TheRetroCritic

I list 10 of the weirdest moments from Howard The Duck .

Back in 1986, Executive Producer George Lucas brought us a Marvel character in all his live-action glory. That character was Howard The Duck , a talking duck from another planet who somehow gets propelled through space all the way to Earth where his adventure truly begins. The film was critically panned and a box-office failure but it remains one of those cinematic question marks like Super Mario Bros. or Street Fighter  you just can't avoid. For one thing, if you grew up in the 80's, it's unlikely you missed this odd little movie: whether you know the comics or not, the title alone just screams "watch me!". The titular duck was portrayed by Ed Gale with Chip Zien providing the voice and the cast included Lea Thompson as Howard's friend and love interest Beverly, Tim Robbins as their annoying sidekick and Jeffrey Jones as a scientist who slowly turns into main villain Dark Overlord, some kind of space demon. The first half of the film is focused on Ho

Jamie and I review Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2 on podcast The Big Rewind .

Review now available on the new website .

I finally talk about DC's  Wonder Woman .

I finally review Marvel's Luke Cage Netflix series.

New Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer! What do you guys think?

After stealing the Summer earlier this year with Captain America: Civil War, Marvel are back with a somewhat more experimental project as another classic character's origin story is crossed off the list. Benedict Cumberbatch takes on the role of Doctor Strange , the Master of the Mystic Arts. This was always going to be a challenge for Marvel as adding what is essentially a wizard to a vast superhero universe could go either way. Fans might call it jumping the shark, liken it to Harry Potter and dismiss it entirely. But for comic-book readers, Doctor Strange is a pretty important character who has always been closely linked to most of the heroes we've come to know and love in the movies so introducing him to the Avengers ' universe was a no-brainer and an exciting prospect. Dr. Stephen Strange is portrayed as a charming, very talented and extremely intelligent neurosurgeon whose vanity and arrogance almost kills him. After a devastating car crash, Strange's hands

What if Dr. Strange had a song? Which movie should I write a song about next? Dr. Strange (The Looking Glass) by TheRetroCritic

After the first season of Comic Book Men opened the doors of the Secret Stash comic-book store to television for all to see, AMC soon went ahead with a second season with Kevin Smith, Walt Flanagan, Mike Zapcic, Ming Chen and Bryan Johnson all returning. This time, the show would be spread out over 16 episodes instead of just 6, each of them half the length of what they were in the last season. And although this meant a more rushed pace and less time with the Stash gang, Season 2 did well to manage this new format by not over-crowding and overloading the episodes. In terms of guest appearances, there are thankfully not too many with Jason Mewes popping up in a couple of episodes and the season ending with Walt meeting some veteran Jersey Devils hockey players. The highlight guests-wise has to be Stan Lee who shows up at the Stash for a photo-shoot and answers some of the cast's geekiest questions. It's a fun tribute to Lee and comic-book fans should really enjoy the few t

And so it's time to list my Top 10 Best DC Movie Villains , to even things out with my Top 10 Worst compilation. I'm not counting the animated movies in this list, just so you know. 10 HECTOR HAMMOND Green Lantern Probably the most underrated part of Green Lantern was Peter Sarsgaard's solid performance as Hector Hammond. The pathetic nature of the character is portrayed really well by the actor who gives the villain a growing edge as he is consistently ignored by his father and eventually turns into a macrocephalic monster. Sarsgaard takes the character seriously, even after his freakish transformation, and you do care about Hammond since he didn't start out as a bad guy so seeing him turn into an evil super-villain is surprisingly tragic.   9 THE RIDDLER Batman Forever Here's a villain that easily could have made it into the Top 10 Worst list in that he's both so over-the-top it's distracting but, on the other hand, he's

I talk briefly about X-Men: Apocalypse . 80's style!

With the help of @Silent_Consumer, Jamie and I review the Fantastic Four reboot on episode 61 of podcast The Big Rewind .

The first attempt to bring Marvel's The Punisher to the screen was this 1989 film starring Dolph Lundgren in the title role. It was received about as well as every Punisher movie has to this day in that critics and audiences universally ignored or dismissed it. This Punisher is still seen as a failure by most and it is often criticised for the acting and the changes made to the character's story. The fact that he never even wears his trademark skull T-shirt at any point in the film, I'll admit, was a stupid omission and it doesn't exactly help sell the iconic look he's known for. Dolph Lundgren, however, was a decent casting choice, his monosyllabic tones adding to the cold, bitter aspect of the character and his towering frame definitely makes him a believable threat. There's also something to be said about seeing the Punisher just shoot big guns in rooms full of bad guys. It's brainless but it works and it is instantly satisfying: this movie does tha

I talk about the latest R-rated comic-book blockbuster Deadpool .

Thinking about it, 2005 was a pivotal year for comic book movies. The first Fantastic Four movie was released after the first wave of modern superhero films reached its peak with the likes of superior sequels Spider-Man 2 and X-Men 2 , the same year that the gritty Batman Begins came out to reclaim the Dark Knight's validity and just before further dire sequels pretty much killed those franchises until Iron Man several years later. It should have been no surprise, then, that the film was both very much a product of that first wave in spirit and yet also the start of the subgenre's decline quality-wise. The Fantastic Four were always a lighter, more colourful bunch so making a live-action version of the comics would require some pretty high-end special effects to pull off the characters' unusual abilities and a script sharp enough to not let the film devolve into farce. With no Roger Corman in charge this time and an audience who accepted Spider-Man as a legitimat

In this 59th episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie discuss movie news, review   Ant-Man   and talk retro stuff. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes ,  Stitcher  and  Player FM  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

I never thought I'd ever say this but... Zack Snyder would have made this movie work. Now, nothing against director Timur Bekmambetov, I liked Night Watch and enjoyed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter , but Wanted is a perfect example of how to make a movie adaptation of a comic-book and completely miss the point. Not that Wanted is as bad as something like Catwoman , far from it, but had someone like Snyder taken on the project Watchmen -style, he would have at least represented the visual style of the whole thing accordingly rather than settle for this watered-down, safe Hollywood template. Bekmambetov is a talented director who knows where to point the camera and make fun, dark, amusingly trashy comic-book style movies for relatively not that much money, so this should have been a shoe-in but clearly, for his first big-budget Hollywood outing, studios probably pushed for a safer, more obviously Matrix -ey version of a pretty out-there comic-book. The film made big bucks

Well, it's the weekend and although many more Batman things are in store for the rest of Bat Month, including my thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises , here's more DC goodness in the shape of the first teaser trailer for Zack Snyder's Man Of Steel starring Henry Cavill. Wow, a "gritty" Superman movie?! It's so crazy it just might work...