Sherlock Holmes: The Novels (2015) Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. I had originally planned to do a bunch of Christmas related posts this year, but with everything I have going on in my personal life right now, I was only able to manage to do the one Christmas movie review that I did on the 13th. However, today, I'm going to be reviewing all four Sherlock Holmes novels because I read them in the compilation, Sherlock Holmes: The Novels, which was published back in 2015. Let's get into it.

Sherlock Holmes: The Novels is a great way to read the four Sherlock Holmes novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as all four are collected in a single tome. I got my copy about a month ago and I dove into it immediately as it had been over 20 years since I read a Sherlock Holmes story. All four novels were pretty good, however there's one that didn't grab me the way the other three did, and one that I enjoyed more than the others. I'll go into that more when I talk about each book.

As I mentioned in "My History with Sherlock Holmes", Sherlock Holmes is not a character that I'm overly familiar with, having only read one novel and one short story collection up until now. I've also only seen the 2009 movie adaptation. And being that this is the first time I've read of his adventures in over 20 years, I found it almost refreshing to read books that were written a 137 years ago, which I usually tend not to do with any other genre, preferring more modern books. But, being that I grew up with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew novels and a few mystery stuff on TV like Ghostwriter, I really wanted to get back into the book world of Sherlock Holmes. This book was the best way to do that since there are only four novels and over 60 short stories, collected in five collections.

While A Study in Scarlet was originally published in magazine form in December, 1887 and in book form in July, 1888, aside from the language, and era the book was written in, and is set in, it felt pretty modern in a way. Not in the way where there are cell phones, social media etc, but reading it didn't feel like I was reading a book that was 137-138 years old. I guess it's because once a year I go back to 19th Century London, England to watch Mickey's Christmas Carol and The Muppet Christmas Carol, so the time period isn't completely foreign to me as it might be for someone reading the book in the 2020s, who didn't grow up with either version of Charles Dickens's story.

What I enjoyed most about this book is seeing how Holmes and Watson met in the original source material, rather than how it's been adapted in movies and TV shows. Too often in modern storytelling the writer skips the origin story, especially if it's the origin story of a superhero that people have practically memorized at this point, and simply throw the characters into whatever situation they find themselves in in that particular story. So, to have the first novel in a series, being the first time two legendary characters meet is pretty cool.

I was fascinated by how the book was split into two parts, with most of the second part featuring the backstory of the victims of the murder case. In other stories I have found that distracting as it takes away from the main characters of the story, however in the Sherlock Holmes stories it works as Watson's backstory was taken care of in the first chapter of the book, and Holmes's backstory would be dealt with in the short stories rather than in the novels.

The Sign of Four, published in 1890, is the story I found to be the weakest of the four novels. Not that it was bad by any means, I just didn't find the mystery itself to be very engaging. I guess because I never quite understood the desire to kill for money or treasure. 

However, the love story between Watson and Mary Morstan, the daughter of the late Captain Morstan, was great. Doyle took his time letting it evolve and grow as the story went on, and Holmes didn't interfere in the relationship though he did have some words on it when he found out about it. Romance was very different in the late 19th Century than it is today in the early 21st Century, so when two people get married at the end of a story set in, and written in, that time period things are going to seem faster than they happen today. It's also interesting that the romance didn't become the focus of the story while Holmes was working the case elsewhere.

The Hound of the Baskervilles, published in 1902, is my favourite of the four novels. Not just because I read it as a teenager and have history with the book. As far as the mystery is concerned, it's the most interesting one of the four novels. I think it's because of all four novels, the mystery in this book was the most difficult for me to deduce as I went along. With the other three, the mysteries were your standard Whodunnit with several immediate suspects. This one however had no real suspects that Watson, who was on the case by himself as Holmes had other responsibilities to take care of.

I find it interesting that Watson's wife, Mary, wasn't even mentioned in this book. I don't know if it's because something happened to her in one of the short stories or Doyle just didn't feel the need to mention her in the third and fourth novels. I just know that she's not in this book or the next one and Watson is back living at 221B Baker Street with Holmes. I might do a full review of this book in particular at some point in the future so I can go more into the story.

The Valley of Fear, published in 1915, was an interesting read. The structure of the novel was similar to A Study in Scarlet, however, the backstory of the people involved with the case that Holmes and Watson are working on in the story, takes up the entire second half of the novel, with a quick epilogue to wrap up the case for Holmes and Watson. 

I think Doyle should've stuck to the structure of The Sign of Four and The Hound of Baskervilles. Not that we didn't need the information in that second half of the book, but I think that in this case it might've been a bit more efficient if Doyle had simply relayed the information through a letter sent to Holmes or a newspaper article or something to that effect. As he had in the previous two novels. I say that because I felt Holmes solving the mystery felt a bit rushed and I would've liked more time to see how he worked his process to come to the final solution.

However, while the character does not appear in the novel, The Valley of Fear is the first, and only, time that Holmes's archnemesis, Professor Moriarty, is mentioned in the novels. He first appeared in the short story, "The Final Problem", which was released in North America as "The Adventure of the Final Problem", published in 1893, and set after the events of this novel.

Overall though Sherlock Holmes: The Novels is well worth the read. Like I said, all four novels are completely collected, and being able to read all four of them finally is great. If you've never read Sherlock Holmes before, this is probably the best way to do it. There are also several collected editions of all of the short stories if you want to read those. But this is the best way to read all four novels.

I had such a great time reading the Sherlock Holmes novels. As I've said, not being overly familiar with Sherlock Holmes, I was very surprised at how accessible these books are as pieces of literature. And being that it's been over 20 years since I read The Hound of the Baskervilles, it was fun revisiting that particular book. 

I think that's going to be it for me for 2025 my friends. I might post something next week, but this is it for my reviews for the year. I'm taking January off, but I will return in February. 2026 is going to be a year of change here at the Geek Cave, so I might not post as frequently come summertime. We'll see though. Right now though, I'm signing off from reviews for 2025. Have a great holiday season, no matter what you celebrate, and I will see you all in February. Take care. 

Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year (2002) Movie Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. So, today I'm here to review the 2002 direct-to-video movie Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year, which I own on VHS. There will be some spoilers since not only is the movie itself 23 years old, but the special that's included as part of the movie, Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too (1991), which is now 34 years old as of tomorrow. Let's get into it.

If you've been following my blog for a long time, you might know that I'm a huge fan of Disney, Winnie the Pooh, both the Disney version and the original book version, and physical media. So when I have the opportunity to talk about all three things in one blog post, I'm gonna take it. Until last night though I'd never seen A Very Merry Pooh Year before. I was in high school and about to turn 16 when this movie came out. So while I loved the Winnie the Pooh shorts and movies I'd grown up with, I wasn't really looking at the new ones coming out, not even The Tigger Movie (2000) or Piglet's Big Movie (2003). I don't even remember seeing the commercials for this release on TV during that time either.

This was a fun movie though. I think it's because I grew up watching Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too on TV every year at Christmastime starting when I was five years old in 1991, and half of this movie is that special with the rest of it as a wraparound story, which starts with the Hundred Acre Wood gang coming together to celebrate Christmas and they end up telling Roo about the Christmas they experienced in the earlier special, being that Kanga and Roo weren't in the special.

