Movies I Saw in Theatres Part 3: 2010-2019

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. Back in January 2022 I started a three part series on the movies that I've seen in theatres over the years. I never got around to doing part 3 because other posts and reviews got in the way and I lost interest in talking about the movies I was going to be talking about in the final post. So that's what I'll be doing today. A quick note before I start though. These are only the movies that I went to the theatre to see. I saw many other movies on Netflix, on DVD, and on other digital platforms. So there will be a few major blockbusters that came out in the 2010s that I just never got around to seeing in theatres, but did eventually see. Let's get into it.

The first movie I saw in theatres in 2010 was Iron Man 2. By this time I was approaching my mid-20s and had just finished my final semester of college, so I had alot more time on my hands, since I wasn't going to be working due to my disabilities. Brad and I went to see this together, and this would be the first of many movies that I'd see with him in theatres in the 2010s. At the time I had no idea who anyone was besides Tony, Pepper and Happy since they'd been in the 2008 movie, and I really hadn't read any Marvel outside of some Spider-Man comics, and the then complete run of The Runaways. Plus Don Cheadle had replaced Terrence Howard as Rhodey, so I didn't recognize him at first either. I think an Avengers movie had been announced by this point, but the MCU wasn't a sure thing yet and geek culture as a whole hadn't overcome pop culture quite yet.

The next movie I saw in theatres was Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Brad and I went together, but, this time we were joined by Claire, we'd known in high school and whom I'd been very close to during my early high school years. I had no idea that the movie was based on a comic book series, but I knew Michael Cera, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, being that Cera had been in several movies that I'd seen trailers for such as Superbad, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead had played Gwen Grayson/Royal Pain in Sky High. We all enjoyed the movie, and over the next couple of years I was given all six volumes of the comic. I also bought the movie on DVD when it came out.

The last movie I saw in theatres in 2010 was Walt Disney Animation Studios's 50th animated feature film, Tangled starring the voices of Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi. It was also the first animated Disney movie I'd seen in theatres since Mulan had come out in 1998. Brad and I went on New Year's Eve before he was supposed to go over to his girlfriend's place for the night, and I went home to spend the rest of the evening with my parents and siblings. 

The first movie I saw in theatres in 2011 was Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Being that I'd seen the first two Transformers movies in theatres in 2007 and 2009 respectively, it made sense for Brad and I to go see the third movie in theatres as well. This was my first time seeing Alan Tudyk in anything outside of the shortlived Sci-Fi TV show, Firefly and its follow up movie, Serenity. I remember liking it, but Megan Fox wasn't in this one and honestly, I felt like Paramount was really spinning its wheels with this movie. Transformers is a concept that works for toys, comics, and TV shows, but movies aren't the best medium for the franchise, which is why I haven't seen any of the Transformers movies that came out after this one. I think by this point I had already gotten season 1 of the original '80s cartoon on DVD and had actually watched through the whole season, so I was a bit more critical of the live-action movies than I was when the first one came out in 2007.

Next I saw Real Steel starring Hugh Jackman, who I'd only seen as Wolverine in the X-Men movies at this point. It was good, but I only ever saw it the one time and I think Brad and I only saw it because Hugh Jackman was in it.

The third movie I saw in theatres in 2011 was the period piece, Anonymous, which was about whether someone else actually wrote Shakespeare's plays for him or not. I'm not really into Shakespeare, despite the fact that I was the best reader in my class in high school when we did Shakespeare plays in English class. And ordinarily this isn't a movie I would've seen. However, the family of a friend I had at the time, whom I'd known since 1999, when I started middle school in grade 7, had tickets for a special preview showing of the movie and they invited me to go with them so I accepted the invitation. I remember not really being into it, but it was a fun night out. I knew who Roland Emmerich was as by 2011 I'd seen Stargate, Independence Day, and Godzilla (1998), but I wasn't, and am still not, a big fan of his, and I didn't give this movie much thought after I saw it either. Apparently nobody else did either because it bombed at the box office, earning $15.4 million of its $30 million budget, and I haven't heard anything about it since then.

The final movie I saw in theatres in 2011 was The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1. So I started seeing a woman I'd known since kindergarten and we happened to cross paths online a few months earlier. I hadn't seen her since Teens First Summer Camp back in the summer of 1998, and we met up a few times. She even came to my birthday party at Kelly's that year. So anyway, we decided to go see this movie together on my birthday for our first date. Unfortunately, while the date went very well and we had a great time, our relationship didn't go forward because I ended up needing surgery to have my gall bladder removed, and it had to be done the old fashioned way so I was supposed to take two months to recover from the operation (I took two weeks). And because she's in a wheelchair, she couldn't come over to my place to see me as the house my parents and I were living in at the time wasn't set up for wheelchairs, which is why mine stayed in the garage, and THEN she got diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer and ended up needing surgery herself. After that we just went our separate ways and I haven't seen her since then. I knew nothing about Twilight or Stephenie Meyer before I saw this movie. I ended up reading all the books because my potential girlfriend loved them and it was something for us to talk about since she wasn't into any of the stuff that I'm into. She'd also given me a box set of the Hunger Games Trilogy for my birthday that year since the first movie was due to come out in 2012. 

The first movie I saw in theatres in 2012 ended up being two movies. Brad and I went to see The Amazing Spider-Man and as we were getting out of our seats when the movie was over, I mentioned that I hadn't seen The Avengers being that I hadn't seen a Marvel movie since Iron Man 2 in 2010. So Brad and I left the theatre to go have dinner and after that we went back and saw The Avengers. It was my very first double feature. Of course I hadn't seen Thor or Captain America: The First Avenger the previous year. Though, unlike nowadays, you didn't necessarily need to have seen any of the previous movies in the MCU to enjoy The Avengers. Again, the success of the MCU as a whole was not a guarantee at this point though The Avengers went a long way to changing that. 

The next movie I saw was The Bourne Legacy. Again, it wasn't normally a movie I would've seen, but I'd liked Jeremy Renner in The Avengers and my grandparents were taking me to the movies, which isn't something they'd done since Grandma and I went to see Mr. Deeds in 2002. Of course, I had never seen any of the Bourne movies but I still enjoyed this one. This was the last movie I saw in theatres in 2012 as well. Again, the comic book/superhero movie was just starting to take off, so not alot came out in 2012 in that regard. Nor did anything else come out that I really wanted to see in theatres. I ended up seeing The Dark Knight Rises on DVD when my brother got it for me for my birthday.

The first movie I saw in 2013 was Star Trek Into Darkness. Of course, I went to see it with Brad, but we also went with two friends of mine, Lauren and Chelsey. I have mixed feelings about the Kelvin timeline movies (Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond). On the one hand they improved on the problems that I have with the original Star Trek TV series and gave characters like Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov more to do. On the other hand, it turned Star Trek into Star Wars. Into Darkness, which I'll be reviewing at some point, basically tried to copy Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but did it worse, and tried to make Khan a sympathetic character, which he's not supposed to be.

