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Celebrating 10 of the Best Dads in Superhero TV and Movies

Fri Jun 16, 2023 10:00am 7 comments 3 Favorites [+]

In real life, loving and supportive fathers run the gamut from fun-loving and goofy to serious and insightful, stay-at-home to daily commuters, biological to chosen, cis to trans, happy-go-lucky to dour and moody.

But in superhero stories, dads tend to fall into one of three categories: emotionally distant, actually evil, or dead. Thor’s father Odin and Iron Man’s father Howard Stark both hide their emotions from their children. Batgirl’s father Commissioner Gordon is too busy cleaning up Gotham to notice that his daughter is Batgirl. The respective fathers of Invincible Mark Grayson, all of the Runaways, and Gamora and Nebula either reveal their evil plans in an unwelcome surprise or taunt their kids with their twisted philosophies. The fathers of the three most iconic superheroes, Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man? They’re all dead.

So it’s pretty exciting when a superhero story not only gives us dads who are alive and not evil but are actually pretty good at being dads. Bucking the trend, some superdads are present for their kids, supportive, and emotionally available.

Read More »

Vincent Price: Horror’s Original Evil Genius

Fri May 27, 2022 11:00am 27 comments 8 Favorites [+]
Screenshot: American International Pictures

In a career that stretched from 1938 to 1995, Vincent Price captivated audiences with a debonair manner that brought smooth sophistication to his evil ways. Although he certainly played heroic, and even romantic roles at times, Price excelled as an evil genius. His elegant presence and rich voice brought a new and impressive level of menace to the devilish tortures his characters devised.

If we look at Price’s six best villain performances, we can find plenty of moments that surely set the standard for modern horror movie geniuses of every stripe…

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Celebrating the Oddball Horror of Tremors

Tue Mar 29, 2022 3:00pm 5 comments 4 Favorites [+]
Screenshot: Universal Pictures

When it comes to creature features—the horror subgenre built around monstrous beasts and the spectacular havoc they tend to wreak—two decades stand out. The atomic anxiety of the 1950s gave birth to classics such as Godzilla, as well as generating future Mystery Science Theater 3000 fare like The Crawling Eye. Then, as the conservative revival of the 1980s took hold in the U.S., filmmakers critiqued the movement and resulting cultural shifts via darker, more cynical features such as David Cronenberg’s The Fly and John Carpenter’s The Thing.

Although praised less rarely, the 1990s also saw its fair share of films that share significant DNA with classic creature features, from Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster Jurassic Park to the Renny Harlin schlock favorite Deep Blue Sea. Unlike their predecessors, however, these movies were often upbeat and fun, escapist films that celebrated the strangeness of the monster instead of the vileness of humanity. In these movies, man is rarely the true monster.

No movie signaled this change in approach better than Tremors. With its impressive practical monster effects and cast of small-town oddballs, Tremors changed the direction of creature features to something wackier and more fun, but no less interesting.

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Super-Romantic: The Best Romantic Relationships in Superhero Movies

Mon Feb 14, 2022 12:00pm 13 comments 1 Favorite [+]

In so many ways, Superman set the mold that all superheroes follow. Since 1938’s Action Comics #1, almost every superhero who followed would have a secret identity, an outrageous costume, and skills or powers that set them apart. And nearly every one of these characters would have a love interest, a Lois Lane who would often serve as the damsel in distress for the hero to rescue (at least in the early days).

Sure, there have been exceptions like Batman, who’s never had a single main squeeze like his Justice League counterparts. But those exceptions prove the rule that romantic drama has always been just as important to superhero stories as supervillains and extraneous adjectives. That’s particularly true of superhero movies, which tend to follow the old Hollywood model of including a love interest in every tale. But while that might sound dull and formulaic, there has been a surprising amount of variety of romance within the capes-and-tights genre.

So if your idea of a hot Valentine’s Day date is staying at home to watch super-powered good guys take down the bad guys, here are some big-screen superhero romances to help set the mood…

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Fifth Time’s a Charm: The Best Fifth Entries in Horror Franchises

Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:00pm 5 comments 1 Favorite [+]

After more than a decade of silence, the Scream franchise returns to theaters on January 14th. The new film, simply titled Scream, is not only the first of the movies not directed by the late Wes Craven (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett step in for the horror icon), but it is also the fifth entry in the series.

For some moviegoers, a series with five or more films is a sure sign of diminishing returns, further evidence that Hollywood has run out of ideas and only recycles the same tired stories. But for horror fans, fifth entries have proved to be some of the best in the series. Fifth movies can be the point where the franchise perfects the premise, where beloved characters return, or when filmmakers break with the formula and take things in a surprising new direction.

