MY VIDEO GAME HISTORY (1978-1982)

INSERT COIN - PART 1

I just finished watching the documentary VIDEO GAMES: THE MOVIE on Netflix.  Overall a fun 90-minute doc that made for a fun trip down memory lane.  While not in depth enough to fully inform any newbies of the history of the video gaming industry, it does touch upon numerous main moments (and pitfalls) along with some fun look back at ads and commercials while intertwining interviews with several industry professionals like Atari’s Nolan Bushnell and celebrities who are also rapid gamers like Wil Wheaton.

Video gaming has been an important part of my life since my father brought home our family’s first Atari 2600 system in 1978.  I was a lot like Ralphie in A Christmas Story as I stared at the faux wood paneling on the front of the system and stroked the luscious gaming mecha like an electrified leg of glowing sexuality.  That first day we had two games Combat and Air-Sea Battle but in short time the family began stockpiling quite a collection of cartridges and even upgraded to the more graphic friendly Colecovision which included an adapter pack for the Atari 2600 thus allowing us to move our Atari 2600 to the basement TV while we had the option to play Colecovision in the living room.  This probably explains why in a house with two adults I currently need five TVs, five cable boxes, and multiple computers and gaming systems…because video gaming options was introduced to me at a very young age.

That wood is the mark of a quality product.  Bust out your Pledge!

The majority of games we bought for that treasured Atari 2600 were fun and offered a solid level of replay value for the time.  Luckily my family managed to miss most of the dud games (looking right at you E.T….although I did manage to borrow and win this game years later just so I could proudly state to people that, “Yes!  I won the worst video game ever produced.”)  Speaking of lousy games, I also remember drinking a shitload of Kool Aid one summer so we could send away points for the Atari 2600 Kool Aid Man game.  The game was actually kind of fun…and the animation of the big red guy smashing through the screen with an “Oh Yeah!” was sort of amusing.  But, I also remember tucking this game away when friends would visit as if owning such a game would hurt my street-cred as a serious gamer.  The biggest dud cartridge our family purchased was the opening day release of Pac-Man…wow, talk about sucking all the fun out of the arcade model with this monochrome nightmare with the worst sound effects in history (that would later be used in Superman III thus combining a hated video game with a hated movie).  The Atari 2600 version of Donkey Kong was also a major disappointment with lame graphics and only two different stages.  Luckily in the not too distant future we bought the Donkey Kong version for Colecovision which offered spot-on graphics and at least three of the four stages (but I still wish the Conveyor level had been included).

I have fond memories of bonding with friends while playing games on that original Atari system.  Having them bring over cartridges that I did not own (Activision greats like Barnstorming or Keystone Kapers, any of the Xonox cartridges, and the ever enjoyable The Adventures of Tron and Yar’s Revenge) always allowed for a long fun afternoon of gaming.  It was an exciting time to experience playing a video game that told a story and actually delivered an ending.  Winning the puzzle game Raiders of the Lost Ark and borrowing from my friend Shawn the under-rated platformer Pitfall II were high points in my early gaming career as I learned the tricks needed to complete a game and be able to shut off my system knowing that I had indeed reached a definitive conclusion in where I, the gamer, WON THE GAME!

In our home, the Top 10 most played cartridges that we owned were:


1.  RIVER RAID – This was the game!  Amazing that the same

Yellow Plane, Yellow Plane, why do you fly so low?
Yellow Plane, Yellow Plane, it's not your fault.

Christmas we were gifted our treasured request of Pitfall the next present opened was River Raid which my father bought on a whim.  Within a few days River Raid would surpass all of our other games for overall re-playability.  I love this game so much that decades later I managed to download it for my Xbox 360 and played it far too much while my wife would sit and watch and laugh going, “Really, in 2013 this is the best game you can find to play?”  A true classic and for my money the best game my family ever owned in our living room arcade.  River Raid was simplistic in that you flew a yellow plane on a mission to bomb the ships and planes stationed in the tight canals of an enemy nation.  It was a very 2D environment with weak graphics and lame sound effects.  But it was fun as hell.  And, this may speak to my gaming skill, no matter how long I played I could never get the game to actually loop and start at the beginning of the canals.  I always wondered how far the programming would actually allow for new levels to appear.  I never found out, but I had so many years of entertainment from this simple game that I don’t really mind.  Later when we owned our Colecovision system, a game called Zaxxon also came along.  This was a more 3D and sci-fi version of River Raid.  I didn’t enjoy it as much.  The 3D was trickier to navigate and at times there is a fine balance between level of simplicity and level of fun.  River Raid successfully found the perfect formula to balance both.

