Stubs - Batman (1943)

Batman (1943) starring Lewis Wilson, Douglas Croft, J. Carrol Naish, Shirley Patterson Directed by Lambert Hillyer. Screenplay by Victor McLeod, Leslie Swabacker, Harry L. Fraser. Based on Batman by Bill Finger (uncredited) and Bob Kane. Produced by Rudolph C. Flothow Run time: 260 minutes. Black and White USA Superhero

There’s a long list of actors who have played the Batman character on television and in movies: Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, Ben Afleck and Robert Pattison come to mind. But the first actor to don the mask and cape was Lewis Wilson, who starred in the first serial based on the DC character, Batman.

Review Hub - Wallace & Gromit

What started as a student film, A Grand Day Out, from Nick Park in 1989 went on to launch Wallace & Gromit, Aardman's flagship IP depicting the misadventures of eccentric inventor Wallace and his silent dog Gromit. While it has remained popular in its own right, even becoming a mainstay in British culture, the popularity of Shaun the sheep from A Close Shave led to him getting his own spinoff series, which shows no signs of stopping. Both franchises have even spawned their share of video games and feature films, a testament to their everlasting popularity.

Below is a list of links to every Wallace & Gromit review on this blog, separated by series and medium and listed in release order.

 

Wallace & Gromit

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Shaun the Sheep

Shaun the Sheep Movie
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon

Video Games

Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures

Review Hub - Resident Evil

Since 1996, Resident Evil has made a splash in both video games and films, either through the strength of its own merits in the Survival Horror genre or through its continued influence. Below are all of our reviews of this famous franchise gathered in one place and broken up by timeline and medium. The Winters story is sectioned off due to its relatively isolated nature.

Below is a list of links to every Resident Evil review on this blog, separated by timeline and medium and listed in release order.

Original Timeline

Resident Evil 0
Resident Evil - CODE: Veronica X
Resident Evil 4 (2005)
Resident Evil 5
Resident Evil: Revelations
Resident Evil 6
Resident Evil: Revelations 2

Remake Timeline

Resident Evil (2002)
Resident Evil 2 (2019)
Resident Evil 3 (2020)
Resident Evil 4 (2023) (Separate Ways)

Winters Storyline

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (Demos) (DLC) (Second Look)
Resident Evil Village (Second Look)

Films

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

Review Hub - X-Men

Among Marvel's various super hero properties, one of its most popular and longest-running is the X-Men franchise, especially the characters of Wolverine and Deadpool. One of its arguably best known iterations is the series of live-action films from 20th Century Fox, which was later folded into the Marvel Cinematic Universe following the studio getting purchased by Disney and renamed to 20th Century Studios.

Below is a list of links to every X-Men review on this blog, separated by studio and medium and listed in release order.

 

20th Century Fox/20th Century Studios

 

 

X-Men

X2

X-Men: The Last Stand

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

X-Men: First Class

The Wolverine

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Deadpool (Second Look)

X-Men: Apocalypse

Logan (Second Opinion)

Deadpool 2 (Super Duper Cut) (Once Upon a Deadpool) (Second Look)

Dark Phoenix

The New Mutants

Marvel Studios

Deadpool & Wolverine

Video Games

 

Deadpool (Game) (Second Opinion) (Second Look)

My Little Pony: The Movie (1986)

The 2010 launch of Hasbro and Discovery’s joint venture The Hub Network saw the premiere of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Friendship is Magic), the fourth generation of Hasbro’s My Little Pony toyline that proved popular enough to eventually warrant a theatrical film, My Little Pony: The Movie (2017), in 2017. What few in the fandom for this series may know is that there was another, similarly-named theatrical My Little Pony movie in 1986, around the time when such films were not uncommon, to help promote the original generation of toys. While Friendship is Magic would end up being my formal introduction to the brand, I had since been mildly curious about the original iteration, largely the film due to releasing in the same year as The Transformers: The Movie (1986). In honor of the 40^th anniversary of its release year, I decided to finally take the plunge, but quickly realized why the My Little Pony movie isn’t as widely celebrated as its Transformers counterpart.

Sonic Free Riders

Note: The review contains spoilers for Sonic Free Riders.

While the first two games in the Sonic Riders trilogy were both multiplatform releases, an Xbox port was noticeably absent from the second game, Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity (Zero Gravity). Perhaps to make up for this, the third game in the series, Sonic Free Riders (Free Riders), released in 2010 exclusively on the Xbox 360, as a launch title for the Kinect peripheral. While not having an Xbox or Kinect at the time had something to do with it, this was a game I had actively avoided for the longest time because I had only heard negative things about it at launch, especially the mandatory motion controls, with said reception being what killed any chances of a fourth game and made the Babylon Rogues dormant in most Sonic media for over a decade. I eventually went back on this decision when the 360 store was shutting down and bought a physical copy along with an old Kinect, deciding I may as well complete the experience while revisiting the games. Because I still had the negative perception in the back of my head, I wasn’t looking forward to this entry when I got around to it, but persisted anyway.

As it turns out, it’s actually not nearly as bad as everyone had made it out to be, but much like the original Sonic Riders, I ended up having to cut my experience with Free Riders short.

Stubs - Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Florence Pugh, Tramell Tillman, Marisa Tomei, Mark Ruffalo Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. Screenplay by Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers. Produced by Kevin Feige, Amy Pascal, Avi Arad, Rachel O'Connor Run time: 145 minutes. Color. USA. Superhero

Note: This review contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

It may seem like this is a little late in the run to be reviewing Spider-Man: Brand New Day¸ but there’s a reason for that. Brand New Day arrived at theaters with really big box office with hype to match. Sometimes, that can be kind of off-putting, and we had other things to do this summer.

The sequel comes five years since Spider-Man: No Way Home, and does and does not try to fill in the years that have passed. As you recall at the end of No Way Home, everyone, including MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon), has forgotten Peter Parker is Spider-Man (Tom Holland), and while MJ and Ned have gone on to college together, Peter has stayed behind and continued his vigilante crime-fighting. We see Ned and MJ’s lives through social media posts, but what Spider-Man has been doing is not so well documented, including run-ins with Mac Gargan / Scorpion (Michael Mando) and working with and against another vigilante, Frank Castle / Punisher (Jon Bernthal).