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6 Episodes of MST3K to Help You Really Just Relax

Tue Jan 4, 2022 3:00pm 11 comments 3 Favorites [+]
Screenshot: Netflix

Imagine this: a person stuck inside, all alone with nothing to do but watch movies (while occasionally receiving confusing and misleading reports from the people who are ostensibly in charge). That might seem to describe the past two years, but it’s actually about the future. The not-too-distant future, in fact…

It is, of course, the premise of the cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, the show in which robots Cambot, Gypsy, Tom Servo, and Crow T. Robot join a human host to make fun of terrible movies. Inspired by the 1972 Douglass Trumbull film Silent Running, series creator and original host Joel Hodgson created a joyful, scrappy celebration of humor and comedy in the face of loneliness and powerlessness. Even as the series changed channels, casts, and hosts over the years, that basic hopeful message remained consistent: Even in the direst situations, you can try to keep your sanity with the help of your (synthetic, if necessary) friends.

For that reason, MST3K is the ideal comfort watch for times such as these, when we’re all alone, together.

Read More »

10 Horror Movies That Will Make You Permanently Suspicious of Nature

Mon Sep 6, 2021 9:00am 1 Favorite [+]
Screenshot: Universal Pictures

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is finally hitting its stride. April’s showers are starting to give way to warmer, sunnier weather; the days are getting longer, and everyone’s excited to spend more time outside!

Well, most people, anyway. I don’t like to go outside because when I was nine years old, I watched Jaws and have been terrified of sharks—and by extension, the natural world—ever since. Never mind the fact that I lived in the decidedly freshwater state of Michigan until my mid-twenties and didn’t even see the ocean until moving to North Carolina. Jaws taught me that nature can’t be trusted, and that The Outdoors wasn’t so much great as it was eerie.

Read More »

Ranking the Live-Action Versions of Superman’s Supporting Cast

Fri Aug 27, 2021 12:00pm 16 comments 2 Favorites [+]

Although Superman first appeared in pages of 1938’s Action Comics #1, no single medium could contain the Last Son of Krypton. Within ten years, the Man of Steel started showing up on toy store shelves, in a radio show, and, of course, on the screen. Since the 1948 Republic Pictures serial Superman starring Kirk Alyn, we have always had a human face to go with the world’s first superhero, a tradition that continues today with Tyler Hoechlin in the new Arrowverse series Superman & Lois.

But while we could discuss the individual merits of the many men who have donned the Man of Tomorrow’s signature red trunks, I’d argue that any Superman adaptation is only as good as its supporting cast. Superman stories live and die by their portrayals of ace reporter Lois Lane, Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen, Daily Planet editor Perry White, and, of course, the diabolic genius Lex Luthor. Instead of ranking the different Clark Kents (Clarks Kent?) and their alter egos, I find it far more interesting to rank the various live-action takes on his supporting cast.

Read More »

Let’s Show Some Love for the Ten Best Dads in Superhero TV and Movies

Wed Jun 16, 2021 12:00pm 21 comments 10 Favorites [+]
Screenshot: Sony Pictures

In real life, loving and supportive fathers run the gamut from fun-loving and goofy to serious and insightful, stay-at-home to daily commuters, biological to chosen, cis to trans, happy-go-lucky to dour and moody.

But in superhero stories, dads tend to fall into one of three categories: emotionally distant, actually evil, or dead. Thor’s father Odin and Iron Man’s father Howard Stark both hide their emotions from their children. Batgirl’s father Commissioner Gordon is too busy cleaning up Gotham to notice that his daughter is Batgirl. The respective fathers of Invincible Mark Grayson, all of the Runaways, and Gamora and Nebula either reveal their evil plans in an unwelcome surprise or taunt their kids with their twisted philosophies. The fathers of the three most iconic superheroes, Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man? They’re all dead.

So it’s pretty exciting when a superhero story not only gives us dads who are alive and not evil but are actually pretty good at being dads. Bucking the trend, some superdads are present for their kids, supportive, and emotionally available.

Read More »

Before Jigsaw, Vincent Price Was Horror’s Evil Genius

Thu May 13, 2021 12:00pm 21 comments 5 Favorites [+]
Screenshot: American International Pictures

After four years, Saw returns to the big screen this week with Spiral: From the Book of Saw. Although the franchise doesn’t quite command the same excitement that it did during its 2000s heyday, when moviegoers flocked to cinemas every October to watch the new entry, it remains to be seen whether audiences are anxious to see what stars Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson can bring to the famously low-budget series.

