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As I sit here typing this, I’m looking at the 70s version of Captain America starring Reb Brown. It’s reminding me how through the years, for whatever reason, it’s been difficult to adapt a good version of this character in a live format with his source material intact. Although in recent years, Marvel entertainment has seen decent quality films based on their characters released into theaters, many fans have felt some trepidation at the prospect of Cap coming to the big screen because of the previous versions. So the big question is: does this film conquer the fears of fanboys (as well as general moviegoers) and deliver to them a good product?

Thanks to the talents of Joe Johnston, Chris Evans, and many others involved, I have to say a resounding “yes.” Captain America: The First Avenger is a good, fun film I’d recommend to anybody.
The story starts in Norway during WW2, where a small village is about to be overrun by German forces, led by an imposing officer (Hugo Weaving) with a strange insignia on his uniform. He searches the place and finds his objective: a glowing box-shaped artifact that seems to possess immense power. The officer orders the village destroyed as he walks off.

Meanwhile, in New York, a small skinny kid (Chris Evans) is trying to enlist in the armed forces so he can help defeat the Nazi war machine explained in all the propaganda around him. However, the examining doctor takes one look at this kid, sees a list of health issues within him and immediately declares him 4F. It turns out this is the 5th time the kid named Steve has tried to sign on, but his heart is filled with The American Dream and he won’t be denied. He’s been bullied upon a lot but won’t stay down, a fact which endears him to his best friend James “Bucky” Barnes. Bucky has enlisted and wants one last night to go to some big event with Steve and a couple ladies to help keep them company. The event is entertaining to just about everyone, except Steve who notices a new recruiting station he hasn’t tried yet. As looks around the place, a quiet older man named Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci) takes notice of Steve’s general demeanor and decides to intervene in Steve’s latest attempt…

Soon, at a local army base, Steve begins his basic training and stands out among the candidates… for all the wrong reasons. The base commander Colonel Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) insists the old man is making a mistake and that a lot is on the line for their secret project, and the drill instructor Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) is also skeptical, but Erskine is just as stubborn about Steve continuing. Over the course of training, Steve demonstrates other attributes which prove him perfect for Eskine’s plans, and soon is transferred to a seemingly innocuous shop in New York City, where Erskine lays out everything to him.

If you’ve been a fan of comics or have seen TV promos / trailers, for this film (or have any instincts from reading the synopsis so far), you know Steve eventually becomes the super soldier Captain America, but the road to becoming this legend is not one he expects, or enjoys particularly. It takes Steve quite a bit to get into the war, and we are spectators to a good chunk of it. This is both a strength and weakness of the film (which I’ll address momentarily). So much is shown in Steve’s development as well as the American mindset during WW2, particularly the visuals. So first I’m going to give props to director Joe Johnston on capturing so many elements of this time and moving through them smoothly. He’d cut his period piece teeth directing the film adaptation of The Rocketeer, a comic with many elements similar to Captain America. Johnston also worked in the George Lucas and Steven Speilberg camps and brings competent energy to the action sequences, designed to emulate Raiders of the Lost Ark to some degree. His camerawork is also great for some of the grander mountain and aerial shots capturing the landscapes as well as the characters’ place in them. Also, he’s got a decent grasp for 3-D and doesn’t let that element overwhelm the movie.

Continuing with the visuals, special mention must be given to two departments. First, the visual effects team which made Chris Evans look like a 90 pound weakling. Very much as convincing as The Lord of the Rings and The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons in terms of altering an actor so completely. Second, major props to the art direction team (consisting of 9 people, so I won’t list them all here, but hey, there’s always imdb) which brought so many nuances of the 40s and respected the comic legacy that Captain America represented over the years, as well as visual cues meant to tie this film to The Avengers when it’s released. If you’ve been watching the previous films such as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Thor, you’ll be rewarded here as many things start to come together.

This leads me to the screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely. These guys did a wonderful job taking up elements of Cap’s origins created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. There are decades in the history of this character and you can tell these guys had fun picking from it, even incorporating elements of the popular current comic run by Ed Brubaker as well as The Ultimates version by Mark Millar. There are people who say that if a character is a really good moral man like Cap or Superman, or similar mindset, that he’s boring and impossible to write stories for. These guys managed to embrace Steve’s patriotic resolve and build a lot for him to deal with. How did he get this mindset, and how does he deal with everything thrown at him? Also, why this villain known as the Red Skull such a nasty S.O.B. to deal with? (Oh, for the nitpickers out there who’ve been complaining before seeing the movie, the organization Red Skull leads is a sub-division for Hitler’s Nazi regime, so even if you don’t see him wearing a swastika 100% of the time, he’s still a Nazi with the mania required to attempt world conquest. Deal with the change and get over it.)

Speaking of the Red Skull, Hugo Weaving is absolutely perfect portraying this megalomaniac. Nothing will stop his destructive plans for America and humanity in general. Yes we’ve seen him villainous before in The Matrix trilogy, but here, he brings powerful screen presence to an evil that others have failed in attempting. It’s a genuine sight to behold, and not just for the make-up work. The rest of the supporting cast does equally solid work and no one slacks in their performances. I’d not heard of most of the people here besides Tommy Lee Jones and Stanley Tucci, but man I enjoyed everyone on the screen.

This brings me to one element that anchors the film. If you have a terrible actor as a poor lead character, not much else is going to go right. Marvel pursued Chris Evans to play Steve and he initially refused because he was scared he didn’t what it would take to pull off the character. As you may surmise from my reaction to so much of this film, I’d say he pulled it off handily. Most think only of him as the Johnny Storm / The Human Torch in the recent Fantastic Four movies (of which he and Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm / The Thing were about the only folks worth watching). However if you see his work in Sunshine, you might realize his ability to do Captain America justice shouldn’t really be a surprise. Evans shows genuine range as Steve and generates great chemistry with everyone around him. Although you do see him kicking butt and slinging the shield, his best moments come when playing off Tucci and Atwell in particular, with who he demonstrates excellent on-screen chemistry. Evans actively wanted to leave the wisecracks behind with the Johnny Storm character (in fact, it’s Jones who gets in all the best jokes) and show Cap’s earnest conviction. He’s very effective here as well as being a soldier-type without many social graces. Those moments are equally fun when Evans is on screen.

The character of Steve Rogers is actually an interesting guy in many respects, one I wish we could get to spend more time with as he battles Red Skull’s forces. The problem with this film though, lies in the fact so much is depicted and flashed forward that we don’t get adequate time to connect with everyone shown. This makes for a more passive viewing and, although I was more used to this the second time I saw the film, it still feels like a flaw to me. I know the this movie, as much as it is an origin story, is a lead in for The Avengers and is being handled the way the current Avengers animated series had first several episodes play as origin stories for the heroes who form the team. But still, I’d liked to have seen more of what Cap was doing while fighting in WW2 so as to connect more with him and Bucky and everyone else. Maybe there could be a sequel where he fights Baron Zemo or other super villains in that era or at least we get good flashbacks should they choose to tell modern stories from now on. (Evans mentioned he has a 6 picture deal to play the star spangled hero.)

Don’t get me wrong though. This issue aside, Captain America: The First Avenger is a pretty darn good action drama with the right touch of goofy fun that doesn’t distract from the story’s overall pacing. I’ve got a list of favorite comic based films, and so far this year, the ones based on Marvel properties have caused me to alter that list three times, counting this movie. It’s one I recommend to anyone searching for good summer fare or a reason to study up on pop culture and wartime history. Marvel’s got another winner here and I can’t wait for The Avengers, or another Captain America movie.

One last thing: Thank you Joe Johnston for being the filmmaker who finally got this character right.

Grade: A-

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Cutting foot-loose after 25+ years is still fun

Ok, look, for all the people who don’t want to look at the remake of Footloose because it might ruin their childhood, I’ve got two words for you: stop hating. Give this movie a chance and you might actually have a decent time with it.

It starts off in somewhat unfamiliar territory. We see a group of teens go dancing at a club outside their town, smoke, drink and jam a rather fun 80s song while diving back home… only to come head on with tragedy. In response, the town’s leading preacher Rev. Shaw Moore (played by Dennis Quaid), who lost his only son, helps the town council to enact laws against drinking, dancing and loud music among other things so that parents can protect teens against the evils of the outside world.

Three years later, teenager Ren McCormack (Kenny Wormald) arrives in the town of Bomont,Ga.where he’s greeted by his uncle’s family who’s agreed to take him in. Ren hates the prospects of small town life but is determined to get a job, pull his weight and make the best of things. His uncle Wes (Ray McKinnon) decides to make Ren a bargain; he’ll give Ren the old car sitting in his garage if Ren can fix it up himself.  Accepting the challenge, our leading teen swiftly  builds up his awfully familiar new ride, and tests it out while listening to Quiet Riot… which it turns out the local police are not too thrilled to hear about.

The incident is spoken about when Ren heads to church with his family, and gets introduced to Rev. Moore and his daughter Ariel (Julianne Hough) in hopes Ren can make a new friend before starting high school. Ren does ok though eventually getting a new job and meeting his first friend  Willard (Miles Teller), but can’t quite get past this whole ‘no dancing in public rule’ which seems to be crushing teens’ spirits in town. However, it seems the teens have their own ways of letting off steam and being themselves… which is where many of the problems come into play.

If you’re one of the people familiar with the original film, much of what takes place here shouldn’t surprise you. The script here remains faithful to the original film and has some cute nods to the 80s, as do the visual settings and the music which is remade and sample at times. There are some new elements though such as the opening scene which sets the tone differently but with the same effect. A couple challenges Ren has to deal with here add to his plight, but he’s shown to be fairly smart in getting out of them. One thing that’s different is that his Uncle is depicted differently and from what’s shown in the story, may have been a bit rebellious as a youth, so is able to relate to Ren. This is different than the previous where all adults couldn’t fathom teen motivations at all. He was an interesting supporting character, as is Willard as the movie progresses. Actually, in the performance of Miles Teller (who somewhat resembles Chris Penn from the original), Willard becomes a bit of a scene stealer to be honest and may alone be a good reason to see this movie.

The best thing about this movie though (besides the dancing which is intense and well-choreographed) is the fact that Wormald, Hough and everyone else involved here make the characters their own and don’t attempt to give the exact same interpretations as the 80s film. Though the dialog has a couple bits that might make him do so, Wormald isn’t trying to imitate Kevin Bacon the whole time. Dennis Quaid isn’t trying to do John Lithgow impersonations, as Quaid comes across as a bit more hard-nosed here, which is ironic considering Quaid has portrayed seriously rebellious characters in movies like “Innerspace” and “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia” (a fact I’m betting isn’t lost on the casting director). This is a very smart approach on the actors’ part as well as director Craig Brewer’s, which allowed everyone to inject their own high spirit into the film.

Brewer brings good focus on the movements of the dances as well as the flavor of rural lifestyles, much like he did on Black Snake Moan and Hustle + Flow. He’s someone who can channel this flavor of American life without cheapening it for cheese value, which is just what a remake of Footloose would require. There are a couple scenes that don’t translate totally in this incarnation but they’re minor grievances against the overall decent execution shown here. Brewer also makes certain this is very much aGeorgiastory as many eyecatches add to the country and sometimes urban attitudes present.

Yeah, I know, they’ve remade another film from the 80s and there’s resistance to seeing it because it was a classic, but it’s a film folks of this generation can enjoy and relate to. There’s an anime film called Megazone 23 where the protagonist finds that instead of living in the 80s like he thought, 500 years have actually passed and everything around him is controlled by a computer. The reason given for this in the movie is that the 80s were the most peaceful time mankind knew a felt happiest in. (Yes, Matrix fans this sounds familiar for a reason.)  This is likely a mindset many in their 30s and 40s are feeling right now, leading to high ticket sales for remakes of 80s titles. At least these characters have gone away for a long while unlike say Freddy Krueger or Spider-Man before a revamp was produced, so there’s no viewer fatigue to deal with while watching the movie.

In short, this new version of Footloose is well-worth seeing at the theaters for a fun time either to reminisce or to experience for the first time. Recommended.

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Is 2011 Truly The Year of the Bat?

The Batman mythos has changed several times in the 70 year history of the character. In the past couple decades, he has been seen as a brooding detective and manhunter, among other things. Two stories are considered key in creating this depiction which has influenced comic, film and animation writers, and both were written by Frank Miller (Sin City, 300) .The first was “The Dark Knight Returns,” depicting an ending for Batman’s career, and the other has recently been animated for home release and is the subject of our review: “Batman – Year One.”

As you can surmise from the title, this particular story focuses on Bruce Wayne’s efforts to become the hero we know him better as. What the title doesn’t really reflect though is the fact that so much of this story also chronicles the beginnings of Jim Gordon’s rise to police commissioner, and at times it feels like this is more his story than Bruce’s.

It’s not an easy road for him though. The story begins in early January as Bruce flies into Gotham City, and musing about how criminals have taken over even though the view from the sky is nice. Meanwhile, Gordon arrives from Chicago and is picked up by Detective Flass, a large and somewhat brutish officer. Flass notes that Gordon has nothing to worry about because ‘cops got it made in Gotham.” They go to meet Commissioner Gil Loeb, who pretty much tells him the same thing and that there’s nothing to worry about even though Gordon made some kind of mistakes at his last job.

During Gordon’s first patrol, he sees what Flass means about cops, as Flass goes and beats up on some teenager standing on a corner, seemingly just for the fun of it. Gordon makes note of Flass’s fighting style for future reference. Flash forward to February and Flass is still making note about how the other detectives are worried since Gordon doesn’t take anything extra during the arrests.

Bruce meanwhile is doing martial arts training and realizes he needs something more in order to deal with ‘the enemy’ as he call them. Soon, he heads into Gotham (under a disguise) to take in the seedier parts of the city. His first encounter is rather eventful as he is offered services by a rather young girl, who is pushed aside by her pimp. Bruce takes exception to this and decide to teach the pimp a lesson… before he himself is stabbed in the leg by the girl looking to protect the pimp, along with several other folks. As Bruce defends himself, he’s attacked by a prostitute named Selina who leaves her customer to join the fray with her cat-like moves, right before the police show up to shoot Bruce…. pretty much for standing in the street.

Things don’t get any easier during this year for anyone involved. Gordon starts to get promoted through the ranks a bit while becoming a new father as well as a publicly noticed officer, with a new lieutenant named Sarah Eben at his command. Meanwhile, criminals begin to hear about a strange bat-like creature popping up at night and disrupting business, which makes the mayor and bosses like Carmine “The Roman” Falcone not too happy…

There are many elements to this story which play out like a late night detective flick. That’s the general feel of this movie with all the narration given by Gordon and Wayne. In this respect, the movie feels like the short animated piece on The Spectre which came out about a year back. At times it’s cool, but other times it’s a bit distracting. I understand the desire to remain totally faithful to Miller’s material, but I think at times it could’ve been toned down. Nevertheless, this adaptation of Year One largely works except for a couple spots (which I’ll get to in a moment.) The best work actually is in the depiction of Gordon as voiced by Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad). Like I said earlier, this really feels a lot more like Gordon’s story at times more than a Batman one, and Cranston gives Gordon a bit of the hard-edged veteran vibe needed to carry the role. Bruce Wayne is portrayed by Ben Mckenzie (The OC) and does a decent job but initially is a bit hard to get used to. When he’s doing the opening narration while flying into Gotham, it’s a bit hard not to think of other actors such as Kevin Conroy (Batman TAS) or Bruce Greenwood (Batman: Under The Red Hood) who’ve voiced the character so authoritatively and although it’s easy to see that a young Bruce is what we’re hearing, McKenzie’s performance is a little lesser in comparison initially. Eventually though, McKenzie settles into a nice groove in alternating Bruce and Batman’s personas and the performances feel more natural from there. While ice nice to hear voice director Andrea Romano corral the cast such as Katee Sackhoff (Sarah Eben), Eliza Dushku (Selina) and Jon Polito (Commissioner Loeb) into a talented troupe, the performances by Cranston and McKenzie are key to the success of this film.

Equally important is the direction and this is where things get a bit weird. Batman Year One is co-directed by Sam Liu (Planet Hulk) and Lauren Montgomery (Superman/Batman: Apocalypse). There are a few high-speed action and fight sequences which have become Liu’s specialty of late in these comic-to-animation movies. Beyond that though I’m not sure where the division of labor lies. Some of the scenery is a bit drab though during the day. Also, there’s this one bit where Bruce jumps a long way from a rooftop onto a moving truck and it’s executed in such a way that my disbelief couldn’t be suspended. The movie largely looks decent but the overall art and animation quality wasn’t totally on par with others like “Under The Red Hood” and “Public Enemies.” There are still some small bits like a sign for VHS and Beta rentals reminding us when this story was created; it’s a nice touch to see the animators not forget the source material.

