More from Vodo and a look back at Batman: Dead End

 And just like in my previous post on the 18th of April, there is another bundle up on Vodo, again it's a pay/donate bundle and this time the genre is horror.

  Check out the Creepy Bundle and part with some money to help other film makers.


  While we're discussing independent content. Here is Sandy Collora's 2003 Fan film/short film Batman: Dead End.

  Why am I sharing this? Because I believe everyone needs to see it, and I hadn't watched it for several years, but even all these years on it's a great film. It really is well done and shows great promise for others wanting to produce short films and fan films alike. Granted Sandy had a reasonable budget, but with the special effects and costuming you can see where it went.
  Although over-acted the part of the Joker was played by actor Andrew Koenig (yes, Walter Koenig's son) who sadly lost his battle with depression in 2010, sadly I only just discovered this upon re-watching.

 R.I.P. Andrew Koenig

August 17th, 1968 - February 14th, 2010

Nahnah nahnah nahnah nahnah.... Just Nah! (No)

 On the heels of a disappointing Superman film, with Man of Steel, followed by the disappointing announcement of Ben Affleck cast to play Batman/Bruce Wayne in the upcoming Batman Vs. Superman movie, Zack Snyder posted this picture of a paunch Batman and the new Batmobile.

 Sadly, I have very low expectations for this film, where Snyder has previously impressed, he just seems to have read into his own hype and keeps making larger and larger unapproachable films. While watching Man of Steel I couldn't help wondering why not combine all the flashbacks into one segment for pacing alone, there was no need to keep dropping in and out of present day at such a jarring rate of knots. By the end of the film I just didn't care and was more worried about the obvious collateral damage caused by the overtly long and over CG'ed final battle scenes. I'm not a Superman fan and I can't identify with the character as it is, so don't get me wrong, I was probably going to be nigh impossible to impress, but there are no endearing aspects to the film in my eyes. 

 Before I'm classed as a Snyder hater, I must say I really enjoyed his remake of George A. Romeros Dawn of the Dead, his adaptation of Frank Millers 300 (bar David Wenham's appalling Narration) and I (among the few) also enjoyed his adaptation of Alan Moores Watchmen. Even Sucker Punch had some good redeeming scenes for an otherwise flash over substance film.

  The saddest part of all is that the picture above with the tiniest amount of editing in PAINT! can further lose any redeeming qualities thusly:

  DC are on the back foot, this is obvious and have been for some time, Christopher Nolan's foray into the Batman universe started well but ended poorly, and you can see that Marvel have taken over the Superhero film universe with their regular (closely OR loosely) tied films (even if some of them were TERRIBLE or too interested in the end game) which lead to something larger at the end of each "phase", Phase one ending in The Avengers. But you can see by the cast announcements and their characters that the Batman Vs. Superman film is going to be a poorly devised fast track to a Justice League film and will lack the character development Marvel so richly achieved knowing they had an end game in mind. DC are winning in the Television stakes, but are facing a huge floundering at the box office. Who would have thought "Comic book" movies would mean anything in the grand scheme of things?

* Zack Snyder's picture sourced from Comingsoon.net

** Spoiler Alert: Marvel Phase 3 and 4 possible leak