#superheroes

Opinion - Scorsese and Coppola Vs. the MCU: Are we focusing on the wrong argument?

SMR

Oct 25, 2019
10 min

Opinion - Scorsese and Coppola Vs. the MCU: Are we focusing on the wrong argument?

There’s been a lot of buzz lately to a topic that has been discussed in one way or another ever since the concept proved successful beyond anyone’s imagination: Are the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies cinema? While the last couple of months have seen auteurs Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola deride and insult the venture, this isn’t exactly a new thing. Back in 2015, Steven Spielberg faced nerd ire when he predicted that not only would Superhero movies go the way of

21 views0 comments

SMR

Aug 17, 2019
7 min

Movie Review - Hellboy (2019)

It’s not horrible. Per se. In some ways, much like what I had to say regarding X-Men: Dark Phoenix, it really seems to be that nerd culture needs to calm the fuck down. No, the new Hellboy is not as visually stunning as Guillermo del Toro’s two prior films in the series, but Neil Marshall has delivered some damn fine horror movies in the past: The Descent parts 1 & 2 and Dog Soldiers come quickly to mind…and really deserves the benefit of the doubt here. In addition, well,

13 views0 comments

SMR

Jul 28, 2019
6 min

Movie Review - Shazam

So…how do you follow up a billion dollar fish story? Well, if you’re DC Films and Warner Bros, you cross the old 80s film Big with Superman resulting in Shazam. Sadly, this resulted in crickets from the audience…as Shazam only managed to pull in just over $364 million at the worldwide box office. Making it, thus far, the lowest earner of the DCEU. Ouch. Wanna put a little extra sting on it? Critics actually liked it. A lot. Like, 91% certified fresh a lot…putting it second

12 views0 comments

SMR

Jul 23, 2019
6 min

Movie Review - Aquaman

Crap…can’t believe I forgot to write up a review for this. So, coming to the box office a year and some change after the mixed bag that was Justice League was DC’s next stab at finding an audience with a superhero that had been the brunt of many jokes since his SuperFriends days…and likely even before that. Aquaman. Now, this was actually all part of the plan…when it still existed. From Justice League, solo movies for Aquaman, the Flash and Cyborg were to spin out from that.

9 views0 comments

Movie Review - Spider-Man: Far From Home

SMR

Jul 20, 2019
6 min

Movie Review - Spider-Man: Far From Home

There are only seven stories in the world, as the saying goes…and if you’re the second film of a superhero series, it’s a good bet you’re gonna lose something. And sure enough, we find that here in Spider-Man: Far From Home. To be fair, though, the fact that this second MCU Spider-Man film did indeed adhere to the usual tropes of a superhero sequel didn’t really occur to me until after I’d walked out of the theater. And as such, we have to look at that saying once again: if

21 views0 comments

SMR

Jul 7, 2019
23 min

Opinion - #ReleaseTheSnyderCut

In going back over my initial Justice League review, wow…I can’t believe I left out the Russians. You know what I mean, the Russian family in the third act…essentially the Ewoks of the DCEU? [Actually, less so. At least the Ewoks did something. – Ed.] I understand the dramatic crutch they serve, heroes look more heroic when they’re saving someone, and given the flak the DCEU had gotten ever since Man of Steel (which I always felt was misplaced) as well as the reactionary

30 views0 comments

SMR

Jun 28, 2019
8 min

Movie Review - X-Men: Dark Phoenix

You know, personally, I think most reviewers are just butt-hurt over the fact that Wolverine’s not in this one. But, truth be told, people in general don’t like attending a funeral and if X-Men: Dark Phoenix is anything, it is a funeral, both for some of the characters within the film and for the Fox franchise that has run for 20 years. And that’s really the rub here: the film was touted by Fox as the triumphant close of an era and directly compared to Avengers: Endgame. Bu

21 views0 comments

SMR

May 31, 2019
4 min

Movie Review - Brightburn

Talk about your ‘Red Son’… Sure, it can be easy to simply dismiss, or advertise, Brightburn as ‘Superman as a slasher film’…and it does hold to the tenets of a slasher film, certainly…but to do that kind of undersells it. Instead, and I’m definitely going to show my nerd credentials here, when this film is viewed as almost a multiversal companion piece to either Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie or Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, we end up with a fascinating ‘What If…?’ that

16 views0 comments

SMR

Mar 23, 2019
8 min

Movie Review - Captain Marvel

Since you’re likely a nerd reading this site, I’m hoping I won’t have to overly explain myself with the following analogy. You know how every so often (once or twice a year for DC, once or twice a week for Marvel) there’s a line-wide crossover…’Worlds live, worlds die and nothing will EVER be the same’, that sort of deal? In these, there are the peripheral tie-ins, maybe making some mention of the great cataclysm that everyone else seems to be participating in or focusing o

13 views0 comments

Toon Review - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

SMR

Dec 23, 2018
6 min

Toon Review - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Motion comic. Now, when I say those two words together, what do you think of? Comic book panels with limited animation, often times cheap looking, and a books-on-tape sort of narrator, right? Nuh-uh. Now that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse exists, that term needs to be repurposed because this film is the truest representation of a comic book brought to life there has ever been up to this point. I’ll take it a step further: when the trailers for the movie first came out,