Along with this movie, there’s a couple other extras such as a behind the scenes short, a preview for “Justice League: Doom” as well as a 15-minute adventure focusing on Catwoman (again portrayed by Eliza Dushku). This one starts with Selina’s incredibly intelligent cat Isis evading a couple of gunmen to bring her a bracelet. Selina starts to investigate by heading to a local strip club to solve the mystery of the bracelet’s owner. It’s written by Paul Dini, who never fails to bring the goods, even in a short piece like this one.

Year One is one of the most influential Batman stories created and seeing it largely done justice here is very good for fans who might wonder what inspired Christopher Nolan to produce his most recent Batman films or what got Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale to create the excellent Batman stories “The Long Halloween” and “Dark Victory.” Although there’s some hiccups that prevent this from being the absolute best of Warner Animation’s adaptations of DC Comics materials, this DVD is a solid enough release to be worthy of purchase.

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Ok, you’ve just come from seeing The Avengers and have helped make it one of the top grossing flicks ever. You’ve also been watching the movies that lead up to it, but you still want to know a bit about these characters. What are some of the best stories to read in the decades- long history of the heroes from Marvel and Timely comics? Well, this is a listing of some of their better storylines from over the years. To a newcomer, it may be a bit overwhelming as there are more than a few of them, but that’s ok. You don’t have to read and collect these all at once. Just grab them at your leisure and learn what struggles and deeds have made these heroes so iconic.

1. Essential Avengers – For decades, comic fans have worshipped Marvel comics creators such as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Now see why as the iconic characters you came to like in the recent Marvel movies are brought together for the first time in the 60s. It was a different time and so writing and art styles are probably not what folks in 2012 are used to, but these characters still remain fresh in the minds of many comic readers and are timeless to them. So study up on that history, true believers, learn why you might hear comic fans mention characters like Ant Man and The Wasp, watch them face the likes of Baron Zemo and Loki… and most of all, have some accessible old school fun!

2. The Ultimates 1-2 – In the early 2000s, Marvel created a universe outside of their normal timeline called the Ultimate universe as it were with Ultimate Spider-Man. Basically this was a new take on somewhat familiar heroes and their stories. The Ultimates is a re-imagining of The Avengers with modern world ideas and more militaristic settings. Some of the heroes like Captain America (whose hellified final WW2 mission is the focus of the first story) remain more or less the same. Others like Tony Stark (who has a bigger brain than you can possibly imagine), Hawkeye (AKA Agent Barton), and The Hulk have more radical revisions. (If this were written by Sigmund Freud, Hulk would be one big ‘Id’, totally unrestrained.) Also, see why Samuel L. Jackson wound up being cast as Nick Fury in the recent Marvel films. The action gets rather intense and all the heroes get awesome moments (and suffer somewhat terrible lows) in both stories. Oh, did we mention the unconventional direction Thor’s feud with Loki takes? Yeah, pretty good stuff there.

3. Planet Hulk / World War Hulk – Writer Greg Pak devised some crazy times for ole Greenskin while the events of Marvel’s mega crossover Civil War took place, and poor Hulk… well, Planet Hulk starts off with Iron Man, Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four), Black Bolt (leader of The Inhumans), and Doctor Strange all conspiring to get rid of The Incredible Hulk by dumping him on a distant planet where he could live out his life and harm no one else. Thing is, he winds up on a different planet where he’s tossed into arenas, made a gladiatorial slave, and winds up on this Conan–styled adventure. Things work out to a degree until he is made so angry, he returns for vengeance in World War Hulk. He takes the slow way back to Earth and since the madder he gets, the stronger he gets….. um yeah. LOTS of butt kicking ensues and thanks to some really good artwork by Carlo Pagulayan and John Romita Jr, the results are devastating.

4. Captain America: Winter Soldier / Red Menace / Omnibus – For fifty years, the Russians / Soviets have had a mysterious operative called The Winter Soldier who’s been used to execute the most impossible missions, and he’s prevailed every time. Captain America winds up on his trail while investigating the murder of The Red Skull, and comes to face the likes of Hydra, A.I.M., the ruthless Russian General Alexander Lukin, and Sin, the daughter of the Red Kull, who is driven thoroughly insane by the brutal Crossbones. Most importantly though Steve must endure personal torment when he faces off against the Winter Soldier himself, in a series which propelled writer Ed Brubaker to the top as one of the comic industry’s best modern storytellers.

5. Iron Man: Demon In A Bottle – in the late 70s / early 80s, writers David Michelinie and Bob Layton decided a man as perfect as Tony Stark with millions, women friends and fun lifestyle, needed a greater menace than any supervillain could provide, and decided on alcoholism. This happens as we are introduced to competitive arms dealer Justin Hammer, who employs deadly malfunctions of the Iron Man armor while providing resources to many of his villains. This storyline was the start of Tony’s battle with alcohol for years to come, though the true effects wouldn’t be realized until later when Obadiah Stane used this weakness to utterly destroy Tony. Unfortunately, those issues written by Denny O’Neill haven’t been collected into any form of trades for whatever reason (except for the last few in a book called Iron Man: The Iron Monger), but if you want to read this compelling storyline after finishing Demon, pick up the first run of Invincible Iron Man #160-200, which also gave Jim Rhodes his first taste of action in the armor.

6. Iron Man: Prelude to Armor Wars / The Armor Wars – One of the character’s most defining story arcs had Tony turn rogue after finding out that Justin Hammer (the villain in Iron Man 2) has sold stolen technology used in the Iron Man armor to various people around the world. Feeling guilty for the harm his tech has caused to innocents, Tony sets out to destroy that technology be it in the hands of foes or friends. This quest costs him greatly on personal and professional levels and leads Tony to question his future as Iron Man. Great action and artwork.

7. The Invincible Iron Man: The Five Nightmares – After the Iron Man movie was released in 2008, writer Matt Fraction and artist Salvador Larocca worked to merge elements from the film with the mainstream comic so that newer readers could relate to this character and the results were amazing. At this point, Tony Stark is the director of SHIELD and he’s dealing with a major problem in Ezekiel Stane, an evil prodigy who wants to finish what his father Obadiah started by using a destructive new technology designed to make the Iron Man obsolete, killing thousands in the process. The battles take their toll on Stark and cause a major change for one of his closest friends.

8. Captain America: The Captain – One of the better story arcs was written during the 80s by Mark Gruenwald. A mysterious government commission calls Cap and tells him that they want him to take special black ops missions from them permanently and to stop being a superhero. Steve deliberates and ultimately resigns as Captain America, and soon a character named John Walker (also known as USAgent) is given the costume and shield. This sets up a really good arc as Steve gets help from Tony Stark and is outfitted as a new hero called The Captain. Much patriotism and betrayal ensues as Steve Rogers must persevere to remind readers why being true to the American ideal is more important than any one group’s agenda.

9. The Mighty Thor – Visionaries: Walter Simonson – For several years during the 80s, Walt Simonson wrote and drew some of Asgard’s most astonishing tales, such as The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill, in which Thor battles an alien who is able to lift Thor’s hammer. There’s a goofy storyline in which Thor is turned into a frog and he makes new friends in the sewers. There’s also the heartwrenching final stand of Skurge The Executioner, as well as Odin’s awe-inspiring battle against Surtur, and interesting machinations by Loki, The Frost Giants, and Hel The goddess of Death, which lead to Thor’s fated battle against Jormungand – The World Serpent. This is considered one of if not the absolute best runs for the character. If it’s more convenient to get the separate trade collections, go ahead and grab those but the single coffee-table tome is equally great to flip through.

10. The Incredible Hulk – Visionaries: Peter David – For 14 years, this man wrote The Incredible Hulk and gave readers one heck of a compelling character. In dealing with Bruce Banner’s battles with and against his alter ego, we see how these battles take their toll on his relationship with Betty Ross, his friendship with Rick Jones and varying incarnations of the behemoth himself, who at one point becomes a crafty grey skinned mob enforcer named Mr. Fixit, as well as an out-of control example of green savage fury. His eventual psychiatrist Doctor Leonard Samson (yes, the guy Betty dated in the Ed Norton Incredible Hulk movie) figured out The Hulk is one gigantic multiple personality disorder and managed to help combine the personas into a green-skinned powerhouse with Banner’s personality and the grey Hulk’s craftiness, which made for even more interesting (and sometimes funny) adventures as Hulk began to work with a mysterious organization of super humans called The Pantheon. There are currently 8 volumes of these trades with more to follow. Check ‘em out for some hellified action that gave rise to artists such as Todd McFarlane (Spawn) and Dale Keown.

11. The Incredible Hulk – The End / Future Imperfect – This GN combines two different stories (both written by Peter David) about the Hulk’s possible final days. Future Imperfect finds him 90 years in a post-apocalyptic world where he’s traveled through time to stop a green-skinned dictator called The Maestro who rules (what’s left of) humanity in a cruel fashion with no Marvel heroes to stop him, except one amazingly old man who concocts a daring plan. As to The End, Doctor Bruce Banner is the last man on Earth, and he’s not alone. The universe awaits the final word on humanity’s legend as the good doctor finds he can’t stop living, because his alter ego won’t let him, even with the nightmarish horrors he must periodically face.

12. The Mighty Thor – J. Michael Straczinsky, Oliver Copiel / Kieron Gillen – This was done after the Avengers: Dissasembled story arc that saw Thor and Asgard perish after Ragnarok. He’s reawakened and begins rebuilding his home (one foot above open land in Oklahoma) while reviving his friends and family in the process (even some unwanted ones). He manages to re-combine with his alter ego of Dr. Donald Blake and sets into crazy schemes and battles against his brother Loki, Latveria’s monarch Doctor Doom and several others. Writer J. Michael Straczinsky (creator of the sci-fi series Babylon 5) created an interesting set of storylines before leaving the series, for which Kieron Gillen wrote a pretty satisfying conclusion. If you manage to grab both of their collections, you’ll be in for some thoughtful Norse-inspired Marvel mayhem.

13. The Kree -Skrull War / The Life and Death of Captain Marvel /Marvel Masterworks: Warlock Vol. 2 – In the 70s and 80s, The works of legendary creators Roy Thomas, Jim Starlin, Sal Buscema and Neal Adams (among others) showcased The Avengers on a cosmic scale as they’ve wound up having to save Earth from alien races trying to kill each other and possibly destroying humanity in the process. Two unlikely heroes emerge named Captain Mar-vell, and Adam Warlock, whose heroic (yet tragic) exploits involve all the Marvel heroes at one point or another, eventually coming to a head against the death-loving Titan known as Thanos. These stories set up much of The Avengers’ place in the universe for years to come.

14. The Silver Surfer: Rebirth of Thanos / The Thanos Quest / The Infinity Gauntlet – During the 90s, Jim Starlin continued to do cosmic based stories, focusing on The Silver Surfer (former herald of Galactus who was recently freed from being imprisoned on Earth). Eventually, he’s witness to Death (who’s a physical entity in the Marvel universe) deciding that there’s an overabundance of life. To that end, she resurrects the one being who’s always served her faithfully for a seemingly never ending mission: eliminate half the population in the galaxy. Unfortunately for everyone, Thanos acquires and assembles six mystic gems into a single Infinity Gauntlet, which gives it wearer the power of a god. The Surfer book sets things up for new readers, while The Infinity Gauntlet story itself depicts awesome action and high tension with even higher stakes, as all of Earth’s heroes (including what’s left of The Avengers) must face a nihilist with unlimited power (which sharp-eyed viewers may notice is sitting in the halls of Asgard during the Thor movie).

15. Avengers Forever – A longtime fixture among the Avengers is Rick Jones, an ordinary human who has helped the heroes many times in addition to traveling as a sidekick for Captain Marvel, Captain America, and most notably The Incredible Hulk. So when a futuristic villain named Immortus decides to try and kill Rick, various Avengers are plucked from the timestream to help save the day in what was a truly epic storyline that became a major turning point for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Writer Kurt Busiek (Astro City) wove a tale from many of their greatest moments for a hell of an experience.

16. The Avengers: Assemble (Kurt Busiek, George Perez) – Soon after the events of Heroes Reborn (where The team was sent into an alternate universe and presumed dead), Captain America calls upon EVERY Marvel hero who was ever an Avenger up to that point, because of dire warnings from an exhausted, battle-weary Thor. The ensuing battles have the team battle the reality changing sorceress Morgana Le Fay. Eventually, a final roster is set (with two new and enthusiastic heroes joining in) and the Avengers set out against some of their most terrible enemies during Busiek & Perez’s run. One chilling moment has them take on the ever-evolving A.I. known as Ultron who begins his plans by murdering every man woman and child in an eastern European country. This run is available in 5 volumes and makes for great reading.

17. Astonishing X-Men Trade /Omnibus – Yes, I stuck an X-Men title on here and no these characters didn’t appear on The Avengers movie (thanks to Marvel’s deal with Fox). However, this was a title that the movie’s director and screenwriter Joss Whedon got to start up and write for two years. There’s not much need to know the backstory on the X-Men at this particular point in time, and he makes characters such as Cyclops, Beast, Wolverine, Kitty Pride, and Emma Frost very accessible, while throwing in a surprise or two for longtime X-Men fans. There was some great characterization, humor and action which made many movie fans super-excited upon hearing the news that Whedon was going to helm the Avengers movie. See how the Buffy / Firefly creator was able to win comic fans over with his skill and knowledge of comic lore.

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In 2005, Christopher Nolan took on the challenge of making the Batman series interesting again after a failed series of films by previous directors. His take on the comic book hero was unique in that it placed the Batman mythos in a more real-world setting than a fantasy one, concentrating on character building which in turn lent to story strength. The best part about this was that in doing so, not only was Batman / Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) fleshed out, but so were supporting characters such as Alfred (Michael Caine) Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) and Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman).  Batman Begins established these people very well so that when they were utilized in The Dark Knight, the events that played out had a tremendous impact not previously depicted in comic-to-film adaptations, which consequently raised the bar for such films. So the test for The Dark Knight Rises would be could this bar be maintained while bringing this trilogy to a conclusion?

As the film opens, we see a CIA plane transporting a scientist and three hooded prisoners. The lead agent attempts to interrogate them regarding a mysterious assassin called Bane (Tom Hardy, Star Trek: Nemesis), but eventually finds the tables turned in one of the most imaginative aerial sequences on film. Commissioner Gordon meanwhile, is giving a couple speeches about how heroic former D.A. Harvey Dent was, and how his efforts led to the Dent Act, which apparently helped imprison over 1000 criminals. All the while, Gordon is choking back emotions on what Two-Face tried to do to his family.

The second speech we see him give is during a Police function being held at Wayne Manor, where partygoers and staff note Bruce himself hasn’t really been seen in 8 years. Alfred sends one such staffer to deliver a tray of food to one of non-occupied rooms, but this staffer apparently has other ideas, as she scopes out the room in question and gets what she wants. Bruce appears to discuss this situation with the rather attractive staffer (Anne Hathaway), but since he’s limping with a cane now, the discussion doesn’t go his way. However, Bruce decides to learn more about her as Alfred admonishes him to get back into the world and deal with real issues, such as a persistent woman named Miranda Tate (Marion Cotilliard, Inception) who keeps trying to meet him, as well as the business of Wayne Enterprises.

We’re also introduced to Officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who visits orphanages and speaks to children. He does so this instance to talk to the younger brother of a murder victim. They boy mentions folks going into sewer tunnels more and more frequently where people are supposedly finding work. A crazy series of events leads Commissioner Gordon to investigate the tunnels himself and that’s where things get nuts…

The screenplay here by Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer takes a while to get going, and gets choppy jumping from one scene to the next at times. Not totally certain if this is their flaw or director C. Nolan’s storytelling, which is usually soother than this. When it gets going though, it does so on a grand scale, while incorporating many of the storylines from the comics. Some are pretty obvious such as a chase scene straight out of Frank Miller’s ‘The Dark Knight Returns.’ Others are more amalgamated. It’s a bit of fun to pick out where the story influences are likely coming from as guessing there Goyer and the Nolans must’ve consumed a ton of Batman lore to prep this and the previous films.  Largely, the story works but has a couple holes that are a bit weird. Also, the ending is pretty good and can be open to interpretation like most of Chris Nolan’s films.

As to the characters, the supporting ones remain as solid as they have in previous films. So the challenge is seeing how the newer ones are adapted here. Catwoman kicks a lot of butt, steals stuff and plays an integral part on several levels in these events, while managing to get into Bruce’s head a bit with her sensuality. We do also get to see how she and her sidekick Molly live, much like the comic story Batman: Year One, among others. This is only a glimpse of her character as time permits but for the happenings of the film, it’s enough.  Anne Hathaway does earn her stripes as one of the best to play the character alongside Michelle Pfeiffer and Eartha Kitt, like I figured she could after seeing Love and Other Drugs.

John Blake is an interesting character in that he’s just about the only one not screwed up by any previous events and he wants to do right by everyone, and Levitt’s tempered enthusiasm comes through pretty well.

