Category: Reviews

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Next Level

Star Trek: The Next Generation had to do a lot to convince fans of Gene Roddenberry’s trendsetting original series that it was the same vision, merely updated. By then, there had been two decades of just Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The fans felt a certain ownership having saved it from cancellation during the original network run and then created an unprecedented following that led to an animated series and four feature films. The notion of continuing the series and setting it 78 years in the future left people wary.

The turmoil surrounding the birth of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the haphazard production of the first season had fans even more concerned before the new show debuted in late September 1987. In those early Internet days, word still spread at warp speed as familiar names David Gerrold and D.C. Fontana joined and left staff while other producers and writers seemed to be named with startling regularity.

The show survived a very shaky first year and matured into another trendsetting series that paved the way for tons of syndicated fare and showed that the Star Trek brand could be extended. And now, the second series has to prove itself all over again. The special effects for the seven seasons were produced using video production techniques, making it difficult to upgrade to Blu-ray. But not impossible.

Last September, CBS Home Entertainment announced they had solved the technical dilemma in a cost effective away, allowing them to remaster the entire series for Blu-ray release, with season one due later in 2012.  Recently, we posted a video to show how the work was done, comparing scenes from the original video to the Blu-ray and it looked pretty amazing. The question then became, could this be sustained for entire episodes. (more…)

Review: “Avengers” #19

avengers19_thumb-7406966CR Review: Avengers #19
Creators: Brian Michael Bendis, Daniel Acuna
Publishing Information: Marvel Comics, comic book, 40 pages, November 2011, $3.99

Perhaps the oddest thing about the Avengers property becoming Marvel’s flagship title the last few years is that there’s no underlying concept involved in its execution. It’s Marvel’s biggest superheroes (and some of its stronger supporting characters) teaming up to take on various super-baddie threats… and that’s really about it, as far as I can tell. It’s not a family, it’s not a community, it’s not a certain way of doing things; it’s everybody the fans think are cool put into the same room. In a similar vein, the writer Brian Michael Bendis recently announcing the conclusion of his run with that property surprised only in that there’s little in the way of a dramatic arc — at least not one I can see, from several steps back — that would indicate he was close to wrapping up whatever personal, creative business he might have brought to the series several years ago. In most ways that count, the defining characteristics of this comic book series lies in how it resists past signifiers. For all that it defines the current superhero mainstream, Avengers is one contrary comic book.

Water for Elephants

Why are we reviewing this failed adaptation of Sara Gruen’s 2006 novel, Water for Elephants? Well, we like circuses and my wife enjoyed the novel. We think Christoph Waltz is one of the more interesting actors to watch these days and frankly, we just plain like Reese Witherspoon, who hasn’t made enough solid films the last few years. Then there’s director Francis Lawrence, whose Constantine I thought was underrated. With the box office disappointment out this week on disc from 20th Century Home Entertainment, it was time to give it a look.

This Depression-era story tells of Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson), a would-be veterinarian whose studies at Cornell were cut short given the economy. He hits the road, as did so many others, but only he stumbled across the Benzini Brothers Circus, run by August (Waltz) and featuring his wife Marlena (Witherspoon). They need a doctor on the cheap and he gains invaluable practical experience caring for the menagerie being carted from town to town.

Jacob also gets a hard lesson in life as he watches August abuse both wife and elephant and Jacob tenderly fills the void for both. Things go awry when August learns of Jacob’s interference with his life and profession, setting up an inevitable confrontation.

There’s plenty of drama here, plenty of atmosphere and themes to explore, but the power of the novel is sapped by a labored film adaptation in the hands of screenwriter Richard LaGravenese and director Francis Lawrence. While he struggled to successful bring Constantine’s snark to film, ruined by the Americanization to accommodate Keanu Reeves, he did Richard Matheson a disservice with I Am Legend so the jury was still out on his skills. This third flawed adaptation proves the man is tone deaf to the beauty inherent in the prose. All three films call for unique settings and moods but rather than feast on a bleak 1930s America, this feels like a typical Hollywood vision of that time.

In adapting the book’s rich characters and psychological interrelationships, Lawrence comes up short, robbing every character of their depth. The attractive cast is also the wrong cast and doesn’t give them enough actual direction leaving Waltz in need of restraint and Pattinson and Witherspoon mismatched, lacking any real spark between them. He does his best work with Rosie the Elephant which isn’t saying a lot. Had the circus performers and crew been allowed to do anything in the story, it could have been a rich ensemble piece and more satisfying look at this life on the rails.