That vine sure made circumventing the crocodiles easier!

2.  PITFALL – I loved this game as a kid so much that I had my photo taken next to my television with my high score so I could send away for a free gift from Activision.  In fact, now that I think about it…not sure they ever sent the item.  It was either a poster or a t-shirt, but free prize or not this game was a blast and I loved exploring the underground tunnels to determine the best way to work my way to a high score within the twenty minute time limit.  As a kid, Pitfall programmer David Crane was a celebrity in my home and I made sure to buy other games that he was the lead programmer on like Grand Prix, Freeway (get the chicken across the road), and even Fishing Derby.  Indiana Jones was won of my favorite movie characters so it wasn’t too big of a leap to see that Pitfall Harry and his vine swinging antics would be a close second.  I become skilled at Pitfall to the point that I could always easily complete the twenty-minute session.  I won some bets with friends on who could manage the most points in that time frame as well.  Still, there was always the momentary panic anytime you would cross onto a new screen and see the dreaded three alligators sitting in their swamp and knowing that you had to slow down and time your jumps precisely lest you would fall into the water or down a gator’s gullet.

Never judge the fun of a game by how small the maze is.

3.  WIZARD OF WOR – This was the most popular game for my brother and me to play together.  It was a game where you controlled humanoid warriors in a small labyrinth maze (this format will sound familiar) that was swarming with monsters (some invisible) and then you would have to eventually work your way toward a fight with the eponymous Wizard.  During the course of the battle both players could choose to work as a team or kill each other (often switching for no reason during the game).  Not many games for the Atari 2600 offered this sort of simultaneous co-op play excitement.  This game was one of the last “new game” purchases my family made for our Atari 2600 but my brother and I played it so much in our basement that it was worth every penny.



4.  VIDEO PINBALL – This was a visually unspectacular game but it 

So bland to look at, but once the ball starts
bouncing around there was a good deal of fun.

was fast paced and fairly addictive.  I enjoyed playing Video Pinball the most because my father (who was not a gamer) would sit and play this game with me and it was the rare game where he was better than me.  I have fond memories of these father-son moments sitting on the living room carpet and playing this game for hours.  Years later in college, I borrowed someone’s Atari 2600 system for the weekend and flipped the score on Pinball and on the bumpers.  I was happy with the score and retired from any return visits although I am still a sucker to play any real life pinball games that I spot in visits to arcades.

5.  Q*BERT – During my formative years as a gamer my favorite game at

The "Donkey Kong" of my living room.

the arcade was Donkey Kong, thus at home DK received less attention.  Q*Bert filled the void by offering a fun and fast paced game with patterns that must be figured out all while under immense pressure to avoid a myriad of enemies.  The tension playing this game was pretty high and reminded me exactly of how I felt standing in an arcade facing the barrels of Donkey Kong.  Burger Time (for Colecovision) also comes in a close 2^nd for this very same reason.  The arcade game was rarely visited when I had the opportunity to play Donkey Kong instead.  However at home I enjoyed the adventures of Peter Pepper although the pace and the difficulty of Burger Time often left me overly frustrated, thus I stayed with Q*Bert.  My game play with Q*Bert was solid enough that I could stretch out a single game to go for close to an hour.  Not too shabby.  On a side note, my grandmother saw me play Q*Bert so much one holiday season that she bought me a plastic coin bank of the character.  I remember stock piling coins until it was filled and eagerly opening up the booty to find I had enough money to buy a home computer (more on this in an upcoming entry).

6.  MISSILE COMMAND – There’s three games that could fall into

The tension to save those six cities was intense!

this #6 spot since they all offered the endless assault of a futuristic setting.  Asteroids and Space Invaders were the other two but I always found myself drawn back to Missile Command.  Probably because the difficulty was so damn hard and the pace so nightmarish that I never seemed to survive for more than a few minutes.  I also loved that explosion sound any time one of the six main cities would go up in a mushroom cloud.  I was never a fan of the arcade version because I struggled even more so with the track ball.  However, in the later years of this system when many games had lost their luster, I did often find myself sparing some time for a few quick rounds of Missile Command.  Still, as a youth I wished that some of these games would offer the possibility of actually winning.  The Atari 2600 would provide numerous sub options for gameplay on Missile Command and I often thought a version with a definite number of levels might allow for a more rewarding experience.  Imagine counting down from Level 100 to Level 1 and trying to keep your cities alive the entire time.  Then there is a solid goal to strive for instead of merely prolonging the inevitable nuclear destruction at the hands of alien invaders.