The biggest question mark was seeing how Bane would be depicted on film and whether he could be a truly powerful opponent for Batman in a way that’s not cheesy or presented for laughs the way he was In Batman & Robin. Nolan said he’d be re-doing the character for his world and assembling from comic book story elements with some real world refinement, I have to say Bane is a devastating opponent for Batman. Between Nolan’s re-imagining and Tom Hardy’s portrayal, they’ve retained the most terrifying aspect of the character while staying true to him in a way most other media haven’t outside of the comics. The most terrifying element isn’t merely Bane’s power; it’s the fact that he has his physical abilities and is able to outsmart Batman. His physical menace though is considerable. At one point, he makes a simple hand gesture and you know someone’s about to get messed up. Oh and to all the comic fans who are angry about him not using the Venom steroid, let me assure you, the way he’s written here, he DOES NOT NEED IT. I know many of you miss Heath Ledger’s Joker, but Bane is just as terrifying in a different way, and Tom Hardy’s performance here is damned convincing as it was in the prison drama Bronson.

This leaves Christian Bale who has to demonstrate greater range for Bruce Wayne and Batman than he had to in the previous movies. Wayne is a shell of a man at the start of the film, having been shattered by the events of The Dark Knight. I almost expected to see Ace The Dog walking around with him through Wayne Manor the way he was conducting himself, and it isn’t the lowest point we see him at as both his body and soul are pushed to hellish limits through this movie. He also experiences some good times as well though, and Bale brings believability the whole time. He’s someone to root for not just because we’re told to do so but because he’s a man who is put through a lot but works to move past all of it because he really wants to save the people of Gotham City. This gives the final battles the most impact as Bane’s plans unfold.

All in all I enjoyed this movie a good bit. I didn’t consider it quite as strong an installment as The Dark Knight, but it’s just a step or two below, while still quite above many other similar works. Even though I had an issue with part of the story’s resolution, I did find myself altering my list of favorite comic-to-film adaptations after viewing this one in a way I hadn’t previously considered and tend to think of it as an overall satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, one that both comic fans and casual moviegoers can enjoy. I know someday there’ll be another series of movies with a different take on Batman’s world. After seeing it through the eyes of Christopher Nolan however, I have to say the next director to tackle the subject will have a lot to live up to.

Grade:  A-

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What They Say:
On His 62nd Birthday, oil baron Leonard Dawson witnesses the public assassination of his son and heir, Robert. From this point on Leonard becomes obsessed with revenge on the hitman – code name: GOLGO 13. Dawson spares nothing to enlist the CIA, FBI, and U.S. military in an unrelenting manhunt for his son’s killer. As GOLGO’s survival depends on stopping Dawson himself, the hunter and hunted chase each other in a breathless game of kill or be killed.

The Review:
Audio
Both the English and Japanese tracks come through just fine in Dolby Digital 2.0, and I didn’t hear any problems on either one.

Video:
The picture is largely bright with crisp colors and smooth backgrounds. The age of the material is a bit of a factor but not bad at all, all things considered.

Packaging:
The front cover is rather basic, utilizing the movie poster that’s been used in both Japanese and American theatrical releases where G13 is running toward the camera and there’s relatively little behind him beside an attack helicopter. The back however consists of a lot of good artwork assembled around considerable bits of information, with Golgo 13 ready to snipe somebody at the bottom. This part gives the eye a good deal to focus on and enjoy.

Menu:
The menu uses different angles of G13 looking at you with a dark background prevalent and the movie’s opening theme “Pray For You” set to repeat. There’s a small line underneath each option you’re looking to explore which can be a little easy to lose track when moving it around.

Extras:
The extras are rather interesting for prospective filmmakers or movie historians. There’s a 10 minute interview with Producer Mata Yamamoto, as well as commentary from director Osamu Dezaki and Jonathan Clements, co-author of the Anime Encyclopedia. Clements notes many of the improvements in the movie’s various releases and his knowledge is pretty interesting to hear, but it’s odd hearing this particular commentary as well since by his own admission, Clements recorded it back in January of 2007 (presumably for the Manga Video release in the UK). Still, he gives a very good accounting on the history of this character in Japanese, American and British releases.

In this particular story, G13 is seen commandeering a lighthouse in California so he can get a clear shot at the ocean liner of oil billionaire Leonard Dawson, who is holding a birthday celebration for his son Robert. In addition, Leonard is in the process of stepping down as CEO of his organization and naming his son as his successor, but a bullet to the cranium cuts Robert’s tenure short.

We next see Togo in Italy where a bishop contracts him to kill a mysterious mafia boss called Dr. Z, who had the bishop’s family massacred. The only known associate for Dr. Z is his attractive daughter Cindy, with whom Togo makes intimate contact. Just as he finishes this task, multiple gunmen begin attacking Golgo 13 at just about every turn, even as he heads to San Francisco for his next job.

It turns out that Leonard has called in favors from every branch of military, intelligence and law enforcement he can find in order to gain vengeance on Golgo 13. No one is safe from Dawson’s wrath as the measures he employs threaten to destroy his loved ones and foes alike. This includes using unrepentant psychotics such as Big Snake, Gold and Silver. However, the one thing no one can understand why Dawson isn’t out to find the person who sanctioned Robert’s death in the first place.

I’ve been a fan of this film since I first saw a Japanese copy in ’89. The screenplay & story by Hideyoshi Nagasaka and Shukei Nagasaka does a decent job of merging elements of the manga into a single story. However, the real gem of this movie is the animation style of director Osamu Dezaki and character designer Akio Sugino, whose combined efforts create a cinematic anime style practically non-existent in the modern animation industry. Their ‘shooting style’ (so to speak) emulates many American noir live film techniques with expanding multi-image shots and pauses on painted pieces (simulating still photography) to emphasize emotional effects (which Dezaki came to call his ‘postcard technique’.) The world Dezaki likes to create focuses on real-life locales and sunlit cities which Sugino’s realistic characters move through.

In the commentary tracks it was noted how difficult adapting Saito’s style for animation was due to his intense details of these cities. It’s rather interesting to see a foreign artist give such depiction of mostly American cities in this movie. When you combine the artwork with the colors prevalent throughout and the slow jazz pieces in the background, the movie feels somewhat similar to classic crime dramas such as Bullitt and Dirty Harry (which also took place in San Francisco, come to think of it). The action / gunfight sequences are fluid, sometimes slower for dramatic effect, other times fast paced, somewhat like the episodes of Cowboy Bebop featuring Vicious and Pierrot Le Fou.

Unlike many anime films, Sugino’s designs do not focus on exaggerated facial features, but rather natural looking people of all shapes and sizes. This has made his works with Dezaki particularly recognizable in anime such as Rose of Versailles and Space Adventure Cobra. It’s rather cool in this movie to see establishing shots of Golgo 13 doing what he does best and following up with some cigarettes, fine wine and travel. Dezaki manipulates these attributes well, while taking a bit of artistic license in a couple action scenes (including one sniping sequence that has to be seen to be believed.) Sadly, many of his and Sugino’s collaborations have not been released on the R1 DVD market except for the Black Jack film & OAV series as well as the semi-forgettable sequel video Golgo 13: Queen Bee.

The movie contains a couple early forays into computer animation for film. The first is in the movie’s opening sequence, which Dezaki talks about having mixing digital drawing and motion captures of real objects. This sequence of gunplay and skull destruction actually holds up rather decently, since it was an intro and not part of the story, and also works as a fun music video / montage in its own right. The other computer animated sequence involving an attack helicopter hasn’t aged as well. The scenery is bright and blocky and clashes a good bit with the dark, highly detailed traditionally animated techniques on screen.

Speaking again of the opening sequence, it’s finally available on an American Golgo 13 release in its original form as intended on the Japanese production, and the opening theme is actually subtitled. Previous versions have had either a simple masthead with a gunshot, or the correct montage video but incorrect audio for some unknown reason. The closing sequence was also restored as well, so already Discotek Media’s release is ahead of the curve compared to the previous versions. Also, the subtitles of the character names are corrected compared to previous versions where sometimes two different romanizations might appear on screen.

I have to talk a bit about the English dub by Streamline Pictures, which was part of their theatrical release in the early 90s. It’s still as semi-decent, yet partially terrible as I remembered. Greg Snegoff (Scott Bernard from Robotech) makes for a polished, calculating killer, and Michael McConohie (Vampire Hunter D) has competent range for Leonard’s varying emotions needed here. Actually for the most part, the men were decently cast, but directed to add profanities and run-on sentences to keep up with the mouth movements, which got to be irritating at times. Most of the women just sounded awful except for the actress portraying Robert’s widow, Laura. The other actresses just sounded blah and well, during the love scenes… well, they didn’t moan very convincingly. No other way to type that, but a couple times I found myself switching back to the Japanese audio because the English delivery was just too cheesy.

In a modern anime market saturated with card game commercials, power-up martial arts, and over the top fanservice comedies full of teenage characters, there are times when I want to watch a serious adult crime drama or even just a story with a beginning, middle and end that doesn’t require me to buy a manga to get a decent resolution of some sort. Outside of works by Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue) or Makoto Shinkai (5cm Per Second), I’ve had trouble finding those of late. According to a brief but informative interview on the disc with film producer Mata Yamamoto, Golgo 13 was marketed toward general movie fans instead of anime fans when it was created, so I don’t feel bad at all about my sentiments.

In Summary:
With all the improvements to the subtitles, the retention of the actual opening sequence and the additional commentary tracks, I would have to declare this the definitive version of The Professional: Golgo 13 (unless a blu-ray is released) for the U.S. It’s all the small things that can make a product worthy of the proverbial ‘double dip’ as it were. Discotek’s release gives the viewers the best value compared to all previous versions, and for this alone it’s one I’ll highly recommend.

Features:
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 2.0 Language, English Subtitles, Original Japanese video promo, Production sketches

Content Grade: A-
Audio Grade: A
Video Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: A
Extras Grade: A

Released By: Discotek Media
Release Date: July 24, 2012
MSRP: $19.98
Running Time: 91 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescree

Review Equipment:
Panasonic 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Marantz stereo receiver

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Remember when there was a period in anime where male protagonists looked and acted like…. typical guys? Seriously, when did it become an absolute must that so many male characters had to be emotionally screwed and awkward around women? Aren’t there any bad-ass dudes who like to kick butt, forget names, and enjoy the riches with the women afterwards?

What They Say:
In a universe swarming with inhabited planets and bizarre aliens, corrupt governments in the pay of star-spanning criminal syndicates and the Justice Federation of United Galaxies places a price on the heads of hardened criminals. The highest bounty of all rests without he infamous space pirate Cobra, an unstoppable rogue whose left arm conceals a devastating psycho-gun. Presumed dead for two years, Cobra comes out of retirement after an encounter with the beautiful bounty-hunter Jane – a decision which leads him into direct conflict with the sinister Galaxy Pirates, a vast criminal organization led by Crystal Boy; the personification of death itself. Together with his female android companion Lady, Cobra sets out with Jane to rescue the bounty hunter’s two lost sisters, and save the wandering planet Miras. But Crystal Boy is never far behind, and deception and betrayal wait around every corner. A fast-moving, stylish and furiously inventive film from the pen of classic Manga writer Buichi Terasawa, Space Adventure Cobra mixes humor and drama in a pulse-pounding hymn to the power of love, death and heavy weaponry!

The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release comes with the Japanese mix in 5.1 which sounded decent from what I could tell. There are also Japanese 2.0 and English 2.0 Dolby tracks present and both sounded fine on my system.

Video:
The movie was originally released theatrically in 1982, and the video converted here from the Japanese blu-ray release looks gorgeous. It’s very nice for animation fans to appreciate the detail that went into the artwork as well as the various techniques used at the time. The subtitles are colored and detailed appropriately, which makes them easy to read as needed.

Packaging:
The front contains the movie poster utilized for Japanese theaters at the time and I’ve no problems with this at all. The back has a lot of text about the contents of the film and feels a bit like overkill, but still conveys information and has some decent artwork.

Menu:
The menu is rather simple with Cobra and folks on a bright green-ish background. The controls are easy to navigate with a little Psychogun pointing as needed.

Extras:
This was a bit disappointing as the only extras present are trailers for Discotek Media’s other old-school anime releases. I was kind of hoping for at least a trailer or maybe the Matthew Sweet music video ‘Girlfriend’ (which was on the Cobra VHS release by Urban Vision since it used the film’s footage), or even the substantially different UK dub from Manga Entertainment I keep hearing about on fansites. Alas, it appears the rights for these items were unavailable.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Remember when there was a period in anime where male protagonists looked and acted like…. typical guys? Seriously, when did it become an absolute must that so many male characters had to be emotionally screwed and awkward around women? Aren’t there any bad-ass dudes who like to kick butt, forget names, and enjoy the riches with the women afterwards?

Thirty years ago, manga creator Buichi Terasawa (Midnight Eye Goku, Raven Tengu Kabuto) thought up just such a character: a space pirate with a heart of gold who takes what he wants, fights bad guys, beds the beauties and has fun the whole time. Such is the world of Space Adventure Cobra. Originally published in Weekly Shonen Jump during the late 70s, Terasawa patterned this world somewhat after campy sci-fi elements found in the film Barbarella which had lead actress Jane Fonda shooting galactic villains in a skimpy outfit. This influenced Terasawa so much he created a lead character named Jane the first story for our hero to interact with. Cobra finds even more lovely ladies and crazy adventures in later story arcs and manga series so there’s never a shortage of fun stuff for him to try and steal and deal with.

This movie begins with a focus on the Jane Flower character, who has made a very successful life as a bounty hunter. As she takes down another criminal and heads to a local bar, she notices some blonde haired guy in red who can’t stop looking at her. Jane eventually leaves the bar with the stranger in hot pursuit, who declares to her ‘I love you.’ She continues to spurn his advances until he tells her he knows where she can find the most expensive bounty in the galaxy. She turns and realizes there’s only one person the stranger could be talking about, and the man in red says he is Cobra, the man with the biggest prize on his head.

Later as Jane turns her prisoner in, she shows the man in red a wanted poster of Cobra, who has long blue hair, different facial features and a fearsome weapon known as The Psychogun mounted on his left arm. She says the goofy stranger couldn’t possibly be Cobra and leaves him at the bounty station.

Jane rests at a nearby hotel, and notices the persistent stranger is sitting on the roof of a nearby building. She finally invites him in but they’re rudely interrupted by the criminal she’d just turned in, who attacks them in a rather bizarre manner. They eventually take him down (permanently this time) but are again attacked by a ship full of robotic soldiers. The pair drive off from the hotel but are pursued by the ship, carrying the official from the bounty station. The stranger tells Jane to open the car roof for a second and he stands up, with his left arm starting to glow, and the hapless pursuer utters his final shock-filled word… “Psychogun!”

Elsewhere in the galaxy, a glass-&-metal figure known as Crystal Boy is informed his presumed-dead enemy Cobra is in fact alive. Jane meanwhile thanks her hero, and tells him she needs his help to fight the Pirate Guild who is pursuing her, her two identical sisters, and a special treasure. After Cobra retrieves his ship and introduces Jane to his robotic partner, Armoroid Lady, the group heads off for adventure on the prison planet Cido.

Tokyo Movie Shinisha produced this first adaptation of Cobra, which had director Osamu Dezaki and character designer Akio Sugino (Rose of Versailles, Golgo 13) take the initial Jane Flower / Crystal Boy arc and give it a very dramatic slant and different direction, with Terasawa adapting the screenplay for much less humor than his manga (and subsequently, his television) series. The result is a largely serious space opera film with some funny moments. Seiyuu Shigeru Matzusaki voiced Cobra with a vulnerable goofiness not typically seen in the manga. These elements might be a bit influenced by the other dramatic space pirate movie released in 1982, Arcadia of My Youth. The story plays out in solid fashion though and the clashes between Cobra and Crystal Boy build anticipation with each encounter until the end of the film. My only complaint largely is the fact we don’t see enough of Armoroid Lady in action, as she’s relegated mostly to getting from one rough spot to the next while patching him up.

The film was advertised as having 3-D animation quality for which special glasses weren’t necessary. Although incorporating incredibly detailed paintings for backgrounds, Dezaki chose to forego his signature ‘postcard method’ for this movie where he’d typically pause the action on sketch-lined drawings for dramatic effect. He still utilized split screens and multi-angle images of his characters though, with many moving objects on screen at times. As a result, the movie’s overall look is very slick and fluid, similar to the techniques this team used for the American cartoon Mighty Orbots. At times though, the artwork gets a bit trippy and psychedelic like a Ralph Bakshi movie (American Pop, Fire & Ice), particularly in a couple of disco music scenes as well as the opening sequence (which was restored for this particular American release with song subtitles as opposed to having the masthead from the rare English TV pilot stuffed in the wrong aspect ratio like previous versions had done).

Cobra himself is intentioned to be Terasawa’s “James Bond in space”, as the author likes to put it (though being so over the top with parodying misogyny, the plots play out more like the Derek Flint films (Our Man Flint, In Like Flint) where James Coburn portrays more of a bad-mofo than Bond at times). In the case of this particular movie, we see Cobra work to save three beautiful women (for whom love is an actual power) and travel through the galaxy without a care in the world. The crazy adventures space offers could be comparable to worlds depicted in Outlaw Star and Bodacious Space Pirates, and they’re a bit more fun oriented in the Cobra TV show than in the movie.