19 views0 comments

Field Trip! Marvel: A Universe of Superheroes Exhibit at MoPop

SMR

Aug 23, 2018
4 min

Field Trip! Marvel: A Universe of Superheroes Exhibit at MoPop

With the continued dominance of Marvel Studios at the cinemas, as well as the ever-increasing weight of the House of Mouse behind them, I’ll be honest something like this didn’t come up sooner. Still, the above statement is a bit unfair…as it implies that the Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes exhibit now at the Museum of Popular Culture (MoPop) in Seattle deals strictly with the MCU and that’s not entirely the case. Sure, there are plenty of costumes and props from the aforem

5 views0 comments

SMR

Apr 27, 2018
5 min

Movie Review - Avengers: Infinity War

This is what pisses me off. You had every chance, Warner Brothers…you really did. You remember that time you beat Marvel to the punch and brought out a superheroine? Remember all the critical praise and box office that brought you? If you’d left Justice League alone, let it be two parts and let Zack Snyder just do it…you COULD have done something this AWESOME and done it BEFORE Marvel. But no. You had absolutely ZERO BALLS. [Hey! Hey! Put the DC Fanboy back in the cage

44 views0 comments

SMR

Feb 23, 2018
7 min

Movie Review - Black Panther

Black Panther is everything you could hope it would be. And, like Wonder Woman before it, given the subject matter, there’s this societal compulsion to look at it as something more…perhaps as a watershed moment. Honestly, it’s that kind of thinking that is going to end up making my review of Black Panther to be a very complicated affair. So yes, we’re going to look at the film, but I feel that we also need to address the impact on society that film is having…which unfortun

11 views0 comments

SMR

Nov 18, 2017
11 min

Movie Review - Justice League

Let’s just go ahead and get this out of the way right off the bat: This is not DC’s Avengers. After seeing the film twice within the span of 24 hours, I can tell you with some degree of confidence that it was never intended to be. And yet, to this point, I think that’s what every single reviewer (that I’ve read or listened to) has expected. Only one of them has suggested that it might be something else…but even he wasn’t terribly sold on it. Since this film does not meet

14 views0 comments

SMR

Nov 4, 2017
10 min

Movie Review - Thor: Ragnarok

The short version is to just say ‘Go see it, it’s amazing.’ But since when have I ever been short about anything? There’s a lot to appreciate in Thor Ragnarok, but I think perhaps the best way to get into this review is by first addressing the folks at Marvel directly. Marvel, First of all, congratulations on a great film. The way the Norse apocalypse is handled here, juxtaposed to some fantastic comedy, creates a unique thematic balance that could have easily spelled disas

24 views0 comments

SMR

Oct 24, 2017
5 min

Movie Review - Dracula Untold

Dracula as a superhero. Well, it’s not completely out of the ordinary…ish. After all, Marvel Comics had a book, Tomb of Dracula, that ran for a while…heck, that title even gave us Blade. But that’s just it, Dracula was the bad guy in his own book…fitting in with the American cultural perception of him. If you look at it differently, however, you might get what Dracula Untold is trying to sell. You see, in Romania, Vlad Tepes, whom Dracula is based upon, is regarded as a n

25 views0 comments

Toy Review - BVS Superman: DC Collectibles vs. Mezco's One:12 Collective

SMR

Aug 12, 2017
7 min

Toy Review - BVS Superman: DC Collectibles vs. Mezco's One:12 Collective

While the mass market toys are planned to hit store shelves well in advance of a movie’s opening, the more collector-oriented items tend to wait until the figure is just right and ready to hit shelves. This may end up being more in line with a movie’s release to home video…or just whenever the hell a certain company finally ships the damn things. [Yeah…STILL waiting for that BVS Wonder Woman from Hot Toys dammit! – Ed.] In the instance of the two action figures we’ll be lo

130 views0 comments

Nuking the Podcat - Episode 5: The Super Inframan

SMR

Aug 2, 2017
2 min

Nuking the Podcat - Episode 5: The Super Inframan

[NOTE: On the player above, skip to track 5 to hear the latest Podcat!] In an effort to try and be more relevant, [But never timely. – Ed.] we’ve opted to reformat the podcast. In the past, we’ve rambled on about the movies we’re looking at for over an hour and in the day of dwindling attention spans, well, we though we probably ought to shorten it up. So instead of talking about the movie in an almost commentary style, we’re boiling each film down to five points. These mi

13 views0 comments

SMR

Jul 16, 2017
9 min

Movie Review - Spider-Man: Homecoming

So, here it is…Spider-Man’s solo debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. [Solo? Did we watch the same movie? – Ed.] We’ll get to that. Let’s cover the simple stuff first in a FAQ format. Q: Is this the best Spider-Man movie ever? A: No. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 still retains that crown. Q: Is this the best interpretation of Spider-Man so far? A: This may sound like splitting hairs, but yes…I think it is. Tobey Maguire just never got the humor right while Andrew Garfield

7 views0 comments

SMR

Jun 7, 2017
8 min

Movie Review - Wonder Woman

Early in the life of this website, I reviewed the DC Animated direct-to-video movie, Wonder Woman. In that review, I stressed that if they wanted to make a successful live action movie, all they needed to do was what they’d done in that animated film…hell, even outright copy the script! They didn’t listen to me…and thank heaven for that. This version of Wonder Woman not only outshines that previous version (which was also directed by a woman and partially written by a woma

15 views0 comments

Nuking The Cat

The Last Refuge of Sensible Pop Culture Commentary

Recent Posts

Comment?

Suggestion?

Request?

Tag Cloud

Email Us at:

nukingthecat@gmail.com