Batson's Blog

I recently made a very interesting discovery. It’s not quite at the level of sliced bread, but darn close. Let me set it up first though. I recently watched Home Alone , just like I do every Christmas. One of my gifts this year was the Dennis the Menace DVD. That’s how I made the discovery. I was watching Dennis the Menace – the scene with the – and noticed two familiar faces. Bill Erwin and Billie Bird played the married couple in this scene. Now if you’re like me, those names probably don’t ring a bell. What if I mention the movie Home Alone – specifically the scene in the airport with the mother? Yep. The same two actors. That’s two movies that Erwin and Bird co-starred in where they played a married couple. And – there’s another Home Alone connection. Devin Ratray – who will probably always be most famous for playing Kevin McAllister’s older brother, Buzz, in Home Alone is also in Dennis the Menace. He plays the babysitter’s boyfriend. Well ther...

After blogging about the best super villains come to life , I figured it only appropriate to come up with a list of the best super heroes come to life. Just like with the villains, some of my choices were made for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s the weaponry that makes a character. Other times it’s the costume. Sometimes it’s the physical Whatever the reason, the end result was successful. 10. Rachel Nichols as Scarlett ( G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra , 2010) I had to Google Rachel Nichols to write this blog post. I haven't seen her in anything before or since G.I. Joe. Turns out she's been in quite a few movies -- just nothing I've seen. She's proof that sometimes it's best to pick an actress that isn't as well known to play a role rather than going to the A-listers. She didn't set the world on fire with her portrayal, but she looked the part and captured the essence of the talented and confident (yet not arrogant) Scarlett. The only thing...

According to Hollywood, a good majority of the world’s population are writers. I was reading through some of the descriptions on Redbox while trying to find a good movie. Ruby Sparks : “Calvin is a young novelist who achieved phenomenal success early in his career … “ Leave : “Henry Harper is a successful novelist who has it all.” The Paperboy: "Miami Times reporter Ward Jansen returns to his sleepy hometown of Lately, Florida, where a decades-old façade of Southern gentility strains against the sweeping social changes of the 1960s." There are a lot of movies about writers that have been made, but it seems like there's a lot more of them the last few days. If it's not a movie about a secret agent, it's a movie about a writer. There's that old saying, advising people to 'write about what they know.' I get that. It makes sense. It's hard to write a novel or movie script about something you don't have any experience with. Is ...

When I recently blogged about Cobra Commander and the upcoming movies of 2013 , it got me thinking: what are some of the best real-life incarnations of villains from the comic books? I have a feeling Cobra Commander could easily fit into that category. Take a look at the cartoon-to-real-life transformation: Come G.I. Joe 2, we'll see if the acting lives up to how awesome the photos look. In the meantime, I came up with a little list. There’s a variety of reasons for my choices; sometimes it’s the costuming that makes the character come to life. Other times it’s the physical appearance. Sometimes it’s just really amazing special effects that makes it work. Whatever the reason, these are some of the best villains that made it to the big screen: 10. January Jones as Emma Frost ( X-Men: First Class , 2009) It's really just looks that landed Jones on this list. She looked the part. My fellow South Dakotan is not the most amazing actress, but she didn’t to be ...

Since I’ve never seen it, the original Total Recall is on my Netflix list. Last week, I watched the new Total Recall . That’s one that probably shouldn’t be on anyone’s Netflix list. There were some pretty brutal critic and viewer reviews of it last year. The movie also didn’t do very well at the theatre. BoxOfficeMojo shows that it made close to $59 million. Unfortunately for Columbia Pictures, the production budget was $125 million. It’s not actually that bad of a movie. It’s not good, but I’ve seen worse. Granted, I’ve never seen the original. This film is a remake, so it was already likely at a disadvantage with most fans of the original film. On paper it probably looked good. Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, and Jessica Biel star in the movie. Three decent actors with decent resumes behind them. It just didn’t work though. The movie starts off with Farrell and Biel running away from what appear to be Storm Trooper-like robots. Biel ends up reluctantly gettin...

The other day I was shopping at Target and I walked by the DVD section. It did my heart good to see several He-Man DVDs, sitting proud and prominent with the rest of the children’s DVDs. I’m a huge fan of He-Man, so I waited for this one to come out on DVD for a long time. It seemed the Masters of the Universe franchise never got the recognition I felt it deserved. While The Transformers and G.I. Joe were brought back as live action major motion pictures, He-Man’s only film adaptation is stuck in the 80’s, with cheap effects and a poor plot. About five years ago, the rights were finally sold to a distributor and the classic He-Man TV show from the 1980s were available to DVD. Hopefully today’s generation of children will be able to enjoy it as much as I did. Seeing He-Man on DVD got me thinking about other movies or TV shows that aren't on DVD, but really ought to be. Here are 10 of the TV shows and movies that are on my “It should be on DVD!” list: Honorable Men...

With all the super hero films that have been made in recent years, there’s one film that I feel movie makers are missing the boat on: Wonder Woman. There have been talks about making a Wonder Woman film since the early 2000’s when Sandra Bullock, Lucy Lawless, and former WWE wrestler Chyna were considered strong candidates for the role . In this – the era of the super hero film – a Wonder Woman script is apparently being worked on. It's the same story with the rumored Justice League movie. That puts a movie theater release at least two years out, so we’ll see if it actually happens. Let's say a script got approved and production dates were set. Who would be the raven-haired beauty to cast? Chyna probably wouldn't have given the best acting performance in the world, but in 2000 she did look the part. She, of course, had the athleticism. I don't know that it would have been anything more than a B-movie if Chyna was cast in the lead role, so it's probably ...