Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4

With the success of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 (THPS1+2) in 2020, a remake of the third (THPS3) and fourth (THPS4) entries in the series seemed like the next logical step. However, this wouldn’t be the case, as despite said success, developer Vicarious Visions was folded into the Blizzard portion of Activision Blizzard King. Tony Hawk himself would later confirm that not only was said remake in the works at the time, but moving the developer around led to the project being canceled, leaving its fate up in the air. Fortunately, the project eventually resumed under developer Iron Galaxy, finally delivering Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 (THPS3+4) five years later. This remake, however, wouldn't be without controversy due to changes made to the soundtrack and the THPS4 half of the game, but I got a copy anyway due to having waited for it for so long and wanting to see the extent of the changes for myself. While I did end up agreeing with some criticisms of the final product, I still had a fun time with it for what it was regardless.

Second Look - Fantastic Four (2015)

Following the failure of the second Fantastic Four film, Rise of the Silver Surfer, Fox would later announce a reboot of the series (seemingly for the purpose of holding onto the rights as the MCU was taking off), simply titled Fantastic Four (2015) (Fant4stic). This film, directed by Josh Trank of Chronicle fame, would be the subject of an infamously troubled production that exposed the limitations of studio secrecy regarding comic book films, resulting in a box office disaster that I witnessed firsthand in the theater. Although I did not like the movie when it first came out, enough to believe it made the 2005 film look like a masterpiece by comparison, I decided to revisit it alongside the original duology, opting to stream it through Max. Needless to say, my opinion did not change much in the decade since my first viewing.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Note: This review contains spoilers for Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Early 2000s Marvel films have an interesting place in superhero film history. For every cultural phenomenon like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy or the original X-Men film trilogy, we also received middling releases like the original 2005 Fantastic Four, which still proved profitable enough to receive a 2007 sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer (Silver Surfer), from the same director, Tim Story. Silver Surfer itself represents an interesting point in the cinematic landscape of the time: It released one year before Iron Man forever changed the approach to superhero films, one month before Transformers revived a dying brand (for better or worse) and four years before Chris Evans joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as Captain America. Although Silver Surfer itself did receive slightly better praise than the first film and did make a profit, it still earned less than its predecessor, which led to Fox axing plans for a third film.

Rewatching the film now, it’s not hard to see why the franchise wouldn’t have continued and why it didn’t leave much of a lasting impact. However, I don’t feel quite as negative towards it as I did when I saw it in the theater as a young and impressionable teenager. After all, the 2015 reboot proved that the quality could, indeed, get worse.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

When you hear about Roald Dahl’s famous 1964 book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, chances are that you will instead think of one of its many adaptations, most likely either the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Willy Wonka) directed by Mel Stuart or the 2005 film directed by Tim Burton that was named after the book (Charlie), if not the more recent 2019 film Wonka that serves as a prequel to the 1971 film. As someone who grew up with Willy Wonka and had read the book maybe once at some point, I was curious about the 2005 film and saw it in a theater when it first came out, only to generally dislike it in favor of the original adaptation. Following a theatrical screening of Wonka that was followed by another rewatch of Willy Wonka, I more seriously considered giving Charlie another chance, even reading the book shortly beforehand since it was meant to be more accurate, and finding that the preceding film was not quite as inaccurate to the book as some people make it out to be. After streaming the 2005 film on Max (formerly HBO Max), since I no longer owned a DVD copy, I appreciated it a little more for its attempts at book-accuracy, but still found myself overall preferring the 1971 version.

Fantastic Four (2005) + Extended Edition

Following the merger between Disney and 20^th Century Fox, several Marvel properties and characters previously licensed by Fox are now scheduled to make their way into the MCU. Following Deadpool & Wolverine, 2025 seems dedicated to reintroducing the Fantastic Four for the third time, with Dr. Doom appearing in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, followed by the team’s first solo film in 10 years, The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Though our interest in the MCU itself has waned, in anticipation of this upcoming release, we still thought it appropriate to look back the first attempt to bring the Fantastic Four to the big screen (not counting the shelved 1994 film) in 2005, simply titled Fantastic Four. While the film generally holds up pretty decently after 20 years, it still shows its age in some respects.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x

The first two entries in the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series have seen a fair share of remasters, including the amazing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 and the unimpressive Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD. What fewer people may know about is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2x, an original Xbox launch title and port of Pro Skater 2 that also includes all of the levels from the original Pro Skater plus five new ones. While I didn’t initially pick this up when seeking out the main titles in the series, it was on my radar, and so decided to pick it up upon finding a copy in the wild so I could check out the new content. I’m glad I did play it, since it turned out to be superior to the original release in just about every way.

Stubs - Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver’s Travels (1939) Voices by Sam Parker, Pinto Colvig, Jack Mercer, Tedd Pierce, Jessica Dragonette, Livonia Warren, Lanny Ross, Cal Howard. Directed by Dave Fleischer. Screenplay by Dan Gordon, Cal Howard, Ted Pierce, I. Sparber, Edmond Seward. Based on the book Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver by Jonathan Swift (London, 1726). Produced by Max Fleischer. Run Time: 76 minutes. USA Color Animated, Fantasy

While Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was the first animated feature, animation rival Fleischer Studios’ Gulliver’s Travels was the second. The brothers Fleischer left Bray Studios to found their own company Out of the Inkwell, Inc., in 1921, changing its name in 1929. In the beginning, the studio produced novelty films called Out of the Inkwell, which used the Rotoscope, invented by Fleischer. Rotoscoping is an animation technique used to trace over live-action motion picture footage, frame-by-frame. It produces a realistic animation. Out of the Inkwell also used live-action footage mixed with the animation in such shorts as Modeling (1921).