Cartoon Review: Lost and Found

Lost and Found

Lost and Found (2008/ Dir. Philip Hunt/ Entertainment One and Studio Aka)
Here is the short version of this review: Go buy this, it’s excellent.

World War Z mini-review

So we saw World War Z and I actually liked it. I read the book about a year ago (maybe more, hard to tell these days) and I liked that too. I recognize that the movie is not the book though, it's sort of inspired by the book.

It's not a bad little zombie movie, but it's only tangentially based on the book of the same title. That didn't bother me, because if they really did exactly the book, it would be either an anthology of stories, or a Ken Burns Documentary. Either of those could be interesting, but would fail to catch the summer blockbuster crowd. I did miss the Battle of Yonkers, and some of the more interesting concepts and ideas went the wayside. I think they want a sequel, and if they get one they'll do some of the later half of the book stuff. It really felt like someone wrote a global zombie movie, then someone pointed out the book existed, and they bought the rights to the book to cover their butts. I say this because some five writers (including Brooks) are credited in the opening titles. It felt like this went through a LOT of re-writes, and the internet says I'm right about that one.


Shall we do bullet points? We'll try for spoiler free...

Forget the book, this isn't the book. If you can divorce yourself from the book, you might enjoy it.

The family story didn't work for me after the first act, but it didn't hurt things either.

The movie made running zombies interesting to me for the first time.

The suggested solution to the whole zombie thing is... actually pretty interesting.

Oh man, then you sort-of kind-of tried to set up for a sequel, and I'm not sure that's gonna work babe.

Because of a scheduling issue we saw it in 3D, which is... whatev. Didn't hurt, didn't help.

Can I be the only one who heard that speech about Mother Nature being a serial killer and perked up thinking "Oh! So some of what J. Michael Straczynski wrote made it to the screen!" as that speech was unraveling? I can't say that was for certain his work, but it sounds like him.

ALSO! Alternate title for this movie "Ain't Shit Gonna Go Right For Brad Pitt Today."

Movie Review: Goyokin

Goyokin 1969/ Toho/ Dir. Hideo Gosha

For reasons of my own, I was watching some heist movies. I like a good heist flick, and there aren't enough of them. There are lots of heist flicks, but only a few good ones. I had gone through the usual line-up of movies, and after I had exhausted my supply I still felt the need to go once more into the heist film vault. So what I did was examine what you need for a good heist movie. That led me to this Japanese samurai movie set in the 1800s. As opposed to a French samurai movie set in the 1460s I guess? Well, some samurai movies are set during the 1600s, that seems to be the two times we generally get. During the early days of the Tokugawa shogunate or just before the Meiji Restoration, which is the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. Soooo, during the Tokugawa shogunate. You know what? Forget this part! I've already said shogunate way too many times.

Why do I call this a heist movie and not a samurai movie?

Movie Review: The Black Cauldron

The Black Cauldron (1985/ Disney/ Dir. Ted Berman & Richard Rich)

The Black Cauldron made basically no splash when it came out, much to Disney's dismay. Also, to the dismay of people like me, who sort of wish Disney had kept up with what it was doing. If you remember, the early 80s were a period of interesting experimentation for Disney. Granted, most those experiments were box office flops, but they were at least interesting and some of them were even good. This is an example of one of those experiments that was actually sort of good. Not great, I didn't say great, but it is good and it contains things you rarely saw at the time.

Cartoon Review: The Christmas Orange

The Christmas Orange (2002/ Bardel Entertainment/ Dir. Ian Freedman)

So here we have something so obscure that I may be the only person who actually bought the DVD. Not only am I the only owner of the DVD in America, I bought it 10 years after the product came out. And I only bought it for a few dollars, on a whim because I'd never heard of it and reviewing things that say "Christmas" on them is a thing I do. So I decided to give it a try. Given the product was only $6, given that it was a one shot for Canadian TV, and given that it was 10 years after it was first broadcast, I wasn't expecting to find a huge amount about the cartoon. It's based on a book, that's what I found out. It's not a bad product, we'll get that out of the way for starters. I'm not sure how good it is though. Let's examine The Christmas Orange...

Cartoon Review: The Fat Albert Christmas Special

The Fat Albert Christmas Special (1977/ Filmation/ Dir.Hal Sutherland)

Doing holiday specials is a tough gig. Quite often, they're produced as a fast buck idea. Something to throw at the screen during December, and if possible, break up the McDonald's Commercials a little. Most the specials I have seen, and I've seen WAY more than I should, fit into this category. Particularly existing properties, like the Smurfs or He-Man, fit this mold.

...