The rest of the special was Pooh looking for Piglet's Christmas present, which he'd hidden and forgotten where he'd hidden it, and after annoying Rabbit once again, with Rabbit, yet again, threatening to leave the Hundred Acre Wood, Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore all make a New Year's resolution to change, which makes them weird. Pooh stops eating honey and becomes gloomy, Eeyore starts eating honey, becomes cheerful, starts walking on two legs, and wearing one of Pooh's shirts, Piglet starts bouncing and starts to be brave, and Tigger stops bouncing and becomes afraid. Which was really weird for me to see, but still pretty fun too.

My favourite line is at the beginning where the gang starts knocking on Pooh's door while Pooh is trying to hide his present for Piglet, and after hearing Pooh inside even though he's not answering the door, the gang opens the door only to find Pooh eating a pot of honey, trying to cover for taking so long in answering the door, and Rabbit says, "Now why doesn't this surprise me?". I laughed so hard at that part because nobody should've been surprised at Pooh ignoring his door when he's eating honey. Even right before Roo opened Pooh's front door I was like, "They're gonna find Pooh eating honey aren't they?" because I KNEW that that's the gag they were going for with this movie, because it's Winnie the Pooh.

My other favourite line is from the Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too segment. It's near the end just before Christopher Robin shows up with everyone's Christmas presents from Santa Claus, and they hear bells in the distance. Tigger says, "If it's another one of those phony Santies, I'm gonna nail him!". Leave it to Tigger to be the violent one. 

This movie incorporating Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too into the movie isn't the first time the direct-to-video movies have done this. Also in 2002 Mickey's House of Villains incorporated the 1952 Donald Duck cartoon, Trick or Treat, the 1937 Mickey Mouse cartoon, Lonesome Ghosts, and the 1944 Donald Duck cartoon, Donald Duck and the Gorilla as part of the cartoons shown at the House of Mouse night club. But, in 2001, the direct-to-video film, Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse incorporated Mickey's Christmas Carol from 1983 into the movie as a cartoon shown in the club. So Disney was really trying to put out their money's worth since it was still a few years before Mickey's Christmas Carol would be released on DVD and this movie is the only way Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too was ever released on DVD.

Overall, this was a fun movie. It's available on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and on Disney+. I'm glad that my mom found it on VHS for me earlier this year. It's been a cool addition to the VHS collection and I'm planning on watching it again next year...or on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve, depending on what I feel like doing those days. Regardless, I'll be revisiting it soon for sure.

Alright my friends, I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back next week for another movie review and then the week after as well, so that I can finish the year off and go on hiatus for January. Until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

VR Troopers/Power Rangers Flipbook #3 Facsimile Edition (2025) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. Today I've got a comic book review for you today. Last week I was at the comic book store with Brad, and I got the VR Troopers/Power Rangers Flipbook #3 Facsimile Edition issue, which is a reprint of a 30 year old comic, originally published by Marvel in 1995. So, let's get into it.

So I remember watching VR Troopers when I was a kid, but I don't remember much about it, nor do I remember what channel I watched it on, as it aired, in the U.S., in first run syndication much like Star Trek: The Next Generation and many of the cartoons I watched back then. It wasn't as popular as Power Rangers was, so I don't remember seeing any toys at the store or anything like that. Though I do remember getting the Happy Meal toys from McDonald's at the time too. I think that's why I picked up this comic because it was a way for me to experience VR Troopers again since I don't have the show on DVD, and I'm not able to keep up with BOOM!'s new comic based on the show.

The story is pretty straightforward. The Troopers, Ryan, Kaitlin, and J.B., have to protect an ancient space titan, who looks like something out of Kamen Rider or the early seasons of Super Sentai, from Grimlord, the big bad of the series. Being that I'm not as familiar with this show as I am with Power Rangers, I didn't really notice any major continuity issues with the comic, though for some reason, Kaitlin's last name is Scott in this issue, though it's Star in the show. I don't know if Scott was an early choice for the character's last name when Saban was developing the series, following the failed pilot, Cybertron, which starred Jason David Frank as Adam Steele, who became Ryan Steele in the series proper, during one of his early hiatuses from playing Tommy in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

I like the story. There's nothing really grandiose about it. The artwork is your standard '90s Marvel house style, but it's still pretty cool. VR Troopers was a bit more involved in the way Saban produced it because the shows they adapted didn't have giant robots fighting giant monsters, so they had to use more footage of the heroes fighting the bad guys, which meant more editing because Ryan's Trooper suit comes from a different show than Kaitlin and J.B.'s Trooper suits did, so you never saw all three of them in the same footage unless it was original American footage. Similar to how you never saw the White Ranger with the other Rangers in Sentai footage as the White Ranger came from Gosei Sentai Dairanger while the five main Rangers came from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger.

Which just means that the fight scenes in VR Troopers are shorter. And because this is a flipbook, half the comic is the VR Troopers story and the other half is the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers story. Though because this was reprinted by BOOM! Studios rather than Marvel Comics, the original ads from the 1995 Marvel version aren't recreated here. There's just ads for the new VR Troopers comic, the new comic based on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind video game, and Playmates Toys's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Reignition toyline. In other words, modern ads. Which is fine because the Marvel True Believers series reprinted classic comics with newer ads in them. At least this comic recreates the small letters column that the original comic had.

The Power Rangers story is a bit...weird. In a way it perfectly fits with both Rita and Zedd's tendency to create evil Rangers or evil duplicates of the Rangers, especially because Lord Zedd did create his own Dark Rangers in the season 2 episode, "Green No More". However, I'm not sure how to take the story. For two reasons. The first is, if these Dark Rangers wore the Rangers's original suits with their powers coming from the original Dino powers, why did the Dark Rangers from the show wear those bad suits that look like they were stolen from the Putties? I mean those TV show Dark Rangers were created with the Green Crystal, which had taken Tommy's Green Ranger powers from him, so the Dark Rangers shouldn't've looked like they were going Trick or Treating on Halloween.

The second reason I'm not sure how to take this story is that in the show the Thunderzords were completely destroyed by Rito Revolto, which is what damaged the Rangers's original Power Coins, separating them from their powers in the first place. So why do Rita and Zedd say in the comic that the Zords were abandoned? Two possibilities. Either the writer of the comic had no idea what he was doing because he didn't know the lore of the show, or the comic isn't based on the show.

We didn't see the Zords before the Rangers lost their powers in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. We just saw the Ninjazords for the final battle against Ivan Ooze at the end of the movie. Marvel's other Power Rangers comic, titled Saban's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (similar to how the two series by Hamilton Comics were titled), seemed to be set in the continuity of the movie, with the Rangers's suits looking more like the armored suits from the movie. So the other possibility is that this comic, despite the Rangers wearing their Ninjetti/Ninja suits, was meant to be set in the movie's continuity, which would account for the Thunderzords and the Tigerzord being abandoned rather than destroyed.

However, Zordon and Alpha recount how the Rangers got their Ninja powers from Ninjor in the Temple of Power. So, like so many comics based on TV shows, writers are hired to write the issues, but they have no idea what they're doing because they don't know the show they're adapting. Sometimes you'll get stories that are generally consistent with the show's continuity, even though they take some liberties to make the story work, like with DC Comics's Star Trek comics from the '80s and '90s, but up until BOOM! took over publication in 2016, Power Rangers comics have always gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to storytelling in the comic book medium. Here, I think the writer just didn't care enough to watch the four part episode where the Rangers get their Ninja powers. Though it is cool to see the Thunder Megazord fighting the Ninja Megazord and the Tigerzord fighting the Falconzord. We were never gonna get that in the show.

