartstrings, but I wonder if they would’ve played even better if the film was told chronologically.  Every time his storyline advances in a meaningful way, it cuts back to the Guardians.  Rocket’s tale might’ve been a powerful standalone origin story instead of being shoehorned into a Guardians plotline that, while not bad, just seems to be on autopilot. 

That said, when it works it works.  Rocket’s stuff by itself is worth the price of admission.  I guess writer/director James Gunn knew his time with Marvel was drawing to a close (since he went on to head DC’s movie division), so he put everything he ever wanted to do with the Guardians into this one.  Because of that, the character of Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) suffers.  They set him up to be the bad guy in the last one and he winds up basically being the C plotline.  (Well… the D plotline.  I forgot about all the stuff with Star-Lord trying to make Gamora remember she loves him.)  It’s a shame too because Poulter has his moments. 

Oh, and why all of a sudden are the Guardians listening to ‘90s music?  The soundtracks to the first two films were full of fun ‘70s bubblegum jams.  This one just features a mishmash of stuff that doesn’t even feel like it would go together all that well on a mixtape.  I guess this is probably the “old man yells at cloud” part of the review because I know what you’re going to say:  ‘90s rock is now considered “classic rock”, but come on. 

Look, I had fun with the movie, and it was nice seeing the characters bouncing off one another once again.  However, the bloated 2 ½ hour running time was a bit much.  Honestly, this thing was exhausting at times and was missing some of the playfulness of the first two.  Overall, I liked it.  It’s entertaining, if a bit overblown. 

Marvel Cinematic Universe Scorecard: 

Spider-Man:  No Way Home:  ****

Avengers:  Age of Ultron:  ****

The Incredible Hulk:  ****

Iron Man:  ****

Thor:  Ragnarok:  ****

Avengers:  Endgame:  ****

Ant-Man and the Wasp:  ****

Spider-Man:  Homecoming:  ****

Iron Man 3:  ****

Captain America:  Civil War:  *** ½

Ant-Man:  *** ½

Guardians of the Galaxy:  *** ½

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:  *** ½ 

Avengers:  Infinity War:  *** ½

Werewolf by Night:  *** ½ 

Black Panther:  *** ½ 

The Avengers:  ***

Captain America:  The First Avenger:  ***

Captain America:  The Winter Soldier:  ***

Thor:  Love and Thunder:  ***

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness:  ***

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings:  ***

Captain Marvel:  ***

Spider-Man:  Far from Home:  ***

Thor:  ***

The Marvels:  ***

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3:  ***

Thor:  The Dark World:  ***

Iron Man 2:  ***

Ant-Man and the Wasp:  Quantumania:  ** ½ 

Doctor Strange:  ** ½ 

Black Widow:  ** ½  

Black Panther:  Wakanda Forever:  **

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special:  **

Eternals:  * ½  

TUBI CONTINUED… THE BLACK RIDER (1954) ** ½

A shadowy figure in a black hood known as “The Black Monk” rides around terrorizing the citizens of a small English hamlet on a motorcycle during the full moon.  An intrepid reporter (and motorcycle enthusiast) investigates and is almost killed for his trouble.  That doesn’t deter him from digging and soon, he has a hunch the Black Monk isn’t a phantom after all, but a flesh and blood henchman for a den of smugglers hiding out in the town’s crumbling castle estate.  When the reporter’s girlfriend is kidnapped, he calls on the members of his local motorcycle riding club to help rescue her. 

Directed by Wolf (Village of the Damned) Rilla, The Black Rider is an engaging and breezy little thriller that owes a lot to the Old Dark House mysteries of the ‘30s and ‘40s.  You know, the ones where spies posed as monsters to keep snoopers away.  Except instead of an Old Dark House, it’s an Old English Town.  It was made around the same time as The Wild One, so having a motorcycle-riding hero was still something of a novelty.   

In fact, it also reminded me a little of the Juvenile Delinquent genre as it’s an impassioned plea by motorcycle riders for acceptance by the public.  Sure, the Black Monk is a bad guy, but all the other riders in the film are portrayed as easygoing guys who ride for recreation and sport.  Half the movie is spent on the reporter trying to prove to his future father in-law (and editor) that motorcyclists are people too.  There are times where it almost feels like pro-motorcycle propaganda financed by the British Motorcyclists’ Administration parading as a thriller. 

Most of this is goofy, but I kinda dug it.  It’s only an hour long and Rilla keeps things speeding along.  I can’t lie and say the mystery is gripping and the performances are engaging.  What I can say is that it’s a silly, semi-entertaining oddity.