That show may have been on the minds of the actors in the English dub here directed by Carl Macek of Robotech /Streamline Pictures fame. Dan Woren (who portrayed Roy Fokker in Robotech) gives Cobra an over-the top enthusiasm and far less subtlety than his Japanese counterpart. His performance isn’t bad per se, but it takes a bit of getting used to, especially when he plays off Barbara Goodson (Nandaba Naota in FLCL) who throws a lot of snarkiness into the Jane Flower character. A couple other things are harder to get used to such as Jeff Winkless (Count Lee in Vampire Hunter D) going gruff and uber sadistic with an almost comical megalomania at times instead of cold & calculating like Crystal Boy tends to be. Also, there were times it seems the actors weren’t mixed totally with the Japanese background and it seems at times the characters aren’t really part of the locations they’re standing in. Occasionally though, the audio mixer or director choose silence instead of vocals / noise compared to their Japanese counterparts and the scenes in question still work.

In Summary:
Despite some of the grumbles I have here, it’s really nice to own this DVD. I’d have liked a few more features, but the movie is the most important element of discussion. The presentation is very nice to watch for the first time in its entirety so I’m willing to overlook a couple things that a fanboy (such as myself) might want. All in all I’m hoping the release of this disc leads to more Cobra related materials such as the 80s TV show or the recent animated works to be made available for purchase. Until then I’ll simply recommend fans of old school anime or folks who wish to learn about what’s come before to purchase Space adventure Cobra when it’s released.

Features:
Japanese 5.1 Language, Japanese Language 2.0 Dolby, English 2.0 Dolby

Content Grade: A
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: A+
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: A
Extras Grade: N/A

Released By: Discotek Media
Release Date: August 21st, 2012
MSRP: $19.95
Running Time: 99 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1, 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen

Review Equipment:
Panasonic 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Marantz stereo receiver

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For a few decades, the character of Batman create by Bob Kane was seen as a gallant, crimefighting avenger and brilliant detective, ready to take down criminals across Gotham and keep citizens safe from the violence which claimed his parents’ lives. Along the way, the billionaire-turned-superhero became also seen as a big brother / father figure to young men such as Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, who also lost parents to violence and subsequently became Robin: The Boy Wonder who would help Batman and sometimes save him if need be.

In 1986, DC Comics released the 4 issue limited edition mini-series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in a special prestige format. It wasn’t one you could pick up at the comic shops initially but instead available through mail order. After rocking the world of Marvel’s superhero Daredevil, writer-artist Frank Miller teamed with inker Klaus Janson and colorist Lynn Varley to tell the story of a burned out retired vigilante who lives in his large empty manor as a shell of a man who fears what the world has become and can’t get past the fact his first assistant no longer speaks to him, as he obsesses over the fate of his second. This depiction of Batman’s psyche at the end of his career gave fans and media a brand new darker perspective into what Bruce Wayne’s life would be like in a realistic world, deconstructing his status as a super hero much like Alan Moore would later write about similar characters in Watchmen.

The reaction from media and comic fans would prompt future writers to adapt the darker elements of the Batman mythos into their works, trending away from the somewhat optimistic view depicted in cartoons like The Super Friends or early 80s comics. Filmmakers Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan showed the influence of The Dark Knight Returns in their films as did animation producer Bruce Timm in Batman: The Animated Series. For over two decades, fans of this mini-series (later collected as graphic novel) would speculate could it ever be adapted fully as a movie (live or animated) and who could portray Batman faithfully.

This question has finally been answered with the release of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Part 1. This animated movie adapts materials from the first two issues of the min-series and starts with Bruce being somewhat suicidal, driving in a formula-1 race and nearly being killed in the process. He’s 55 years old, having been retired for ten years from being Batman, whom most kids don’t believe ever existed. Though it’s never stated exactly why, the retirement appears connected to the death of Jason Todd.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Jim Gordon is a few weeks from retirement and has to death with a particularly murderous street gang called The Mutants, led by the mysterious psychopath known simply as The Mutant Leader. Various news interviews move the story along as we see one of Batman’s most dangerous foes, Two-Face, finally getting surgery to repair his half-scarred face after years of treatment and ready to return to society as Harvey Dent.

Harvey’s near immediate disappearance following his first public press conference as a reformed man triggers a return to the cape and cowl that Bruce has been fighting off mentally for some time. He can’t hold back what’s been building within him, which in some ways mirrors Harvey’s struggle with his personal demon. A brutal thunderstorm sets the perfect atmosphere that night as folks begin to see crimes foiled by ‘a huge man dressed like Dracula’. Batman emerges to face this new world but even with his manhunter instincts, incredible arsenal and a new Robin (a young girl named Carrie Kelly) who joins him along the way, there is one enemy that may ultimately thwart his comeback… namely, time.

With so much regard given to the original comic, it was hard to imagine anyone doing an adaptation worthy of the material. Fortunately, Bruce Timm’s production team gave the reins to director Jay Oliva and the results are very good. He’d worked as storyboard artist on several of the WB’s DC Universe movies and directed Doctor Strange as well as one of the segments of (the underrated) Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, so he had some good experience heading into this. It seems though he took his overall animation and art style from the Spawn animated series from HBO in the 90s. Many scenes here (especially ones taking place in dark or nighttime settings) have similar movements to that show.

One element that was difficult to picture in animation was the comic art style of Miller and Janson, which had a lot of heavy details and sketch lines. For this piece though, character designer Jay Suzuki cleaned up the designs well, while retaining the unique look of Batman (who looks rather blocky and bigger than in most works) for this movie. Between Suzuki and Oliva’s efforts, the iconic imagery and mood of the comic is translated very well in this presentation. The 80’s style music by Christopher Drake combining electronic synthesizer pieces with hard rock backgrounds came handy as well, especially during the action scenes.

There are other considerations to discuss however, most notably the screenplay by Bob Goodman. In watching this movie, it occurred to me there was one element I’d taken for granted while reading the Dark knight Returns comics. Throughout much of the story, there are many internal monologues that provide entertaining insight to Batman’s methods. (Fans of the TV series Burn Notice may relate here when thinking of Michael Weston’s voiceovers.) Those monologues are not present here but are used for exposition to help describe events half the time; the other times they’re simply omitted and are missed initially. Likewise, the appearances of the U.S. President (who in the comic is drawn and written almost exactly like President Reagan) are also missed.

These absences were hardly noticed the second time I watched this movie though. The story still held up well and had a couple minor improvements such as extended confrontations between Batman and The Mutants as well as a tense scene with a despondent army general. Other cool bits include seeing Robin awkwardly try to help Batman at one point as well as seeing Bats trying to climb a rope after years of little practice. Also, it was good to see the action start off straightaway with no opening sequence. You know why you’re there; the movie knows why you’re there. No need for delay here. Compared to the very faithful but somewhat lifeless animated adaptation of Batman: Year One (based on yet another influential comic by Frank Miller), the screenplay makes very good changes necessary for a film.

Now we come to the voice acting. In an era when Kevin Conroy has (deservedly) become the most recognized and admired Batman voice actor for animation (and some live action) fans, and Bruce Greenwood is carving a niche for himself in portraying him in Under The Red Hood and Young Justice, how would screen actor Peter Weller fare behind the microphone? When the project was first announced, many were hoping Conroy would return or that perhaps actor Michael Ironside would reprise the role as he did when a segment of The Dark Knight Returns was adapted in an episode of the Batman Animated Series entitled ‘Legends of the Dark Knight.’

It might be best to compare Weller’s performance to Ironside since both did the most similar takes on Batman. Ironside was grizzled and no nonsense. Weller though is grizzled, cold and… creepy. He’s a bit monotone for Bruce but when Batman comes out he is truly frightening to listen to at times, because you know this old man is going to kick your butt and there’s probably very little you can do about it. This quality honestly makes him more perfect to portray Batman at this stage of his life, and as usual voice director Andrea Romano manages to bring these aural nuances out to impeccable quality. There’s also one amusing part where he calls out from the Batmobile through an electronic speaker and you’ll likely get a Robocop flashback, something I’m certain was not lost on this production team.

All in all, the movie is really good. I had trepidation going into this even with Warner Animation’s track record for delivering high quality comic-based releases. I do wish the extras were more substantial like they have been on other releases. The only ones worth mentioning here are the two-part episode of the Batman Animated series showing Two-Face’s origin and a brief set of clips and storyboards from The Dark Knight Returns Part 2. The rest of the extras are average at best. Still, the movie is the main point of this review and it was very enjoyable and worthy of recommendation to any Batman (or just plain action) fan.

Grade: A-

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In 1979, a group of office workers went to their job for a day of work like any other. They set about their duties of processing visas of people wanting to leave their native country of Iran, and did other assorted tasks to keep the American Embassy running. The thing was, the country of Iran was immeasurably angry at America because our government at the time was hosting a deposed Iranian leader called The Shah who had ruled Iran in a manner those citizens didn’t like (to put it mildly). Those citizens gathered outside the U.S. embassy one day and eventually overran the gates and guards there, taking hostage over 50 people in order to demand the return of The Shah for trial and execution in the name of their current government leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Two things complicated this matter however. One was that The Shah was receiving treatment for a fatal illness and the government was unwilling to return him. The other was that on the day this embassy was overrun, six Americans escaped being taken but were unable to find any refuge except in one place: the home of the Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor. These people were safe but still prisoner after a fashion in that they could not go outside and couldn’t get home without any assistance. One CIA agent named Tony Mendez concocted a bold plan to get these people out utilizing a scenario no one had previously tried – that of a fake sci-fi movie crew looking for shooting locations in the Middle East, who would fly out after their business was concluded.  Mendez only had so much time however before the Iranians had come to figure out some of the Americans were missing from the compound but had obviously not left the country yet.

Actor turned director Ben Affleck has taken the events of Mendez’s account and created one of the best damn movies of 2012 as a result.

After hearing some non-feasible solutions to the problem, Mendez comes up with a plan while watching Battle For The Planet of the Apes.  He asks his friend make-up artist John Chambers (Jon Goodman)  who had worked on the Apes series to help him create a fake film company ready to take on the science fiction craze that had recently become very popular in the 70s. They get producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) to complete the scheme with an unsold script, financial backing, press coverage, storyboards by Jack Kirby (Michael Parks) and other elements, all the while making Mendez into a full time Hollywood big shot named Kevin Harkins to sell his credentials.

Through the preparations and the execution of this plan, we’re shown some deft direction alternating between funny, happy moments and true horrors the hostages witness. With the producers’ dealings, cheesy cast parties, anti-American actions and random shootings, Affleck creates a very realistic portrait of the dual moods of the late 70s both being equally effective for the screen. In several of the Iran scenes, it seemed he and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto may have utilized different techniques to emphasize the grain of 70s film and emulated the shooting style of the Watergate docudrama All The President’s Men. Meanwhile little nuances such as the focus on touch tone phones and Star Trek action figures help accentuate the setting, much like they did on the movie Super 8 last year. There’s a better script on this film though (even as enjoyable as Super 8 was). As someone born in the 70s, this aspect was particularly compelling, as it helped bring back memories of a rather dour mood in America due to the hostage crisis and oil situations broadcast on TV much of the time

Affleck’s best attribute though is his ability to create tension, even as we have a good idea on how things turn out eventually. This aspect was what made his previous directorial efforts Gone Baby Gone and The Town so entertaining. His performance as agent and solitary father Antonio Mendez was decent, somewhat similar to George Clooney in Syrianna. The most entertaining performances though come from Goodman and Arkin who have excellent comic chemistry on screen (and might actually be considered for Best Supporting Oscars.) The movement through the classic movie studios was also a fun sight, and will likely resonate with classic sci-fi fans a great deal.

In closing I have to say Ben Affleck has created a bright future for himself as an actor / director who like Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford before him, is becoming someone whose films I’ll be looking forward to trying out at earliest opportunity.

Grade: A

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The Earth, its moon, and its Martian colonies are under alien attack, but the war against the “Jovian Lizards” has, so far, been nothing short of a series of disasters.

Disgusted by the incompetence of Earth’s military, the independent arms manufacturer Nergal builds its own space battleship and plans to launch a desperate offensive to save humanity. But due to a shortage of trained soldiers, they’ve assembled the most unorthodox crew to ever launch into orbit. With a pacifist cook-turned-unwilling mecha pilot and a ditsy admiral’s daughter in command, can this unprecedented gathering of geeks, misfits and anime fans prevail against the Jovian menace?

The Review:
Audio
Both the English and Japanese tracks come through just fine in Dolby Digital 2.0, and I didn’t hear any problems on either one.

Video:
The picture is largely bright with crisp colors and smooth backgrounds. The age of the material is a bit of a factor but not bad at all, all things considered. There’s some very nice visual remastering work done here compared to when the series was domestically released by AD Vision in the early 2000s.

Packaging:
The collection comes in a singularly decorated box with the main characters on the front and a removable stick-on sheet describing the contents of the set. The individual disc holders contain two DVDs each and have two art pieces front and back. All in all, the set has sturdy construction and is rather eye-pleasing.

Menus:
These were definitely a labor a love as each individual episode has a separately designed menu with different pieces of artwork and individual options for openings, closings and episode starting points.

Extras:
The extras are exhaustive and help this set earn an A-grade by themselves. Between all the trailers, featurettes, interviews with voice actors and other stuff listed in the features section, this box set feels as complete as anything you’re going to find anywhere.

One year later we’re introduced the corporation Nergal. They’ve built up a battleship with advanced technologies outside of the United Earth Forces, who’d love to have this vessel for their own use. Nergal hires Mr. Prospector who is given a large sum of money and the chance to recruit as many beautiful women as he wants for his crew. While the roster is taking shape, Akito is working as a cook at a restaurant, unable to remember anything after the Mars attack (including how he got to Earth), which repeatedly causes him to have seizures during flashbacks at work.

After he’s fired, Akito decides to follow the recruitment commercials and head to Nadesico, where he still just wants to be a cook. Eventually, eventually he learns that among the eccentric crew is a girl named Yurika, who is the ship’s captain. Yurika is super excited to see Akito since he helped her out very often when they were kids and she’s been in love with him the whole time. Akito on the other hand cares little about this and more about the fact she’s the only link to what may have happened at Mars since she left one day before the attack. Akito is also trying to find out who killed his parents some time back.

In the midst of this, we’re introduced to other interesting crew members such as Ruri, a 12 year old computer prodigy. Nicknamed ‘The Electronic Fairy,’ she communicates with the ship’s systems and makes certain it runs smoothly while remaining largely distant from her shipmates, often referring to them as idiots. However she tries to learn about them (and humanity in general) by interacting with the computer very often. There’s an anime voice actress-turned- communications officer named Megumi (who develops her own interest in Akito). We also meet Gai, the lead pilot of the Aestivalis (humanoid fighting mecha) team, who has a serious interest in the anime Gekiganger 3 (a 70s styled super robot show). He comes to enthusiastically share this interest with Akito, while becoming an inspiration and mentor of sorts for the teenager.

This starts to happen during the first episode during which Akito winds up taking an Aestivalis out to against the Jovians and wind up acting as a distraction (while running in fear) in order for the Nadesico to defeat them in her first battle (much to Yurika’s delight). Soon after, the independent Nadesico crew comes to face the machinations of the United Earth Forces (led by Yurika’s somewhat lecherous father) while dealing with the enemy. During the journey into space they acquire more (mostly female) Aestivalis pilots (who come to like Akito a bit too) as well as an enigmatic professor named Inez Fressange who holds many answers to Akito’s search for the truth of what’s happened to him, while searching for some answers of her own as the true nature of Earth’s war with the Jovian Lizards comes to light.

Watching the series, it feels like director Tatsuo Sato (Bodacious Space Pirates, Ninja Scroll TV) took every suggestion from his writing team including Hiroyuki Kawasaki (Irresponsible Captain Tylor), Miho Sakai (Legend of Galactic Heroes), and Satoru Akahori (Sorcerer Hunters) and merged together various anime concepts, from 80s war mecha and sci-fi stylings, to 90s harem comedies. As a result, Sato had managed to create an interesting show for its time. Does this make Nadesico a good show, though?

Mostly, the answer is yes, though it was a bit of a chore at times keeping up with all the new characters and situations that popped up. The comedic bits, comparable to Tenchi Muyo and Captain Tylor were fun, especially whenever they broke the fourth wall for the audience as it were. Likewise, the serious mech show elements were decently presented. The initial scenes on Mars are reminiscent of Blue Comet SPT Layzner, and there are a couple nods to the idol singer / robot anime combos such as Macross and Megazone 23. On the sci-fi front, it’s also interesting to see a new concept of warp travel called ‘boson jumps’ (which send objects from place to place unharmed but often have devastating effects on unprotected humans.)
The thing is though sometimes the pacing between these story aspects gets a little jumbled up and it’s hard to keep focus. Sometimes a little too much time is spent on comedy where character or situational development would’ve served better so that when the end came, there would be a bit more impact. Also it was a tad irritating to see every other female chase after Akino, though the resolution does help to deal with this as well.