Overall, this was a fun issue. All five issues have been reprinted as facsimile editions, so if you're a fan of '90s North American Tokusatsu and wanted to experience a comic book based on VR Troopers, I think this is the best way to do it. For the Power Rangers story, I think you're better off picking up the first volume of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Archive trade paperback collected edition, because all of the Hamilton Comics and Marvel Comics runs are collected there, except for the comic book adaptation of the movie. The collected edition is only missing the final page of the story, but nothing really spectacular happens on that page.

Alright my friends, I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'm going to have movie reviews out on December 15th and December 22nd, and then I am going to be taking a break from the blog in January to deal with life stuff. But I'll be back in February for sure. Until then, have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

My History with Sherlock Holmes

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. I've got health stuff going on right now, which is why I haven't posted anything in almost a month. Today though, I wanted to talk about my history with the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, as well as the concept of a private consulting detective working in London, England in the late 1800's. Let's get into it.

This all started because I hadn't read a Sherlock Holmes story since high school, so my mom picked up Sherlock Holmes: The Novels from Indigo Books for me. This is a collection of all four original Sherlock Holmes novels, only one of which I'd read before. I actually just finished A Study in Scarlet last night. It was good, but I'll talk about it more when I actually review the collection itself. So where does my history with Holmes begin?

So, believe it or not, my history with Sherlock Holmes begins with Star Trek: The Next Generation. I know, shocking right? In the season 1 episode, "Lonely Among Us", Picard mentions Sherlock Holmes to Data during a briefing on the mysterious systems malfunctions the Enterprise is experiencing. Next thing you know, Data has read and studied every Holmes story in existence, and Sherlock Holmes became his personality for the rest of the episode. Of course, I had this episode on VHS so I watched it a lot.

My introduction to the setting of the Sherlock Holmes stories, as well as the character of Professor Moriarty was the TNG season 2 episode, "Elementary, Dear Data". I didn't have it on VHS, so I only watched it whenever it came on TV in reruns. 

 

Naturally, around this time, The Great Mouse Detective came out on VHS and my grandparents bought it for me to watch at their place. So that was my first introduction to a spin-off or homage to the character. I have this movie on VHS and DVD, but it's been a while since I watched it last.

I'm pretty sure that I watched The Adventures of Shirley Holmes, another spin-off of the classic stories, when it was airing on YTV, but I honestly don't remember much about it. It's been 30 years since I saw the show. I do remember seeing the commercials for it while watching other shows on YTV.

The first time I read an actual Sherlock Holmes story was when I was given the Great Illustrated Classics hardcover version of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which my Nana got for me at a garage sale sometime in the late '90s. Of course I was familiar with fictional private detectives because I read the Hardy Boys books, a couple of Nancy Drew books, and there were a few TV shows that borrowed the concept, such as Dog City, which was produced by Jim Henson Productions, Batman: The Animated Series (with Holmes being an inspiration for Batman to begin with), and others that I'm probably not even thinking of.

Sometime when I was in grade six, during the 1998-1999 school year, I found this paperback edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes at my school library, and I read it. It's been 26 or 27 years since I read it, but I do remember enjoying it.

At some point before I started high school, I received this Aladdin Classics paperback copy of the third Sherlock Holmes novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, for either my birthday or Christmas and I ended up reading it for an independent novel study in grade nine because my school participated in Take Your Kids to Work Day, but neither of my parents were working at the time, and I didn't have any other family members who lived close enough that I could go to work with for the day. So, I stayed home and worked on the independent novel study for The Hound of the Baskervilles, which I'd already been reading at the time.

A few years later, I picked up Detective Comics #572, which was published in 1987, from the back issue bin of a local hobby store and it happened to be the 50th Anniversary of the comic book series (and of DC Comics itself) issue. The reason I mention this comic is because one of the chapters is a Sherlock Holmes story connected to the case that Batman, Robin, the Elongated Man, and Slam Bradley were working on. Which is pretty cool.

I have never seen any of the classic Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone, or very few other screen adaptations of the character. Mostly because there weren't that much coming out when I was growing up, and when there was, I was either too young, or it was on when I didn't have a TV in my room. However, in early 2010 I went to see the 2009 movie starring Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law as Watson with my best friend, Brad. I enjoyed it, but I ended up not going to see the sequel in 2011 or 2012. And like he did with Iron Man a year earlier, RDJ brought a bit of nuance to the screen version of Holmes that we very rarely get when adapting any book to the big screen.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I finished reading A Study in Scarlet for the very first time last night. Having been published in 1887 in a magazine called Beeton's Christmas Annual, and in 1888 as a novel, I've never seen a copy of it before. Hence why I never picked it up. I mean the Sherlock Holmes books, be it the novels or short story collections, are some of the most often reprinted/re-published books in literature, so it's not like it was out of print at any time during my childhood. It's just Nana found The Hound of the Baskervilles and not the other three novels, or the other short story collections. 

It's still nice to have all four Sherlock Holmes novels to be able to read. Two weeks ago, I got the urge to read some Sherlock Holmes stories, and since I wasn't able to really go out due to my recent health issues, my mom said she'd pick up the book for me. Originally I was gonna go for the Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Collection, but it's a big hardcover, and I have a difficult time holding big hardcovers for any length of time, even when I'm completely healthy, so I went with the smaller, lighter, paperback of the four novels.

I think that's gonna be it for me for today. I'm not sure when I'll be back. I have a comic book review that I wanna do later this week or next week, and then I think I'm gonna take the rest of December off and January off, except for my full review of Sherlock Holmes: The Novels when I'm finished reading it. We'll see though. Until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Watching Pokémon on DVD!

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Last week was a pretty busy week, so I took the week off from the blog. Today though I'm here to talk about Pokémon. Specifically the original anime series, Indigo League, which originally began airing on September 8th, 1998 here in North America. I'm in the middle of watching the original series on DVD and I'm having a blast watching the show all the way through for the first time in 27 years. I'm not finished yet, in fact, I'm not even finished the first 26 episodes, but I still wanted to come on here and talk about it. So, let's get into it!

By now I don't think you need me to explain what Pokémon is to you, but for those three or four of you who don't know, Pokémon is a multi-media franchise that was created in Japan in the mid to late '90s that is based on the concept of traveling around the world, catching creatures called Pokémon, to then train and use in tournaments to win badges, and to study the Pokémon out in the wild, their natural habitat in this world. The franchise began as two video games created by Nintendo for the Game Boy, but expanded to include trading cards, the anime, tons of movies, spin-off games for various consoles, and toys among many other things.

 Pokémon aired on YTV here in Canada from 1998 to 2014, on Teletoon (known as Cartoon Network Canada since 2023) from 2014 to 2024, and then back on YTV as of 2025 (this year). Growing up though my siblings and I watched the show every day, Monday to Friday, on YTV. It never failed. We were always sitting in front of that TV ready for Pokémon, including "Who's that Pokémon?" and the Pokérap, which aired at the end of every episode. While I dropped off of Pokémon, the anime around the time that The Johto Journeys aired in late 2000, I still loved playing the video games, though, incidently, I also dropped off of those around the time that Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver came out here in North America in 2000. I was almost 14 years old when The Johto Journeys started and I lost interest in the anime similar to how I lost interest in Digimon after Tamers wrapped up in June, 2002 and lost interest in the then current run of Power Rangers after Dino Thunder finished airing in late 2004.