You know what? We're not going to mention another holiday special for the rest of this review. I'm going to show my hand early and just say it. This is good. I don't want to taint that by comparing it to something less good. If it's really good, it should be able to stand up on its own without putting something else down. And I think this is good, and I think it goes beyond a cynical cash grab, and I think it might really be worth your while.

Cartoon Review: The Snowman

The Snowman (1982/ TVC London/ Dir. Dianne Jackson)

This is a cartoon for which I have no nostalgia. I only saw it for the first time last year and was so exhausted that I fell asleep during part of it. If I can offer an untainted perspective on any holiday movie, this HAS to be it. I only bought it because it has a tremendous reputation. The fact that it came on a DVD with The Nuttiest Nutcracker had nothing to do with it. I still haven't watched that second feature, mainly because I watched the trailer. But we're talking about something that I've been told by English and Canadians is the height of their VEWPRF season. So I bought it and watched it, and now I shall write my review of that movie. How did I think it help up? You'll have to wait and see...

Cartoon Review: The Smurfs Christmas Special

The Smurfs Christmas Special (1982/ Hanna-Barbera/ Dir. Gerald Baldwin)

It wasn't supposed to be like this. My first holiday special review in two years... it was supposed to be a momentous occasion. It should have been filled with joy, and laughter, not this. I said some time ago that I was sort of done with reviews that only amounted to complaints. I mean... look, The Avengers happened and we're liking things because we like them again, not because we hate them and want to imagine we're superior to them. I want you to know, I started this with the purest of intentions. Sadly The Smurfs Christmas Special did not hold up.

There is no way to properly summarize this, no way to discuss it on its merits, or play on the themes. Mostly, because I have no idea what happened. The best I can hope for is a synopsis, going down the line point by point. Maybe, together, we can reach and understanding. Just remember the mantra "I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks!"

Wreck it Ralph Review - In Bullet Point Form!

I liked Wreck-It Ralph, let's talk a little.

1. I thought the opening short was too good. I thought it might diminish the feature. It didn't, but it was an utterly charming little bit of animation.

2. Going to have to buy this on DVD so I can catch all the little jokes and references they threw in.

3. "She has the most tragic backstory of all time." That line killed.

4. They did their homework. Even if the people who worked on this are all about my age and as such are gamers from when I was gaming, they did their home work. There are a lot of gags, references, and an overall understanding of how video games work here. These guys knew what they were doing.

5. Most the jokes were funny, most the characters were interesting, most the story works really well.

6. Some of the characters move like their video game counter parts would move. They have no middle animation they just go from their hands out, to their hands raised, just like 8-bit.

7. The one human gamer we really see was a girl... BUT GIRLS DON'T GAME! my mind=blown!

Now, below there will be spoilers.

Movie Review: Arsenic and Old Lace

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944/Warner Bros./Dir. Frank Capra)

A little while ago, I posted a list of movies that you can watch at Halloween that aren’t horror movies. When I posted that, I “missed” one important movie. I put missed in quotes because I didn’t miss it so much as decide that I would rather do a review on it. While not a perfect movie, nor even a perfect comedy, it is enjoyable and it does work as a film. It's one of m favorite Cary Grant performances, and that is really saying something. And hey, it takes place on Halloween!

Here's the thing though, the best thing to do would be to go into this movie totally blind. I'm going to spoil some things about this movie, but one of the biggest spoilers is on the back of the box. For best results, don't read anything and just go watch it. As of right now, it's on Netflix Streaming (but who knows what tomorrow might bring, right?) so just go watch it. Seriously, don't even bother reading this review because you should just go see it.

Movie Review: The Adventures of Robin Hood

Movie Review: The Adventures of Robin Hood

The Adventures of Robin Hood/1938/ Dir. Michael Curtiz & William Keighley

Oh yes, the tights, we must always go back to the tights! Easy for a man to look tough wearing 35 pounds of rubber and latex armor, but it takes a real man to look badass in tights. Not just tights, but tights and what amounts to a velvet mini-dress. You could call it a shirt, or a jerkin, but if anyone wore it today, we’d call it a mini-dress. We’d also call it pretty hot if a girl wore something that short. Point is, TIGHTS! You’ve got to talk about the tights first thin out of the gate, because otherwise it becomes the elephant in the room. Beyond that, this is a pretty great movie. Yes, the costumes and manners make the Renaissance Festival look like Game of Thrones. Yes, it’s about as historically accurate as a Walt Disney cartoon. Yes, yes, yes I’ll agree to most the criticism… BUT! This is also the single best movie about Robin Hood, and is still the most iconic. There are only a few Robin Hood movies that are any good, and this is the best.

