Batman Crescent Night Story

 

I'd been recently playing 8 and 16 bit Batman games (some of my all time favorites) and somehow ended up in a YouTube rabbit hole. Which lead me to this, the Japanese intro and outro to their incarnation of the classic cartoon. I've always thought Japanese intros were better and this so much better than the one we got. Admittedly it's the music that's selling me. That's a great intro song... and outro as well. I've been trying to find it on Spotify to no avail. There's like a million different Batman songs. However, I did manage to find it on YouTube as copied from a record. Both Songs! That's a Bat Start!

Mortal Kombat

Like many others, I watched the new Mortal Kombat movie this past weekend. With a Doordashed order of Red Lobster (which in itself is another post), the Mrs. and I turned on HBO Max and started the movie. I just wanted to point out that I initially misspelled 'turned' and the spelling suggestion was turd. This is a reboot of the MK film franchise after the second movie was so bad that it took 24 years to hope people forgot about it. Sadly, this wasn't wasn't that great either. 

To be fair, Mortal Kombat doesn't have a solid track record outside of the games. The first movie is a pretty well regarded B movie. Video game adaptions are usually more miss than hit. After months of hype and an awesome trailer, this looked like it was finally going to be the breakout video game movie and really nail Mortal Kombat as most view it should.

I'm honestly not crapping on the movie. I enjoyed myself while watching the movie, as not so great as it was. It was a bad movie, but a fun bad movie. Actually, the first scene was great. I wish the movie was just more of that. Kano was generally fun. So was Kabal. Sub-Zero and Scorpion? Wonderful. I wish Goro has more to do, but liked what of him was there. Mortal Kombat didn't live up to my expectations, but I still enjoyed it.

Godzilla vs Kong

After waiting an eternity, Godzilla vs Kong was finally released last Wednesday. Thanks to covid-19 adding a few more delays, the movie was released to theaters and streaming via HBO Max. That's how I watched it, at home with some takeout from a steakhouse Saturday night. I'd love to have watched it on release day, but as I've said before here- my work schedule makes watching movies hard during the week. Not to mention I had just got my internet back after a EF-4 tornado went through my town last week. After all the delays, a few more days didn't seem that bad.

I loved this movie. Which you probably guessed already. I've been very happy with the Monsterverse's use of Kong and Godzilla and the world they gave them to play in. Ultimately this movie was the planned culmination of the series. So depending on how the pendulum swings it could be the last movie or the start of a new phase. Considering how successful it's been so far, hopefully they'll let them fight for a few more movies.

Speaking of success, the movie is pulling the kind of box office you'd expect in a big budget Hollywood blockbuster before covid-19 changed everything. That's pretty amazing. While the toys have been selling steadily at my local Walmarts, they were completely cleared out Saturday morning. Considering the extra stock they put out a few days more and that's awesome. Finding a Mechagodzilla might prove to be a challenge. If that's due to a successful movie making people want monsters toys, then I'm happy to share in the selection.

Godzilla: King of Monsters new trailer

Dang, this looks wonderful.

Batmania

When it comes down to favorite versions of Batman, hands down mine's the Tim Burton movies. Always has been, always will. For me, Batman movies usually overdoes the dark and gritty or goes overboard with the whiz bang. The 1989 Batman was on even level with those things and just plain fun to boot. The assorted merchandise that came with it was part of the fun too. For a while that Batman logo on glossy black was everywhere and who couldn't love that? Though, even though it's hard to find evidence of now, the neon colors on black of Batman Returns merchandise are far superior in my opinion. It's hard not to love a bright orange line art of the Batmobile on a black t-shirt with technical specifications. Damn near impossible to be exact.

Thinking of the toy line that came with the 1989 movie by Toy Biz before they made Marvel figures, not only am I filled with just great thoughts of how good Toy Biz figures were before they started doing Marvel Legends (the Legends get all the focus), but also my discovery of the line. We regularly got catalogs from Warner Brothers filled with merchandises tied into the studios various movies and tv shows modeled by the stars of said shows and movies. One fateful late spring afternoon the newest edition of said catalog came and it was majorly Batman themed stuff. Almost nothing but Batman stuff including the toys that could be ordered before they were in stores! I think I read that catalog cover to cover a million times.