However, there’s the theatrical movie included in this set entitled Martian Successor Nadesico: The Prince of Darkness, which takes the story in a somewhat odd direction. It’s a few years later and Ruri is now commander of the Nadesico since Akito and Yurika are both presumed dead. There’s been a tenuous peace for a while but an unusual number of Boson jumps near the space colony known as Almetarasu become cause for an investigation, as the United Earth Forces have something called The Hisalgo Plan taking place there. Nadesico arrives and soon after all the computers on the colony start to go haywire, with a simple word appearing ominously on the screens: ‘Otika.’ Ruri instantly understands that an attack is impending and that a familiar face may become involved.
Soon enough, Jovian ships appear and a battle takes place, with the colony being defended by Aestivalis pilots (a couple of whom are familiar) while the Nadesico crew evacuates the civilians and the wounded. However, a mysterious black mecha batters its way to the heart of the colony and the truth of The Hisalgo Plan is revealed, indicating the story has taken a very harsh turn.

Tatsuo Sato took total writing and directing duties for this one. The look of the film is pure beauty for late 90s work. Most of the battle scenes have good motion and decent detail. Also, once again with the remastering work here, the shininess of the artwork is very bold with crisp colors. The story though (while retaining some of the quirks from the TV series) is a bit of a downer and the last parts can leave the viewer with a feeling of ‘That’s it?” The ending has a bit of uncertainty to it that didn’t occur at the conclusion of the TV series and given the length of time since this movie was produced, it doesn’t look like we’ll get resolution any time soon.

It is nice to have the movie as part of a complete set though; almost as nice as having the special OAV Gekiganger 3 included as well. It was never included in the previous releases of Martian Successor Nadesico, so seeing it in the U.S. officially is a real treat, for both fans of this series and fans of 70s super robot shows by Go Nagai and Ken Ishikawa. The OAV covers much of what the Nadesico characters were watching. It’s about as long as a TV episode, but captures the nuances of works like Mazinger Z, Getter Robo and (in one respect) Gatchaman so the running time doesn’t drag the jokes on. Writer Yuchiro Oguro and character designer Makoto Konoe retain every aspect which made this genre so much fun to watch as kids and parody as adults, with wild hairstyles, dramatic sketch lines and burning passion needed to get those shows on the air (and toy robots into kids’ hands.)

Although, there were none for the Gekiganger OAV, the American voices taken from the original ADV Films recordings were pretty decent to listen to, though there was a lot of yelling throughout the show and sometimes subtlety would’ve worked better. Then again, this was how the Japanese seiyuu did their performances so it’s more of a preference than any real complaint here. Spike Spencer and Jennifer K. Earhart play off each other well as Akito and Yurika respectively and Kira Vincent-Davis brings out Ruri’s subdued tendencies without making totally deadpan, so there’s no real issues here.

In Summary:
As a whole, this is one of the best collections I’ve come across in a good while and easily a candidate for purchase of the year. I personally hadn’t seen this series in full until now and was able to enjoy it for the most part. With this much effort put in for the money, it was obviously a labor of love by Right Stuf / Nozomi Entertainent, and it’s one I’m happy to recommend. If you’re a collector of old school anime or just feel a need to upgrade from the ADV Films release, this new set of Martian Sucessor Nadesico DVDs is definitely the one to grab.

Features:
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 2.0 Language, English Subtitles, Several interviews with voice actors and staff, “Welcome to Belle Equipe” featurette (45-minute documentary on the TV series, its music, and its staff); “Nadesico Sorekara” special (25-minute special with footae from the Nadesico Roadshow, as well as voice actor interviews and promo clips for the film); clean opening and ending for the TV series; TV spots; movie promotional video; movie trailers; music video for the movie featuring Yumi Matsuzawa; and Nozomi Entertainment trailers.

Content Grade:
TV series: A-
Prince of Darkness movie: B-
Gekiganger 3 OAV: A

Overall content grade: A-

Audio Grade: A
Video Grade: A+
Packaging Grade: A
Menu Grade: A
Extras Grade: A+

Released By: Right Stuf / Nozomi Entertainment
Release Date: September 04, 2012
MSRP: $59.99
Running Time: 740 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Review Equipment:
Panasonic 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Marantz stereo receiver

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So a funny thing happened on the way to see Tyler Perry…

Recently, I went with a friend to see a sneak preview of Alex Cross here in Atlanta. However, since Tyler Perry is the star of that film (and this city is home to his production studios), the screening filled to capacity and my friend and I were offered a chance to see a sneak preview of the CG animated movie Rise of the Guardians instead. This turned out to be a really good choice.

As we put on our 3D glasses, we’re introduced to Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine, ‘Star Trek’) who lives a carefree life creating blizzards and cold temperatures wherever he goes with his staff. He imagines kids love him because of the snow days (off school) he provides and wonders about the mysterious Man On The Moon who sometimes seemingly guides things. One day though, he gets tricked into following someone who turns out to be Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman, ‘X-Men’). He and two giant yetis kidnap Jack and bring him before other inspirational figures such as the lovely Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher,’ Definitely Maybe’), Sandy the ever-silent bringer of pleasant dreams, and their Russian leader Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock).

This pantheon represents all the imaginative beliefs that children have and they work to guard this imagination with everything they have. The guardians have come to welcome Jack into their ranks (with a full music procession no less). However, Jack doesn’t want to join and believes he does a decent job making kids smile on his own. However, the Easter Bunny lets him know that kids don’t really know he exists due to his low-key nature. Santa lets them know there’s an even bigger problem with a being called Pitch, The Nightmare King (Jude Law, ‘Gattaca’) who for all intents and purposes is The Boogeyman.

Pitch has a plan to destroy the Guardians’ standing among the children of the world, starting with an attack on the Tooth Fairy’s stronghold where she keeps all the teeth she’s collected (along with the memories of their former owners), using various creatures who are literally the stuff of nightmares. It’s during this attack that the group starts to realize Pitch’s ultimate goals and strategy. However, one kid in particular named Jamie (Dakota Goyo) refuses to ever stop believing in such magical beings, and may be a threat to Pitch’s plan.

Watching this movie play out felt like seeing a holiday version of a Final Fantasy game. The animation techniques and 3D use were top notch in the battles against the nightmare creatures, particularly in the multiple aerial sequences and fight scenes. The 3D effects worked well enough to be interactive without being overwhelming, and the models have decent texture and construction. The voice acting was believable to hear as the characters developed and I honestly didn’t recognize Baldwin as the Russian Santa Claus until after the movie was over.

This left director Ramsey to helm the project by himself. Fortunately, after this screening was over, he came out to address the audience in a Q&A session. Apparently, there were invites sent to local colleges such as Spellman, Morehouse, Art Institute, as well as Mays High school (at least this seemed to be where the majority of the questioners were coming from) and many students and educators came to meet the first African American to direct a 3D CG Animated theatrical film. Ramsey said it took him 8 years of working at Dreamworks to become a director after primarily doing work on storyboards for animated and live projects. He landed this one after having directed the television sequel to Monsters Vs. Aliens. Ramsey wasn’t originally looking to become animation director per se, but had been inspired by Spike Lee, John Singleton and others in the early 90s to become a filmmaker and found his way to animation.

At one point, Ramsey was asked about Easter Bunny being Australian; he said he was told the screenwriters had depicted the Bunny this way and was initially dubious but Ramsey always pictured him being a cowboy / ranger type character so Jackman’s accent and style fit well during the film’s 3-year development. I got to ask about the possibility of an adult-minded animated movie (in the mold of Titan AE for example) since so few are actually made. Ramsey responded he believes movies such as Shrek as well as Pixar’s works like Toy Story is written intelligently for adults but the money is mostly in works geared toward kids. However if a profit can be demonstrated to be made from such a project, Ramsey says it could happen, and he believes sequel to Rise is possible if enough money is made.

As to Rise of the guardians though, this is a holiday film for families. I’m a bit out of the targeted age range obviously but if the audience reaction and level of story interest I witnessed during the Q&A are any indication, I think this movie can bring a sense of wonder back to adults enough that they can enjoy this movie with their children and get into the spirit of its story. Recommended.

Grade: A-

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“Some men are coming to kill us. We’re going to kill them first.”

This really is what the movie Skyfall boils down to, but the road to that point of the story has so many twists and surprises they can make your head spin. Things start off though on a bit of a crazy note. As the movie opens, we see James Bond (Daniel Craig, ‘Casino Royale’) walk into a crime scene where some fellow British operatives have been murdered and a laptop has been ripped open, its hard drive now missing. Via radio, M (Judi Dench) orders Bond to pursue whoever did this and retrieve the hard drive. Bond and Eve (Naomie Harris, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ 2&3), his rookie partner for this operation, track down the assailant but things don’t go well at all…

Some time later, M is summoned to meet an overseer named Gareth Mallory (Ralph Finnes, ‘The Constant Gardener’) who has some misgivings about M’s handling of the situation. M remains defiant in the face of this and returns to MI6 to continue investigating. However, some intense events escalate things to a new level and Agent 007 returns to the forefront in order to find out who is behind it all.

I remember discussing James Bond with a friend who noted that in the books, he’s not totally a superman as opposed to the movies. In this installment, this seems to be the opposite case as the time he’s spent as a field agent since Quantum of Solace has clearly taken a bit of toll on 007. The flaws and vulnerabilities we were introduced to in Casino Royale are magnified a bit here even as Bond himself has matured into M’s very best agent. Oh, he still kills efficiently, gets the intel and beds the beauties like you may have seen in previous films, but the added layers we’ve seen presented in Daniel Craig movies (and at times in the Pierce Brosnan films as well) make the Bond character more compelling to root for. Craig displays serious presence in all aspects in this movie and the audience can attach themselves much more readily.

This also lends itself to talking about Bond’s relationship with M, which gets probed a bit more deeply and the added layers I spoke of really come into play here. It is quite clear she has come to care about Bond greatly in their time together, which in turn gets Bond to go places you didn’t even know existed just for her. Writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan did a great job balancing the exposition between this relationship and the menace that comes to disrupt it.

Speaking of the menace, it’s rarely more realized and more personal than what is served up by the villain known as Silva (Javier Bardeem, No Country For Old Men). He gets to Bond and M on very personal levels while displaying three aspects which make him incredibly dangerous: brilliance, method, and total freaking insanity. At one point see some of what may have driven Silva to be the man he is and it’s truly an unnerving moment for everyone (audience included). One character simply refers to him as ‘fear’ and it’s very much a fitting description for one of the very best adversaries ever in a Bond film.

Director Sam Mendes brings all of this to the screen in beautiful fashion, incorporating exotic locales (side note: I’ve got to see Shang Hai someday) and setting up great fight sequences (one of which has some of the most exquisite cinematography you’ll see this year.)  He also gives us one of the most morbid opening sequences for a Bond film set to Adele’s 60s-styled theme. It certainly sets the tone for everything at least. The fun aspect though is seeing this world come into focus for longtime fans, with for example the introduction of Q (Ben Whishaw – ‘Perfume: The Story of a Murderer’). His rapport with Bond will likely be a more subdued annoyance than the one given by the late Desmond Llewelyn in the classic Bond films. But he’ll still be the man with the gadgets that keep 007 alive.

It’s this and several other little things that can make fans anticipate future installments of the Bond franchise, but this movie is by itself is easily one of the best to date. Even after 50 years, it’s proof that the right creative team can bring something fresh and classical to the big screen without alienating a franchise’s given fanbase. If director Mendes and this writing team are slated to utilize Daniel Craig in future 007 movies, I’ll be very happy to see them as well. To people who favor more of the old school Bond films, I can honestly say Skyfall is every bit as good as the Sean Connery classics ever were and it’s very much worth your time at the theater.

Grade: A

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What They Say:
When she hears a strange song from a crystal radio, Asuna tunes into more than just a magical stream of music. Soon, she is transported to a mysterious world where mythical beasts roam and brave warriors fight for their lives. Agartha is a land of breathtaking beauty and unimaginable danger – a place where, if believed, even the dead can be brought back to life. But at what cost? Children Who Chase Lost Voices is a spellbinding new work from Japanese visionary Makoto Shinkai, who amazed audiences the world over with Voices of A Distant Star and 5 Centimeters Per Second. Now, with Children, Shinkai affirms his place as one of animation’s most original voices.

The Review:
Audio: 
The English and Japanese audio tracks came through just fine with no problems here. The Japanese commentary track (with accompanying subtitles) was pretty educational as well.

Video:
The movie was originally released theatrically in 2011, and the video converted here for DVD release looks gorgeous. The video quality here is very nice and crisp. The subtitles are yellow with black detail for good reading as needed.

Packaging:
The front contains the three protagonists of the movie with the title in simple white text. The back shows several images from the film with awards prominently displayed and a synopsis feature listings below. Pretty reasonable presentation of what audiences can expect from what’s inside.

Menu:
The menu is rather simple with the three leads on a picture with the options listed off to the lower thirds in bright white text. The extras disc menu has options on the lower right. Decent work here.

Extras:
The extra videos are very lengthy and give a very good accounting of Makoto Shinkai’s mindset when he was making this movie and how much research he actually put into it. There’s a text interview to scroll and read through, as well as a video interview where we learn  Shinkai no longer works from home due to having a child now, but rented a few studios to do work instead. He also researched Kojiki, which focuses on tales of gods & deities and origins of the wqorld and Japanese people. There’s also a ‘making of’ documentary showing the film’s prememire screening in May 2011, and another equally informative but rather lengthy video containing interviews with Shinkai and seiyuu cast. We get to learn for example the lead actress was nervous first time she watched movie since it was her first leading role and that the entire cast was affected emotionally after watching finished product.

The next day, Asuna heads to school and finds got the best score on a test again. Her very pregnant teacher warns the kids of a strange animal in area like a bear or something. Asuna decides to head back to her spot after school. While following the train tracks en route she runs into a terrifying, monstrous creature who comes straight at her. However, a mysterious boy comes to help and the creature is killed just as a train comes.

He introduces himself as Shun, and tells Asuna to leave the area and not return. Later, however, she does so looking for the boy who saved her life and finds Shun expecting her. Asuna treats his battle wounds and they listen to her radio and talk for a while. Shun says he comes from a far off land called Agartha to find something. As a blessing of his culture, he gives Asuna a kiss (her first one) on the forehead, which prompts her to run off nervously.

Some time passes and Asuna finds her class has a substitute teacher named Mr. Morisaki reading from and lecturing about a book which focuses on concepts surrounding death. Upon hearing mentions of Agartha, Asuna becomes very interested and follows him home to learn a little more. However, after telling her some things about humans and guardians who went underground as well as beings known as the Quetzalcoatls, Morisaki abruptly kicks her off home. Instead, she returns to her private spot where she finds a mysterious boy who looks very similar to Shun…

What follows is an adventure the likes of which you may have seen in some fantasy anime, but not entirely. It’s an incredible journey for people looking for a way to deal with their pain from the loss of a loved one. Some of what’s shown has these characters struggling through those emotions in different ways and not necessarily in healthy ways at all as their true objectives come to light. The journey itself is an incredible rollercoaster ride weaving together drama, action, humor, joy and sadness into one of the most effective screenplays of this anime decade. To help illustrate how it plays out, the movie feels like a cross between Hayao Myazaki’s ‘Castle In The Sky Laputa’ and the literary classic Dante’s Inferno. That doesn’t entirely do the movie justice though on how powerful this work by writer / director Makoto Shinkai (‘Voices of A Distant Star’) truly is, even though he actually admitted Dante’s Inferno was a partial inspiration for it during an interview.

I first saw this film at Otakon 2011 two months after it premiered in Japan. In a very large room full of movie fans, I could see I wasn’t alone in feeling incredibly emotional by the time the movie was over. In over 20 years of collecting anime, no film had done this to me. Subsequently I’d often wind up talking about whether Isao Takahata’s ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ could’ve had the same effect due to its sad storyline. The thing about anime such as that one or Shinkai’s ‘5cm Per Second’ or similar fare is that they drill into you about how depressing life can be, and the end result tends to pummel the viewer into submission emotionally.

Children Who Chase Lost Voices (From Deep Below) does something even more hard hitting: it points out that there is a joy to life as well in seeing what possibilities and wonders the world can have to offer, especially when time in the world is shared with a loved one. There’s an input of positive energy that is wonderful to look forward to. The death of someone close means the permanent loss of that energy, save for memories, which is why such a loss is painful for the living. The 1980 Oscar winning movie ‘Ordinary People’ touched on this concept a bit, but ‘Children’ truly expands on it in a beautiful way, as Shinkai notes on the extras disc; “Death is something we don’t normally deal with everyday.”

