Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 26th, 2007
Remember Aquaman? You know, that guy who lived underwater and fought people who would dump hazardous waste in the ocean or people with big helmets named the Black Manta. No, not Charlie the Tuna. Let's try this description. He's King of Atlantis and has giant muscles and was a very popular super hero. Namor, the Sub-Mariner? *sigh* He's the one who sat behind the desk feeding the Justice League information cause simply he had nothing else better to do. Oh Aquaman, quite right. Well he had his own cartoon show in the late 60's that ran for a couple of years with the Superman/Aquaman hour of Adventure (which incidentally only ran half an hour). It featured Aquaman, Aqualad, and a vast array of exciting characters like Tusky the Walrus. I'm not making this up.
Ever sit in a cartoon show and wonder why you keep having a sense of deja vu? The series wasn't so bad, it was quirky and sported the classic 60's superhero feel. The good guys are just spending another day at the office which happens to be the ocean and the evil guys come and mess it up. Biff, bang, boom the bad guys are defeated and the world is good again. But it suffers heavily from using the same frame of animation over and over again. It's no Batfink but it's not very far off. Another thing that Aquaman did was borrow heavily from Batman, the live action show. If I hear "Holy Haddock" one more time or watch as Aqualad act as a complete copy of Robin complete with rather homo-erotic tendencies, I think I might scream. Outside of that, the stories while simple aren't so bad and it is one of those things that is fun; just in small doses.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 21st, 2007
Back in 2001 shortly after the release of the first Shrek I happened to be at a convention with Anne Francis of Forbidden Planet and Honey West fame. She had just taken a young one, I believe it was her nephew, to see the animated blockbuster. To say she was unhappy is an understatement. She was incredibly offended by the toilet humor and had some rather unflattering things to say about pretty much every aspect of the film. Here we are two films later, and I’d have to tell Anne that not much has changed. By my count the film never runs more than 9 minutes without a joke based on feces, farts, or butts. And the truth is it really is a shame, because Shrek is a property too full of talent and startling good CG animation to require that sort of pedestrian humor. I love almost everything about this franchise except the humor.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 21st, 2007
This collection of SpongeBob cartoons has a distinct musical theme, underlined by the main offering, “Atlantis SquarePantis,” a 2-part episode that just aired. SpongeBob and friends travel to Atlantis on a song-powered bus (but of course!) and witness the many marvels of the lost city. Their tour guide is Lord Royal Highness (voiced by David Bowie). The action is cheerfully episodic, and many of the song sequences are very funny (one highlight being Sandy’s ditty which occurs with the cast transported into a 1991 video game). The other shorts are pretty fun, too, with the highlight being “Sing a Song of Patrick,” wherein the starfish writes his own pop tune, with hilariously catastrophic results.
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 10th, 2007
Disney Studios reinvented the afternoon cartoon when they introduced something they called Disney Afternoon. It was the brain child of studio animation head Bob Jacquemin. He saw the potential of taking famous Disney cartoons that were already beloved by millions and spinning them off into regular television cartoons. Not willing to take chances with the studio’s icon, Mickey Mouse, Michael Eisner allowed the Donald Duck universe to serve as the launching pad for this new venture. In 1987 Disney Afternoon and Duck Tales was born.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 10th, 2007
The Jungle Book was a milestone event in the history of Walt Disney’s animation history, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the studio would tap this source for future adventures. The Disney Afternoon series has been a chance for the studio to continue many of the beloved characters. Tailspin was just such a series. The show is set in the Jungle Book world but minus little Mowgli. Now lovable bear Baloo runs an airline service with his new little friend baby bear Kit Cloudkicker. All of the other characters show up, from Shere Kahn to King Louie. This isn’t a musical, so the songs aren’t there, and there is no real mention or connection to the events in The Jungle Book. The stories are a kind of Indiana Jones affairs with plenty of tomb raiding and high flying stunts and narrow escapes. Ed Gilbert takes over the voice of Baloo, and while some of the original intonation is there, it’s clear how much the voice of Phil Harris gave Baloo so much character and charm. Obviously none of the same voice cast returns. The cost would have been prohibative for a television show, and unfortunately many of those voices are no longer with us.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 7th, 2007
I must admit that from the moment I first heard about this Pixar film I was abnormally indifferent. I can’t explain exactly what it was that kept me from the theaters, but this is the first time I missed a Pixar film in its original release. I like rats, so it wasn’t the subject matter. Perhaps the unpronounceable title is to blame. I will admit it conjures nothing for me, so I found it hard to get excited about what I might see. This is rare, because I have eagerly awaited these outings based not only on the story idea but knowing it will be a treat in every aspect from design to technological wizardry. So finally I sat down to watching this elusive Pixar presentation for the first time on DVD. I have to say my instincts were almost right on. This is by far the least interesting entry from the Pixar folks so far. Which is not to say the film is bad or not somewhat entertaining. It doesn’t stand out. This could have been Dreamworks or Sony or a dozen other CG workshops. The only thing that stood out was the quality and detail of the work.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 6th, 2007