Lately though, due to my nostalgia for the '90s and early 2000s, and the fact that a few years ago I watched the first two episodes of Pokémon on iTunes, I started getting the urge to revisit the original season of the show, since I hadn't actually seen any of it, besides the first two episodes, since it transitioned into Pokémon: Adventures in the Orange Islands on December 4th, 1999, which just happened to be my 13th birthday. So I bought the Pokémon: Indigo League - The Complete Collection DVD set from Amazon. It's just the 2014 volume releases combined into one set, but I love the way the episodes are laid out on the discs. There's 8 to 9 episodes per disc and while it's like any other anime DVD or Blu-ray set, where it plays all the episodes whether you hit play all or go to any episode in the episode menu and hit play (it plays from whichever episode you selected). However, unlike other anime sets that I've experienced, the 9 episodes (or 8, depending on the disc) are separated into three episode blocks, so that the run time is 1 hour and 5 minutes per block, so I've been watching three episodes every night, except the nights when The VHS Club holds its weekly meetings on YouTube, or whatever night I'm watching a movie for the show. And it's working for me.

What threw me off about this DVD set though is that the Pokérap is the complete version and it's after the last episode on each of the first six discs, rather than split up into the Monday-Friday version that originally ran at the end of each episode before the closing credits. Which is fine, but there's no separate bonus features section to select the Pokérap from. It's still fun to watch it though.

I am really enjoying getting to watch Pokémon again after all these years. I'm not going to buy the other DVD sets to watch all 25 seasons that have Ash as the main protagonist, because I really don't have the space for them, but with Indigo League being the Pokémon series that I watched when I was in my tween years, it's fun going back and revisit the show that started the anime that still continues to this day through Pokémon: Horizons. 

Alright my friends, that's it for now. I'm gonna come back to Pokémon once I'm finished watching the DVD set, but I just wanted to talk about the set itself and my history with Pokémon and its various incarnations. I'll be back next week for more posts so until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Josh's Geek Cave's Halloween Special

 Hey everyone! Happy Halloween! I hope you all had a spooky night tonight. I decided to do a little Halloween special where I'll be talking about a TV show and a movie that I've watched over the last three days. It's been raining for the past two days so I stayed in and watched TV and a movie. Let's get into it!

On Wednesday and yesterday, I watched seven episodes of Sabrina the Teenage Witch on DVD. All six Halloween episodes, and then the episode of the 7th season that would've been a Halloween episode (season 7, episode 6), but wasn't for some reason. Seasons 4 and 7 are the only two seasons of the show that I'd never seen any episodes from before yesterday. While I'd watched seasons 1-3 on TGIF when they were on, I'd managed to catch a few episodes from seasons 5 and 6 when I was up at the cottage in the early 2000s. My grandparents had satellite TV up there in the late '90s, the 2000s, and the early 2010s. So, they were able to pick up the nearest broadcast of The WB in the U.S. Which means I got to watch a few shows that I either didn't get on channels available to me at home, or watch shows I did get on their original American channel. Which was cool.

Watching these seven episodes reminded me of how much fun it is to watch Sabrina. It was my favourite TGIF show of the ones I watched in the late '90s. I think it's because it never got as heavy, or as preachy, as Boy Meets World tended to do, and it lasted longer than any other TGIF show that aired between 1997 and 2000. 

Sabrina herself, played by the lovely Melissa Joan Hart, is so sarcastic, witty, and the kind of girl I wanted to be friends with at the time I watched the show originally. same with Sabrina's friend, Valerie, played by Lindsay Sloane, who was introduced in season 2. Jenny was okay in season 1, but I liked Valerie better. And of course I wished that both Aunt Hilda and Aunt Zelda were my aunts because they were also lots of fun. I don't think I'd want Salem as a pet though. He's too sarcastic. 

The Complete Series boxset is interesting because like all DVD boxsets released by Paramount Home Entertainment in 2006 and later, the modern CBS Television logo is at the end of every episode instead of the original Viacom Productions logo, so the episodes from seasons 1-3 weren't exactly how I remembered them, but they were still fun. DVDs and Blu-rays are a fun way to watch your favourite shows from the past. Particularly the cartoons us '90s kids grew up with like Batman: The Animated Series and Rugrats. They're also a great way to revisit your favourite TGIF shows like Sabrina. I'm definitely gonna do a full watch through of the show in the very near future.

  

Tonight for Halloween proper, I watched Casper on VHS. I talked about this movie in my recent post on movies we '90s kids watched growing up, but I wanted to go a bit deeper here because I didn't talk about my memories of watching it on VHS back in the '90s. 

I was probably 10 or 11 when I finally saw this movie. I think we'd already moved to the house we lived in in Greely before we moved to this house when I saw Casper for the first time. I definitely remember watching it in that particular family room, rather than in the play area that my siblings and I had at the log house, or in the basement or the family room at the house on Greely's main road. So it had to have been in our third house in Greely that I saw this movie in. So it was 1997 or 1998 when I saw it. 

We didn't always rent or buy a movie as soon as it was released on VHS. Sometimes we waited a couple of years before doing so. Especially once we moved out to Greely and the nearest video store was 30 minutes away. And it'd take a while for the local gas station or convenience store to get a copy of the movie in. Moreso with the VHS releases, but as DVDs became the dominant home video format, the gas station became faster at getting brand new releases in for rental.

My favourite scene in this movie is the end when Casper had been turned into Devon Sawa so that he and Kat, played by Christina Ricci, could dance at the Halloween party, and Dr. Harvey (Bill Pullman's character) got to see his deceased wife, Amelia one last time, ending his quest to find her ghost form. Not only are Kat and Casper dancing to "Remember Me this Way" by Jordan Hill, but all the characters got what they wanted. Casper and Kat got friends, Harvey got to see Amelia, and the Ghostly Trio got rid of Carrigan and Dibs, who are the only characters in the movie who DON'T get everything they wanted. 

I still love this movie. I said in the review I did five years ago on the Review Basement blog that this wasn't a good movie and that it's stupid kids movie, which I loved anyway. However, watching it tonight, it's the perfect Halloween movie for those of us who don't like Horror movies. And just remembering seeing the movie on VHS in either 1997 or 1998, put me back into the '90s for a night of ghostly fun. I am in love with this movie, and it's absolutely on my list of movies to not only watch on Halloween every year, but to watch all year round, because of how much fun it is.

And that my friends, concludes this year's Halloween Special. I have no idea what my next blog post is gonna be on, but it'll be something fun for sure. I got a busy week coming up next week though, so it might not be until Wednesday or Friday that I'll be back here. But, until then, have a great rest of your night, a great weekend, and I will talk to you all later. Take care! 

Four Halloween Movies We Watched in the '90s and Early 2000s

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. It's the week of Halloween and I thought I'd come on here and talk about four Halloween movies that '90s kids watched in the '90s and early 2000s. I've personally seen all four of these movies, but I only saw two of them when I was growing up in the '90s. As you know I'm not a fan of horror movies, so this is the closest thing you're going to get from me during spooky season. Also, these movies aren't in any particular order, they're just random. Let's get into it.