7.  SUPERMAN – As a kid who loved comic books, when I heard that

Loved that box image. 
The game also holds a fond place in my heart being the
first time I controlled a video game superhero.

there was an Atari game based on Superman, I momentarily lost my mind.  Then when I saw the game box with the artwork of the red-and-blue caped superhero I absolutely lost my mind!  The game played out like a pixilated comic book which made up for the pixilated graphics as Superman needed to change into costume, capture criminals and a flying Lex Luthor, avoid Kryptonite bombs, and rebuild a bridge before returning to the Daily Planet to report the story.  The game looked ridiculous but it was certainly fun.  In the 1970s the idea of playing a video game as a comic book character was such a rare treat that this game felt like owning the Ark of the Covenant.  Superman had an end point which also made it feel rewarding to play.  As the superhero you could literally save the day!  Even at a young age I played this game repeatedly trying to memorize the city screen patterns and finish as quickly as possible.  My fastest time was 57 seconds.  Yes – seconds!  Now that truly has to be some form of record.  What makes that score even more special is the fact that my father had just come home with pizza and my mother was busy yelling at me to shut off the game and yet under all of this duress I managed to achieve a spectacular score and save the citizens of Metropolis and then reward myself with a warm slice of pepperoni pizza.

     Later on Parker Brothers released an Atari game based on Spider-Man.  Naturally this had me thrilled to no end as I was praying for a similar open world experience.  Sadly that game was limited to climbing buildings while your web fluid inexplicably drained.  I have never had patience for “beat the clock” style games, especially when their very logic defeats the point of common sense (i.e. Spider-Man is capable of climbing walls!  Thus if his web fluid is empty, he does NOT fall to his death!)

That dot with the key...that's you!  YOU ARE THE DOT!

8.  ADVENTURE – You were a “dot” with a sword that battled dragons to save a kingdom with a chalice.  Sounds lame and it looked lame but Adventure was the first game I ever experienced that offered free roaming.  You could travel anywhere you wanted and determine ways to make the game as difficult as needed.  There were mazes, three dragons of varying speeds, a flying bat, and even the now famous “Easter Egg” dot that would reveal the name of the programmer when delivered to a specific spot in the game.  I remember winning Adventure the first day we bought it and thinking, “I wonder if I’ll ever play this game again?”  I did, later that day and for weeks, months, and years to come.  It was always a fun game to return to and wander from screen to screen on a fond trip down memory lane.  Colecovision had a game called Venutre (based off the arcade game) which I also enjoyed although that game offered less free roaming and more intense and sometimes painfully fast deaths.

9.  BERZERK – I loved playing Berzerk in the arcade and the home

STOP THE HUMANOID!
STOP THE INTRUDER!

version did not disappoint.  This game also has the distinction of being the first video game that I can remember saving up my own money to buy.  I did a lot of chores around the house to save up the $40 (could it have been that much) to buy this cartridge.  The second game that earned my allowance was Haunted House, but for some reason that game never clicked with my imagination as much as Berzerk.  Back in the day I was a sucker for any game that involved a humanoid character (see a pattern forming in Haunted House you played as merely two glowing eyes roaming in the dark) and Berzerk’s offering of a man with a gun running through an endless labyrinth maze filled with angry robots was a classic scenario.  Essentially it was a one player version of Wizard of Wor.  The never ending dialogue of “Stop the humanoid!” always made me smile in arcades and I wished more dialogue found its way into the home version.  The shockingly swift pursuit of the smiling ball Evil Otto who was hot on your heels made this a fun game that kept you on your toes.  As a fan of the movie TRON, I felt like Berzerk was a similar offering as to what the world of video arcade gladiatorial combat might actually be like.

10.  ACTIVISION TENNIS – Tennis!  Tennis?  I can see people

The #1 sport in my family (1978-1982)

screaming now.  Keep in mind I’m talking about games that got the most play in my household growing up.  I did not come from a home where baseball and football were popular.  My parents both loved watching and playing tennis (so much so that it often prevented me from playing video games because if I wasn’t watching John McEnroe beat Jimmy Connors then I found myself sitting at the park babysitting my brother while my parents played on the city courts for a few hours).  My father bought the game and because he knew the sport it was the kind of game that the whole family could gather around the small TV and enjoy together.  Later on I found hours of enjoyment simply playing games against the computer (who seemed to always be able to run down my shots).  Decades later the reason I bought the Top Spin games for my Xbox systems was mostly because of my fond memories of playing Activision Tennis with my parents during my youth.
 

