Super

Year: 2010 Director: James Gunn Screenplay: James Gunn Starring: Rainn Wilson, Elliot Page, Kevin Bacon, Liv Tyler, Michael Rooker, Nathan Fillion, Andre Royo Running Time: 96 minutes Genre: Superhero, action, comedy, drama Summary: Diner cook Frank D'Arbo (Wilson) has had two perfect moments in his otherwise miserable life: One was marrying recovering addict Sarah (Tyler), and the other was pointing a policeman in the direction of a fleeing purse-snatcher. When Sarah leaves him for sleazy local drug pusher Jock (Bacon), Frank falls into despair. After becoming fascinated by a TV show about a religious superhero called The Holy Avenger (Fillion), Frank experiences a divine vision in which God touches his brain. Inspired by this Frank puts together a home-made costume and sets out to fight crime as The Crimson Bolt. His favourite method is to hit criminals on the head with a pipe wrench. However, as well as drug pushers and child molestors, he also attacks people who happen to push ahead of him at the movies. Frank's activities attract the attention of excitable comic-book store clerk Libby (Page) who becomes his sidekick, Boltie. However it turns out that she is even more violent than Frank is. Opinions: Let's get the obvious thing out of the way first: With it's concept of an ordinary person becoming a superhero despite having no powers or real abilities is bound to be compared to Kick Ass (2010) which was released a year earlier and has a very similar theme. In fact in both plot and style the films are very different. Super is a darker film, and more ambiguous. Frank D'Arbo is pretty obviously unhinged right from the start, while Dave Lizewski (the protagonist of Kick Ass) is basically a guy who has read a few too many comic-books. The film is basically a dark comedy but there are several genuinely disturbing violent scenes which pull the laughs up short. The scene where Frank almost beats together a guy and a girl for cutting in line at the movies is really disturbing because it is both funny and very shocking. As the intense, deranged but starngely likeable oddball at the centre of the film Rainn Wilson does a brilliant job with a character who is not too far removed from his most famous role as Dwight Schrute in the US version of The Office. The scene where he breaks down into a self-hating rant is a superb performance. Ellen Page, however, comes close to stealing the film as the psychotic comic-book store clerk and superhero fan who sees in Frank the chance to live out her fantasies. She also has a genuinely creepy seduction scene. By the way, this movie convinced me that if they ever make a movie of the X23 comic-book Ellen Page would be perfect for the lead role. This movie is bound to be a big cult movie in years to come. Some audiences will probably be put off by the uneasy tone, shifting from laugh out loud comedy to intense violence, and some may find the lead characters difficult to warm to, but for superhero fans looking for something edgier this is a must-see. I enjoyed the hell out of it. "Actually, the guys kinda got a point. I mean, I wonder all the time why no-one's never just stood up and become a real superhero." - Libby (Ellen Page) in Super "Shut up, crime!": Elliot Page and Rainn Wilson in Super

Firefly

Year: 2002
Directors: Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, Vern Gillum, Michael Grossman, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Marita Grabiak, David Solomon, Allan Kroeker, Jim Contner and Thomas J. Wright.
Screenplay: Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, Jane Espenson, Drew Z. Greenberg, Ben Edlund, Jose Molina, Cheryl Cain and Brett Matthews. Series created by Joss Whedon.
Starring: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, Summer Glau and Ron Glass.
Running Time: 14 episodes over 1 season. One 90 minute episode, otherwise 42 minutes per episode.
Genre: Science-fiction, western, drama


Summary: In the year 2517 the human race has moved to other star systems most of which are ruled by a brutal regime known as "the Alliance". Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Fillion), who seven years earlier fought on the losing side of a war against the Alliance, is commander of the Firefly-class transport ship Serenity, which travels among the remote frontier planets searching for ny type of work (whether of the legal or illegal variety) that will keep food on the table and the old ship flying. Also on the crew are Reynolds' wartime friend Zoe (Torres), Zoe's husband and the ship's pilot Wash (Tudyk), violent ex-mercenary Jayne (Baldwin), perpetually cheerful engineer Kaylee (Staite), professional "Companion" (a kind of highly respected courtesan) Inara (Baccarin) who gives the ship a level of respectability and social standing, preacher (or "Shepherd") Book (Glass) and doctor Simon Tam (Maher) who is on the run from the Alliance with his genius but delusional and occasionally violent sister River (Glau), who Simon rescued from an Alliance facility where she was being subjected to horrific experiments.

