Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the top five stories in comic based Film & TV news!
Daily Archives: May 27, 2012
“Sushi Girl” Promises Deliciously Retro Fun
Films like The Expendables follow a formula that teams up classic action heroes with newer action heroes, pitting them against the evilest of all evils and seeing what goes down. But why can’t we just leave the old people to their own devices and watch the dust fly out of their throats? I’ve been waiting to see a film like that and my prayers have been answered with Sushi Girl. Starring Tony Todd, Jeff Fahey, Danny Trejo, James Duval, Mark Hamill, Michael Biehn, and Sonny Chiba, this is a fanboy’s wet dream.
According to the IMDb synopsis, which was written by the film’s writer and director, the film goes a little something like this:
“Fish has spent six years in jail. Six years alone. Six years keeping his mouth shut about the robbery, about the other men involved. The night he is released, the four men he protected with silence celebrate his freedom with a congratulatory dinner. The meal is a lavish array of sushi, served off the naked body of a beautiful young woman. The sushi girl seems catatonic, trained to ignore everything in the room, even if things become dangerous. Sure enough, the four unwieldy thieves can’t help but open old wounds in an attempt to find their missing loot.”
I was honestly a little skeptical with this premise because I was expecting another straight-to-DVD style film that really had no redeeming qualities. But I learned that the film made its world premiere at San Diego Comic-Con, so I wasn’t as skeptical. Then, I saw the trailer. Needless to say, my pants exploded.
With almost too much badassery stuffed into its 2 minute and 10 second running time, Sushi Girl promises nothing but bloody, old-school, old man fun. The character of Sushi Girl is played by Cortney Palm, an actress I’m not too familiar with. Her character isn’t referenced or even shown that much, but considering the movie is called Sushi Girl, I’m sure she’ll play an important role in the actual picture.
If you think you’re ready for it, you can watch the full-length trailer right here:
‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ Looks…Good?
It’s that time again where an old-yet-familiar intellectual property gets the time tested, sometimes proved, sometimes failed reboot. As many of you are assuredly aware, The Amazing Spider-Man gets brought to the silver screen, only now it’s more of an adaptation of the Ultimate Spider-Man comics, in which he was younger, in high school, but still trying on the tights. This Spider-Man seems to be focused around getting us to watch this origin story yet again. This time they’re dangling the elusive prospect of “hidden secrets” about Spider-man we’ve never seen before. From what the preview material would have you believe, it has something to do with his parents and how they died, and implies they were murdered. Were his parents cruel Colombian drug lords? New Yorker mob hits? Genetic scientists experimenting on human/spider DNA fusion? Well, probably not that last one, I hope. Whatever the reason, they’re deliberately trying to bring some freshness and possible subversion of expectations this go ’round.
This Spider-Man totally loves dubstep bro. WUB WUB WUB.
I have to admit, I’m still skeptical about the direction of the whole thing. For every moment or line that they get right, another rubs me the wrong way. I suppose it’s a feeling similar to the much ballyhooed “event fatigue” that many Marvel fans claimed to be suffering from, starting with 2006’s Civil War, continuing now with Avengers VS X-Men. I think we’ve had a lot of Spider-Man in our media, from that terrible third movie and it’s subsequent terrible third video game, to the main Marvel comic being published 3 times monthly, to the Ultimate comics where he “dies”, to the current Spider-man movie being a re-telling of a re-telling. They say you can only skin a cat so many ways, although why they say that I don’t know, because that’s a creepy idiom, but I believe it stands in this case. That’s not to say that I don’t find the interpretation of this actual Peter Parker and Spider-Man character welcome. The wisecracking Spider-Man/shy Peter Parker dynamic is kept, and done much better than it was. On the flip side, you’ve got things like the Lizard, who is a B-villain at best, who has been mentioned many times by the internet crowd out there, to look like a Ninja Turtle.

All that being said, the one thing I’m definitely looking forward to, is finally getting some good acting from a female lead in these movies. Kirsten Dunst could never hang, (oh god awful pun) but Emma Stone seems certainly more than capable of pulling off Gwen Stacy, which is a story I’m glad to see come to fruition, as the famous issue from the comics concerning her and Spidey is one of the best. I know spoilers are a big point of contention here on the internet, but when the story she’s famous for centers around and is literally titled “The Night Gwen Stacy Died”, I don’t think it’s too bad to say I’ll be looking forward to Andrew Garfield finding the right balance of pathos and energy to mourn his doomed new girlfriend. Check out an interview with both Peter and Gwen over on Splashpage. Spider-Man is British now. DEAL WITH IT.

The other good thing, that not many seem to be mentioning, is that Marc Webb is directing the movie, which may or may not excite and/or frustrate you, depending on what you thought of 500 Days Of Summer. I loved the movie, and thought it was a brilliant and accomplished directorial debut, although I admittedly really really love Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The guy has done a lot of music videos for… well terrible bands like P.O.D, My Chemical Romance, Jimmy Eat World and even Hoobastank. So I will be expecting a terrible soundtrack from the movie, if his work is any indication of his musical tastes. The amount of videos he’s directed indicates that he is capable of working with a broad spectrum of creative input and meshing it into a whole, which is something Spider-Man definitely needs. Fresh ideas like the creative depiction of POV aerial work as well as a more realistic approach to his web slinging will help keep it from the cheesy looking CG-fest every web slinging scene was in the previous three.
Check out 6 Minutes of footage, for as long as it stays up:
Despite the inherent tiredness of yet another Spider-Man movie, it definitely appears this one is shaping up to take back its source material and forge its own identity in our theaters. It could possibly pave the way for other, better films where we can see our favorite villains given a new life with their proper due, instead of being quick afterthoughts. *COUGH* VENOM *COUGH* I am cautiously optimistic about the movie, and initially I would have dismissed this, though the talent involved, and the direction it’s taking has proven to look interesting. The final verdict on it being Amazing however, will have to wait until it’s July 3 release.
Avengers Assemble – Episodes 201, 202, & 203
Welcome to the second season of Avengers Assemble: The Series! And I of course mean welcome to OUR look at the second season, as it started a few months ago.
*ahem*
Anyway, The second season started off with a bang and kept on rolling with more hilarity and problems for the Avengers. Things to look forward to? Tony uses the Iron Man armor as collateral, Wonder Man’s sexuality is questioned, and the ridiculously awesome Mexican Avengers.
Continue reading Avengers Assemble – Episodes 201, 202, & 203