I no longer own an Atari 2600.  I know there are plenty available on eBay or there are offerings of MAME or other simulator programs.  However, for this level of gaming I do believe in the “You Can’t Go Home Again” motto.  I would rather have fond memories of plugging in a cartridge on a snowy afternoon and spending a few hours with my brother and friends than I would owning this same system today.  An Atari 2600 would more than likely sit on a shelf and rarely even make it to a television to be plugged in.  I have my memories and they are great memories of a period in my life where the Atari 2600 brought a great deal of fun into my life.

Before we move into 1983 and beyond, it is worth noting that during the same time period that I was playing the Atari 2600 at home I was also regularly visiting video arcades.  In my next entry on my history of video gaming (which may not fall sequentially with my blog entries), I will discuss some of my memories of plucking down quarters in these public establishments and which games drew my attention, imagination, and money the most.

The awesome Colecovision with the Atari 2600 adaptor!  Best Christmas present ever!

GAME OVER...for Part 1.

TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2013

2013 was an interesting year for movies.  I went to the movies 30 times this year (several repeat viewings).  Overall there weren’t tons of stellar movies, but there were many good-decent movies.  I thought compiling the list would be easier than it was until I had seven choices and then had six movies left for the final three spots.  The Top 4 choices also kept shuffling around over and over. 


 Below I’ll give a brief summary of my Top 10 favorite movies from this year and then recap some of the various other offerings I saw.  Reminder that my Top 10 is solely based on movies I saw at the theatre and I kept it to original movies only and not retro movies or repeat viewings from previous years (i.e. Jurassic Park 3D or Avengers)

Sorry Khan haters.  This is the best movie of 2013 and one of the strongest Trek films ever.

1. Star Trek Into Darkness – For me, this was the best movie of the year.  I loved the storyline which stayed faithful to changes that have taken place in the Star Trek universe timelines thanks to the events in the 2009 Star Trek reboot.  There’s two outstanding villains and at a key point in the movie when a villain reveal was made (on opening weekend) a startled audience member loudly said, “OH-MY-GOD!” which had my brother and I in tears.  The movie is frenetic in a good way and by the time things end you're glad to see Kirk in the captain's chair and the crew settling in for their five year mission.  I couldn't be happier with this franchise.  Boldy going on and on!  Best time I had at one movie all year.

"Giant robot, use your lasers!"

2. Pacific Rim – This was the movie I expected to me my #1 movie of the year.  It was a good movie but not as great as I had hoped.  I wanted an epic but instead was treated to a solid action movie.  Seeing it in IMAX 3D added quite a bit to the experience as well.  My wife (always a fan of giant monsters) needed to be dragged to the first showing but then willingly went back for a second viewing (something she rarely does at the theatre).  The movie delivers some excellent giant monsters vs. giant robots battles but then suffers by delivering far too much of Charlie Day’s annoying comic relief character.  I hope there’s a sequel that makes the needed improvements to epic level.

"More like Ass Kicked." - Big Daddy (Kick Ass)

3. Kick Ass 2 – Speaking of sequels that made improvements.  I loved Kick Ass 2!  This sequel amps things up nicely and develops the characters of Kick Ass and Hit Girl in believable ways all while presenting a stronger cadre of villains with a great deal of violence and humor spread throughout.  While I missed Nicholas Cage’s Adam West-style hero from the original, I did not miss the out of place rocket pack used in the original’s ending.  The climax of this movie is very fun and believable and makes me eager to see if a Kick Ass 3 will ever be seen.

4. Man of Steel – People seem to be all up in arms about the amount of damage done by the attacking Kryptonians in Man of Steel.  My reply – If Superman hadn’t been on Earth to stop them, and then the entire planet would be destroyed, so feel lucky that the damage was as small as it was.  The other whining point of people is that Superman does in fact kill someone in this movie.  Fine, if you go back and watch the ending to Superman 2 (which people seem to conveniently forget) you’ll see Superman crush General Zod’s hand before tossing him against an ice wall and watching him sink into the frigid arctic waters to his death.  In comparison, a neck snap isn’t all that bad.  Those points aside, this is a good (if not epic) origin story for Superman.  I loved all the flashbacks to growing up in Smallville and how his parents molded him into the hero he becomes.  The fights in the last hour may seem a bit long, but after the bore fest that was the previous movie Superman Returns, I think the producers were afraid to not deliver enough action.  I liked the movie and am excited to see if the DC Universe can successfully build off of it.