First up is Hocus Pocus. I only saw this movie when I did my review of it two or three years ago. Oddly enough this movie wasn't very popular when it first came out in 1993. As I stated in my review, there could've been any number of reasons for that. I think part of it is because it came out in July, and despite kids being off school for the summer, the movie had some very stiff competition as Jurassic Park would've still been in theaters, and Free Willy came out the same day, and kids weren't interested in a Halloween movie in the middle of summer. While it has a cult following now, it didn't happen until the movie came out on DVD in 2002, despite being on home video starting in 1994. It's a fun movie though and I quite enjoyed it.

Next up is Casper from 1995. This movie stars Christina Ricci as Kat and Devon Sawa as the titular character in his human form at the end of the movie. It was successful at the box office, but critics were mixed on it. It used '90s CGI to portray Casper and the Ghostly Trio. We all remember the dance scene between Casper and Kat. Of course for some people Devon Sawa and Christina Ricci were their first celebrity crushes, so seeing them in a movie together was probably the most amazing thing ever. I own it on VHS, because, why not watch this '90s gem on VHS, even after 30 years?

Then we have Ernest Scared Stupid. Ernest P. Worell is a stupid, but beloved character, who had a series of barely successful films in the late '80s and early '90s. This one came out in 1991, in October. It didn't do well at the box office, nor was it popular with critics. But I suppose it could be considered a cult classic, but I think it's just popular for those of us who don't like super scary/full on horror films because Ernest is so innocent and, well, earnest. I never saw this growing up, but I did watch it for the first time last year when Katie from the VHS Club Podcast, sent me a 3-film DVD set of Ernest Goes to Camp, Ernest Scared Stupid, and Ernest Goes to Jail. I really enjoyed it and I'm definitely going to be watching it again this week.

Finally, we have The Addams Family, also from 1991, and also starring Christina Ricci. I remember watching this one on VHS at my grandparents's place when I was pretty young. Also, I feel that this movie is the reason we are still in love with Gomez, Morticia, Fester, Wednesday, Pugsley, Thing, Grandmama, Lurch, and Cousin Itt to this very day. Mainly because the comic strip was long over by the time the movie came out, and the original TV show had been over for over 20 years, leaving only a cartoon series in the '70s, which also wasn't airing in reruns by 1991, so I feel that audiences might not have been aware of the original 1964 television series, or the 1973 cartoon or even the comic strip had this movie not come out. And we certainly wouldn't've had Wednesday or any of the other shows and movies that have come out thanks to the success of this movie.

Alright my friends, that's it for me for tonight. I'll be back soon with more blog posts. I just thought I'd get this post up since it's Halloween on Friday, because, again, I don't do horror movies. Until next time, have a great night and I will talk to you all again very soon. Take care.

How Fandom Has Changed since the '90s

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I wanted to come on here and talk about something that's been on my mind since I watched a documentary on the Smallville: The Complete Sixth Season DVD set, that talked about the fans of Smallville and how they showed their fandom in the 2000s. And that's how fandom has changed since the '90s, and how it's stayed the same. I'm going to stick to movies and TV shows for this just because being a fan of certain TV shows and movies inevitably spins-off into the other branches of fandom, like reading comic books and playing video games. Let's get into it.

When I was a kid in the '90s being a fan of a show like Star Trek: The Next Generation or Mighty Morphin Power Rangers or a movie like Batman Forever or Clueless meant more than watching the show every week (or every day in the case of TNG and MMPR) on TV or going to see the movie in theaters. It meant watching the VHS releases, whether you owned them or rented them from whatever your video rental store of choice was, or you taped episodes off the TV. It meant reading the novels and comics, playing with the toys, listening to the soundtracks on either audiocassette or CD (or both), playing the video games, and collecting the trading cards. Oh and talking to friends and family members who were also fans of the show or movie.

If you were a teenage fan or an adult fan of these shows and movies, it also meant interacting with other fans on the internet message boards that started to pop up before the official websites for Star Trek and Star Wars became a thing. Same with going to fan conventions either locally or internationally, and writing fan letters to the casts themselves, or to fan magazines.

When I was a teenager in the early to mid 2000s, none of that changed. Except, instead of watching the show on VHS, you could watch your favourite show on DVD, as the latest DVD season set would come out between seasons of the show, ensuring you could refresh your memory before the next season started airing in the fall, or ensuring that you could still watch the show on the weeks where there wasn't a new episode airing on FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, The WB, or UPN. Or whatever channel you were watching the show on in whatever country you're from. 

By then you also had MSN Messenger and AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), so you could talk to your friends about your favourite shows on one of those platforms. It also became easier to post your fan fiction online in the 2000s as well. Before the advent of the internet, fans would send their fan fiction to fanzines, which were fan owned magazines not authorized by the networks and studios making these shows.

Nowadays the only differences in the way we show our fandom, is the introduction of social media and video sharing sites such as YouTube. That and specific fan conventions outside of the authorized ones like Star Trek Las Vegas, Star Wars Celebration, and Power Morphicon no longer exist. Broader pop culture conventions such as San Diego Comic-Con, New York City Comic-Con, Fan Expo Canada, and Ottawa Comiccon (to name a few) have become the preferred conventions for fans to interact with one another. We also don't have MSN Messenger or AIM anymore, but Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, and other social media sites all have messenger features that do pretty much everything that those Messenger sites did in the late '90s and early 2000s.

We don't even have most of our fandom magazines anymore either. Star Wars Insider and Doctor Who Magazine are pretty much the only ones left now. Aside from Star Trek Magazine and Star Trek Explorer the rest of them, like Disney Adventures, Wizard Magazine, Starlog, Cinemafantastique, Fantasmagoria, MAD Magazine, and Nintendo Power all ended in either the late 2000s or the early 2010s.

So I guess Fandom hasn't changed, we've just had new avenues in which we could share our fandom with other people, and new options for how to access our favourite shows from yesteryear, as well as our favourite shows from today. Using my first two examples, both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers have toys and comics being made for them. MMPR doesn't have novels anymore, but TNG does. They also both still have DVD releases for them coming out, though they are re-releases of their Complete Series DVD boxsets that first came out over a decade ago. TNG is also on Blu-ray.

I find it fascinating the different ways fans of a TV show or a movie or an entire multimedia franchise like Star Trek and Star Wars express their fandom. I'm especially fascinated by how fandom has developed over the decades. Just because a lot of it is the same, but some of it is different nowadays than it was 20 to 50 years ago. The internet has given us ways to share our fandom with other like-minded people. Which is pretty cool.

I think that's gonna be it for me for today. I just wanted to come on here and talk about fandom for a bit because that documentary on the Smallville sixth season DVD boxset got me thinking about fandom in the 2000s, particularly in that 2005-2006 period, where we had the internet, but social media, including YouTube, was still a year or two away from becoming a thing. 

