Monthly Archives: May 2022

Swamp Thing 3.16: Suiting Up

I suppose that now is as good a time as any to start assigning blame.

We’re currently thirty minutes into a ninety-minute Swamp Thing movie, which means it’s time for them to stop dicking around with opossums and go ahead and show us Swamp Thing. So here he is in long shot, emerging from the mire to bang on a boat, and save the day.

You don’t see a lot of him, right away. A muscular green arm grabs the bad guy’s head, and throws him off the boat. Then there’s a shot of the monster hitting the boat and turning it over, and then we see him from behind, carrying an unconscious Cable out of the danger zone.

So you know how sometimes in monster movies you only get to see little pieces of the monster — a fang, a claw, a tentacle or two — because they want to save the thrilling reveal for later in the film? Yeah, that’s not what’s happening right now.

This isn’t whetting our appetite. It’s managing our expectations.

Continue reading Swamp Thing 3.16: Suiting Up

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 96.1: Everything Somewhere

It was silly of me, I suppose, to hope that a follow-up to WandaVision, Loki and Spider-Man: No Way Home would be anything but disappointing; I just didn’t expect it to be as disappointing as this. I guess sometimes green means stop.

Continue reading Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 96.1: Everything Somewhere

Ghost Rider 31.1: We Are Going to Have to Stop Finding Things Cool

Once again, I’m taking my life in my hands, performing the incredible daredevil feat of getting drunk and talking about terrible non-MCU Marvel movies on the Signal Watch podcast. This time, host Ryan Steans and I take apart the 2007 Nicolas Cage barnburner Ghost Rider, the first movie ever filmed entirely on the side of a guy’s van.

This movie has — 18 second pause — everything, if you like people who drive fast and talk slow. Nicolas Cage plays a mentally-uncertain motorcycle riding daredevil, who sells his soul to the Devil for a bag of magic beans and turns into a flaming-skull CGI desktop screensaver, battling a cadre of mean demons and that one guy who tried to steal a girl’s purse.

Continue reading Ghost Rider 31.1: We Are Going to Have to Stop Finding Things Cool