Man of Steel was the next movie I saw. This time I went with my siblings before my sister went to teach in China for two years and my brother went off to London, Ontario to do his Doctorate. I wasn't a big fan of Superman when I saw this movie, and even now I still prefer Batman, being that I grew up with Batman. At this point I'd seen the first five seasons of Smallville as they aired, remembered watching Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman with my parents when I was a kid in the '90s, had seen Superman Returns starring Brandon Routh, and had seen bits and pieces of the four Christopher Reeve Superman movies, but hadn't spent any real time with any version of the character except for Smallville. I liked the movie when I saw it, but I only watched it twice more, once I got it on DVD about a year later. This was my first exposure to the work of Zack Snyder as I'd yet to see Watchmen and wasn't interested in his other work.

Next was Thor: The Dark World, which was the only MCU movie to come out in 2013 besides Iron Man 3. It was an okay movie. Of the original Avengers, I like the Thor movies the least. The first one was great, but the rest are meh for me. To the point that I haven't watched Love & Thunder yet.

The last movie I saw in 2013 and the first one I saw in 2014 was Disney's Frozen. This movie was everywhere! Brad and I went to see it for my birthday in December 2013, and then, I saw it a second time in January 2014, literally a month later. The second time though I went to see it with the girl I was seeing at the time as our second date/the date when I got to meet her parents for the first time. Unlike my previous attempt to date, things didn't end poorly. We're still very close friends, we just chose not to be together romantically. And, no, it wasn't because of this movie either. 

2014 was actually a pretty big year for me when it came to seeing movies in the theatre. So much came out as comic book based movies started to grow in popularity thanks to the MCU, and the promises that Warner Bros. was making about the DC Extended Universe (basically the DC version of the MCU) at the time (boy have things not changed at all in ten years). First up was The Lego Movie. I saw this one with my dad, our minister at the time, and the minister's son. Like Frozen, which was still playing in theatres, The Lego Movie was everywhere in early 2014.

Next was Mr. Peabody & Sherman, which was based on a segment from the 1960s cartoon The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, which ran from 1959 until 1964, and then was on reruns throughout the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Once again, Brad and I went to see this one and he had no idea who they were because he'd never seen Rocky and Bullwinkle before. Which ended with me explaining to him who Mr. Peabody and Sherman came from and how I knew of them. Aside from a Netflix series based on the movie, which I had no idea existed until just now, as I'm writing this post, nothing came of this movie as it flopped at the box office.

So Captain America: The Winter Soldier was an interesting viewing experience for me. I went to see it with Brad, and our friend, Matt, which was standard fair for us at the time. But, what made this experience interesting is that the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was airing on ABC in the U.S. and CTV here in Canada, and I happened to see the movie the day the tie-in episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. aired. In fact I got home from the movie just in time to watch the episode. Of course, this would be the last time the Marvel TV shows would have anything to do with the MCU movies until the Disney+ era started a few years ago.

Next was Godzilla. Despite being a fan of Power Rangers and Super Sentai, I'm not a big Kaiju (Japanese monster) fan. I also had never seen the past movies. I remember seeing the commercials for 1998 Godzilla movie, and I remember catching one of the old black and white ones on TV sometime in the 2000s, though I can't remember which one, and I caught it when I turned the TV on one Sunday afternoon randomly and there was only about 20 minutes left in the movie. So I surprised myself and Brad when I asked him if we could go see Godzilla.

Right after that Brad and I went to see The Amazing Spider-Man 2. We saw it on Saturday, May 3rd, after we'd been to the comic book store for Free Comic Book Day, a week before the 2014 edition of Ottawa Comiccon, which we also went to together. By this time I'd read a ton more Spider-Man comics and was well aware of the history of characters like Gwen Stacey. Plus, I knew of villains like the Green Goblin, Electro, and the Rhino from the '90s animated series and the Sam Raimi movie trilogy.

Guardians of the Galaxy came out next, though I don't remember if I saw it right away or if I waited a bit. I remember seeing it with my dad, and my brother and sister, but I don't remember how long after it came out that we waited to see it. It wasn't super long because my brother and sister were going back to school and we only had a short time before they left, so it was definitely sometime in August that we went.

 Either sometime before that or after that, my friend Kelly and I went to see the new Ninja Turtles movie. We'd tried to go see the 2007 animated movie, TMNT when that was in theatres, but the timing didn't work out with her working and me getting ready to start college, so when we found out that a new live action movie called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was going to come out, we decided we were gonna go see it as soon as it came out. We enjoyed it, though it would be like two years before I got it on DVD, and even then I don't think I watched it again after Kelly and I saw it in theatres.

Next was a Canadian film known as The F Word, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, and Adam Driver (pre-Star Wars Adam Driver I might add). I saw this with my friend, Katie. This is actually the only movie I've actually seen Daniel Radcliffe in outside of the Harry Potter movies of course. And actually, that's why I wanted to see this movie in the first place. The movie was known as What If? in the U.S. and other countries. Despite having bought it digitally, on iTunes, I haven't watched it since the theatre in 2014.

To finish off 2014, Brad and I went to see Big Hero 6 for my birthday. Naturally, despite Marvel becoming popular thanks to the MCU, Big Hero 6 came out only a year after Frozen and it did well, but I don't know alot of people who saw it. Compared to Frozen anyway. It was a good movie.

Starting off the year, Brad and I went to see Tomorrowland. I really enjoyed it. Though Brad Bird and Disney went way too overboard on the Star Wars product placement in this movie. I get it. The Sequel Trilogy was about to debut with The Force Awakens at the end of the year, but still, this movie has nothing to do with Star Wars. Even as a fan of Star Wars, it was off-putting to me.

In June I saw Inside Out. I went with my girlfriend at the time, and really enjoyed it. However, the experience after the movie wasn't great. This ended up being my last date with my girlfriend, as she broke up with me in the car on the way back to my place. By the way, this was a different girlfriend than the one I went to see Frozen with in early 2014. The movie was so good though.

Brad and I did another double feature. This time we saw Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man. Unlike three years earlier, we didn't go on Free Comic Book Day since Ant-Man didn't come out until July. The only reason we did a double feature is because we'd done one with the first Avengers movie in 2012, and since these were two MCU films instead of an MCU movie and a Spider-Man movie, we decided it'd be a good fit.

Then we saw The Martian starring Matt Damon. It was good and I ended up reading the book afterward, but, normally this isn't the kind of movie I'd usually pick to see. I think Brad and I saw it because nothing else was out at this time that we already hadn't seen or were interested in seeing if we hadn't yet but we still wanted to go to the movies.

Then, to wrap up the year, we went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first live action Star Wars movie to come out in theatres since Revenge of the Sith came out in 2005, and the first live action Star Wars movie I saw in theatres since The Phantom Menace in 1999. I saw The Clone Wars in 2008 of course, but, that should've been a TV movie not a theatrical release. The hype surrounding this movie was incredible and something I hadn't seen for a Star Wars movie since 1999. Because there hadn't been a big budget Star Wars movie in theatres in ten years up to that point and we weren't supposed to be getting one since George Lucas was done with Star Wars movies after the prequels.