"You are my son." - Kevin Costner

5. The Wolf of Wall Street – This movie is taking some serious knocks from it’s over use of the F-word, to its 3 hour run time, to the fact that the unrepentant Wall Street thieves basically go unpunished.  Upon seeing the movie I felt similarly, however in researching some of the back-story I saw that in essence this is what happened in real life…they were not fittingly punished.  So what remains is a long movie of 80’s greed.  But make no mistake; there are some laugh out loud hilarious moments in this movie.  The Quaalude scene alone is worth the price of admission. Of all the Scorsese-DiCaprio collaborations, I think I enjoyed this one the most.

6. Riddick – Thank God this movie was made!  I love the character of Riddick.  I was a huge fan of Pitch Black but felt like the ending to Chronicles of Riddick left the character in an odd role that I did not accept at all.  This movie corrects that mistake in the first ten minutes and then gives us an entertaining sci-fi desolate world monster movie on top of it.  I had a fun time seeing this and was thrilled that even if they never make another Riddick movie, the mistakes of the second entry were rectified so I can actual enjoy the entire trilogy as it currently exists.

7. Fast & Furious 6 – Wow more Vin Diesel!  I looked back my list from 2011 and was stunned that Fast Five did not make the Top 10 for that year.  Big mistake on my part!  Fast Five is a better movie than F&F 6, but this one is still damn fun.  Very fast paced with some real stakes in play, and so much fun that I was even able to accept “The Jump” moment, and an ending that had me very pumped up for Part 7.  Sadly Paul Walker’s death in real-life may have shrouded the series for me, so this may be the final entry I watch since I enjoyed the brotherly bonding between Toretto and O’Connor the most in this series.



Let's toss some midgets!

8. Gravity – Gravity is the kind of movie that will lose a great deal on a TV screen and will eventually have people saying, “What was the big deal?”  To understand the big deal you had to experience this on an IMAX screen.  While the heavy on symbolism story of “rebirth” didn’t always impress me, the visuals did.  I’ve never seen an outer space movie like this one and it kept my eyes glued to the screen the entire time.

9. The Wolverine – I’m not a fan of the X-Men movies.  I loved X-Men First Class and hated all the rest.  I didn’t expect much from Wolverine but I had a hell of a lot of fun watching it.  The movie is quite serious with the out of place killing machine character trying to fit into Japanese societal drama.  When there is action, it is justly deserved.  The battle atop the bullet train was great (but not as good as Tom Cruise’ in the original Mission Impossible) and there’s also a neat scene where Wolverine has to perform self surgery on his heart.  The biggest stumbling point for this movie is in the climax which seems very routine and comic-booky considering the mostly adult drama we’d been presented with for the previous two hours.

10. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – This was the final movie I saw for the 2013 season.  I had not read the book so I went into the movie knowing nothing.  For the second film in a trilogy (quadrilogy) I felt they did a nice job of raising the stakes and building a larger scaled universe.  The game scenes were intense and did not feel repetitive from the first movie.  I’ll need to read the book and Mockingjay before I tackle the next movie in the fall of 2014.

And the rest of the movies I saw this year that missed out of Top 10 status…

Thank you for saving this series!

*Enter the Dragon (retro midnight movie) – I love going to these summer midnight movies in my area.  There’s always great crowds and it’s my only chance to see movies of my youth on the big screen.  This Bruce Lee classic was a hell of a fun time to watch in a crowded theatre.

*Escape from New York (retro midnight movie) – One of the seminal movies from my cable-watching youth.  Escape from New York stands alongside The Road Warrior and Excalibur as R-rated movies that I watched repeatedly growing up.  To finally have the chance to see this movie on the big screen…a smile was plastered across my face the entire time.  One of the all time sci-fi antihero best movies!

*Oz the Great and Powerful – I enjoyed this movie more than I expected.  Sam Raimi played fair as far as connecting this to the original Wizard of Oz; however Mila Kunis was badly miscast as the Wicked Witch and not frightening enough.

*G.I. Joe: Retaliation – I am not a G.I. Joe fan but my brother is.  He tolerates seeing the Fast and the Furious movies with me and this is the trade-off.  The martial arts moments with Snake Eyes were fun but I don’t feel there was much fan loyalty connecting this movie to the original one, and poor Channing Tatum.

*Evil Dead – I loved the pure violence on display in this movie.  It was nice to see very little CGI and mostly practical effects.  It was a tense gross out, but lacked any sense of fun or legitimate scares.  This was a missed opportunity for sparking a new franchise.