The Blu-ray edition, not sent for review, contains plenty of featurettes while the DVD comes with just a Robert Pattinson Spotlight (yawn), a by-the-numbers piece on Reese Witherspoon, and the most interesting piece The Traveling Show: From Page to Screen. There’s also an audio commentary from Lawrence and LaGravenese but I just couldn’t care enough to finish it.

For those interested, the Blu-ray comes with the above plus Working Without A Net – The Visual Effects of Water for Elephants; The Star Attraction; Raising the Tent; and, Secrets of the Big Top.

Review: “Cars 2”

For whatever reason, my kids didn’t want to see Cars and we even missed it on cable and home video. When word spread that it was good but not Pixar’s best feature, there wasn’t a lot of desire among the family to check it out. The same feeling arrived this June when the inevitable sequel, spurred by enough box office revenues and massive merchandise success, arrived. We empty-nesters just couldn’t muster the desire to go see the film, despite an engaging trailer and a love for all things Pixar.

The home video release of the movie this coming week remedied this void in my Pixar knowledge. The movie is entertaining enough, moving at, appropriately enough, a racing clip; it reintroduces the established characters, moves them to a new setting and gives audiences (and merchandisers) some new players. Hilarity ensues for 106 minutes and the film itself is entertaining but it felt cookie cutter in its approach with little in the way of either heart or surprise. Where I found Up too implausible to make me suspend my disbelief, this felt far more like pure kiddie fare than the usual family friendly feature that offers something for everyone.

I suppose the espionage angle was for the adults in the crowd and yes, Michael Caine was a perfect choice for the automotive version of James Bond. Still, it felt unnecessarily tacked on, although his contrast with Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) was a nice idea. Mater is a supporting character uncomfortably thrust into the spotlight and much like a television sitcom spinoff written around a supporting character (Joey anyone?), Mater just isn’t a strong enough personality to handle the lead.

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Juxtaposition: Two Books for Younger Readers with Words & Pictures

miss-peregrine-6617220Sometimes words and pictures come together in the same story. There’s more than one way of accomplishing this — comics is the most obvious, with the story told in a sequence of pictures and text (captions and/or dialogue), but there are other options — and books for pre-adults have typically made more use of pictures than those in the more adult portions of the library.

Remember: adults are dull and staid, and must not be upset or disconcerted by mere pictures in their very, very serious books. Children are more mentally flexible, and can handle the shock of the pictorial.

Teens are somewhere in between: they usually want to be adults, but they’re still young enough to question that dull stolidity, and still, sometimes, will gravitate to books with pictures in them. The two books I have in front of me today were published to be read by pre-adults of various ages — though I think the first had an older expected reader-age than the latter — and they’re chock-full of pictures. In fact, both of them are stories told through and about their pictures, in different ways — and, more interestingly from my point of view, neither of these books use the language and techniques of comics. They both use pictures as part of their storytelling, but come at it from different traditions, and don’t tell their stories from image-to-image the way that comics do.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is the more conventional of the two books; it’s a novel by Ransom Riggs (his first), illustrated by a sequence of real, mostly unaltered vintage photographs. (Riggs is clear about the “mostly unaltered” stipulation, since some of these are quite odd photographs, as with the cover shot, showing a hard-faced girl standing rigidly still a foot off the ground.) Those photos are part of the story in the most basic, literal way — every so often, a character talks about looking at a photograph, and then, lo! the actual photo appears on the next page.

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Bones: The Complete Sixth Season

A television series reaches middle age around its fifth or sixth season and it rests on the shoulders of the production team whether or not to get rejuvenated or quietly enter the complacency of old age, leading to a far swifter demise. Thankfully, Hart Hanson and the crew of Bones used last season as a chance to shake up the status quo in numerous ways resulting in a reset of sorts when the seventh season begins November 3. Meantime, [[[Bones: The Complete Sixth Season]]] was recently released by 20th Century Home Entertainment and is once more a handsome package.

The show is far more character-driven than its competitor procedurals on the other networks, so we’ve come to know and love not only the staff at the Jeffersonian and FBI agent Sealy Booth, but the interns and extended family that are part of their world. The series does not shy away from dealing with the consequences of their cases and as one menace is finally dealt with, another arrives to keep things interesting. The Gravedigger, Heather Taffet (Deirdre Lovejoy), had her creepy storyline brought to a satisfying conclusion but as one door closed, another opened and in walked Jacob Broadsky (Arnold Vosloo), an ex-Army sniper who has a history with Booth.