2016 did not start off very well. I was in and out of the hospital with abdominal problems, my parents were trying to sell our house, and everything was up in the air. However, my dad, sister, and I went to see Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in theatres once my sister was home from China. I enjoyed it while I was watching it on the big screen since it was the first time we got to see Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman team up in a live action movie (the animated shows did it all the time in the late '90s and early to mid 2000s). But the more I got away from that viewing, the more I began to dislike it. It's a bad movie. Snyder and Warner Bros. had no idea what they were doing. They just knew that Marvel and Disney was beating them with the MCU. Mainly because the MCU got started alot sooner than the DCEU did, but also because the DCEU immediately lost momentum by putting out Man of Steel in 2013, but then not putting anything else out until this movie came out three years later, and then followed it with Suicide Squad five months later. Between this and seeing Watchmen on DVD a year before, made me not impressed with Zack Snyder as a director.

Then a month later, Brad and I saw The Boss starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Bell, and Peter Dinklage. It was a stupid movie, but I needed stupid fun after sitting through Batman v Superman. 

Right after that was Captain America: Civil War. While I'm not a big fan of the comic this movie is based on, the best part of this movie for me was seeing Spider-Man interacting with the rest of the Marvel heroes on the big screen for the first time, and getting to meet Black Panther for the first time, played by the late Chadwick Boseman.

After that was Star Trek Beyond. My parents and I had just moved to the house we're in now, and I hadn't been out with Brad much, if at all, since we'd been busy packing everything up, moving, and getting settled into our new house. So, Brad took me to see the movie with a friend of his. This is honestly my favourite of the Kelvin timeline Star Trek movies, and is the best of the three. 

And then we went to see Batman: The Killing Joke on the same day as Star Trek Beyond came out, but it was August by the time I got the chance to see Beyond. This was a special limited event and Brad and I went with a pretty big group of friends. It wasn't a good movie, but it was fun having Kevin Conroy back voicing Batman and Mark Hamill voicing the Joker again given they were the ones voicing those characters on TV throughout my childhood. 

My sister and I went to see Doctor Strange around Christmastime. She loved it, but I found it too bizarre and disorienting. Plus, I'm not a fan of Benedict Cumberbatch, so that didn't thrill me either. It was a decent movie, but definitely not my favourite MCU film.

Brad and I ended up going to see Rogue One on opening night. In fact, I'm pretty sure we were there for the first showing of the movie. Which was cool. However, unlike the year before with The Force Awakens, there was very little hype for this movie, and for the first showing on opening night, our theatre was nowhere near packed. The movie wasn't bad, it just didn't feel like a Star Wars movie.

At the beginning of 2017 I was getting sicker. I hadn't been in the hospital with abdominal issues in nearly a year, but, I was getting sicker. However, my dad and I went to see The Lego Batman Movie with a buddy of his from work. It was so much fun. and I really enjoyed it.

After that, a big group of friends and I, including Brad, went to see the live action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson as Belle. I enjoyed it. I'd started blogging two years earlier so by this time movie reviews were a regular feature on the blog, which was on Word Press at the time.

The very next weekend I went with another group of friends, and my sister, to see Power Rangers. I loved the movie and thought it was extremely well done, even if nobody else thought so, given that it completely flopped at the box office. Which is understandable given that it was a Power Rangers movie coming out in 2017. This was the last movie I saw in theatres for a long time because the day after I saw this movie, I became deathly ill and ended up having emergency surgery on my gut a week later.

I was lucky that Wonder Woman was still in theatres by the time I'd recovered from my abdominal surgery enough to start going out with Brad again, because that's the first movie he took me to see when I was feeling better. It was a fun movie and probably the best DCEU film. However, the sound cut out during the final act, so I missed a couple of seconds of dialogue from the bad guys. Brad told me what it was afterward since he'd already seen the movie with his girlfriend before he took me to see it.

Shortly after that, Brad and I went to see Spider-Man: Homecoming. Even though I was starting to get burned out on the MCU, being that, outside of Spider-Man, I'm not a big Marvel fan, I was all in for this version of Spider-Man. Tom Holland played an excellent Peter Parker, and a fantastic Spider-Man. The only thing I didn't like about this movie is that there was too much Iron Man in it. Don't get me wrong, I loved Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man, but, in the comics, Spider-Man didn't have this relationship with Iron Man until Civil War. In this movie Peter is still only about a year into his career as Spider-Man, so that makes it weird. And that's honestly the only time you'll ever hear me say that about a movie based on a comic book, or a movie adapted from another medium for that matter.

Like we had the year before with Rogue One, Brad and I went to see The Last Jedi on opening night, though this time we went to the second showing, rather than the first. We both enjoyed it and we were completely unaware of the backlash the movie was getting on social media. I didn't have a Twitter account in 2017, but I was on YouTube and oh man did this movie ever get it bad in the weeks following its debut. 

2018 started out with my sister and I going to see Peter Rabbit. My siblings and I grew up reading all of the Beatrix Potter stories about Tom Kitten, Jemima Puddleduck, Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, and all the others, so when we heard this movie was coming out, my sister and I immediately made plans to go see it. 

Again, even though I was starting to be burned out on the MCU, Black Panther was the shot of fresh air that I needed to get me to the two part Avengers finale we were about to experience. I loved every minute of it, though I'm sad that Chadwick Boseman didn't live long enough to star in the sequel, Wakanda Forever.

Brad and I went to see the Steven Spielberg directed adaptation of Ernest Cline's 2011 novel, Ready Player One. As you know from my reviews of both the movie and the novel, I like the book, but the movie makes it better. It was also the first Spielberg movie I ever saw in theatres, which is cool, considering the movie version of the story is an homage to Spielberg and his generation of filmmakers.

Then it happened. The event that was Avengers: Infinity War came out and Brad and I were right there along with the rest of the world. I had read The Infinity Gauntlet a few years earlier, but even that didn't prepare me for what I saw on screen. The most startling realization for me was that, Thanos was right. The way he handled everything might not have been the best, but his reasoning for doing such things was disturbingly right. Out of all of the MCU movies we'd had up to this point, Infinity War was the most emotionally difficult one we got, from the opening scene with Thor, Loki, and the survivors of Asgaard to the final scene where everyone turns to dust and vanishes. 

The next movie I saw after Infinity War, was Ant-Man and the Wasp. I had enjoyed Ant-Man when I'd seen it in 2015, but the sequel wasn't just up to par with its predecessor, but it also didn't hold up to Infinity War either. Even when Scott Lang disappeared into the Quantum Realm, and everybody else vanished because Thanos snapped his finger.

Christopher Robin was a completely different story. Of course, my siblings and I grew up with Winnie the Pooh. Both the Disney version, and the original books by A.A. Milne. So my sister and I made plans to go see this movie. Especially because Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Ewan MacGregor, was cast as Christopher Robin, Agent Carter herself, Hayley Atwell, was cast as his wife, and Jim Cummings, surrounded by a new cast, returned to voice both Pooh and Tigger. I loved it.

Before they went to Florida, Grandma took me to see an animated movie called Smallfoot, about a Yeti looking for the ever elusive "Smallfoot" i.e. a human. One of us. That was alot of fun. Of course, Grandma did this as an early birthday/Christmas present, going back to when I was growing up and she'd take me to the movies since she couldn't take me out for dinner like she could the rest of my family. 

The first movie I saw in 2019 was one that came out in December, 2018. That movie was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Brad and I went to see it of course, and I loved it. Haven't seen the sequel though.