*Jurassic Park 3D – I just saw Jurassic Park a year ago at a midnight movie, and it’s playing pretty much 24-7 in our house because it is Mrs. Jumper’s favorite movie of all time.  So this year she dragged me back to see this in 3D on IMAX.  Still totally worth it!

I will miss you Paul Walker.

*Iron Man 3 – This was a nice improvement from Iron Man 2 (which I feel is the weakest of all the Marvel movies) but there were plenty of areas that could have been improved.  I’m in the minority of people who enjoyed The Mandarin twist, but all the action at the end felt like there was no real danger in play, mere spectacle.

*This is the End – There are many laugh out loud moments in this movie!  I love that each of the leads plays extreme caricatures of themselves amped up to ‘11’.  If My Top 10 list was Top 11…this would have the final spot.

*World War Z – I’m not a fan of Max Brooks highly praised book.  It was OK but not the game-changer that so many people praise when they’re not boring me to death with examples of George Romero’s “social commentary” in his zombie movies.  Zombies are what they are, the end.  This movie could have been a blast, but they missed the mark by focusing too much on one character (Brad Pitt) when they could have gone with an old school disaster flick style movie and a bunch of B-list actors in various roles.  I enjoyed the scenes in Jerusalem and on the plane, and found the ending dull and anti-climatic.

*Despicable Me 2 – My wife loves all the Pixar and animated movies.  I try to avoid them whenever possible.  The two Despicable Me movies are the easiest ones for me to sit through.  It was fun.

*The Conjuring – There’s an awesome creep factor to this movie.  The set-up is dynamite and it doesn’t resort to cheap jump moments.  The first 2/3 of the movie were A+ material but the ending felt a but over-inflated and “been there done that”.  I love the cast though and enjoyed reading about some of the real-life cases of The Warrens, so I hope they make a sequel.

*Machete Kills – I was a huge fan of the original Machete movie.  I felt Robert Rodriguez perfectly captured the grind house-action feel.  This one though goes way off into left field and turns everything into so much of a joke that you can’t really take anything seriously.  One of the bigger disappoints for me in 2013.

*Thor the Dark World – The original Thor movie was OK.  I’m not the biggest Thor fan but I did enjoy Loki.  What I didn’t like was Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings.  Sadly both of them return for the sequel, albeit in smaller roles.  Loki is given stronger dialogue and scenes and he dominates this movie to great effect.  I hope the third movie is simply scenes with Thor and Loki because when those two share screen time I am glued to every minute.  This movie was a nice improvement from the first Thor, but the Dark Elves were dull villains, so there’s still plenty of room to improve.

*Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues – I’m not a huge fan of Will Ferrell’s original Anchorman movie.  It was OK.  I’m a bigger fan of his work in Step Brothers or Talladega Nights.  Comedy is a tricky genre though because what causes one person to laugh causes another person to grumble “that was stupid”.  There are some solid gut-busting moments in this movie.  They had me with the opening two minutes and I enjoyed the entire movie.  This was a nice step up from the original one.

Overall 2013 was a decent year.  While some movies left me disappointed, I didn’t thoroughly hate any of them.  My money was well spent and even though there are not too many offerings that will make their way into my permanent collection, it was an enjoyable time at the movies and based on early previews I don’t see as much in 2014 to make me think it will top 2013 for total offerings.

Chronologically my visits to movie theatres in 2013…

 

Oz the Great and Powerful

G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Evil Dead
Jurassic Park 3D
Iron Man 3
Star Trek Into Darkness
Enter the Dragon (retro midnight viewing)
Fast & Furious 6
This is the End
Man of Steel
World War Z
Despicable Me 2
Pacific Rim
Escape from New York (retro midnight viewing)
The Conjuring
The Wolverine
Kick Ass 2
Riddick
Gravity
Machete Kills
THOR MARATHON: Thor, Avengers, and Thor the Dark World
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
The Wolf of Wall Street
The Hunger Game: Catching Fire

See you at the movies in 2014 and remember to save me the aisle seat.

SUPERHERO MOVIES – TOP 10 COUNTDOWN – PART 4

AND HERE WE GO...

Faster than a speeding bullet we’re back to the countdown with the best theatrical offerings that DC Comics have ever produced!

#5 – SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE

In today’s era of multiple superhero movies each year, it’s hard to remember back to 1978 which gave us SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE…then the eleven years before Tim Burton’s first Batman offering.  Two superhero movies in spanning all that time.  Yes, I know there were three Superman sequels…but they all suck.  