I'll be back soon with more blog posts. Next week is the season finale of the fifth season of Only Murders in the Building, so I might come on here and talk about that for a bit. Mainly because I think it's the final season of the show, but I can't find anything on whether it actually is or not. It's certainly been feeling like a final season. Anyways, I might come on here and talk about that on Wednesday next week. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Snow White (2025) Movie Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's been a busy week here in the Geek Cave, so I haven't had a chance to come on here and do any blog posts this week. However, since The VHS Club Podcast aired this week's episode a night early, I went on Disney+ to watch the live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs last night. So that gave me something to write about this week. There will be some minor spoilers, but nothing super major since it's a relatively new movie. Let's get into it!

My history with Disney's live-action remakes of their classic animated features has been mixed. While I enjoyed Beauty and the Beast (2017), Christopher Robin (2018), and Aladdin (2019), I'm too much of a fanboy of the 1967 animated original to have enjoyed The Jungle Book (2016), and I saw no point in watching the other ones, though I did try to watch both Mulan (2020) and Cruella (2021), but didn't finish either one. However, even though I didn't want to go to see it in theaters, I did have an interest in seeing Snow White just because the original animated version is so old and dated (I still enjoy it though), that I was intrigued to see what a live-action remake could be, being that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first animated feature film produced by Walt Disney in the 1930s.

Despite my interest though, I was still skeptical. Afterall this was the same studio that did a CG animated remake of The Lion King, and then dared to call it "live-action", even though it's a photorealistically animated movie. I was pleasantly surprised though to find that I found myself enjoying the movie to the point where I was smiling and singing along to the classic songs that appear in the movie, such as "Heigh-Ho", "Whistle While You Work" and "The Silly Song (Dwarfs's Yodel Song)". I couldn't help myself, because two of those songs have been part of my childhood since before I ever saw the 1937/1938 animated movie on VHS after 1994 (it didn't come out on home video until 1994), as I had the Disney Sing-Along Songs: Heigh-Ho VHS tape when I was a kid, and both "Heigh-Ho" and "The Silly Song" are both on there.

The cast was interesting. Gal Gadot was the only member of the cast I've seen in other movies...namely three (out of the four) of the DCEU films she appeared in as Wonder Woman. I enjoyed Rachel Zegler's performance as the titular character, and Andrew Burnap as Jonathan, the stand-in for the Prince Charming character from the original movie. I also enjoyed the performances of the actors who voiced the Dwarfs. Including Dopey. Which was weird to me, because Dopey was always this mute character, but it made sense that they'd change that since the Dwarfs aren't as comedic in this movie as they are in the original animated one. 

One thing that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me is how the Queen knew where Snow White was before she disguised herself as an elderly woman to give Snow White the poison apple. In the original animated movie, the Magic Mirror told her where Snow White was staying, but in this version, it didn't. And being that none of the Queen's soldiers knew where she ended up being after their fight with Jonathan and his Loyalists (they fight the Queen's men in the name of the King, Snow White's father), I don't know how she could've known where Snow White was. Maybe it's in one of the deleted scenes that are on the movie's Blu-ray release? Who knows.

I do appreciate that they expanded the story so that we meet Snow White as a little girl and see what her parents were like before her mother died, and her father married the Evil Queen, so that we see what happened after Jonathan (Prince Charming in the original) kissed her to break the sleeping death spell the Queen had placed on her through the poison apple. It also meant that the Queen's death can happen after that, instead of by chance after the Dwarfs had been chasing her, like in the animated movie. Even the original story by the Brothers Grimm had more in it than the original animated movie did.

In a way, the movie felt like what the animated movie would've been had Disney made it in the '90s, during the Disney Renaissance era (1989-1999), instead of the '30s. It had some of the same story beats as Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994) did. Maybe that's why I enjoyed it so much. It felt familiar and interesting in a way that the other Disney live-action remakes haven't been before. This doesn't mean I'm going to go back and watch all of the other Disney live-action remakes, even the ones I've seen before, but I enjoyed the movie.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. It was fun, hopeful, interesting and the songs were great. Between this and Superman (2025), I'm beginning to feel hopeful that Hollywood is starting to inject hope and fun back into the movies, while sending very good messages through the power of cinema, because it really hasn't felt that way to me for a very long time. While the movie didn't do very well at the box office, it has found its audience on Disney+, so I recommend giving it a watch, even if you're not a fan of the Disney live-action remakes.

That's gonna be it for me for today. I might be back tomorrow to do a review of The Hobbit, as I'm almost finished re-reading it (for the hundredth time), and I did review The Lord of the Rings early last year or late the year before. In the meantime have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Iron Man (2008) Movie Memories

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Friday night. It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada this weekend and I have absolutely no plans. I was supposed to be playing D&D with the family this weekend, but those plans changed, which is fine. Tonight I'm here to talk about Iron Man. The movie that launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe back in 2008. But, this isn't a movie review, and I didn't watch the movie before coming on here. On this night, 17 years ago, I sat in my living room with a friend in my program in college and we watched the movie together as neither of us had seen it yet (I hadn't started going to the theaters with Brad on a semi-regular basis yet when Iron Man was released). So let's talk about the night of Friday, October 10th, 2008.

Released on May 2nd, 2008, Iron Man started what is now known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe and made $585.8 million at the box office. At the time superhero movies hadn't become as popular as they were in the 2010s. Marvel had done well with the X-Men movies at 20th Century Fox and the Spider-Man movies at Sony Pictures, but both franchises had started to lose steam with X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006 and Spider-Man 3 in 2007. Other Marvel movies such as Daredevil in 2003 and Fantastic Four in 2005 hadn't done very well, and none of the movies based on DC Comics characters besides Batman Begins (2005) had done very well either in the 2000s. 

Starring Robert Downey Jr. as the titular character, the movie was hugely popular, despite the character of Tony Stark/Iron Man not being a hugely popular comic book character, despite having an animated series in the '90s. However, the crazy thing is is that while Kevin Feige and Jon Favreau hoped to launch a shared cinematic universe, something that hadn't really been done since the Universal Monster movies of the '30s and '40s had stopped coming out, they knew it wouldn't happen overnight and made the movie so it stood alone incase it didn't do well enough to fit with The Incredible Hulk, which Universal was releasing basically a month after Iron Man came out.

During this time I was in college. I had just bombed in the Radio Broadcasting program at Algonquin College, and was licking my academic wounds in the special winter semester track of the General Arts and Sciences program where students who either flunked out of other programs or hadn't been able to start in the fall semester of the school year could still take classes even if they didn't know what they wanted to do next. So I was really busy with schoolwork and wasn't paying too much attention to the news coming out about the movie at the time. I may have seen the trailer on YouTube or had seen a TV spot for the movie during episodes of How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) and The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019). But, being that I'm not a fan of Marvel in general, and at the time, knew very little about Marvel Comics outside of three Spider-Man comics I'd gotten when I was a kid, and the X-Men and Spider-Man movies, as well as having seen everything else besides the Punisher movies up to that point. I didn't really know who Iron Man was or anything like that. And, while the movie looked cool, I personally just didn't care.

Fast forward to October, 2008, I was fully integrated into the media stream of the General Arts and Sciences (GAS) program at Algonquin, having recovered enough academically to not completely wash out of college. By this point Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk had finished their theatrical runs, with Iron Man faring much better at the box office than The Incredible Hulk (which only made $265.6 million against Iron Man's $585.8 million) did. It also fared much better with critics and the audience than The Incredible Hulk did, and Iron Man had just come out on home video formats (this was before streaming kids), with The Incredible Hulk joining it later in October.