Next we saw Captain Marvel. Despite the '90s aesthetic of the movie, and Brie Larsen's incredible performance, I couldn't connect to the movie the way I did the previous MCU movies. Because I'm not a Marvel fan, had never read any Captain Marvel comics, and knew almost nothing about the character, I couldn't connect to the character, because as she was written in the script, Carol Danvers couldn't connect with herself, and as a result she couldn't connect to the rest of the characters around her. Also the Marvel cosmic stuff is extremely complicated and hard to be introduced to in a single movie like this. While we'd had two Guardians of the Galaxy movies they didn't exactly do a good job of really introducing the cosmic stuff outside of what James Gunn felt pertained to the Guardians, and the larger story these movies were moving towards. It did its best, but it had to wrap up Carol's backstory so she could show up in Endgame, which was only a few months away from coming out.

Later on, Brad and I saw the OTHER Captain Marvel, i.e. Shazam!. This time we surprised our friend, Jonathan, in his hometown and we spent the day together, culminating in seeing this movie. This is also the day that my VHS collection started becoming a thing. So it was a big day for all of us. We really enjoyed the movie though it didn't become the breakout hit that the DCEU needed to get on track after it had lost its way with Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad back in 2016. 

The very next movie that I saw in theatres, I also saw with Brad, was Avengers: Endgame. The culmination of everything the MCU had aimed for in the 11 years since Iron Man first hit the box office all the way back in 2008. I loved it. Especially that moment when Doctor Strange's portals open, every character we'd been introduced to up this moment showed up and Cap says, "Avengers! Assemble!" and the heroes ran into battle. By the end of this movie, I was done. The boost that Black Panther had given me the year before had been spent on Infinity War, Captain Marvel, and Endgame, so I knew I'd bow out and let the younger generation enjoy these movies, with Spider-Man being the exception since it seemed like the MCU was keeping him around a little while longer it seemed. 

After that, Katie and I went to see Aladdin together, just the two of us. While Disney had been getting hit for these live action remakes of their classic animated movies, I found myself enjoying this one alot. Even though Will Smith could never truly replace Robin Williams as the Genie.

And then came Spider-Man: Far From Home, which worked as a great epilogue to Endgame. It also gave us a great cliffhanger that we had to wait two years to see the conclusion of. Though, because of the pandemic I had to wait three years to see the conclusion of, because I had to wait until it came out on Blu-ray to see it. Also, by this time going to the movies had gotten pretty expensive in the decade since Brad and I had started going together regularly. As a result, I didn't see as many movies as I had in previous years. Plus, not as much was coming out that I was interested in seeing theatrically. 

In October, 2019, Grandma and Grandpa took my sister and I to see The Addams Family before they went to Florida for the winter. Of course I'd grown up watching various versions of the Addams Family, including the live action movies, various animated incarnations, and the live action TV series, The New Addams Family, so I was excited to see this movie. I really enjoyed it. Plus any chance to go see a movie with my grandparents was great. 

To wrap up 2019 Brad, my sister, and I went to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. By this point Disney+ had debuted with season 1 of The Mandalorian and other shows and movies and I was enjoying it. However, I was still really nervous about this movie because of how much backlash The Last Jedi had gotten two years earlier, and how little fanfare Solo: A Star Wars Story received when it came out only a year and a half earlier. And to the surprise of no-one, this movie got hit hard with backlash too. I still liked it though. 

As it turned out The Rise of Skywalker would be the last movie I would see in theatres, and that was four years ago. As mentioned in the first two parts of this series, going to the movies wasn't something I did on a regular basis when I was a kid. But, it became a pretty regular thing in my twenties and the first half of my thirties, because not only did I have my own money, but I had friends who liked some of the same stuff that I did and going to the movies was a way to make the best memories. Especially with the amount of movies Brad and I saw together from 2008 until 2019. And of all the MCU movies I saw in theatres during that time, minus two that came out while I was in the hospital in 2017, Doctor Strange was the only one I saw without him. 

Alright my friends, that's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back on Friday for my last blog post of 2023. So until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) VHS Movie Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay given the circumstances. I'm back to do another movie review. This time I'm gonna be talking about Mickey's Christmas Carol from 1983. I'm experimenting again with this review, as much fun as it was delving into the home video history of Frosty the Snowman and Frosty Returns, I left out a few things for both specials because the home video releases have been numerous over the last 34 years (from when Frosty first came out). So, we'll see if this works better for me. Let's get into it.

Mickey's Christmas Carol is important for Disney in many ways. The first being that it was the first time that Mickey and his friends had appeared in a theatrical release since 1953 when the short cartoon, The Simple Things had been released. The second is that it was the first time that Wayne Allwine voiced Mickey Mouse and Alan Young voiced Scrooge McDuck outside of the albums that Disneyland Records produced in the '70s. This was a few years before DuckTales would debut in 1987. It's also the only time that Hal Smith would voice Goofy on screen before Tony Pope (the voice of Gimmick in the Teddy Ruxpin book and tape stories) voiced him in the Sport Goofy short, Soccermania, in 1987 and Bill Farmer would begin voicing the character that same year as well. Wayne Allwine, Alan Young, and Bill Farmer were the voices of these characters throughout my childhood. 

It was also the first time that the animators who brought us the animated features of the late '80s and early '90s, such as Glen Keane, Randy Cartwright, and Mark Henn, would work on a project entirely on their own since they finished The Fox and the Hound for the classic animators like Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, who were known as Disney's Nine Old Men. Though Eric Larson worked on the short as an Animation Consultant, alongside fellow animator, Burny Mattinson, who was the director for this short.

The short was released on December 16th, 1983 (the 40th anniversary was two days ago), showing before the first of two theatrical re-releases of The Rescuers and it actually had some mixed reviews. While Leonard Maltin enjoyed it, Siskel and Ebert didn't and gave it two thumbs down. Which is interesting. 

I didn't own Mickey's Christmas Carol on VHS when I was growing up or on DVD when I was a teenager in the 2000s. I never needed to, because it aired on TV every year. Here in Canada it airs on CBC every year, usually on the Sunday before Christmas, which occasionally means on Christmas Eve. Now when I was a kid I remember it aired in an hour block with Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too at least once, though it mostly aired in that hour block with the classic cartoons, Donald's Snow Fight (1942), Pluto's Christmas Tree (1952), and The Art of Skiing (1941). To be honest I remember the pairing with Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too more than the shorts, but, I do remember seeing Pluto's Christmas Tree at least once during that time. I eventually got it on VHS earlier this year, so that's how I watched it last night.

When I was a kid the part that scared me the most was the scene in the cemetery with Pete as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. I mean the fires of hell coming out of Scrooge's tomb with the Ghost laughing maniacally as he pushes Scrooge into the pit is, disturbing to say the least. Especially for a Disney cartoon. Though it makes sense since Disney was working on The Black Cauldron at the time and were looking to go a bit darker and edgier now that the old animators were not around anymore. Plus Roy E. Disney and Disney CEO, Ron Miller, seemed to be eager to entertain this darker direction for the company. That changed when Eisner and Katzenberg arrived in 1984, but still, Disney took risks in the late '70s and early '80s in a way we haven't really seen from the company since then.