Movie Review: Windtalkers

Movie Review: Windtalkers

Windtalkers (2002/ MGM/ Dir. John Woo)

What happened to John Woo when he came to America? He had made some of the best action movies of the 80s and early 90s. Then he came to the US and had a string of near disasters and critical failures. That’s not to say his movies did badly. Mission: Impossible II actually did pretty well in theaters, despite what some smart ass critics thought of it. Face/Off was a big hit in the theaters and on video, as was Broken Arrow. None of them are really good movies though, and most have been rejected by Woo fans. Then this movie came along, which sank like a stone at the box office and heralded the beginning of the end for Woo’s American experiment. Allow me to state now, this is not a good movie. It will not be getting a huge score on the Graffiti Bridge Scale. HOWEVER! It won’t get a negative score, and that’s part of what I want to talk about here.

Movie Review: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998/Universal Pictures/Dir. Terry Gilliam)

There are books that are difficult to translate into movies, and there are books that are more easily translated. I’m not exactly sure where Fear and Loathing fits in there, but it was at least fairly accurately translated. Not 100%, several things prevent it from reaching the full and complete accuracy that fans were hoping for. While some of them are choices made by Gilliam, many of them are just rights and budget concerns. However, as an adaptation of the book, it works. As something to get you interested in the greater works of Hunter S. Thompson, it is an excellent device. How does the movie hold up compared to the book? Let’s find out together, shall we?

Avengers Review - In Bullet Point Form!

So we saw The Avengers...

- I lost count of the amount of times people stopped using rifles during firefights because Pistols Is Better!

- Every time the characters started fighting, I wanted someone to pick Ryu so that the Marvel Vs Capcom feeling would be complete. Every big scene felt empty and flaccid to me, it had all the impact of watching someone else play a video game.

- Am, I only person who said "Tell me about the lambs" during the big tell me about the lambs scene?

- What military sky boat (a supremely stupid idea in the comics and worse in the movie) would have less failsafe and fall back precautions than a modern airliner?

- Does no one in New York City have any kind of self preservation sense at all? 15 minutes into a full blown alien attack and people are still gaping by windows hoping to get glass shards in the face.

- Those sky serpent things, were they some kind of left over design that Michael Bay decided not to use for the Transformers movies?

- A lot of the lines in this movie make no sense when you think about them. "They'll come." "How can you know?" "We'll need them." That's no kind of answer!

- I have a nifty shield! I have a magic hammer! I have super strength! I have a full blow Deus Ex Machina suit! I have a... 9mm pistol... I'm just here for T&A aren't I?

- So many of the jokes and quips fell flat for me that I started to resent the idea of laughing when one actually amused me. By the time Hulk punched Thor, I just sighed and looked away from the screen.

- And the guy who got Jossed was totally Jossed. That was not story supported, it was a cheap trick performed by a bad writer with no other way to make people care.

- Over all Joss Whedon remains a rather cheap hack with a rather shallow bag of tricks. If you like his bag of tricks, it's probably fine. I hate his bag of tricks and the movie was chock full of the things I don't like about his work.

Otherwise it was okay. I didn't want to kill anyone, I didn't want to ram chopsticks into my eyes, but Joss Whedon is still a shitty writer and I don't like his works, but this is the closest I've ever come to not hating every minute of it. If we'd been watching at home though, I would have walked out less than halfway through and not finished it.

Movie Review: Mobsters

Mobsters (1991/ Universal Pictures/ Dir. Michael Karbelnikoff)

We’ve probably talked about this before, but movies that took place before the fifties and featured guys in hats doing guys in hats things were very cool for about twelve minutes when I was a kid. For reasons I’ve never been quite clear on, I was very VERY into the time era that went from the 20s to the 40s when I was between the ages of 11 and 16. Maybe it was an obsession with old Warner Brothers Cartoons, maybe I got a taste of some really good Film Noir, maybe I just liked fedoras. Who can say? No, it’s probably not just the hats, I think it has to be the time period. You can’t just say “This has guys in hats” and get me interested, but you can say “It takes place in 1935” and I am THERE! Case in point, this movie. I pretty much have to put this thing into context, because without context it almost doesn’t/shouldn’t exist and in many ways it fails to make sense on its own. It’s not a good movie, but it’s too well made to be on any “So bad they’re good” lists, mostly it’s forgotten. Again, without context, you fail to understand why such talent would go to such wretched waste.

Movie Review: Rollerball

Wait, I've been away how long? It's been when since I last wrote a review? Where was I during that time. Oh yeah, that. Well, if I don’t get back on that horse, I may never get back on. The problem of course is that the longer you’re away, the bigger your return needs to be. I need to go either really obscure or really popular. The problem is that I also need to get back up to speed, so I’ll go for something in between. This is both obscure and popular.