I'd made a friend in my new college program. Her name was Jackie, and we got along pretty well. I'd explained to her that it would be difficult for me to stay at the college after classes to hang out, but, I invited her over for a movie night, complete with pizza. She accepted and we made plans to hang out at my place on a Friday night in early October. This was the semester that we had Political Studies class on Fridays at like 5 pm and were usually out by 6:30, even though the class was supposed to be two hours long, ending at 7 pm. We even had a test that day, so we were out of class even earlier. While I was in class, I'd asked my mom to stop at the gas station and see what she could find in the way of movies to rent for us. I think I'd asked her for something specific, but I don't remember what it was. I just remember she couldn't find whatever movie it was, so picked up Iron Man instead.

Jackie had agreed to drive me home since she was coming over after class anyway, so we stopped at Little Caesar's in Manotick and got ourselves a pizza on our way back to my place. Jackie was the first friend from college I ever had over at my place. The first of two. The other being Andrew, whom I've talked about on the blog during my movies I saw in theaters in the 2000s post a few years ago. Jackie had a boyfriend, so I knew this was just a fun one on one friend hangout rather than the potential for something romantic to start. 

Of course, by 2008 VHS had gone the way of the Dinosaurs, so the only format available at the gas station was DVD, it was also the only format we could watch since my parents hadn't bought a Blu-ray player, with Blu-ray still being relatively new at the time (just a little over two years old at the time). So my mom had rented Iron Man on DVD for us. We ate our pizza first, because I had dogs at the time and had we tried to eat our pizza in front of the TV, they would've tried to steal the entire pizza from us. And then we put on the movie.

I remember liking the movie, but, being that I wasn't a Marvel fan, I had no idea what it meant when Samuel L. Jackson showed up in the post-credits scene as Nick Fury, since I had no idea who Nick Fury even was. I just didn't know that having Fury showing up to recruit Tony for the Avengers Initiative meant something big if the movie did well and Marvel Studios was allowed to start the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

I had fun hanging out, watching the movie, and eating pizza with Jackie that night, but that was kind of where my Marvel movie watching journey ended. The next Marvel movie I saw ended up being X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009. That movie was the first Marvel movie I ever saw in theaters. I'd missed The Incredible Hulk entirely, and the next time Marvel Studios released anything that was part of the MCU was Iron Man 2 in 2010, so I think that two year gap between The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2 kinda quelled the Marvel hype for a while. I don't know for sure because I wasn't locked in on the online geek scene at the time, being that I only watched YouTube for music videos at the time, wasn't part of any Facebook groups, didn't have any other social media accounts (Instagram wasn't even a thing yet, and wouldn't be until October, 2010), and didn't participate in any online forums, except for one Star Trek forum. All I had were the friends I hung out with, and I don't really remember if Brad and I even talked about anything Marvel was putting out aside from going to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009 and then Iron Man 2 in 2010. I just remember him being surprised the day we went to see The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012, when I told him I hadn't seen Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger (both having come out in 2011), or The Avengers, even though I'd also enjoyed Iron Man 2.

Being that he was the only friend I was seeing movies with in 2011-2012, and I hadn't made plans with him, or either of my siblings, to see those three movies, I really don't get why he was surprised that I hadn't seen them. Especially since I didn't have friends over very often to watch movies with, video stores had started closing, and gas stations were close to getting rid of their movie rental sections by that point (Netflix was a thing by then too). 

Alright my friends, I think that's it for me for tonight. I just wanted to come on here and talk about my memories of seeing Iron Man for the first time being that it was 17 years ago, to the day, that I first saw the movie. I had seen it in my memories on Facebook on Wednesday, as I'd been excited to have Jackie over on the Friday, and I think we'd just finalized our plans for that day. 

I think that's it for me for this week as well. I'll be back next week for sure though. So until then have a great night (or whenever you're reading this blog post) and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Empire Records (1995) Movie Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I just finished watching Empire Records with the gang from The VHS Club Podcast, and this week is already pretty crazy, so I decided to write my review while the movie was fresh in my mind. I may include minor spoilers, but, as usual, I'm not going to go through every plotpoint or anything crazy like that. Let's get into it!

Released on September 22nd, 1995, Empire Records takes place in a record store of the same name, over the course of one day. It stars Anthony LaPaglia, Liv Tyler, Renee Zellweger, Ethan Embry, Debi Mazar, and Robin Tunney, among others. 

So tonight was my very first time seeing this movie. With it having come out in late 1995, it wasn't a movie I would've gotten to see as I was 8 years old, going on 9, when it came out. Knowing this is one of Katie and Nat's favourite movies, I was excited to see it. I really wasn't sure what to expect going into the movie. I really enjoyed it though. It did get heavy at times, talking about mental health in a way that most '90s movies shied away from. However, I think it did a great job of handling it.

The cast is spectacular. Liv Tyler and Renee Zellweger's characters, Corey and Gina, were my favourite characters, as well as Ethan Embry's character, Mark. There was just something about them specifically that I really grabbed onto. Mark was just this goofy kid, who worked at the store, and both Liv and Renee played the meltdowns of Corey and Gina during their big fight really well. It was raw and emotional, and very well done.

Robin Tunney's character, Deb, also caught my attention. She very much reminds me of people who have been part of my life. One very close friend in particular, who is still part of my life today. Thankfully. Deb explaining that she wanted to die because she felt invisible hit me deep because of that friend, and another friend who hasn't been with us in 18 years (as of July). I'm not familiar with Robin's work, but she did a wonderful job playing Deb.

The moment that really endeared the movie to me was at the very beginning where Lucas (played by Rory Cochrane), A.J. (played by Johnny Whitworth) walk to the store, entering the one next to it, and you see a Super Nintendo in the store's window. Reminding myself that this movie came out in 1995, and was most likely filmed in 1994, it still surprised me to see it since the Sega Genesis would've still been the SNES's competitor at the time (the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation hadn't come out yet when the movie was filmed). So it was cool to see it in a store window in a movie set in the '90s that was also made in the '90s.

The music in this movie is fantastic. The only songs I actually recognized in the movie were "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits, as it appeared in at least one episode of The Goldbergs during its ten year run, and "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles. All the way back in 2007, when YouTube was first starting I looked up the music video, knowing it was the first music video that aired on MTV in the U.S. back in 1981, which my Communications Technology (Commtech) teacher told me at some point during my last two years of high school. So, even though I wasn't around in 1981, I still have fond memories attached to that song and its music video. The rest of the soundtrack was great. Particularly when Gina sings "Sugar High" by Coyote Shivers, who also plays the character, Berko, in the movie, who sings the song with her.

It sucks that Empire Records bombed when it originally came out, but, like so many movies do, it found its audience on home video, starting in 1996 when it was originally released on VHS. 

I really enjoyed the movie. You couldn't get away with making it today the way they made it back in the '90s, but that's what makes it so interesting and so much fun to watch. It's a time capsule of 1995. It also reminds me of going to places like HMV (defunct Canadian mall music store chain), Sunrise Records (its successor), and Odds & Sods (a smaller, independent, local, media store). Just because of how the Empire Records store looks. Honestly, if you've never seen it, I definitely recommend giving Empire Records a watch. It's currently streaming on Disney+ here in Canada, and is available on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray. 