I loved this short when I was a kid, and I love it now. It's not fancy and it didn't try to reinvent the wheel when it came to the story of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, it just told the story with classic Disney characters, including the casts of characters from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and Robin Hood as background characters though Mole and Rat have lines of dialogue in the short.

That's it for today my friends. I'll be back soon with another review. I might do a comic book review on Wednesday and then maybe something on Friday, but we'll see. As I mentioned in my Dark Empire Trilogy review, Friday is my last day of the blog for 2023, as I'm taking a couple of weeks off for Christmas and the first week of January. I haven't decided if I'm taking all of January off yet, but I'll make that decision by Friday. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Wars: The Dark Empire Trilogy (1991-1995) Comic Book Discussion

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing alright. I'm back for the first comic book post in the new format. This week I'm talking about the trilogy that relaunched Star Wars into comics, Dark Empire. I'm talking about the entire 14 issue run, starting with Dark Empire in 1991 and wrapping things up with Empire's End in 1995. So let's get into it.

On December 12th, 1991, Dark Empire #1 was published by Dark Horse Comics, a fledgling comic book publisher which had only been around for five years, but quickly established itself as the home of comic book adaptations of pre-existing movie and TV show franchises, as well as serving as an alternative choice for not just readers, but for creators as well, long before Image Comics was founded. Strangely enough, it had been five years since Marvel's original Star Wars comic book run had ended after 107 issues, several annuals, and several movie and TV show tie-ins/adaptations. At the same time Bantam Spectra had hired Timothy Zahn to publish a trilogy of novels that would act as an unofficial sequel trilogy since George Lucas probably wasn't going to get around to doing an actual sequel movie trilogy anytime soon, if at all. The series told the story of a resurgent Empire under the control of a resurrected Emperor Palpatine and Luke's decision to turn to the dark side and become his new apprentice as Darth Vader had done many years earlier. The final issue came out on October 20th, 1992, nearly 11 months after the first issue came out.

The only individual issue I ever owned of this series was issue #3, where Leia and Han discover that Luke had turned to the dark side and was in command of the Imperial forces attacking Mon Calamari. I like this story alot, however, despite it being produced at the same time Zahn was writing Heir to the Empire and Dark Force Rising, it very much feels like a contradiction to what Zahn was doing in the novels. They make work well enough by having Dark Empire take place a year after the Thrawn Trilogy, by making the characters think they'd defeated the Empire following the death of Thrawn in The Last Command, as seen in book eight of the X-Wing novel series, Isard's Revenge. However, because The Last Command didn't get published until April, 1993, only a few months after this series ended, we just know that Thrawn has been defeated, though Thrawn isn't mentioned at all in the opening crawl of the first issue. In fact, Zahn's books aren't even mentioned at all in the comics themselves.

One of the things that I like about this series is that it actually sets up much of Han's past for the first time with the introduction of Salla Zend, Shug Ninx, and Mako Spince, three characters who would return in the second and third novels of the Han Solo Trilogy by A.C. Crispin. It also establishes that Boba Fett somehow managed to escape from the Sarlacc pit not long after Han, Leia, and Luke left Tatooine in Return of the Jedi. 

I'm not as big of a fan of Palpatine being resurrected as a clone. Mostly because we had clone stuff going on in Zahn's novel trilogy, and this was a decade before George Lucas would be developing and writing Attack of the Clones, therefore expanding on the whole concept of clones and doing away with all the stupidity of adding an extra letter into someone's name to distinguish themselves as clones i.e. Joruus C'baoth and Luuke Skywalker in the Thrawn Trilogy. Plus it kinda undoes Vader's sacrifice in Return of the Jedi given that Luke and the rest of the gang from the movies were still alive, and only six years older than they were in Return of the Jedi compared to the 30 years older they were in Disney's Sequel Trilogy. I mean, by this point, Leia is concerned that because her children are the grandchildren of Darth Vader, and are very powerful in the Force, they'll follow the same path as their grandfather did. Especially their youngest child, who they stupidly named Anakin, after Anakin Skywalker a.k.a. Darth Vader. As we know now, from the Legacy of the Force series, Leia has every right to be concerned, though clearly she was worried about the wrong child.

The other thing I don't like about this series is Cam Kennedy's artwork. Alot of the time the colours are completely off and he has way too many closeups outside of space shots that it can get distracting at times. Especially if you're reading this comic book series for the first time and aren't used to his art style. The story is still pretty good though, and it easily could've been the alternate version of the sequel trilogy rather than a sequel to Zahn's novels. 

In May 1993, Dark Horse published a trade paperback edition, which collects all six issues of the series. This is the version that I have in my collection. The opening crawl for the trade does mention the New Republic's war with Grand Admiral Thrawn though, because the trade came out in 1993 and was re-released in January 1995, Michael A. Stackpole hadn't yet created the events of Isard's Revenge yet, so there's no mention of Ysanne Isard or her collaboration with Prince-Admiral Krennel. Because of this, the sudden coordinated attack on the New Republic by the surviving Imperial leaders happens mere days after Thrawn's defeat rather than months after the fact. Again, this was at the very beginning of what the original Expanded Universe would become in the '90s and 2000s, so some of what happened in Zahn's novels, and this comic book series ended up being retconned by subsequent novels and comics that take place earlier in the timeline.

On August 27th, 2003, Dark Horse published a brand new edition of the trade paperback. I've never seen this edition in person before, as I own the second printing of the original edition, but according to Wookieepedia, the endnotes that expand on the background information, including stuff that would later be used by Kevin J. Anderson in the Jedi Academy Trilogy novels, and the Tales of the Jedi comic book series, and were in both the original individual issues and the original trade paperback release, were removed for this release for some reason. I don't know for sure, but I think the new edition includes chapter stops that the original trade lacked, be it title pages for each issue or the original cover artwork from the individual issues. 

Then on September 17th, 2008 a hardcover compilation containing all of the major comic book stories featuring Luke Skywalker, including Dark Empire and a few issues of the original Marvel Comics series, was published. I've never seen this hardcover either, so I have no idea whether cover artwork is included or any of the endnotes are or not.

From December 20th, 1994 to May 23rd, 1995, Dark Horse published a six issue follow up called Dark Empire II. While not as good as the original, Dark Empire II is a pretty good story. It introduces the concept of Palpatine having a group of Dark Side Users who lead the Empire in his absence, being that he was having his next clone readied following Luke's return to the light side, similar to the Inquisitors that we see in the shows like Rebels and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Though, unlike the Inquisitors, the Executors don't hunt wayward Jedi. The thing is, this series feels tacked on and unnecessary. Dark Empire feels like a fully self-contained stories that had lasting consequences in the Expanded Universe, particularly the novels published by Bantam Spectra. So this series just feels a bit extra. Like a bonus story so that we could get the birth of Anakin Solo, the third child of Han and Leia. Personally, I don't have any real connection to this story as I only got the trade as an adult and have never owned any of the individual issues.

On September 5th, 1995 Dark Empire II was published in trade paperback form. It includes a foreword by Ralph McQuarrie, the original art designer for the Original Trilogy, and an afterword by series writer, Tom Veitch. Also, interestingly enough there's also a cover gallery featuring all of the cover art for both Dark Empire and Dark Empire II by artist, Dave Dorman, who did alot of cover work for Star Wars in the '90s, including various comic books and novel covers. A second edition was eventually published, but I'll be covering that a bit later.