People who have fond memories of Superman II should rewatch it to realize that it doesn’t hold up.  Richard Lester’s ham-handed comedic directing (with fired director Richard Donner’s material) doesn’t work for anyone over 10 years old.  The special effects are weak…seriously who can’t tell that those are flying dolls traveling through a miniaturized set?  And the climactic fight(s)?  Well, one of them involves Superman introducing a bunch of new hokey powers: cartoon throwaway shield, zero-gravity hand ray, and the power of illusion!  Then of course the earlier fight in the city of Metropolis which involves the most over extended sequence wear the citizens of Metropolis, all of whom are so annoying that I was routing for their subjugation to Zod, are being blown around town and laughing and having a meery good time.  What a horrendous movie.  And for all its hype, the Richard Donner cut…suffers as well for other reasons.  Of course, both versions of Superman II don’t have Richard Pryor or Nuclear Man…so in that regard they are successes.

However, two years before all the horrible Superman sequels, 1978 brought us an incredible superhero movie that truly made audiences believe that a man could fly.  And wow did flying look fun!  The casting of every character in Superman: The Movie is perfect!  I’ll argue that no other superhero movie has succeeded so solidly in both casting, costumes, and general sets appearance.  Metropolis is New York City!  Luthor is a fiendish villain with a great plan!  And Superman is…SUPER!

Considering how much material Richard Donner needs to cover, the pacing of this movie is fantastic.  The first hour gives us the destruction of Krypton, Jor-El’s reasoning for sending his only son to Earth, the villains of the Phantom Zone, young Kal-El’s landing on Earth, life in Smallville, the death of Pa Kent and his message (thank you Glenn Ford for 10 minutes of a movie that still resonate with such power decades later), the construction of the Fortress of Solitude, and the introduction of Metropolis!  Wow!  Amazing!  I know people are holding out hope for Zac Snyder’s Man of Steel…but man, that’s a lot of work to live up to. 

Superman: The Movie also delivers a 10-minute sequence that still rocks today.  Superman’s first night in Metropolis: saving Lois Lane, catching a helicopter, thwarting a jewel thief, stopping a bank robbery, saving a cat, and rescuing a crashing Air Force One.  Great cinematic stuff!  If I’m ever channel surfing and this segment is even close to airing, I always stop to watch and am never disappointed.

#4 – THE DARK KNIGHT

Watch the movie HEAT with Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, and then watch The Dark Knight!  Both are the top films of the cop-criminal and hero-villain genres…and I’d argue that the one with the masks and capes is a better effort and I love HEAT.

Christopher Nolan knocks an utter grand slam with his second dive into the world of Batman.  The studios were so confident with Nolan that the movie didn’t even need to have Batman’s name in the title!  There are so many levels taking place in The Dark Knight that it’s easy to lose sight of the social and political commentary and just focus on Batman chasing the Joker and Two-Face.  But go back and rewatch the movie and you’ll see it’s filled to the brim with topics for discussion.

Anyone who hopes to write or a direct a superhero movie needs to watch and learn how Nolan manages to succeed in handling two supervillains (and never loses site of his hero).  So many other films have tried and failed when it comes to the use of multiple enemies for the hero, The Dark Knight is the primer for great implementation.  First, the Joker is shown simply as a force of nature.  He’s the shark from Jaws.  You don’t know why he arrived and why he does the things he does.  You don’t need that information.  All you need to know is when he is on screen really bad things are going to happen – and you’ll be captivated the entire time.  His persona is summed up perfectly as Alfred explains to Bruce Wayne, “Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." Then there’s Harvey Dent’s fall from grace and emergence as Two-Face.   Powerful stuff with incredibly gross CGI that is too realistic for its own good.  With these two villains, you fear for Batman and every single person in Gotham City.

The success of The Dark Knight is that it stays down to Earth on such a grim and gritty level that while watching a movie where people wear costumes, you can actually find yourself thinking, “If superheroes exist, this is what it would be like.”  At times it’s almost too dark.  Often people I talk to say the reason they don’t like The Dark Knight is because they want their Batman more family friendly and cartoony.  This is why I love The Dark Knight.  Because we’ve already had umpteen versions of Batman as a comic book character from comics, to cartoons, to the 1960’s TV show, to the Burton movies.  It’s easy to lose site that Chris Nolan is the first one to give us a truly grim visage of what life behind a mask can do to both a person and the city is strives to protect.  It’s not pretty but it’s damn original and entertaining!

There’s far too much for me to cover as to why I love The Dark Knight.  For my tastes, it’s the single best example of Batman in any genre ever!  Batman sums it up nicely with, “Sometimes the truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded...”