Rollerball (1975- United Artists - Dir. Norman Jewison)

So this one has sort of an odd story. Rollerball was mentioned in the essay “You think that movie is bad?” and since then, Rollerball has become third in the list of search terms used to find this little blog. I found it sort of depressing that people might be coming here looking for a review of the movie and not finding one, despite it being one of my Sci-Fi Greats. So let’s talk about one of the truly great sci-fi/corporate nightmare movies. Really though, it’s just a dystopian movie because, there isn’t much that’s really advanced technology in the movie. Take away the strange TV sets and one scene with a laser gun and it could have happened in ‘75 when the movie was made. The only things that are required for this to become a reality are all social developments.

Movie Review: Der Schuh des Manitu

Der Schuh des Manitu

Der Schuh des Manitu (2001/ Constantin Film/ Dir. Michael Herbig

Native Americans are a dicey subject in fiction, mainly because of the stereotyping. There is also the problem that the term Native Americans can rub a cheese grater over the nerves of their souls. But really, it’s the stereotype that bothers most of us, I think. I mean, think about it a moment. I said Native American, and what did you think of? Buck skin wearing, noble savages with long straight black hair and a rudimentary grasp of language at best? Well, shame on you! They also talk about the Great Spirit at the drop of a hat and want to sing you the song of their people. Them and the Orientals get that weird, condescending attribute of being strangely wise, or mystical while also insulting them with the old ‘but of course they’re like children’ refrain as well. I’m not going to go into a lengthy discussion on it, but I sort of am because I’m talking about a movie that is set in the old west and involves made up Apaches. But it’s made by Germans, so they have like no connection to the actual history of the Native Americans and the movie is actually pretty funny since its jokes rarely ever touch on the known stereotypes beyond basic visuals and the Apache characters are the heroes. The best way I can describe it is that it’s like watching a hilarious movie about slave conditions in the Antebellum South made by Italians in blackface. You know that there is something terribly wrong with what’s being done, but the people who are doing it can’t begin to understand, and they’re being genuinely funny anyway. Look, maybe its better if I explain from the beginning…

Movie Review: Shogun’s Ninja

Ninja Bugeicho Momochi Sandayu (1980 Toei Company, Dir. Norifumi Suzuki)

You know, sometimes you can’t help but think that you’re watching porn even when you aren’t. That’s how I choose to start this review, because it’s the impression that at the forefront of my mind. It’s the music mostly, and the modern outfits. I mean it’s a movie that takes place in the 15th century and includes ninjas in clothes that look strikingly like modern camo. The music is so absurd that it hurts the movie, which is pretty absurd on its own. The music is early 80s rock-ish sort of J-Pop, and it make you fee like you’re watching a porn. I’m hardly in a position to bitch about rock music in a classic setting. I normally like that sort of thing. It worked in Ladyhawk and it worked in Legend so some degree. It can work, but it doesn’t work here. That’s hardly the movie’s only problem, I seem to remember lots of other problems, but the music always sticks in my head and I’m getting the intro written before we evens start the movie proper because I’m going to review this one in a way I haven’t reviewed in a while. Yeah, this movie is so screwy I’ve got to break down the plot and explain certain scenes in detail. We haven’t done this in a while, so put on your favorite Technicolor gi and let’s get ready to rumble!

Movie Review: Miller’s Crossing

Miller’s Crossing (1990/ 20th Century Fox/ Dir. Joel Coen)

I’m going to open with a controversial statement, I’ve never been a huge Coen Brothers fan. They’re okay, but they always strike me as trying just a little too hard to be quirky, rather than just letting it happen. Even when they’re good, you can see this going on. The deliberate attempt to be quirky works so less well than tings that are just plain quirky. Miller’s Crossing has many an example of them trying to hard, but for the most part it works. I think it tends to work because the movie isn’t supposed to be funny, and as such, the quirky characters can be horrifying, rather than comedic. I’m going to tell you now, I almost never laugh as a Coen Brothers comedy. However, let us look at what is good and not so hot in this movie, shall we?

Cartoon Review: Wallace & Gromit - A Matter of Loaf and Death

Wallace & Gromit - A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008/ Aardman Animations/ Dir. Nick Park)

I really hate doing this. I hate having to be the one to do this to a franchise I like so much, but there is nothing for it. I am not a hipster, I do not watch things “ironically” and not just because that’s not what ironic means. I don’t seek out things because I know they will be horrible, even though I will occasionally seek out things that I know won’t be very good. I don’t watch old Hercules movies so I can laugh at their lame production value or sneer at the lousy translations, but because I genuinely enjoy them. Even something like Hercules and the Captive Women, I decided to watch and review it with the hopes that it would be charming and fun. However, that movie wasn’t fun and this movie isn’t fun. That’s what I hate about this, I hate having to tell you that this is just really, really terrible.