Then in October and November 1995, a two issue epilogue, detailing the final defeat of the cloned Emperor Palpatine, which involves Han simply shooting him, was published. Yeah, this feels even more tacked on than Dark Empire II does. Tom Veitch returned as the writer, but Jim Baikie replaced Cam Kennedy as the artist, for a reason that I don't remember. Baikie's artwork is slightly better being that it's not all a singular colour in each panel the way Kennedy's was. At least they didn't try to expand it beyond the two issues, because as it was the story was already stretched pretty thin with Dark Empire II. I also don't have any history with the individual issues of the series, being it was only two and I didn't know much about Star Wars comics in the mid-'90s other than I had Dark Empire #3.

On September 10th, 1997 Dark Horse published a very thin trade paperback edition, collecting both issues of the series. The trade contains an epilogue that details the reorganization of the New Republic, including the dissolution of the Provisional Council and the creation of the new Galactic Senate following Palpatine's dissolution of the Imperial Senate in A New Hope.

On September 13th, 2006 Dark Horse published a second edition trade paperback of Dark Empire II, which includes Empire's End. Like with the third edition trade for Dark Empire, I've never seen this edition of Dark Empire II, though I do remember when it was announced in Star Wars Insider earlier that same year. And oddly enough, despite the movie taking place in late 1998, they used this edition, along with the 2003 edition of Dark Empire in the background of the comic book store scene in the 2009 comedy, Fanboys.

On September 15th, 2010 a hardcover edition collecting Dark Empire, Dark Empire II, and Empire's End under the title, Star Wars: Dark Empire Trilogy, which uses Dave Dorman's cover art for the original trade paperback for Dark Empire. Again, I've never owned this edition, though I have seen it at various comic book stores over the years.

Sometime in the mid 2010s, Marvel Comics published a Legends banner edition of the 2010 trilogy hardcover. I'm not sure when exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's actually the digital edition that Marvel published, because I don't remember ever seeing a Legends banner edition of this hardcover on the rack at the comic book store. 

Then on March 23rd, 2021, Marvel published Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The New Republic Volume 5, which contains the entire Dark Empire Trilogy as well as material from issues 8, 11, 16, and 17 of the non-canon, or Infinities, comic book series, Star Wars Tales and the first and third volumes of the Star Wars Handbook comic book series, which acted as supplemental material for Dark Empire, Crimson Empire, and X-Wing Rogue Squadron. Also, according to Wookieepedia, the endnotes from Dark Empire are included for the first time since the 1995 reprint of the original 1993 Dark Empire trade. I've seen this volume around, but I can't afford Marvel's Epic Collection series, so I've never purchased it.

Finally, on June 11th, 2024, Marvel will release Star Wars Legends: The New Republic Omnibus Volume 2 in hardcover. This will collect all three parts of the Dark Empire Trilogy, all three comic book adaptations of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy novels, The Jabba Tape and a bunch of the Boba Fett comics that Dark Horse had published in the '90s, along with the Star Wars Handbook and Star Wars Tales materials originally collected in the Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The New Republic trade paperbacks.

Overall, the Dark Empire Trilogy is a good story. While I feel like Dark Empire II and Empire's End feel tacked on and their contributions to the Expanded Universe are minimal, the entire series is still significant. Not only was Dark Empire the launch point for Star Wars comics following the end of Marvel's original run in 1986 and the end of their series based on the Droids and Ewoks cartoons in 1987, but it firmly established the comic book side of the original Expanded Universe as well. Plus the consequences of Luke turning to the dark side and becoming Palpatine's apprentice were felt throughout the rest of the novels published in the '90s and well into the Del Rey series such as The New Jedi Order and Legacy of the Force in the 2000s as well

And that's my look at Star Wars: The Dark Empire Trilogy. I hope you guys like this new format. It works alot better for me because I can talk about any book, comic, movie or TV show, as long as I've read or seen it, anytime that I want without having to take the time to read or watch it simply to review it. I can now just read and watch things for my own personal enjoyment, while still talking about them on here. 

That's it for me for today. I'll be back soon with another post. I originally planned to do my Home Alone franchise discussion post tomorrow, but I think that's something I'm going to plan to do next week. My goal for the new year is to have three posts a week, aiming to post on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but for now, I'll continue the randomness of my current schedule. Also, next week is the last week I'll be posting for 2023. With Christmas being on a Monday this year, I've decided to take a couple of weeks off for the holidays. Though depending on how things are going in January, I might take all of January off too. We'll see though. So until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Frosty the Snowman (1969) and Frosty Returns (1992) Discussion

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. It's been rough around here. I'm not going to get into it here, but if you know me personally, then you know what's been going on. That's the reason my review of Home Alone 3 hasn't been posted yet, and won't be posted. At least, not the way I planned on doing it. So, instead I'm going to be talking about the 1969 Christmas special, Frosty the Snowman and its 1992 sequel, Frosty Returns in a different format. So let's get into it.

First aired on CBS on December 7th, 1969, Frosty the Snowman was produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. and is one of my absolute favourite Christmas specials of all time. That, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which was also produced by Rankin/Bass. I remember watching Frosty on Global Television, along with the other Rankin/Bass Christmas specials, but I don't know if that's where it originally aired here in Canada, or if it aired on a different network. I just know that that's where it aired when I was growing up and well into the 2010s, though I don't know if Global still airs Frosty or not. I would assume they would since they tend to air alot of shows from CBS, including the NCIS franchise, but I don't watch much broadcast television anymore, so I have no idea.

One of the things I love about this special is how fun it is. And it's simple too. It's just a snowman coming to life thanks to a magic silk top hat, combined with Christmas snow, and needing to get to the North Pole before he melts. Sure, there's Professor Hinkle, whose trying to get the hat back, and would totally get Frosty all melted just to do it, but he's a complete doofus who sucks as a magician anyway, even with the hat. Speaking of Professor Hinkle, I watched Frosty on DVD on Saturday night with my brother, who was in town for the weekend, and I noticed that in the credits, Hinkle is only referred to as "the Magician". No name or anything. Which I found hilarious, and I can't believe I never noticed that before.

Besides watching it on Global every year, I watched Frosty on VHS alot. This has a long history of being on home video, but I had the 1989 VHS release from Family Home Entertainment, who is well known for releasing the original Transformers cartoon and the original 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon on VHS. As I mentioned earlier, I have it on DVD and that's how I watch it most of the time, though I still pop in the VHS from time to time. Speaking of which, let's take a look at the physical media releases before we talk about Frosty Returns.

 Family Home Entertainment first released Frosty the Snowman on VHS on August 10th, 1989. According to Moviepedia, the Movie Wiki, Trans-Atlantic Video released it on VHS in 1988, but the home media list doesn't include an actual release date or an image of the box art, nor can I find an image of it anywhere on Google Images or any eBay listings. I grew up with the original F.H.E. VHS release, though I suspect the copy I had was the 1992 edition, which has the same cover, as this edition was re-released in 1990, 1991 and 1992. I remember getting this tape in 1992 or early 1993.

F.H.E. re-released Frosty on VHS on September 15th, 1993, with a brand new cover, most likely around the time they released Frosty Returns on VHS, which we'll get to shortly. This edition was kept in print until 1997, as it got new printings in 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997. 