Alright my friends, I think that's going to be it for me for tonight. I've got a pretty busy day tomorrow, so I don't think I'll have another blog post out tomorrow. But, there's one I'd really like to do on Friday. I won't say what it is now, but it's going to be a good one. Until then, have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Superman (2025) Movie Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm talking about the 2025 Superman movie, which I picked up on Blu-ray and watched for the first time last night. There might be some spoilers, but I won't be talking about every plotpoint or character in the movie. So, let's get into it.

After the decade of broken promises, constant change in direction, lack of interest from the people at the top, and the absolute mismanagement that plagued the DC Extended Universe, I was extremely skeptical when it was announced that James Gunn and Peter Safran were chosen to be the heads of the DC Studios (formerly DC Films). I'd never heard of Peter Safran before, and I wasn't a fan of James Gunn's work. I liked the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but the second one left me unimpressed, and Gunn is a director I haven't generally been interested in going back and watching the back catalogue of. Also, knowing how badly Warner Bros. managed the DCEU, between rushing through a Superman movie to doing a Batman vs. Superman movie, with Wonder Woman and Doomsday killing Superman immediately, and then going right into a Justice League movie, I did not have high hopes for this new Superman movie or Gunn's plans for the new DC Universe movies.

Superman is a great movie. Unlike Man of Steel (2013), this movie understands who Superman is and what he, as a character, embodies, not just for the DC comic book Universe, but for everybody who has ever picked up a Superman comic or seen any of the previous movies and TV shows. This is the case, not just because the people at the top, in this case, James Gunn and Peter Safran, are fans and understand the character, but because everyone else who worked on the movie, from the cast to the visual effects studio, to the music composer, is a fan as well. Even if their fandom comes from watching the original movie made by Richard Donner, which came out in 1978, or watching Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997) and Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000) in the '90s and Smallville (2001-2011) in the 2000s (as I did). Which really does make for a better movie when everyone involved is a fan of the character they're making a movie about, but also isn't so attached to a certain previous version of the character that the movie ends up being an homage to that version, like Superman Returns (2006) ended up being.

David Corenswet is not just a great Superman, but also an amazing Clark Kent. One of my biggest criticisms of Henry Cavill's version of the character in Man of Steel (2013), Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and Justice League (2017/2021) is that we never got to meet Clark Kent. Even in BvS, where we got the most of Clark Kent. It always felt like he was Superman and Clark Kent was just a facade that he played when in public. Corenswet, even though we didn't get a whole lot of him as Clark Kent, always made Superman and Clark Kent feel like one person, a singular character that we see throughout the movie, which is how I feel that Tyler Hoechlin portrayed the character on Superman & Lois (2021-2024). To paraphrase Batman in Batman Forever (1995), "I'm Superman and Clark Kent. Not because I have to be, but because I want to be".

I love Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane. Having been spoiled by a great Lois Lane on TV with Elizabeth Tulloch's version first in the Arrowverse with the Elseworlds and Crisis on Infinite Earths crossovers on Arrow (2012-2020), The Flash (2014-2023), Supergirl (2015-2021), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (2016-2022), and Batwoman (2019-2022), I was relieved to see that Rachel's version was as close to the comic book version of Lois as Elizabeth's portrayal was, but also stayed away from just homaging what Margot Kidder did in Superman (1978), Superman II (1981), Superman III (1983), and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), and staying away from the version played by Amy Adams in the DCEU.

Lois needs to have chemistry with both Superman and Clark Kent, whether she knows they're the same person or not. Which means that whoever is playing Lois Lane has to have chemistry with whoever is cast to play Superman/Clark Kent. Which David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan have in abundance in this movie, and Henry Cavill and Amy Adams did not in the DCEU. It almost felt like the Corenswet/Brosnahan versions could easily meld right into the Hoechlin/Tulloch versions on Superman & Lois because each version is at different ends of the lives of Superman/Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Which I love.

Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor is the most unapologetically evil version of the character that I have seen in a movie or on TV since John Shea played the character on Lois & Clark. Not to say the versions of the character we've had in those mediums since then have been bad portrayals but they haven't always been good either. Hoult's version isn't as scary as Michael Cudlitz's version in the fourth season of Superman & Lois, but he's just as dangerous, which Lex Luthor should be, rather than the sympathetic version that we got on Smallville.

The rest of the cast was great. I don't like Guy Gardner as a character, nor am I a big fan of Hawkgirl (or Hawkman for that matter), but I loved Mr. Terrific in this movie. He's not a character that I've ever encountered in the comics, only in seasons 5, 6, 7, and 8 of Arrow, and that version was...interesting to say the least. As for the staff of the Daily Planet, they were awesome. They were also the classic '80s and '90s version too. Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Steve Lombard, Cat Grant, and Ron Troupe. The Daily Planet was noticeably absent from Superman & Lois, the Arrowverse, and had very little screentime in the DCEU, which is most unfortunate, so I'm glad that Gunn included them here.

I've talked a lot about the characters in this movie, but I'd like to talk about the way the movie was filmed and the special effects. Gunn and his crew filmed on location, they built complete physical sets, including the Fortress of Solitude, did wire work for the stunts (embellished with some CGI for things like Superman flying, among other more difficult stunts), and practical suits for Metamorpho, the rest of the Justice Gang, and Superman, as well as the villains. They shot the exterior shots of the Fortress of Solitude/the Arctic in Norway like Lucasfilm did for Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), they had Cleveland, Ohio, where Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster first created Superman back in 1938, stand in for Metropolis, and built the offices of The Daily Planet inside a bus station. So I thought that was really cool considering most movies don't go to that much effort to produce the film, preferring to do everything on the computer in conjunction with the big holodeck like device known as the Volume, which was first used on The Mandalorian (2019-).

I'm glad I got Superman on Blu-ray because there are several really cool bonus features on it. One of them is a 58 minute documentary on the production of the movie, including the casting. I don't think I've ever seen a movie, that wasn't a Star Wars movie, where everybody who worked on the movie was a fan of the franchise the movie was based on. I mentioned this earlier in this blog post that even the people who composed the music for the movie are fans of Superman. But you can really see it when the production designer talks about designing and building the Fortress of Solitude interiors, or the costume designer talks about how the decision to include the classic red trunks to the Superman costume came about, or how the music composers talk about using John Williams's "Superman Theme" from the 1978 movie as the main theme for this one, along with composing new pieces of music for the movie.

There aren't any deleted scenes or commentaries on the Blu-ray, unfortunately, but what we got in the documentary and the other featurettes is pretty spectacular. It felt like watching the DVDs that we used to get in the 2000s, that, even if they were only a single disc release, it'd still be full of bonus features. So I thought that was really cool. Superman is also available on DVD and 4K Ultra HD for those of you who are physical media lovers, and it's streaming on HBO Max in the U.S. and on Crave here in Canada, AND is available for rental on Amazon and Apple TV.

Overall I had a great time watching Superman. It was a really good movie, and I recommend giving it a try if you haven't already seen it. Parts of it made me feel like I was watching the 1978 movie, parts of it made me feel like I was watching episodes of Superman: The Animated Series, parts of it made me feel like I was watching episodes of Superman & Lois (not just because I watched it on a Tuesday night), and parts of it made me feel like I was reading a Superman comic. 

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with more blog posts coming your way. Until then, have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.