The Dark Knight is one helluva reward!

Had my Top 10 list been written three years ago, Superman: The Movie and The Dark Knight would have been ranked #3 and #2 respectively.  Just shows that in the last few years a couple of movies have come out that really shined a powerful light on the superhero genre from comics to movies.

The NEW Movies #3 and #2…are just around the corner…

SUPERHERO MOVIES - TOP 10 COUNTDOWN!

BAM!                  POW!

Top 10 lists are pretty much the ultimate cliché when it comes to ranking items.  No matter if it is movies, TV shows, books, comics, music, or hot chicks the instant a list is compiled it is ripe for debate and just as quickly labeled out-of-date.

I wanted to put out a list of my TOP 10 SUPERHERO MOVIES in the spring.  Three things prevented me from doing it: THE AVENGERS, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, and THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.  At the time, none had been released and based on previews I expected a few to possibly muscle their way into my work-in-progress list.  So I waited…then the movies came out…then I pondered.

Starting below and continuing over the next several posts I will countdown my personal TOP 10 FAVORITE SUPERHERO MOVIES.  Each entry will come with the various reasons why it made my list.  My primary focus were comic book superheroes that were successfully transferred onto the big screen.  In determining my 10 rankings (and I made sure there would be no cheating “ties”) the following criteria was used: my personal entertainment, repeat viewings, the need to own the movie on DVD, and what I deemed a successful move from comic-book to screen.   Critical ratings and box office were not items I cared about, since when I watch (and rewatch) a movie at home I never worry about what other people thought of the movie or how well it did at the box office.

A fairly thorough list of every superhero movie ever made can be found by CLICKING HERE.   Keep in mind I only counted films that had their origins as a comic book/pulp magazine first (sorry Meteor Man...like you had a chance).

As I wrote down and eventually crossed off all the entries that didn’t quite merit a Top 10 ranking, I found things becoming more difficult as my list was soon narrowed to 20 titles.  All of these offerings were excellent choices and this is where my quest for my personal Top 10 begins.  I am listing them in alphabetical order and then the countdown fun (and debate) begins.

AVENGERS
BATMAN (1989)
BATMAN BEGINS
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
IRON MAN
KICK ASS
MYSTERY MEN
SPIDER-MAN
SPIDER-MAN 2
SPIDER-MAN 3
SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE
THE DARK KNIGHT
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
THE GREEN HORNET
THE INCREDIBLE HULK
THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN
THE ROCKETEER
THOR
WATCHMEN
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

Ok, already I’m sure someone is bellyaching that Superman IV: The Quest for Peace or X-Men 2 aren’t on my list.  At the conclusion of my countdown I’ll address those films that didn’t make my list as well as those that made the Top 20 but were axed as things start being sorted out.

Time to get things rolling…(drum roll)

#10 – X-MEN FIRST CLASS

I was a huge fan of the X-Men comic back in the 80’s when Chris Claremont and John Byrne produced some epic storylines.  Then the “X” became more of a franchise label and everyone on the planet jumped on the bandwagon.  That’s pretty much when I jumped off.

            I didn’t enjoy X-Men or X2, and I never even bothered to see X-Men United.  But, when this new take on the franchise came out, I sucked up my displeasure of the previous entries and gave it a shot.  To my surprise…I loved it.

            The casting of this movie was spot on and the pace was perfect.  James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender (outstanding in his scenes in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS) own this movie as Professor Xavier and Magneto.  In fact, if the entire movie had simply revolved around Magneto hunting down and killing war criminals, that would have been fine with me.  X-Men:FC made Magento what he should be…a powerhouse bad ass!  In the first movies, he’s too old and too fragile to really command fear.  But here, his actions (and they are brutal) set the tone of who exactly the other characters are dealing with.  The partnership of Professor X and Magneto is a great deal of fun to watch, between their chess, verbal spats, and training of the younger mutants.

            The time period of the 1960’s is also fully realized in this movie.  Everything builds to a nice climactic battle between the good and evil mutants during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  That’s very important!  In any superhero movie, if the final battle isn’t worth the ride, then too much is missed as viewer expectations dwindle (a major stumbling point of movies like Fantastic Four and Iron Man 2).

            X-Men: First Class holds up well on repeat viewings and has me excited for the sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past.  Maybe the movie should have been a bit higher on the list, but the sheer disappointment I had for the other entries in this franchise (and the fact that the box office of this superior movie, wasn’t as strong as the other three) weighed it down a bit.

#9 and #8…soon…