Edgier take on Spider-Man features surprising new villains and action

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Since my buddy Jonathan reviewed the new Spider-Man movie when it was in the theater, I didn’t get a chance to see it. But since I did such good review of The Avengers, he let me review this new Spider-Man DVD. Man, I was really surprised to see that the new villain is Superman! I mean, they’re both good guys, so shouldn’t they be teaming up? There are a lot of team-ups that happen in this movie, but surprisingly Superman and Spider-Man never tag team anybody.

There are actually a lot of heels for Spider-Man to fight in this movie. After he catches a couple of robbers, he’s attacked by Black Cat on a rooftop. Things get pretty rough between them, but it seems like rough battles like this one make this little pussy purr, if you know what I mean. After Spider-Man shoots his web all over her chest, she says she will see him around and jumps off the building.

When Spider-Man goes back home, his Spidey sense tingles because Doctor Octopus is up to something. Then you see Lex Luthor (I wonder if that’s where Lex Luger got his name) and his secretary Miss Teschmacher talking about shooting two missles so Superman can only stop one. But then Supergirl shows up and Lex Luthor puts a kryptonite necklace on her. Lex leaves to fix the trajectory of his missile or something, so Supergirl tells Teschmacher she’ll do anything she wants if she takes the kryptonite necklace off of her. They take more than the necklace off so Teschmacher can get what she wants from Supergirl, but she keeps telling Teschmacher she can do whatever she wants, so she does. Teschmacher looks a lot different in this movie than she does on her TNA profile. I think this might even be a fake Tessmacher, kind of like when WWE had a fake Diesel and Razor Ramon when Kevin Nash and Scott Hall went to WCW.

Lex Luthor and Doctor Octopus get arrested somehow and end up across from each other in jail and realize they have a lot in common. Then Lex breaks them out with this explosive thing he has hidden under his skin or something. Then it goes to The Daily Bugle, where Peter Parker works. He’s actually Spider-Man, but nobody knows that. Lois Lane and Clark Kent are there, too. They actually work at The Daily Planet (and Clark Kent is actually Superman), but the two newspapers are working together on an article about Lex and Doc breaking out of prison. Lois tells Clark that Parker’s boss, J. J. Jameson, makes her think of her favorite porn star, which made me pop. But Clark breaks kayfabe and tells Lois that Jameson isn’t the porn star’s real name.

I watched part of that other Spider-Man movie with my cousin last week and he told me the guy playing J. J. Jameson (that makes me think of J. J. Dillon!) is Rob Black and he used to run Xtreme Pro Wrestling. I never saw XPW, but I heard it was pretty good. I’m sure Vince already owns all that footage, too. Anyway, then Lois Lane and Betty Brant almost get into a fight and I started screaming, “Cat fight! Cat fight! Cat fight!” like Joey Styles!

Lex and Doc kidnap Lois so Superman will come save her, but they tell him they will only let her go if he brings Spider-Man to them. So Superman finds Spider-Man’s friend Mary Jane Watson and convinces her and her friend Liz Osborn to let him come inside so they can reveal where Spider-Man is. They end up revealing a lot more than that! Then Superman finds Spider-Man and takes him to Doc and Lex, but the heels have a kryptonite trap waiting and capture both of them. Lex makes a deal with Lois to set Superman free, so she does what he wants her to do. Lex let’s Lois out of her cage and it takes them little while but, I mean, you know. But Lex still tries to kill Superman, then Spider-Man wakes up. Lex and Doc are overpowering Spider-Man and Superman, then Spider-Woman shows up and saves the day.

Superman flies away with Lois, but Spider-Man and Spider-Woman get tangled up in a pretty amazing web for a while before Spider-Man squirts his webbing on Spider-Woman’s chest. Seems like that’s how these Spider-People show affection or something. I mean, you know. Then it shows some guy sitting in a dark room and holding a green mask, so I guess that will be the villain in the next movie. Maybe it has something to do with Chyna’s She-Hulk movie since her skin is green, too. Either way, I like this edgier version of Spider-Man and I’ll probably watch the next movie even if Chyna’s not in it.