Frosty was released on VHS by Golden Books Home Entertainment on September 1st, 1998. At some point F.H.E. lost the home video license for all of the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials after the 1997 reprints of the 1993 VHS edition had come out. Because we still had the 1992 printing of the 1989 release, I never owned either of these other VHS releases. I also wasn't as into physical media as I am today, so I didn't necessarily need to get newer editions of movies and TV shows. Which is why it took me so long to get most of the movies I grew up watching on VHS, on DVD. It took even longer for me to get Frosty on DVD, because even after we got rid of our VHS collection, I still watched it on TV every year, and I could watch it on YouTube once that became a thing. Golden Books Family Entertainment re-released this edition on August 31st, 1999.

Golden Books Family Entertainment first released Frosty on DVD on September 12th, 2000 with a different cover from their 1998 VHS release. This release is light on bonus features, but it does include the animator's original pencil test for Frosty. However, they also included Frosty Returns with it, instead of giving it its own DVD release, which is interesting. I'll be talking about this a little bit more later, but Frosty Returns will not have its own DVD release until 2019. Again, I'll get into that in a bit.

Frosty was reprinted on DVD by Golden Books Family Entertainment, along with Sony Wonder on September 11th, 2001...yeah, that's unfortunate. Moviepedia doesn't have more information on this release than that, but it doesn't indicate on the front cover whether or not Frosty Returns is included on this reprint or not. If not, then that's the only difference between this printing and the original 2000 printing.

Sony Wonder and Classic Media re-released this edition on September 24th, 2002. Other than the cover no longer sporting the Golden Books spine design anymore, this is basically the same edition as the previous two releases, though unlike the 2001 version, this one once again indicates that Frosty Returns is included.

Once again, Sony Wonder and Classic Media re-released Frosty on DVD on September 14th, 2004. This time there's an entirely new cover, and there aren't any bonus features included, apart from Frosty Returns, and a Spanish audio track.

On September 4th, 2007, Classic Media and Genius Entertainment put out a new DVD edition. Aside from the cover and the addition of a French audio track, this is exactly the same edition as the 2004 version, so you're not missing anything if you don't own both.

In 2010, Classic Media re-released Frosty on DVD and on Blu-ray for the very first time. Both are barebone releases with no bonus features, though Frosty Returns is included on both the DVD and the Blu-ray. The DVD was released on September 7th, 2010 and the Blu-ray was released on October 12th, 2010.

On September 3rd, 2013, Classic Media released a Blu-ray/DVD combo set, which took the Blu-ray and DVD discs from the 2010 releases and put them together.

On September 8th, 2015, Classic Media released a 45th Anniversary Collector's Edition on DVD and Blu-ray. Besides Frosty Returns being included, there's a how to draw Frosty and Santa feature, a sing-along version, and a fun facts feature that includes snowflakes on the screen with facts about Frosty. This would be the last time that Classic Media would release the Classic Christmas specials on home media.

On October 16th, 2018, Universal Pictures Home Entertaiment released Frosty on deluxe edition DVD and Blu-ray. Unlike with most, if not all of the previous DVD and Blu-ray releases, Frosty Returns wasn't included. However, the original pencil test returned as a bonus feature and two new bonus features  were added to both the DVD and the Blu-ray. The first was a feature length documentary on the history and legacy of the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials called "The Animagic World of Rankin/Bass". The second was an audio commentary by animation historian, Mark Evanier, who is also a comic book historian and television writer, who worked on shows such as Garfield and Friends and Superman: The Animated Series, among many others. I mainly know him as a comic book historian and his appearance in a documentary on the history of comic books. 

Universal released Frosty on 4K on November 1st, 2022. It appears to be the same contents as on the 2018 DVD and Blu-ray sets, including Mark Evanier's commentary track, and the Rankin/Bass documentary, which is cool. It doesn't appear that Frosty Returns appears on this release either. 

Frosty Returns is a bit of an odd duck when it comes to Christmas specials. Unlike the Rankin/Bass specials from the '60s and '70s, it was produced by Bill Melendez, the guy who produced all of the Peanuts specials that we all know and love. Which explains why the animation style looks like a Peanuts TV special rather than the classic Rankin/Bass productions. Produced in 1992, and released on home video in 1993, Frosty Returns didn't air on TV until December 1st, 1995. Which makes sense, because I remember when it first aired. My parents taped it for my siblings and I when it debuted on Global that night. Which is why I was surprised when I saw it was produced in 1992 and released on home video in 1993. Normally Christmas specials like this air on TV first, and then get released on home media. Even something like Shrek the Halls aired on TV before coming out on home media.

My history with this special is brief. As I mentioned, my parents taped it off the TV when it aired in 1995 and we watched it on that VHS for years, though, unlike the 1969 special, I didn't watch this one quite as often. I love that John Goodman is the voice of Frosty in this. Jonathan Winter voices the narrator, who never interacts with the characters, much like the way Jimmy Durante's narrator didn't interact with the characters in the 1969 special, and Bill Murray's brother, Brian, voices the special's antagonist, Mr. Twitchell, who has delusions of grandeur because he thinks winning carnival king gives him actual power (sounds like certain politicians I could name but won't). Once we stopped watching VHS tapes quite as much (I still do obviously), I didn't watch Frosty Returns on TV, so the next time I saw it was when I watched it on DVD either last year or the year before.

On September 15th, 1993 Family Home Entertainment released Frosty Returns on VHS. This was the same day they re-released the other Rankin/Bass Christmas specials on VHS, which is why the cover design for it is the same as the 1993 release of the 1969 special. By the way, I didn't actually know of the existence of the 1976 direct sequel, Frosty's Winter Wonderland, or the 1979 third film, Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, as they didn't air up here when I was growing up. At least not to my knowledge. And despite Frosty's Winter Wonderland having multiple home video releases, including VHS releases in 1985 and 1992 and DVD releases in 2004 and 2011, my family never rented it or owned it. It wasn't until sometime in the early 2010s that I became aware of the other sequels in the Frosty and Rudolph franchises.

On September 1st, 1998 Golden Books Home Entertainment released Frosty Returns on VHS, the same day as its first releases of the Rankin/Bass specials. This would be the special's final individual home media release for 21 years.

While Frosty Returns was released on both DVD and Blu-ray, on the home video releases of the 1969 special, throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Universal put out the special's first individual DVD release, and first individual home media release since 1998, on November 5th, 2019. It's an extremely barebones release, with no special features included. 

I have both Frosty the Snowman and Frosty Returns on DVD in the The Original Christmas Classics Anniversary Collector's Edition box set from 2015. The box set also includes Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), The Little Drummer Boy (1968), Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (1970), Cricket on the Hearth (1967), and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (1962). All of the bonus features included in this set are from the individual 2015 DVD and Blu-ray releases of these specials. Frosty and Frosty Returns are on Disc 2 with Rudolph and Cricket on the Hearth.