Opinion: The concept of Firefly was suggested to Joss Whedon after he read the novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, which chronicles the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Whedon wanted to make a show about people who had fought on the losing side of a war and their experiences afterwards as pioneers on the outskirts of civilization. The show mixes science-fiction with elements from Western movies, with many of the planets visited by the characters being like remote Old West outposts or towns, which I don't think is an unreasonable idea of what those type of worlds could be like. In science-fiction terms, the show is notable for the fact that there are no alien creatures or talking robots or anything like that. Also, refreshingly, they accept the fact that there is no sound in space.
In my opinion Firefly is very possibly one of the best, if not the best, science-fiction shows ever made. The show was well-written, with witty and intelligent scripts. The endlessly quotable dialogue mixed existing slang, invented words, Old West-style dialect and snatches of Chinese (in fact there is a strong Chinese influence in many of the show's set designs and costumes). The look of the show often used highly mobile cameras which in some scenes created a semi-documentary look. The acting was always excellent and helped create many memorable characters with Fillion's Captain Reynolds being the coolest space hero since Han Solo in Star Wars (1977).
So what went wrong? The show was produced by and originally shown on the Fox network who cancelled the show after only eleven of the fourteen episodes that were made had been screened. The network never seemed to care much about the show right from the start. Episodes were screened out of order (although Firefly doesn't really have one on-going story it does have running themes and storylines which run throughout the series) the extended pilot episode, which introduces the shows characters, themes and plotlines wasn't shown until the end of the run because the network wanted a more "action-packed" episode to open the series. Episodes were moved around the schedules and the series was marketed as kind of an "action-comedy" instead of the serious science-fiction drama that Whedon intended (although there is still a lot of action and humour in it). However, after reruns and DVD releases, the show has become kind of a cult series with a hardcore fanbase, known as "Browncoats" (a slang term in the show for the army in which Reynolds and Zoe fought). The show was popular enough on DVD for a movie sequel, Serenity, which was released in 2005 to critical acclaim but sadly not much success at the box office.
This was a brilliant television series which was sadly cancelled far too soon. However what there is of it is totally shiney.

Slither

Year:  2006
Director:  James Gunn
Screenplay:  James Gunn
Starring:  Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rooker, Gregg Henry, Tania Saulnier and Jenna Fischer
Running Time:  95 minutes
Genre:  Horror, comedy, science-fiction




Summary:  A meteorite crashes near the quiet, small town of Wheelsy, South Carolina, and splits open to reveal a small, pale alien creature.  The creature is discovered by local bigwig Grant Grant (Rooker), and it shoots a small dart from it's back which burrows into Grant''s chest.  Grant develops an insatiable hunger for meat, and his young wife, Starla (Banks), begins to notice bizarre physical changes.  The town's sheriff, Bill Pardy (Fillion), investigates as pets, livestock and eventually people start to go missing.  Pardy discovers that Grant has transformed into a grotesque, multi-limbed monster and has been breeding countless slug-like aline parasites, which break out and start to infect the town's population. 

Opinions:  This movie is a blend of comedy and horror and mostly it works very well.  It looks back to earlier horror films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Night of the Living Dead (1968) and in particular the early David Cronenberg films such as Shivers (1975) which has it's notorious parasite in the bathtub scene referenced here, and Rabid (1977).  The plentiful gruesome special-effects range from being pretty impressive to fairly average CGI monsters.  The film benefits enormously from having genuinely likeable and engaging characters.  The cast are all good, with Nathan Fillion (who is probably best known for starring in the TV series Firefly (2002) and it's spin-off film Serenity (2005)) being a particular standout, showing himself as a talented comic actor as well as making a convincing action hero.  Of course, it's in the mix of genres where so many horror-comedy films fall down but this one successfully sidesteps the trap, managing to be genuinely funny as well as generating real tension and shocks.  The movie is well written and writer-director James Gunn keeps everything moving fast.  Surprisingly, the film was a box-office flop when it was released, which is a real shame because it is a lot of fun.  I can imagine it might be because the film was too gruesome for a lot of comedy fans and too light-hearted for some of the hard-core horror fans.  However I can imagine it becoming a something of a cult hit on DVD, which would be only right for a movie such as this which wears it's "B" movie credentials proudly.