The beauty is in part due to the lovely backdrops and scenery that Shikai and his team have drawn here, which are every bit as artistic and corporeal as those shown in Studio Ghibli movies. They feel like an art museum come to life and act as an extra character at times for Asuna and others to deal with. Shinkai explained his style pretty well in the txt interview on the extras disc. ‘There’s a lot of 3d animation going on. That’s the mainstream. But my work is more the traditional 2d animation, essentially a lot of fixed cuts that are sewn together. Because of that, one of the first things I think of is the importance of the beauty of each cut as a still picture. Even though there’s motion there, I think there needs to be a beauty there akin to that of a picture or still drawing.”

The characters themselves are equally interesting to see developed here. Asuna’s exploits are fun to watch as she deals with growing up normally (though with a bit of isolation). She’s bright and capable, and having to grow up faster than the kids around her. The late Gene Siskel once talked about how he knew an animated movie had hooked him emotionally, when he came to care about what happens to the people on screen as opposed to thinking of them as drawings. That’s pretty much the case here as the film progresses for her and everyone concerned. I had the privilege of seeing a pre-screening of the dub at Anime Weekend Atlanta 2012 and Hilary Haag still made Asuna a compelling character to root for just as her Japanese counterpart did. This was also true in the cases of David Matranga as Mr. Morisaki and Leraldo Anzaldua as Shun. Although the title was shortened a bit on the title card for this release (likely for marketing concerns), I have to say Sentai Filmworks did an overall nice job on this release.

In Summary:
With the passing of anime director Satoshi Kon, and looming twilight for the careers of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, there’s a need to find great anime filmmakers for the future generations to enjoy. Although he has done decent works prior to this, Children Who Chase Who Chase Lost Voices (From Deep Below) establishes that Makoto Shinkai can truly be the current generation’s leading anime filmmaker. As you might imagine, this movie gets a very high recommendation here and will likely be on my favorite anime list for a good while to come.

Features (Secondary DVD):
Japanese 5.1 Language, English 5.1 Language, English Subtitles, Full-Length Commentary featuring Makoto Shinkai, Production Staff, and Voice Actors; Interviews with the Staff & Cast; The Making of ‘Children Who Chase Lost Voices’; Japanese Promotional Video; Japanese Teasers; A Brief Interview with Makoto Shinkai; The Works of Makoto Shinkai

Content Grade: A+
Audio Grade: A-
Video Grade:  A+
Packaging Grade: A
Menu Grade: A
Extras Grade: A+

Released By: Sentai Filmworks
Release Date: November 13, 2012
MSRP: $29.98
Running Time: 116 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

Review Equipment:
Panasonic 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Marantz stereo receiver

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What They Say:
“I side with myself.” The fierce reputation of the barbarian warrior Conan grows throughout the lands of Hyboria, with kings and conquerors alike willing to pay a fortune for the fearsome Cimmerian’s broadsword. But when warring factions are both willing to secure Conan’s services, they discover that they can buy a mercenary’s blade but never his allegiance. Collects Marvel’s The Savage Sword of Conan the Barbarian #121-#130.

The Review:
Savage Sword of Conan was a fun anthology magazine in the late 70s and early 80s. Back then, Marvel comics had seen the potential in doing comic exploits based on Robert E. Howard’s freebooting hero. There were two other comics at the time also showing the Cimmerian’s adventures. Conan The Barbarian depicted them as he was traveling around in the Hyborian Age fighting monsters, getting women and drinking the best mead possible. The other series King Conan showed him as ruler of Aquilonia, having won the kingdom that was promised to him, while dealing with intrigues against him and the children he raises with his queen. These were done in the regular newsstand format for monthly colorized comics alongside Spider-Man, Avengers and the like.

Savage Sword of Conan though was done as a black and white magazine, which lent to a more intense flavor than the 2 other Conan titles with varying shades of greys and blacks helping to define blood splatters that the more sanitized color comics couldn’t match. The dimensions were about 1/3 greater than regular comics and the art was larger than life very often. Emulating the style similar on covers of Howard’s novels, many times we’d see Conan’s swordplay cut deeper into his enemies with blood splattering everywhere in more brutal displays than the regular titles which came off as a bit more sanitized for younger readers. Naturally, some of the more racy content where Conan would get his women (or ‘bed the wenches’ if you like) was depicted with a bit more adult style as well. For newer fans who were getting more into the Cimmerian’s adventures around the time the ’82 movie Conan The Barbarian made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star, this was good reading material to explore.

With Dark Horse reprinting these stories, it’s a good (and relatively inexpensive) way to experience some fun fantasy for goys. Since Savage Sword is an anthology series, we can see Conan’s exploits at any time in his career, from his piracy days to his early adventures where he’s learning his warrior skills to his more experienced times as a thief and mercenary. There is one late in the series during his reign as a king. Given this format, the series was more accessible to newer readers, though a couple recurring storylines would appear in different issues depending which one you pick up.

When I was a kid, I started grabbing these at the local grocery store, next to issues of Marvel’s Epic Magazine (an equally adult-minded anthology) at the time. So it’s rather fun to have a chance to review this collection. Mostly, it was the cover art of Joe Jusko and Ernie Chan that got a young fan hooked, as well as the interiors by Chan giving all the characters highly detailed and defined characteristics, in stories such as “The Blossoms of the Black Lotus” where Conan must bring two warring pirates / drug dealers against each other in order to save his own men who’ve been captured by The Priests of Set (the dragon serpent). Chan’s art is equally effective in “Secret of the Great Stone” where Conan winds up taking a long quest through deceptive witches and various demonic monsters.

The tales by Larry Yakata, Gary Kwapiz, Don Kraar often emulated Howard’s style from the novels. A couple of stories show Conan’s softer side in a way (and yes these do fit what we’ve come to know about the Cimmerian reaver). In ‘The Mercenary,’ we see him teach a young man how to be a good swordsman and mercenary after his life is saved. Eventually thought they wind up on opposite sides of an epic battle. Also in ‘Curse of the Ageless Ones’, Conan travels alongside a childhood friend who’s become a powerful sorcerer as well as a hellified swordsman and protector. Nothing could ever come between them except well, it’s a Conan story. Some kind of tragedy’s got to happen, right?

We also get some elements of Conan’s piracy days. In ‘The Sea Mage’s Daughter,’ he deals with former partners and a mysterious sorcerer in order to fend off two nations looking to regulate the seas. Also we get some fun tales of Conan’s mercenary nature getting the best of him. In ‘There Will Come A Dark Stranger’ for example he helps another young man become swordsman and eventually a king in return for promised treasures. Then there’s ‘Autumn of the Witch’, where Conan winds up working for a woman accused of witchcraft who has to fight off in-laws for her husband’s estate.

The collection books span about 11 issues with 500 pages. The reproductions here look rather comparable to their initial magazine issues. Dimension wise, they’re about 15% smaller but the art quality remains intact. The price of $19.95 is relatively consistent to the $1.50 – $2.00 individuals so I’m not complaining on this aspect either. I do miss however some of the King Kull stories that served as back-ups in the magazines though.

In Summary:
This is the 12th such collection I’ve bought and the stories are still fun to check out. I hadn’t been able to start collecting the magazine until the early 100s, so it’s fun to see this handling of the character and to learn the storytelling styles of the 80s I hadn’t previously experienced. For the price and content, it’s easy to recommend one of these to everyone who enjoys intense fantasy and just plain good old fashioned testosterone induced, butt kicking, mead swilling action that only can be found in a Conan The Barbarian comic.

Grade: A

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Hey, everyone. Due to the high number of entertaining films that have been based on comics in recent years, I decided to write a piece looking at the best ones over a long period of time and talk about why they were so entertaining. We live in a time when more Hollywood studios recognize the value in not only buying the rights to these characters names but also putting into the scripts whatever elements made fans of said characters in the first place. There are a lot of them (good and bad and REALLY fragging bad), so in an attempt to restrain myself a bit, I decided to limit to 30 movies spread over two lists.

Now, a few criteria went into these lists. First off, I made two lists because I didn’t want one movie and its sequels to dominate all positions. It’d be a boring piece to write that way. I wanted to celebrate high quality works from different sections of comic based lore. So I made the preliminary list of 15 slots for the sequels and films that were decent or pretty good so as not to overshadow everything on the main list, which I use to spread the love around to as many different films as I could possibly do in another 15 slots.

Another criteria here is that the films in question were based on pre-existing comics. So although there were some really good ones based on super powered people like say, The Incredibles or Chronicle, they weren’t eligible for this piece. I mixed in ones based on a specific graphic novel with ones simply based on existing characters with long histories. Either way, there’s some adaptation used for screen time here, though admittedly with the long history characters, there’s some amalgamation of their stories. Sometimes, it’s just the execution that accounts for the quality of the final product.

I also chose to focus on domestic live-action movies based on comics here. For one thing, the challenges of translating an art based medium to a live practical medium are inherently different than ones for making an art based medium like comics into animation. Also, if I tried to account for every good animated work or every good live work that might be found in international films from Hong Kong, Japan or other places, I’d never have time to get up from this computer

Just to let you know, by the way, there’s a couple I haven’t seen yet such as Ghost World, American Splendor, and Kick Ass. I haven’t had time leading up to the deadline for this article, but I reserve the right to do so and revisit this piece at a future date. Hence, part of the reason the title has ‘For Now’ at the end. Another reason for that though is the number of potentially good films coming out in the next year or two as Marvel will begin working on their ‘Phase Two’ movies, Sony will shoot the sequel to The Amazing Spider Man, and Warner will be pushing Man of Steel heavily en route to their eventual Justice League movie.

Oh, and one last thing… there’s only 30 slots here and so, I tried to come up with some good ones, while others, I just simply couldn’t make room for. If I didn’t do so for your favorite movie to discuss, it’s not because I was trying to insult your tastes, hurt your feelings or shoot your dog. I might have liked it, just not enough to put it here. Or, I might’ve given in to peer pressure, watched said movie, and figured out I really hated everything that was on the screen (fragging Scott Pilgrim) and so chose not to list it. Crap happens. If there’s a problem, feel free to tell me I’m wrong and why you think so, in as eloquent a manner you might choose. I’ll be sitting right here on the other end…. Not giving a damn as usual and smiling broadly (unless it’s a truly compelling argument). That’s what creating list articles are for. Debating, and celebrating. It’s a celebration, bitches! Enjoy yourself!

Now that said, movies are as follows….

Preliminary list

15. Constantine (So Keanu Reeves doesn’t have blonde hair. Still doesn’t detract from the film which caught the essence of this character’s struggles to help people’s struggles while dancing the fine line between heaven and hell. Loosely adapted from my favorite Hellblazer storyline “Dangerous Habits’ by Garth Innis, this movie honestly turned out better than I expected it to be, and Rachel Weisz is always a nice sight, not to mention a very good actress.)

Constantine

14. Speed Racer (captures the energy of the cartoon and manga perfectly, and also has appearances by Peter Fernandez (voice of Speed) and Corinne Orr (Trixie). This one got an unfair bum rap from critics for being too fantastic and cartoon-like from what I could tell which is sad because it was fun to experience kid friendly energy mixed with high quality visuals and retro style.

Speed Racer

13. Batman (1966)  (Yes, I’m putting the wacky adventures of The Dynamic Duo starring Adam West and Burt Ward on this list. It’s just too much fun seeing Batman & Robin taking on The Joker (Caesar Romero), The Riddler (Frank Gorshin), The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) and Catwoman (Lee Meriwether) who romances Bruce Wayne as Miss Kitka of the Soviet newspapers.  If you can’t have a good time laughing at the graphic punch words (BAM!), the Bat-Shark Repellent, or the dolphin who sacrificed itself to save Batman and Robin from a torpedo, you’re just not human.

Batman (1966)

12. The Rocketeer (Joe Johnston’s first foray into period movies about superheroes, a powerful back pack and Howard Hughes. Good times. R.I.P, Dave Stevens)

The Rocketeer

11. The Crow (To be honest, there were some better movies than this one, but the tragedy of the loss of Brandon Lee’s potential as a leading action star compelled me to at least place this film on the list. That’s not to say there aren’t good aspects to Alex Proyas’s adaptation of James O’barr’s emotional story of vengeance. The sight of a painted up undead man walking through gunshots and knife throwings while telling nasty jokes is rather appealing. Just wish the script followed the comic more without the necessary Hollywood contrivances. It’s an entertaining film though and I still play the soundtrack from time to time.)

The Crow

10. Smallville: Absolute Justice (Ok, not a theatrical one, but this was advertised at ‘the Smallville movie’ when broadcast, and may be the closest we’ll get to a Justice Society movie, with heroes like Doctor Fate, Hawkman, Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter all appearing to give Kal-El some help against a government conspiracy led by Amanda Waller of Checkmate.  Add in cameos by the rest of the JSA and some excellent art direction touches by Alex Ross and you have pure DC fanboy goodness here.)

Smallville

9. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army – Guillermo Del Toro’s second outing with Mike Mignola’s demonic looking hero was much more lively than his first. Ron Perlman was still simultaneously forceful and laid-back, but it was Abe Sapien as played by Doug Jones who became something of a scene stealer with his own subplot taking stage. Add a goofy singing sequence and some awesome backgrounds & monsters for the characters to interact and you have a pretty nice piece of filmmaking.

Hellboy 2

8. Blade II (Honestly, better than the first one. Pretty interesting creatures Blade has to fight this time out and the ending fight is pure awesomeness. More proof that Guillermo Del Toro is a heck of a horror & fantasy filmmaker. PS: Damn, I can’t wait for Pacific Rim!!!! …. Ok, back to the article.)

Blade II

7. X-Men: First Class (could honestly be interchangeable with X2 on the main list. Excellent performances by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, who’ve reinvented Professor X and Magneto on screen for a new generation. The eyecatches of the 60s were also great touches. Director Matthew Vaughn proved to be a great successor to Bryan Singer.)

X-Men: First Class

6. The Incredible Hulk (Of all the live incarnations of the character, this one got the most right about him. Also, there’s none of that horrid cutaway editing that plagued the Ang Lee version, and he doesn’t fight a puff of smoke at the end in this movie.)

Incredible Hulk

5. Captain America: The First Avenger (Great work done by Joe Johnston here. He captured the nostalgia of period propaganda while fleshing out Steve Rogers as a character (and in turn made everyone forget Chris Evans had anything to do with those awful Fantastic Four films). The only flaw in this movie is that so much of Cap’s fight against The Red Skull’s invasion is too passive and we don’t get enough active participation from Cap’s perspective on WW2.

Captain America: The First Avenger

4. Thor (Director Kenneth Brannagh did something I wasn’t certain could be done: he translated Thor to live action in a convincing manner. It did help that Chris Hemsworth had a great accent and that he and Tom Hiddleston as Loki played so well off each other. Out of all the Marvel movies, this is the one where the acting was the strongest element as opposed to the screenplay which was decent but average.)

Thor

3. Spider Man (Sam Raimi’s innovation of the fast-moving first-person Raimi-cam technique came into play a bit and it was genuinely fun to see the web-slinger on the big screen. The Green Goblin was revamped greatly but Willem Dafoe puts in an insanely good performance as Norman Osborn, with Tobey McGuire goofily playing the nerd turned hero. Really good effort all around.

Spider-Man

2. Superman II  (Clark and Lois’s relationship deepened as three criminals broke out of the Phantom Zone to give Superman the fight of his life. Even with the liberties taken about the Kryptonians’ powers, this was a great installment.)

1. Iron Man (The first part of the great Marvel / Paramount experiment to see if using movies to build a lead in for The Avengers could actually work. Between the efforts of actor Robert Downey Jr. as uber-smart billionaire Tony Stark and the commitment to quality given by director and fan Jon Favreau, the fans and average filmgoers were given hope that a good movie based on a comic book property could actually be done well while remaining largely faithful to its source material.

Iron Man

The Main List

*cues drum roll*

15. Men In Black – This independent comic by Lowell Cunningham from the early 90s wound up being a fun off-beat romp and a huge success for stars Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. Guided by director Barry Levinson, audiences got a peek into the organization who makes certain aliens can have peaceful (and sometimes famous) coexistence with unsuspecting humanity, and kick butt when necessary. Also, I’m slightly breaking a rule doing this but the third film was also a good installment.

Men In Black

14. The Mask – From the Dark Horse comic by John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke, we were treated to rubber faced comic actor Jim Carey in one of his better performances as meek Stanley Ipkiss, who finds an ancient mask which drives its wearer to near insanity while giving him incredible powers. Although quite different than the comic (in which Stanley becomes insanely evil and dies), this movie was funny, entertaining and solid as a whole, and as an added benefit introduced the world to the lovely Cameron Diaz as a leading lady.