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon for a comic book related post in this new format that I'm trying out. In terms of movies and TV shows, I'll be focusing on the movies and shows in general as well as their VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and, potentially, 4K releases. So while a movie or show may have been released on Betamax, CED or Laserdisc, I have no experience with those formats, so I have nothing to say about them. Oh, and I'll be primarily talking about my favourite shows and movies, so it'll be not as broad as some people would like it to be. But until next time have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Detective Comics #649 (1992) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I'm back with another comic book review. This week I'm taking a look at Detective Comics #649 from 1992. This is the final part of the three parter that introduced Stephanie Brown into the Batman mythos. I don't have as much to say about this issue as I did the first two parts, because there really isn't anything to it, so this will be a short review. Let's get into it.

Despite being the finale for this storyline, this issue really doesn't have very much going on. Most of it is taken up by the final confrontation between Cluemaster and Batman, Robin, and Spoiler. And even then Robin is stuck fighting the henchmen while Batman and Spoiler take on Cluemaster themselves. And honestly, I actually really like that. One of the problems I have with comics over the last few years is that the fight at the end of every arc is either universe saving or crams too much into the final issue of the arc leaving the reader feeling like the story needed an issue or two more than what it ended up with. I mean, you kinda had that with some story arcs in the '90s, but it wasn't as normalized as it is nowadays.

Batman seems extraordinarily harsh towards Steph in this issue, and in the rest of the '90s and 2000s until she became Batgirl. I mean, in a way, I really don't blame him being that Stephanie had no training or experience, and she did become the Spoiler under dubious circumstances, being that she did it to carry out a personal vendetta against her father. At the same time though he also outed her identity to Cluemaster. C'mon Batman...yeah, no, you know what, that is in character for Batman given that he'd do the same to Tim in the monthly Robin series when he outed Tim's identity as Robin to Stephanie herself in Robin #87 in 2001. 

I think I've mentioned this in my previous reviews of this arc, but I love the covers for these three issues. To me they're classic Batman covers with Batman and Robin perched on the parapets of a Gotham City building like colourful gargoyles. Well, Robin looks like a colourful gargoyle, Batman looks like a blue and gray one. You know what I mean as I have an image of the cover at the beginning of this review. Wagner's covers are some of the best Batman covers I've ever seen. 

Overall, this was a pretty good issue. And a great story arc. It's included in volume 8 of the Batman: The Dark Knight Detective trade paperback series, which collects all of Detective Comics after the Year Two storyline. The volume just came out, so it should be fairly easy to find if you're a Batman fan but haven't read this story before. 

That's it for me for today. I'll be back at some point to review Home Alone 3. So until then have a good evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Zoey 102 (2023) Movie Review

Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I had a pretty awesome weekend, with yesterday being my birthday and all. Over the weekend I was at a friend's place and we spent the whole day Saturday at various thrift stores where I got some great VHS tapes and a couple of awesome DVDs. And lots of food! We also watched a couple of movies while I was there. We rewatched Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always on Saturday night and it was just as good the second time. On Friday night though, we watched Zoey 102, which is the continuation/reunion movie for Zoey 101, which aired on Nickelodeon (in the U.S.) and Family Channel (in Canada) from 2005 to 2008. Which is what I'm here to talk about today. There will be some minor spoilers since the movie has been out since July. So let's get into it.

 I really enjoyed this movie. One of the problems alot of revival movies and shows of older TV shows that have teenage casts, is that they often forget that the audience of the original show has aged up from where they were when the show was originally on the air and so they try to keep the movie or show as close to the original as possible and end up repeating what the original show did. Other times they stray so far away from the original show that it no longer resembles what the original was. Zoey 102 balances that extremely well.

While Zoey 101 was set at Pacific Coast Academy, a fictional private boarding school, Zoey 102 doesn't go back to PCA until almost the end of the movie, where it's not even a school anymore. Instead, everyone is scattered around doing different things. For example Zoey (Jamie Lynn Spears) is a producer for a reality show, and Stacey Dillsen (Abby Wilde) is the host of a murder podcast. They all reunite for the wedding of Logan Reese (Matthew Underwood) and Quinn Pensky (Erin Sanders). Naturally Zoey broke up with Chase Matthews (Sean Flynn) during their Hawaii trip that Zoey mentioned in the series finale of Zoey 101, because you can't have the main couple you've been rooting for since 2005, have a happily ever after at the beginning of your movie or revival series. The exception being Cory and Topanga from Boy Meets World and Eric and Donna from That '70s Show. The usual hijinks ensues and it's Zoey 101: The Movie. It's just everyone is older.

That's one of the things I liked about this movie, it knew what it was and what it wanted to be and didn't try to be anything more than that. It wasn't trying to change the world and it wasn't trying to win people over. It was just about us seeing these characters together again and seeing what they're like as adults.

Zoey and Chase worked incredibly well together. One of the things about the show not giving them an insta-relationship is that you saw them grow up together and genuinely become best friends before they ever started dating. And even after having not seen each other in about 15 years, their chemistry was even better than it was in the original show. The whole movie my friend and I kept saying, "they're perfect for each other" and she and I kept hoping they'd get back together. Even at their worst moment in the movie, Zoey and Chase worked together to make Logan and Quinn's wedding get back on track

The only problem I have with the movie is that Michael was not in it enough. Michael Barrett (Christopher Massey) was one of my favourite characters on Zoey 101 and his and Chase's friendship was legendary, but the movie was so focused on Logan and Quinn and Zoey and Chase that Michael kinda got the shaft. It also sucks that Zoey's brother, Dustin, didn't show up. Paul Butcher, the actor who played him, has had a pretty decent career both before and after Zoey, but he hasn't done anything since 2016, so I don't even know if he was available or if he even wanted to come back.

I watched Zoey 101 when it was originally airing on Family Channel back in the late 2000s. I was 18 and still in high school when the show started. However, I didn't start watching it until sometime during season 3 when Family Channel did a marathon of season 3 episodes during the summer of 2007, just before I started college. And I watched it until the series ended, and I also somehow managed to catch up on the first two seasons because Family Channel kept airing the show in reruns until 2012. We still had a VCR set up in the basement, so I'd tape the episodes and watch them on my TV/VCR combo set in my bedroom. I also got the first two seasons on DVD, but I got rid of them after I watched them and I haven't seen the show since. But, I was still excited when I heard that the movie was coming out. Especially because there'd been rumours about a Zoey reunion since 2015 when they did a 10th anniversary short starring Michael and Chase. 

Overall, this was a good movie. It was fun seeing this group of characters again after fifteen years. I didn't have any expectations for it, other than it feel like Zoey 101. And it was. Zoey, Quinn, Stacey, Mark, Chase, Michael and Logan all felt like those characters, but as adults. If you're a fan of Zoey 101 you'll enjoy Zoey 102. If you're not, you might still enjoy it, you just won't get as much out of it when certain things from the show pop in, like Chase running into poles or support beams whenever he's walking around and he sees Zoey. He did that ALOT on the show. Particularly the first episode and the series finale.

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I will be back tomorrow for this week's comic book review, where I'll be reviewing Detective Comics #649, which is the third and final part of the storyline that introduced Stephanie Brown into the Batman mythos. I'll also have my review of Home Alone 3 up either on Thursday or on Friday, depending on when I end up watching the movie. I also got Sir Patrick Stewart's new autobiography, Making It So, and I started reading it before bed last night, so I'll be back to talk about that at some point too. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.