Welcome to the Phantom Screamer Blogozine

Chris "Sledge" Douglas gives you reviews, remenisences and the occaisional news item.

The Good, The Bad, The Everything

We say it as we see it. Sometimes it's not as bad as others make it seem. Sometimes it's worse.

From Comics, To Film, To Literature

If it interests us, we cover it. From the Golden Ages to Today.

Sunday Surprise

The Story of Superman

The Flash Review

Plastique

Showing posts with label Superman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Superman. Show all posts

Sunday, 16 November 2014

Sunday Morning Surprise - The Story of Superman


This documentary, released around the 50th Anniversary of Superman (some sources state 1990) and released on cheap VHS, covers many of the usual topics brought up in such documentaries, but focuses mainly on the Golden Age.  Most interestingly, it covers the contributions of the radio show (creation of kryptonite, etc), the Fleischer cartoons (but neglects to mention they brought the concept of Superman flying to the mythos), the serials, and most interestingly, a lot of the early merchandise.  All in all, it's a great watch!



Saturday, 26 July 2014

New Images of Batfleck and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman!



By: Chris "Sledge" Douglas


Fresh out of Comic Con, we have a number of sample images from the upcoming Batman V Superman film, a sequel to a film I have yet to officially review on this site (in fact, I was SO torn on it, I haven't reviewed much lately.  Well, that and a mix of busy-ness and laziness which I'll get to another time... maybe).

Tuesday, 26 November 2013

2 Vintage TV Segments About the Death of George Reeves








One cannot overstate how influential George Reeve's role as Superman in the 50s was. Not only was it the FIRST mainstream comic book superhero TV show, but it was HUGE. And George Reeve WAS Superman for generations of kids.

And unfortunately, this actually damaged Reeve's career; he was TOO well known as Superman. So well known that he had the unfortunate problem of being typecast in the role, and this caused him no shortage of grief.

Finally, his mysterious death did not let his legend die. Was it murder? Suicide? For YEARS people went back and forth with this very debate.

In fact, here are two key examples:


From: 20/20


From: ?



Tuesday, 15 October 2013

Superman 75th Anniversary Short



This... this was cool. Sure, it leapfrogged over a TON of stuff, but they REALLY hit the most important milestones... plus it's cool to hear the John Williams theme sort of melt into the Hans Zimmer one!

Tuesday, 9 July 2013

SUPERMAN~! in Superman Peanut Butter!





I've had this many a time in my youth.

And you know what?

It wasn't bad.

Monday, 3 June 2013

The Birthday Letter


Here is a condensed version of a CLASSIC episode of the Adventures of Superman episode, "The Birthday Letter," just in time for next week's Man of Steel release!


My favorite Superman is the Superman that concentrates on the troubles of the little guy, rather than the one that concentrates on punching super-powerful aliens.

Also... d'awwww!

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

The Man Of Steel Trailer - An Audience's Reaction


By: Chris "Sledge" Douglas

We've all seen this by now... this absolutely gorgeous trailer, that may well be the BEST trailer for any movie I've ever seen.

Let me go into this a bit before I do what I came here to do... and that's talk about the amazing reaction of my local theater's audience.

First, what I love about the trailer:

I love the music, first and foremost. the very humble piano during his childhood, the swelling as we see him get older, and finally the GLORIOUS symphonic rock out as he finally starts flying around punching things! Hans Zimmer has once again outdone himself here, as he did with his previous work on The Dark Knight series.

I also love how the trailer helps ground our expectations from the beginning, slowly leading to an amazing "wow," reaction once he's finally ready to go be Superman.

Now, for the meat 'n potatoes of this article. The audience reaction.

I've gone from being a regular movie-goer, to only going once in a while, because I'm just not interested in most of what Hollywood is offering recently. However, as I am now writing reviews, I've been going to the theater quite frequently. In short, I've been to four showings that each had this trailer.

Now, of course, the audience tends to still be talkative at this point. Either people are still having conversations, or they're talking to their viewing partners with the usual, "what is this? Who is that?" kind of conversations.

However, I've noticed something VERY interesting about my local theater's reaction to this one trailer. Silence.

Complete and utter silence. A smattering of "wow" here and there, but for each of the showings I've seen this trailer, people go from chatty to reverent silence in seconds as soon as we see the opening images of this trailer.

Well done, Nolan, Snyder, and Zimmer. Well done indeed.