Pixar has become somewhat of a fixture around here, as I suspect it has in many homes across the world. For the most part the films have been nothing short of magic. I’m not only talking about the ever improving technological breakthroughs the company seems to have an endless supply of. The films often contain a warmth and friendliness that wear easily like a favorite shirt. They comfort and entertain all at the same time. It’s really a pretty good mix that they ended up at Walt Disney, which did the same thing for decades in hand drawn animation. To date there have been many copies but no equals.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 22nd, 2007
Meet The Robinsons follows the story of young orphan Lewis. He’s quite the young inventor but ends up with more failures and near misses than anything successful. His tendency to blow things up doesn’t help his adoption chances too much either. One day his life is changed when a kid from the future arrives to give him a boost of confidence. Back in the future Lewis is temporarily trapped, and the guest of the manic family Robinson. Each family member is a zany character unto themselves. Uncle Art, cleverly voiced by Adam West, is an intergalactic pizza delivery guy, and mom has trained frogs to become big band singers. Before long Lewis finds he has more in common with family patriarch Cornelius than he suspected. The villain is the mysterious Bowler Hat Man, bent on getting his revenge on Lewis and taking credit for his inventions. Armed with a catchy slogan culled from one of Walt’s own statements, Keep Moving Forward, and a new found confidence, Lewis sets out to create the future of his dreams.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 9th, 2007
Surf's Up is Sony Pictures Animation's second and latest film, and is directed by Toy Story 2 co-director Ash Brannon and Chicken Little's Chris Buck. Although it was considered a box office failure, Surf's Up has since been applauded by critics and fans alike. I have to say, normally I'm a sucker for CGI films but lately there has been a flood of them on the market, and frankly they're starting to decline in quality. But Surf's Up does something different, it's actually a CGI mockumentary on surfing documentaries, and with quite a list of voice actors. The list includes Jeff Bridges, Zooey Deschanel, Jon Heder, Shia LaBeouf, James Woods, Diedrich Bader, and more. So does this film break free from the recent rut the animated film genre seems to have found itself in?
A crew of cameras follows Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf, Transformers) around Shiverpool, Antarctica documenting him as he hopes to become the next renowned surfing penguin, after his idol "Big Z" (Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski). Eventually a talent scout makes his way to Shiverpool where he recruits Cody to join his team. Here Cody befriends Chicken Joe (Jon Heder, School For Scoundrels) a mellow surfer, and becomes hostile with the buff and jerkish Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader, Napoleon Dynamite). Along the way he also meets a kind and caring lifeguard Lani (Zooey Deschanel, Live Free or Die) whom he instantly falls in love with. After a while Cody's arrogance gets himself injured while having a surf off with Tank, and he ends up being nursed back to health by a hermit named The Geek. Eventually Cody finds out that The Geek is actually "Big Z" and with his help Cody hopes to win the upcoming Big Z competition.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 4th, 2007
"Find out what happens when cartoon characters stop being polite...and start making out in hot tubs". The legendary kiss between Clara and Foxxy highlighted Season 1 and with the recent release of Season 2 on dvd, the Drawn Together cast is back for more adult fun. Drawn Together is the cartoon show that parodies reality shows by using parodies of classic cartoon characters. There are characters like Captain Hero who is a parody of Superman and many other super hero types. Or Ling-Ling who is a spoof of Pikachu from Pokemon. But these aren't normal; they are very perverse, stereotypical, and deviant characters. For example; Xandir (a parody of Link from Legend of Zelda) is the very gay and effeminate one while Princess Clara (spoof of various Disney princess characters) has a multi-tentacled monster in place of her...ummm...ho-ho...(I just said ho-ho in the middle of a review; yup my career is over)
The show is flat out hilarious as it sounds. As long as you aren't offended by the explicit nature of what is going on; you will have a good time with the 22 minute episodes. The show's episodes as expected often have a gay or bisexual theme. However, once in a while (okay usually once per episode); they have a tendency of going too far. They make no apologies about crossing ethical or racist lines or even having common sense. It's basically about causing a ruckus for as long as possible and somehow come up with a plausible ending by the 20 minute mark. The cast of voice actors from Tara Strong (Toot Braunstein & Princess Clara) to Adam Carolla (Spanky Ham)to Jess Harnell (Captain Hero) and more represent a very elite group of vocalists.