This show has always had an appealing cast, with terrific chemistry among the regulars and the producers make certain we see them at work and at play, mixing and matching the characters to see what happens. David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel anchor the show and their “will they or won’t they” relationship kept things going for the previous five seasons. Still, to everyone but one another, it was clear they belonged together, and it finally was addressed in the waning season five episodes. As season six opened, Booth had been in the Middle East for months and returned a changed man, accompanied by Hannah Burley (Katheryn Winnick). Having Booth seemingly happy in love was just the spark Deschanel’s Temperance Brennan needed to get back in touch with her emotional heart. Their arc was a very strong one, a spine for the season that ended with them finally making love, resulting in a pregnancy that will charge the new season. (more…)

Batman: Year One

Crisis on Infinite Earths reset the playing field for DC Comics (at least for a little while before it was reset again and again and again), allowing management to refresh their top trio of heroes. Given the groundbreaking work Frank Miller did on The Dark Knight, he was invited to help editor Denny O’Neill essentially reboot Batman from the beginning. In November 1986, fans were delighted with the effort in the form of Batman #404, the first installment in “Batman: Year One”. This not only reset the Darknight Detective and his mythos, but gave publishers the mini-series within a series, which became a template along with the chance to revisit the past with the Year One moniker.

Partnered with artist David Mazzuccehlli, who worked so well with Miller on a run of Daredevil, they helped give us fresh takes on Bruce Wayne, Alfred, and most notably Jim Gordon. Controversially, it also gave us Selina Kyle as a prostitute, something creator shave been trying to paper over ever since. Still, the story of corruption, adultery, redemption, and a man learning to become a hero was gripping stuff.

There’s little wonder then why Warner Premiere decided to adapt this seminal tale as part of their largely successful line of direct-to-video animated features. Much like the source material, this film runs a spare 64 minutes. Everything from the four issues is present and we really see that this is more about Gordon than Batman, giving him some deep roots for the first time. (more…)

Green Lantern

1000156673brdlefo-300x402-6397171The problem with Green Lantern is that for something that was epic in concept, the film felt ordinary. It appears the producers looked at Iron Man and decided that was their template, retaining the look and feel from the comics, trying to ground it in reality with a likeable hero and monumental threat requiring the good guy to overcome his personal demons to save the day. The film cratered as a result, putting Warner Bros on the spot and casting a shadow over the new DC Entertainment administration. The film returns this week on Blu-ray from Warner Home Video complete with digital copy and some neat new bells and whistles.

The transfer is glorious and the CGI stuff really looks swell here but little of this sheen can mask the misfires, including the horrible GL mask Ryan Reynolds is forced to have painted over his nose. His Hal Jordan was recruited to join an intergalactic law enforcement corps, acknowledging the existence of extra-terrestrial life for the first time and rather than explore what all that meant, they kept dragging the audience back to Earth.

As a result, we got one scene of Hal being trained by Kilowog, but later hear the big poozer take credit for successfully preparing him for duty. We see Sinestro (Mark Strong) as the first among equals without being given any clue how the Corps worked as an operating unit or anyone really explaining things to Hal, like how often he needs to charge his ring (and recite the oath each time). We take no time to share with Hal the sense of wonder of meeting 3599 other lifeforms nor does anyone sit him down and say, “Hey, in your sector keep an eye out for the…”

That could have set this film apart from the Marvel Universe series and allowed Green Lantern to stand tall as a unique feature. Also missing was a memorable score (seemingly a dying artform), a theme for the GL Corps that could have stood alongside the theme to Superman or the Imperial March. James Newton Howard missed a terrific opportunity for immortality here. (more…)

Tree of Life

tree-of-life-300x358-4860061The story goes that in Stamford CT, so many people walked out of Tree of Life and demanded their money back that the management had to post a sign explaining the movie was not your traditional story and that no more refunds would be issued. On the one hand, it says people pick movies indiscriminately and it also says without being prepared, more thoughtful works can be poorly received.

Director Terrence Malick is an artist with film, turning the moving picture into portraiture. Since his first film, Badlands, the cinematography alone is a reason to seek out his films. There’s usually a long wait between his movies because he takes his time conceiving, making and editing each one, building up anticipation from his fans and the actors who love to work with him. Few get to do it twice although the current movie does feature Sean Penn for a second effort. Recently, though, he has bad mouthed the film, wondering what he was doing in it and yes, Tree of Life can be a real headscratching experience.

But, Malick gets credit for tackling the big issues of life, the universe, and everything. He focuses on a single nuclear family, seemingly set in the 1950s, but all the themes are large ones. So large, in fact, that when there’s a fissure, everything cracks apart. And when that occurs, