Saturday, December 17, 2016

Saturday Night at the Movies 12/17/16!

Who cares what picture we see?



Jay Underwood allegedly would - while I find out for sure, this will be tonight's choice...













When I heard about a low budget Fantastic Four movie being produced in the mid 90's, I was intrigued. Would they pull it off?


Marvel did not have a great theatrical track record up to this point - I'd watched Stan Lee touting the crap out of the Captain America movie he was saying was coming out to celebrate Cap's 50th anniversary in 1989. Then he said it was going to come out later due to reshoots - not that anything was wrong with the movie - the filmmakers just wanted to pack it with even more action and awesome stuff. He then stopped talking about the movie altogether. The movie never opened anywhere near me - and I was shocked when I saw it at long last as a VHS new release in 1994 or thereabouts. I thought it was awful. (That fact didn't prevent me from buying the movie on Blu-Ray).


So here comes a Fantastic Four movie in the mid 90's as CGI is in its infancy on a Roger Corman budget. Still hopeful I kept an eye out for the movie to be released.  Then it wasn't. Once again the movie just disappeared without a trace.


Years pass, and I have a friend who lives in New York. He calls me up one day and asks me if I'd like to buy a copy of the never-released Fantastic Four movie for $20 which he'll send me in the mail? I tell him hell yes and not too much later a VHS copy shows up.


What I thought of the movie isn't important here. What this new documentary is about is what we're here to chat about. Twenty-plus years later, nearly everyone involved has gotten together to tell the real story of why this movie was made, how this movie was made - and why it was never officially released and is still only available in those bootleg editions.


I know the story and find it fascinating - but if you don't I don't want to spoil it in any way. I have not watched the documentary yet - but my crowdfunding got me a fine DVD and we could be checking out one of the few movies Roger Corman ever had shelved - even this very evening - if you care to come off your shelf and come check it out with me.










Until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

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