The Mask

13. Sin City: The Hard Goodbye – Robert Rodriguez did a good job adapting Frank Miller’s black & white crime noir comic for the big screen (even leaving the Director’s guild to bring in Miller as a co-director) while retaining the art style that made the comic so striking. In the spirit of similar novels by Mickey Spillane and Raymond Chandler, the comics themselves were interconnecting stories developing this harsh crime-ridden world that various tough-guy protagonists fight their way through. The theatrical film took three of the better stories and edited them together (with one written just for the movie) but cut out some elements from their original comics for time constraints and story cohesiveness and the results were decent. On the special edition DVD and blu ray releases though, a second DVD was produced which told each story as a stand-alone movie. The best of these was the one based on Miller’s first series (now entitled The Hard Goodbye due to this movie’s release). It focused on a huge brutal guy named Marv who simply doesn’t know any way to live other than the hard way. When he experiences a loss and a frame up, he kills his way to the truth. Rodriguesz’s crazy direction and emphasis on brutality are perfect for this adaptation (especially if you’ve seen From Dusk Til Dawn or Grindhouse: Planet Terror), but what makes this movie memorable is the pitch perfect performance of Mickey Rourke as Marv himself. This truly grounds the crazy shooting style of the movie and gives us an ass-kicking but lovable loser to root for til the very end.

12. 300 – After proving his ability to entertain audiences with his remake of Dawn of the Dead, director Zack Snyder showed he was adept at using crazy camera techniques and intense shading filters to create another awesome adaptation of a Frank Miller comic. The battles of King Leonidas and his 300 men against larger-than-life legions in the name of Sparta were visceral, hard hitting and very much in tune with the source material, all the while making actor Gerard Butler a household name for a time. Great execution here led Snyder to his eventual other comic-based project…

300

11. Dredd 3D – Maybe the previous Stallone film killed the public’s interest in this movie (or maybe the name or promotion, I don’t know.) but this was a very good adaptation of the Judge Dredd character and his world of Mega-City One. Judge Anderson was also handled well as our introductory character and for once, as a female NOT just put in to be a love interest for the lead. Great innovative camera techniques used here and the 3D was very effective to fit the screenplay. It deserved better at the box office so we could get stories like The Cursed Earth Saga or The Dark Judges. Alas….

Dredd 3D

10. V For Vendetta – Alan Moore’s complex story about a single man’s quest to tear down a fascistic government through both action and ideology was one that didn’t seem like a story meant for film. However, screenwriters Andy and Lana Waichoski managed to interpret Moore’s ideas pretty well for movie length, while keeping the intentions being set forth relatively intact. Much of the time we’re given the story from the perspective of Evey (Natalie Portman) who finds herself transformed by V’s plans, while we see some good direction of V’s actions as narrated and performed by Hugo Weaving. Director James McTeigue deserves some serious kudos for bringing this difficult character to celluloid life.

V For Vendetta

9. Blade – This was the first good movie based on a Marvel comic after many dismal, poorly directed and under-funded adaptations in previous decades. This one had a legit martial artist and charismatic badass in Wesley Snipes who could handle the Hong Kong fantasy styles infused into the Blade character’s battle against vampires who didn’t sparkle. This in turn led more production companies to see what could happen when you actually put viable resources and appropriate talents behind a comic based story as the explosion of decent works over the last 15 years like X-Men and Spider-Man can be traced to this film.

Blade

8. X2: X-Men United – Bryan Singer’s second entry into the Marvel mutantverse took what came before in the previous X-Men film and built up both characters and the ante. The script had a perfect setup utilizing the characters toward an ending no one saw coming, but had long time X-Men fans seriously anticipating the third chapter. There’s Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) trying to regain his memory because of a guy named Stryker (Bryan Cox) who uses a White House attack by the teleporter Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) as a pretext to invade the school of Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and destroy all mutants. Stryker’s plan involves Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen) who wants to prevent this and may or may not have an agenda all his own. There’s also the development of the kids at the school like Colossus who become better over time with their powers and likely will develop into full X Men. It’s great to see Storm (Halle Berry) and Jean Grey (Famke Jansen) kick butt more proactively than in the first film, and Mystique (Rebecca Romjin) was sexy and fun. Overall, there were good uses of powers by original X-Men like Cyclops as well as the emerging students such as Pyro and Iceman, whose rivalry develops big time. In the end though, seeing McKellen, Stewart and Cox give weight to their characters anchors a very solid film so that the action around them becomes more compelling.

X2: X-men United

7. A History of Violence – Although rather different than its source material, this movie is no less impactful due to hard hitting yet naturalistic style of director David Cronenberg. It begins with Viggo Mortensen being a regular guy named Tom running his diner with his wife Maria Bello. After stopping robbers at his restaurant someone comes along and indicates Tom has always been good at killing. As things become clearer and characters such as Carl (Ed Harris) and later, a crime boss named Richie (William Hurt) start to appear, it becomes clear there’s no easy solution that can result in a happy life afterward. There are violent scenes but they’re shot realistically so that the acts aren’t glorified. Can a man go from one extreme of life to the other successfully? This movie examines the nature of violence and how infectious it can be similarly to Sam Peckinpah’s ‘The Getaway.’  Also the story ends in the correct spot to make one contemplate the future of these characters.

A History Of Violence

6. Road To Perdition – Director Sam Mendes created excellent tension and action in this dramatic adaptation of Max Allen Collins prohibition-era revenge comic. Done similarly to the manga Lone Wolf & Cub we see an assassin known as “The Angel of Death” Michael O’Sullivan (Tom Hanks) who must get the only kind of justice he can against his crime boss Mr. Rooney (Paul Newman) whose son Connor (Daniel Craig) tries to murder the entire O’Sullivan family because Michael’s son witnessed Connor committing violent act. Michael must protect his only remaining son and fight off whatever loyalty he might’ve had to the elder Rooney and his organization, who hire an oddball hitman (Jude Law) to take out Michael. Excellent performances all around, but this should be no surprise if you’ve seen American Beauty or Skyfall (for which Mendes and Craig teamed up again.)

Road To Perdition

5. Watchmen: Director’s Cut – Zack Snyder’s other really good comic book to movie effort, though initially the theatrical cut wasn’t quite as good. As a fan of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s deconstruction of super heroes on an alternate Earth set in the 1980s, it was great seeing this movie adapted for the big screen. However for many years since the comic’s release, it was speculated and often concluded the only way to bring this story to any motion medium would be either as a mini-series capturing every single nuance, or…. well, not at all. Many concluded it simply wasn’t a good idea to try. The resulting film (and the double studio lawsuit it had to go through) kept most of the essence of the story intact, with a few changes to make the climax more presentable and the story flow better for the screen. The director’s curt though, added some scenes back in that weren’t in the theatrical cut and upon second viewing, the movie became easier to watch and accept. The small additions made things flow better. Even still, there was already an excellently constructed opening sequence and generally good performances from actors who weren’t entirely A-List. Jackie Earle Hayley for example portrayed perfect creepiness as the sociopathic vigilante Rorshach, and made folks want to see him on screen again long after his teen acting days in the Bad News Bears movies. Jeffrey Dean Morgan showed serious sadism as The Comedian, while Billy Cruddup remained perfectly stoic as the god-like being Doctor Manhattan. Actually, just about everyone performed their characters well here, which made the visual effects and art design that much more effective. If the theatrical version is your only experience, it’s definitely worthwhile to look at the director’s cut with fresher eyes. You might just be surprised.

Watchmen

4. Spider-Man 2 – In Sam Raimi’s second installment about the Wall-Crawler, we see peter parker still having a difficult life in New York. He’s great at being spider man but he still has troubles just living a life, staying in school and maintaining a secret identity. Mary Jane is getting tired of Peter always being distracted, while Harry Osborn is obsessed with finding and getting revenge on Spider Man for killing is father. We get introduced to Doctor Octopus (brilliantly played by Alfred Molina) being driven insane by his own metal arms which’ve gotten life of their own. The story amps up the best parts of what made the first one good be, but in doctor octopus we get a better and more focused villain (even though Willem Dafoe made a memorable Green Goblin). Peter proves to be his own worst enemy in this movie, which adds to the conflicts Spidey must eventually overcome. J.K. Simmons continues to be a scene stealer in this movie much like the first one when emulating J. Jonah Jameson perfectly from the comics. Meanwhile, Tobey McGuire remains excellently semi-dorky, yet self-reliant and more confident, much like the character is in the comic. This one of those few times a second movie surpasses the first in its series.

Spider-Man 2

3. Batman: The Dark Knight Trilogy – For some time, filmmakers had tried to emulate the grim elements which became more prevalent in the Batman mythos since Frank Miller’s comic series “The Dark Knight Returns” was published in the mid-80s. However without the focus on other elements such as characterization or story cohesiveness, these films only worked up to a point until Christopher Nolan began his trilogy with “Batman Begins,” giving an attention to detail and psychology that had never been written before in a superhero film. Also, the supporting players such as Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), Alfred the butler (Michael Caine), and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) were fleshed out more than ever on film to compliment the struggles of Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) becoming a vigilante who remains haunted by the murder of his parents after many years. This resulted in a powerful story when the events of “The Dark Knight” were unleashed on film goers and devastated the characters of this series. While it wasn’t a perfect film the third installment “The Dark Knight Rises” did serve as a decent resolution to events set forth in “Batman Begins” which is why I’ve placed the trilogy on this list in whole. All the while, Batman’s enemies such as The Joker (Heath Ledger), Bane (Tom Hardy) and Ra’s Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) were largely well-written, excellently portrayed and utilized decently in the storylines, which concluded in an interesting place when all was said and done.

Batman Dark Knight Trilogy

2. Marvel’s The Avengers – The culmination of a grand experiment known as ‘Phase One’ by Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment / Disney. Starting with Iron Man, each individual character was built-up in separate (high quality) movies so they can come together when something overwhelming threatens humanity. The previous films were each pretty good in their own right, but were no guarantee that the assembling of several high profile characters (and their respective actors) would result in one of the best damn collaborations anyone’s ever seen. Writer director Joss Whedon (along with writer Zak Penn) made a definitive statement that comic books can be the inspiration for excellent characterizations and conflict resolutions while giving folks funny dialog to remember at key points throughout. It’s a very big blueprint for Hollywood on how cooperation and listening to comic geek interest can result in profitable fun. People have been reading these characters in comics for decades and they may just have a decent idea on what they want to see on a big screen. (Probably never win any Oscars for anything outside of special effects unfortunately, but that’s another discussion in itself)….

The Avengers

1. Superman: The Movie – There are some who say the exploits and ideals of the Man of Steel are outdated because Superman is a noble, honorable character who has tremendous powers, and that it’s impossible to write a compelling story for him either in comics or for the big screen, even though he’s been around for decades and achieved iconic status. Whenever I look at this movie that was the first truly great film focusing on a comic book hero, I see wonderful acting all around from newcomer Christopher Reeve as well as veterans Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman and Glen Ford. I also see a script that places challenges an honorable hero would have to face which could cost him greatly despite his immense powers. Add to this the beginnings of a pretty decent romance with Lois Lane and you have an action drama with heart that remains eminently watchable after 30 years. The tag line for this movie was ‘you will believe a man can fly.’ It’s not just the effects though but the presence and emotion brought by these actors that makes that tag credible. Someone told me once that I needed to grow up for placing this movie so high and I just couldn’t help but think, ”Dude, I’m writing about comic book movies…”

Superman :The Movie

So yeah, that’s my list of the best ones out there.  Applause, love letters, hate mail, criticisms? Send ‘em on. I love all of it.

PS: Special thanks to Britany Kurz, and Jyn & Stefanie Donham for keeping my mush-brain focused while I was writing this piece.

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I recently had an opportunity to see the double feature of movies based on the Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime series, Beginnings and Eternal. The two films came to Atlanta at the Plaza Theater at a pretty reasonable ticket price, so I took a companion and headed down there. When I got there, the co-chairs of a local anime convention Momocon were there doing promotions and handed out 30 posters of Madoka movie 1 to the first fans who attended. One of the co-chairs was kind enough to allow me to help introduce the movie to the audience and promote a bit of Anime Weekend Atlanta in the process, for which I was genuinely honored.

The first movie starts similarly to the TV series in that the opening credits pop in with the TV theme, though the imagery is a bit different. That seems to be the theme of these movies come to think of it: familiar territory but some new imagery. We see two friends Madoka and Sayaka head to school and live their lives. However, one day a very striking girl named Homura arrives at the school as a new student and everyone is instantly fascinated by her presence. She only seems interested in however in talking with Madoka, whom she accompanies to the infirmary and talks to extensively about her life and goals.

Later, Madoka and Sayaka are walking and they find a small wounded little white creature called Kyubey who keeps calling Madoka telepathically. Kyubey is being attacked by someone trying to kill him… who turns out to be Homura. Just then, a beautiful blonde named Mami shows up to face Homura and displays some awesome powers in the process. Homura eventually backs down, saying that it’s already too late for what she wanted to accomplish. Mami begins to tell Madoka and Sayaka about the benefits of being a “magical girl,” who can gain incredible powers and protect humanity from beings called ‘witches’.” All a girl has to do is make a contract with Kyubey who will grant one wish in return for a lifetime of permanent service. Eventually, Madoka and Sayaka accompany Mami on a mission to defeat one of the witches and begin to learn the true horror of the fate this chosen lifestyle can bring…

The two films here cover the events of the TV series entirely, with some beautifully animated new sequences. Watching the story play out in these two films helps articulate the role that Madoka’s friends and associates play in shaping her destiny. The first film, “Beginnings” places a lot of emphasis on Sayaka’s development (and introduces another magical girl named Kyoko in the process), while the second, “Eternal” shows the extraordinary role Homura’s friendship plays as the terrible nature of Kyubey’s contracts and resulting consequences come to light. The incredible varying animation techniques by Shaft and several other studios articulate the crazy escalations that these girls must face.

Some fans have called Puella Magi Madoka Magica the ultimate deconstruction of the magical girl genre, and this is an assessment I’ve come to agree with. In the span of 4 hours, very compelling story is told and is nothing like anything I’ve seen in anime. As a whole, they tell the story a bit better than the TV series. If you can get a chance to see these to see them at a theater, please do so. The animation holds up and comes across bigger than life as truly a visual spectacle. The price isn’t so bad and it’s a bit rare to see an anime film (let alone two) on the big screen in the U.S. relatively close to their release date. So definitely avail yourselves the opportunity to see them should it come.

Grade: A

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I got assigned to write a piece reflecting on the positives of my hobbies here and initially, I wasn’t certain I could but then, as I thought more about everything I was fortunate to see this year, it occurred to me there’s been a hell of a lot of good in both the anime and Hollywood movie mediums and there was a lot to think about in putting this piece together. I didn’t get to experience everything out there (and likewise, I didn’t like everything I saw). But the good definitely outweighed the bad this year considerably. For example…

The Best Anime Films I Got to See At the Theaters

I was fortunate to see a few titles at the movie house this year as a lot came through Atlanta. Some of these came to all parts of the country, others not so much. But it was still fun times. Trying to figure out which was the best to write about was a bit difficult.

5. The Secret World of Arrietty (Studio Ghibli / Buena Vista)
4. Fullmetal Alchemist – The Sacred Star of Melos (Funimation)
3. Studio Ghibli Film Festival
2. & 1. Puella Magi Madoka Magica Double Feature (Aniplex) – You’ll see in my review of these movies this was a wonderful experience to have at the theater. Whether you’re a fan of the magical girl genre or not, the visuals are incredible and so is the story they convey.

The Best Damn Live-Action Movies of 2012 That Won’t Get Any Recognition Other Than Visual or Audio Effects Awards

I enjoy movies such as Les Miserables, Argo and the like but I get sick of award shows that only look at titles released in the last couple months and often with little to no fantastic or fantasy elements in them. It often seems they believe only visual effects were the reason any such movies outside the norm entertained a lot of people, and not the scripts or performances or direction it took to put it all together. So this section here is to recognize the best movies that the big award people probably won’t even acknowledge.

5. Men In Black III
4. Looper
3. Chronicle
2. Skyfall
1. Marvel’s The Avengers – This was one heck of a movie that could’ve actually gone very badly. Although the superhero characters involved have has good films leading up to this as part of Marvel and Paramount’s “Phase One” project, there was no guarantee that simply having these characters present would make for a good movie. (See Iron Man 2 for example of a not so great story.) Director writer Joss Whedon and writer Zak Penn deserve serious praise for pulling off a work that had never before been tried or accomplished in creating a shared film universe of comic characters.

Honorable Mentions Dredd 3D, The Hobbit, The Dark Knight Rises (For the record, I haven’t actually seen The Hobbit so I can’t put it in my top 5 as of press time, but Peter Jackson’s track record and the initial trailers generally make me believe there’s a good film here.)

Best anime I got to see released in 2012 (either via DVD/ Blu-ray or streaming)

Like you guys, I got to take in different anime by various methods here. I’ve been watching a long time and often hear older fans lament there’s nothing good to watch anymore. Have to disagree with this. Whether they are new, original titles or ones remaking or extending an existing franchise, there are a lot of nice diamonds in the rough if you’re willing to look.

5. Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine stream (Funimation)
4. Redline blu ray (Manga Entertainment)
3. King of Thorn blu ray (Funimation)
2. Puella Magi Madoka Magica blu ray (Aniplex)
1. Children Who Chase Lost Voices (From Deep Below) blu ray (Sentai Filmworks) – Like I said in my review of the DVD, this movie really blew me away and I bought the blu ray subsequentially. It’s a wonderful piece of work with excellent extras.

