July 8, 2005
FANTASTIC FOUR is one of the more pure artifacts of its time that we’ve encountered in this retrospective so far. While BATMAN BEGINS was pushing forward and innovating new approaches to comic book movies, this represents a studio (20th Century Fox) following, formulating and second-guessing their way into a flavorless, impact-less nothing of a super hero adaptation.
My feelings haven’t changed on this one – I thought it was laughable at the time, which I believe was the general consensus. But it was a hit, had a sequel that was a hit, presumably has people who are fond of it, though I’ve never met them. I’d say this is a better example of a “no cultural footprint” movie than AVATAR ever was. It’s about to get its second reboot and I don’t hear anyone calling for a Jessica Alba cameo (though come to think of it that would be cool). (read the rest of this shit…)
NICKEL BOYS is one of the underdog Best Picture nominees, one of the indies that doesn’t get that much discussion outside of film critic circles, definitely not seen as a frontrunner, but happy to be nominated. I was planning to see it anyway based on the effusive praise I’d seen, but the nomination gave me an extra push to see it on the big screen, so that’s a nice thing about the Oscars.