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Georgia Wrestling Now welcomes Professor Morte, Cyrus the Destroyer and A.J. Steele

“Manborg” pays homage to low-budget ’80s sci-fi

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When the Buried Alive Film Festival opens tonight, horror fans will see absinthe-inspired apparitions (The Transmission), a Kafka-esque transformation from outer space (Decapoda Shock), the gothic horror of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven and other sinister celluloid creations. But one film in particular caught Wrestling with Pop Culture‘s attention for its intentionally schlocky special effects and a dystopian storyline that incorporates elements from ’80s sci-fi greats like Flash Gordon, The Running Man and RoboCop with kung fu films and the Dracula mythos to create a dystopian man vs. machine vs. demons battle known as Manborg. It’s not the first time writer/director Steven Kostanski, who does special effects for film and television by day, has created something that is an obvious nod to the low-budget kitsch he grew up on. With a Buried Alive opening-night screening of Manborg tonight, Kostanski discusses his B movie influences, his previous films and possible upcoming projects.

The first thing that jumps out at me about Manborg is the weirdly wonderful special effects. The film has a very low-budget ’80s feel to it. Was that done intentionally or because of budgetary restraints, or both?

All the movies I make are inspired by my love of ’80s sci-fi, action and horror movies, specifically the really low-budget knock-off ones that were inspired by stuff like The Terminator, Aliens and other bigger-budget spectacle movies. I like stuff from Empire Pictures, Full Moon Features, stuff like Arena, Robot Jox, The Guyver, I Come in Peace, the Pumpkin Master movies, Trancers, Abraxas, the Captain Power TV show – all that stuff inspired this movie, and it also fit in nicely with my budgetary restraints. The movie was made for about $1,000.

I can’t help but think that Flash Gordon was also an influence on Manborg, especially those arena fight scenes.

Flash Gordon, to me, is definitely a lost gem because it came right at that time where it was between the ’60s and early ’70s way of doing sci-fi and the post Star Wars system. So it doesn’t really know what it wants to be, and I think it has a lot of really fun, crazy stuff to it. But I’d say that was a pretty big influence on Manborg.

Manborg is part of the Buried Alive Film Fest’s opening night festivities tonight. Where else has the film screened previously?

It’s screened all over the world, pretty much. We had a nine-city tour of Canada and it premiered at Fantastic Fest in Texas in September 2011. Then it did Toronto After Dark, played the Brisbane International Film Festival in Australia and it’s been playing consistently for the past year. And it’s going to keep playing, apparently. It just finished its theatrical run here in Toronto last night, but we’re going to be booking follow-up screenings over the next few months. So it’s going to play once a month. I’m pretty sure tonight will be its premiere in Georgia.

Buried Alive is a horror film festival. Manborg definitely has that aesthetic, but it also incorporates weird sci-fi, kung fu and other elements. What do you expect horror film fans to take away from this movie?

I certainly wouldn’t call it a horror movie, though it has a lot of influences with the creatures and the overall setup of the movie. I’d call it more of an action comedy than anything. With these kind of genre movies, there’s so much crossover with stuff I feel like any audience that has a taste for anything from the ’80s will be all over it. There’s so much cross-pollination of genre tropes that I think it can reach a pretty wide audience.

After the Manborg credits, there’s what appears to be an extended trailer for another horror comedy called Bio-Cop. Is that something that’s actually in the works?

We’ve got some stuff that we’re writing, but a lot of people have told me I should do a Bio-Cop feature film. The short film is attached to Manborg after the credits, much line how trailers would be after the credits on VHS movies. We’re trying to do it properly and get some funding, which takes a long time. But we are writing stuff and pretty soon we should have a big announcement for people. It’s similar to an earlier film I made called Lazer Ghosts 2, which is also a faux trailer/short film that basically condenses the whole narrative into a short running time. That seems to entice people and get them wanting a feature, so we’ll see.

“Rocky Horror” is still alive in Atlanta