Honorable mention: Sword Art Online, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, Space Battleship Yamato 2199, Mass Effect: Paragon Lost, Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt, Kids on the Slope, Polar Bear Café, Stein’s Gate

Favorite Classic Anime Releases of 2012

Basically, there’s been a resurgence of companies seeing that titles which are 10 years or older are worth releasing to the fans who grew up watching anime and have the funds to support such anime. For this one, I looked at restored picture quality as well as available extras with the given title.

5. Golgo 13 – The Professional (Discotek Media)
4. Castle In The Sky Laputa blu ray (Studio Ghibli / Buena Vista)
3. Whispers of the Heart blu ray (Studio Ghibli / Buena Vista)
2. Serial Experments Lain blu ray (Funimation)
1. Martian Successor Nadesico (Right Stuf / Nozomi Entertainment) – This was one heck of a box set. Whoever did it really liked the show and wanted to reward others who like it too. There are so damn many extra features in this set it was impossible to think of any other release when coming up with this category, even though it’s been a great year for classic releases.

Honorable Mentions: Space Adventure Cobra, Dirty Pair Features Collection, Locke The Superman, Ninja Scroll blu ray, Unico & The Island of Magic / The Fantastic Adventures of Unico, Tenchi Muyo Movie & OAV blu ray Collections, Venus Wars

Best Anime Conventions I got to see in 2012

I was fortunate enough to travel to and /or work at several different anime conventions and learn great things from every one of them. Every event is going to have a negative to them but I’ll not focus on those in this piece as they all had something really good to offer their attendees. With that….

*Anime Los Angeles (Highlights – small friendly crowd, amazing cosplay gatherings, fan centric educational panels, decorative benches, cosplay chess, cosplay posters, Japanese New Year’s festival in Little Tokyo)

*Momocon (Highlights – meeting Ellen McClain of Portal fame, as well as Faye Valentine…, seeing a free convention turn into a paid one while retaining 80% of its attendance rate)

*Middle Tennessee Anime Convention (Highlights- The DBZ Kyle Hebert toast, the hellified Jason David Frank autograph line, attending an anime convention at the same time as a tattoo / horror convention, the convention pub crawl through downtown)

*Anime St. Louis (Highlights –The Voltron panel, seeing Monical Rial and Wendy Powell, visiting an anime themed sushi restaurant and the travelling Star Trek Exhibit at the Science Center)

*Anime Central (Highlights – Premiere screening of Panty Stocking & Garterbelt dub, finally seeing Eyeshine perform, )

*Project A-kon 23, (Highlights – bidding farewell to the nicely located facility,

*Seishuncon (Highlights – nice panels, crazy as hell con vs. con eating contest)

*Anime Expo (Highlights – meeting Lisa and seeing her perform opening for “Fate Zero” among other things, impressive cosplay contest, seeing premiere of Total Eclipse, meeting fellow convention organizers, Tiger & Bunny Panel featuring creator … and English dub actors)

*Otakon (Highlights – Daryl Surat’s Craziest Death’s Panel, Mike Toole’s dubs that time forgot, Funimation announcing Space Battleship Yamato & Akira for blu ray, meeting Mike Sinterniklaas and Gundam producer Shin Sasaki meeting even more convention organizers from various shows)

*Anime Weekend Atlanta (Highlights – seiyuu Ryo Horikawa and Johnny Yong Bosch as guests, the maid café, the evening cabaret, premiere screenings of Mass Effect Paragon Lost, and Hellsing Ultimate Vol. 5 (dub), giveaway of Macross: Do You Remember Love Blu Ray)

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Batman – The Dark Knight Returns Part 2

“After a quarter century of waiting, fans of of the Batman story that changed people’s perception of the World’s Greatest Detective can see that comic concluded in the animation medium. However, has it been truly worth the wait?”

What they say:
The Dark Knight along with new sidekick Robin have finally reclaimed Gotham City and allowed a ray of hope to penetrate the reign of terror that The Mutants had cast upon his city. With Batman back in the spotlight the extended media coverage has awoken a far worse evil at Arkham Asylum The Joker! Forever destined to be mortal enemies The Joker has a diabolical scheme that may pull Batman down to the darkest levels of insanity. While on the horizon a global catastrophe races towards Gotham and with it comes a familiar face The Man of Steel though this time he has Batman in his sights. Witness as the aging Dark Knight wages a tireless war against crime while proving that courage and will are indeed timeless.

Content:
Taking up right where the last release left off, this one picks up in the wake of Batman’s defeat of the Mutant gang which terrorized Gotham citizens. Many of the youngsters have now taken to preying on criminals, often in a harsh and fatal manner, and calling themselves “The Sons of Batman.” The movie opens with Galaxy Communications President Lana Lang debating the virtues of Batman’s return on a live talk show, which is being viewed at Arkham Asylum by The Joker, who’s found a reason to smile after several years in a catatonic coma. Joker laments to his psychiatrist Dr. Wolper (Michael McKean) about not really having a chance to tell his side of the story regarding Batman, so the Doc decides to book Joker on the David Endocrine show.

Right about the same time, a ceremony takes place where Jim Gordon (David Selby) officially retires as police commissioner and passes the position to Ellen Yindel (Maria Canals-Barrera), who makes her first act to issue an arrest warrant for Batman on criminal charges. Meanwhile, in Washington DC, The President speaks to Superman (AKA Agent Kent) about bringing in Batman since all superhero activity is now banned in the U.S. Superman (Mark Valley) says he’ll do his best.

Eventually, Clark Kent meets up with Bruce Wayne to discuss Batman’s retirement, how and how someone will likely order Superman to finally take down Batman once and for all. Bruce simply says when that happens, “May the best man win.” Clark flies off as he’s called to help American forces fight Soviets invading the South American island called Corto Maltese.

A lot of things are set up here. If you’re a fan of the original graphic novel, you’ll likely enjoy this movie despite some of the changes. The Joker’s escape is handled in a rather shocking and creepy manner. TV host David Endocrine was originally done up as an obvious parody of David Letterman, but here he’s drawn more like Conan O’brien, who voices the role here. Michael Emerson (Person of Interest) does The Joker with a subtle nastiness. I know many of you will be likely comparing him to Mark Hamill’s performance over the years. Emerson sounds like a subdued killer clown (compared to Hamill’s rendition) who’s been wanting a reason to feel alive again and you see this in full during his battle with Batman. Peter Weller meanwhile, plays off him and everyone else well as Batman, who comes off nastier than ever even as Bruce Wayne. The only time his voice doesn’t quite perform well is during an address to The Sons of Batman at one point, but he’s still pretty good.

Another performance that’s fun to hear is Jim Meskimen as The U.S. President. If you read the comic, it’s rather obvious he’s drawn up to be a parody of President Reagan, and Meskimen plays this aspect up perfectly. It’s weird not to see this performance listed on IMDB.com, but he’s definitely a highlight here. Actually, everyone does pretty well here thanks to voice director Andrea Romano, but these voices were the ones who stood out most.

There’s also the overall direction here. I felt the pacing for Part Two (covering issues 3 & 4 of the comic series) wasn’t quite as good as for Part one, but the big events that are iconic to this story do play out with style. The eventual battle between Batman and Superman is truly epic. Director Jay Oliva takes advantage of the fact he’s got the two biggest heroes in comic history going  at it and he makes the most of this opportunity, making the action an all-out slugfest, more devastating than the comic could depict. In this and other action scenes, Oliva delivers handily.

So we come to the end of waiting for this mythos-changing series to be adapted. As with any other production, there are some changes but the story is still effective and worth purchasing. The DVD & Blu ray will contains some cool extras like a look at Batman and Superman’s relationship, and a decent selection of episodes from the Batman animated series. Very hapy to see this includes “Legends of The Dark Knight” which shows the first animated version of The Dark Knight Returns. There’s also a preview of Superman: Unbound which adapts a Geoff Johns / Gary Frank comic about Superman and Supergirl’s first encounter with Braniac.

To anyone who reads this wanting to see a complete ending to Batman’s career, you could read the comic or buy this movie (and the first part of course). Either way, you’re in for a pretty good time.

Grade: A-

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So I tried out Viz Media’s Neon Alley channel on my Playstation 3. As a long time anime fan, I used to wonder what it would be like to have station that showed my favorite entertainment medium 24 hours a day with commercials between shows, just like any regular channel on my TV. Toonami, Adult Swim, Sci Fi Channel’s mini marathons and other blocks of anime programming were decent samples of this to be sure, but still they were only short sets with non-anime related promos and bumpers.  Ever since I started actively collecting and watching anime, I wondered what a full-time anime channel with English dubbed titles would be like to experience.

So I checked in with the login information (which was pretty easy once registered), and set about looking at an episode of Tiger & Bunny for a bit. I looked up the Neon Alley website to see when the Berserk movie would be playing, and it said 1:30 am that evening. Making a mental note to check it out then, I looked at other shows coming on. The commercials in between were decent enough. It was nice to see promos for anime from Funimation, Right Stuf and Aniplex alongside Viz Media ones. But then every so often there’s some of the Warner Animation DC Universe stuff such as Superman Vs. the Elite or The Dark Knight Returns. I also caught a glimpse of the CBS drama Person of Interest on there too. So it was a good even mix. The ranking vignettes listing DVD and manga sales were nice touches too. There’s also some handy information about various upcoming conventions taking place that month, as well as a bit called “This Week In Anime History” provided by Anime News Network.

Eventually 1:30am came and… there was no Berserk movie; another show was running. I went back to the website and looked at the schedule grid and it did say 1:30, but then I noticed the really small font saying ‘PST’… Pacific Standard Time. Since I’m on the east coast and the west coast is 3 hours behind whatever I experience, this meant I wouldn’t be watching the movie until … 4:30am. Yeah… called it a night and decided to watch it another day. Since the continental U.S. is divided into 4 time zones, and many potential viewers live 1-3 hours ahead, it might help for the site schedule to reflect the times for people outside of the west coast area, with just a simple time for a showing with EST or CST next to it.

As to the movie itself, it starts in middle of medieval battle, with one force trying to storm a castle full of soldiers. Everyone stops when a large man with axe begins to hack away at folks and challenges people to come at him. No one will until one warrior with a big sword shows up. He offers to fights for 10 coins (and is counter offered 7 instead.) Accepting the deal, he fights the axe man and hacks at a mid-section crack in his armor to defeat him, and eventually kills the axe man as he yields and begs for mercy. Meanwhile, a small group of soldiers led by a mysterious man looks on from distance.

After the battle is over, the sword warrior named Gatts gets his coins but refuses to stay on permanently as the army conquers castle and leaves bodies piled up. As he rides away, Gatts is attacked by the onlooking force who watched his earlier fight. No one is able to take him down however. A female lieutenant enters the fray but she’s unsuccessful until the group’s leader named Griffith comes and defeats Gatts with single thrust to wound him and knock him out.

Gatts has nightmares about seeing his father beheaded. He wakes up the following day next to the female, named Casca, and finds her nude. Gatts realizes he’s in the group’s camp and is told she was to look after his healing. He tries to leave camp but winds up fighting Griffith for right to leave. Griffith wants him to stay with his army and tells Gatts he would be the one to determine when and where Gatts would die, and the two have a fierce battle…

As the movie progresses, we’re given interesting bits of intrigues, and more of Griffith’s affiliations and past come to light. The screenplay by Ichirô Ôkôchi (Code Geass, Rahxephon) based on the manga by Kentaro Miura gives a good balance of action and character development. The group gets into a pretty hellified battle against a monster with a dire warning for Gatts, setting up potentially interesting sequel films to come.

Director Toshiyuki Kubooka makes excellent use of Studio 4*C and their talents, particularly in the action sequences and the overall animation. The general look is clean and is a bit of a contrast to the TV series which had a grittier look. The only issue is that at 76 minutes, this beginning feels much too brief, especially if we’re to be given a larger amount of the story than the Berserk TV anime did. It’ll be nice if the ending isn’t the same when all is said and done, but time will tell after the other two films are released.

So overall, my experience watching Neon Alley was a positive one. In writing my thoughts I was trying to balance my own time in this hobby as an 80s anime fan more into Japanese language productions than English ones, with the actual product I saw here. For many years I’ve wanted to see a channel like this and now it’s here but meant to cater to modern anime fans. I can’t blame Viz Media for that at all. Actually I commend them for it. The fans of today know what they like and this is a legal and genuinely informative way to deliver anime entertainment. It’s not free as it’s about $6 on your existing internet connection (and soon the Xbox 360 as I understand it), but it’s damn sure more accessible than options I and fans from subsequent generations have had over the years until now. Outside of that time zone bit, it’s a rather decent service. Here’s hoping both fans and the industry can take advantage of it.

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Galaxy Express 999 Eternal Fantasy

“Wherever there is light, there is shadow. Wherever there is shadow, there is also light. Amidst this people are born and they live to chase their dreams. But if this galaxy has no light, If it falls under the control of the hand of darkness – No life will be born. In the darkness, No hopes nor dreams are ever born. That has been an unchanging ironclad rule since the dawn of time. And those who fail to recognize this have no future.”

What They Say:
Based on the original story by Leiji Matsumoto, this new film picks up a year after the events of Adieu, Galaxy Express 999. A young boy named Tetsuro, and his motherly companion Maetel worked to rid the universe of the Mechanized Empire who had overtaken Earth. Now Tetsuro is back home on Earth, and constantly beaten by new tyrants who tok over after the machines were destroyed. Right before he is executed, Maetel and the 999 zoom in and whisk him away for an all new adventure.

The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release comes with the Japanese Dolby 2.0 track present, which was decent and sounded fine on my system.

Video:
The movie was originally released in 1998, and looks good here. The CG and cel animation mixes hold up fine and colors are vibrant. The subtitles are colored and detailed appropriately, which makes them easy to read as needed.

Packaging:
The front contains the movie poster used for Japanese releases of this movie at the time. The back has a short amount of text about the contents of the film with a few screenshots in the lower thirds. The general theme is conveyed well.

Menu:
The menu is rather simple with Maetel and an armored woman (more below) standing next to the 999 and the Earth. Basic options for chapter stops, subtitles and extras are easy to navigate.

Extras:
Not much present here other than the trailer for this movie as well as the previous Galaxy Express 999 films.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the opening monologue concludes, we see the computer animated 999 traveling through space, with The Conductor announcing welcomes and the next destination to the sole passenger aboard: Maetel. She speaks about Tetsuro the coming destiny he’ll have to face. Meanwhile on Earth, the hero of the humans’ war against the mechanized empire is not being treated so well, and he has been attached to an immensely long unbreakable chain. Outside his meager apartment, he finds a woman who has frozen to death trying to bring him flowers, and cries. Just then, he’s fired upon and brutally beaten by a group of officers who take him before the local overseer.

There, Tetsuro is accused of attempting to escape his (magnetically sealed and miles long) chain and is just about to be executed, when a very long train crashes through the building where Maetel shoots up Tetsuro’s mini-chamber (as well as all surrounding guards) before the Conductor lassos him and whisks him into the safety of space. The overseer yells at the few survivors including an armored mysterious female. The ensuing exchange does not go well…

Director Kônosuke Uda does a decent job here with this story based on Leiji Matsumoto’s manga which was also running at the time (and found its way into the magazine Animerica on U.S. shores). However, between the short running time and the small amount of exposition we’re given about the enemy that’s apparently coming, the movie feels like a mere taste of what could’ve been epic. We see Tetsuro visit another planet, which given this is an anime based around a spacefaring train, was a reason folks used to tune in to the 70s TV series pretty often. Here, it’s just a leisurely visit before the action kicks in. We get to see a fearsome bounty hunter named Helmazaria come for Tetsuro for some reason, as well as an odd and rather vicious race. Also, a visit from his guardian pirate makes things a little entertaining.

Still, for those wanting a resolution, you’ll have to look elsewhere. The story was never finished in the anime medium and I’m honestly not certain Matsumoto finished this particular manga story, even as it was collected into 4 volumes by Viz in the early 2000s. So the reason for the speculation about Tetsuro’s future goes largely unanswered for the time being. In addition, even though Uda’s direction is competent here, it’s not quite as fluid as the epic and active prior films done by Rin Taro. His directorial work on One Piece is better definitely.

In Summary:
Galaxy Express 999: Eternal Fantasy feels like the beginnings of something grand but that’s all. As far as the animated adventures of the 999 characters, it’s sad to see to see them end in an uncertain state. I’d say get this piece of the Matsumoto universe if you’re looking to be a completist or just want one last ride with old friends as it were, but not really for much more than that.

Features:
Japanese Language 2.0 Dolby, English subtitles

Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: A
Packaging Grade: A
Menu Grade: A
Extras Grade: N/A

Released By: Discotek Media / Eastern Star Inc.
Release Date: October 21th, 2012
MSRP: $14.95
Running Time: 54 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1, Anamorphic Widescreen

Review Equipment:
Panasonic 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Marantz stereo receiver