Although fans certainly love Saw movies for their gory death traps and their soap-opera plotting, the franchise’s true greatest asset is its primary villain, John Kramer, the Jigsaw killer. Played by Tobin Bell with an intensity that belies his sleepy features, Kramer is a consummate evil genius. A brilliant engineer who learns to cherish life only after his cancer diagnosis (or a failed suicide attempt, or the death of his unborn child, or his divorce… the story changes a lot), Kramer tortures those he considers ungrateful in order to force them to appreciate their lives. Before the victims participate in his deadly traps, Kramer first subjects them to moralizing monologues, in which he explains why he has chosen the victim and how the torture will help them.

As much as the series’ detractors dismiss the Saw franchise as ushering in the era of torture porn, arguably the nadir of horror cinema, its roots go back to one of the true titans of the genre: Vincent Price.

Read More »

Ten Horror Movies That Will Make You Permanently Suspicious of the Great Outdoors

Tue Apr 27, 2021 10:00am 24 comments 3 Favorites [+]

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is finally hitting its stride. April’s showers are starting to give way to warmer, sunnier weather; the days are getting longer, and everyone’s excited to spend more time outside!

Well, most people, anyway. I don’t like to go outside because when I was nine years old, I watched Jaws and have been terrified of sharks—and by extension, the natural world—ever since. Never mind the fact that I lived in the decidedly freshwater state of Michigan until my mid-twenties and didn’t even see the ocean until moving to North Carolina. Jaws taught me that nature can’t be trusted, and that The Outdoors wasn’t so much great as it was eerie.

Read More »

Ranking the Live-Action Members of Superman’s Supporting Cast

Mon Mar 8, 2021 12:00pm 48 comments 5 Favorites [+]

Screenshot: Warner Bros. Pictures

Although Superman first appeared in pages of 1938’s Action Comics #1, no single medium could contain the Last Son of Krypton. Within ten years, the Man of Steel started showing up on toy store shelves, in a radio show, and, of course, on the screen. Since the 1948 Republic Pictures serial Superman starring Kirk Alyn, we have always had a human face to go with the world’s first superhero, a tradition that continues today with Tyler Hoechlin in the new Arrowverse series Superman & Lois.

But while we could discuss the individual merits of the many men who have donned the Man of Tomorrow’s signature red trunks, I’d argue that any Superman adaptation is only as good as its supporting cast. Superman stories live and die by their portrayals of ace reporter Lois Lane, Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen, Daily Planet editor Perry White, and, of course, the diabolic genius Lex Luthor. Instead of ranking the different Clark Kents (Clarks Kent?) and their alter egos, I find it far more interesting to rank the various live-action takes on his supporting cast.

Read More »

Ten of the Best Recent Horror and Sci-Fi Movies to Stream Right Now

Thu Jan 21, 2021 10:00am 13 comments 3 Favorites [+]

2020 was a weird year for movies: closed theaters, no Marvel movies, and the new Bond movie and The Fast and the Furious sequel pushed to 2021.

But limitations on theater attendance not only pushed studios to experiment with their releases, but also allowed some smaller genre movies to attract attention that usually would have been taken by blockbuster franchise films. In other words, 2020 made room for some great new genre movies, and gave viewers more of an opportunity to watch them.

Here are ten of the best sci-fi and horror movies of 2020 (in no particular order), all of which you can watch right now.

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Slashing Through the Snow: Ranking the Killer Santa Movies

Tue Dec 15, 2020 12:00pm 6 comments 1 Favorite [+]
Screenshot: Pan American Pictures

Look, 2020 has been a horror show for many of us. There’s not one part of the past year that hasn’t been tainted by the pandemic, politics, anxiety, and unrest, so it’s understandable if the holidays feel a little off this year. Maybe this is the season to embrace our discontent with some good old-fashioned cathartic chaos…in the form of old Kris Kringle himself?

Read More »

6 Perfect Episodes of MST3K to Help You Really Just Relax

Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:00am 6 Favorites [+]
Screenshot: Netflix

Imagine this: a person stuck inside, all alone with nothing to do but watch movies (while occasionally receiving confusing and misleading reports from the people who are ostensibly in charge). That might seem to describe most people in the world right now, but it’s actually about the future. The not-too-distant future, in fact…

It is, of course, the premise of the cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, the show in which robots Cambot, Gypsy, Tom Servo, and Crow T. Robot join a human host to make fun of terrible movies. Inspired by the 1972 Douglass Trumbull film Silent Running, series creator and original host Joel Hodgson created a joyful, scrappy celebration of humor and comedy in the face of loneliness and powerlessness. Even as the series changed channels, casts, and hosts over the years, that basic hopeful message remained consistent: Even in the direst situations, you can try to keep your sanity with the help of your (synthetic, if necessary) friends.

For that reason, MST3K is the ideal comfort watch for times such as these, when we’re all scared, stuck, and alone, together.

Read More »

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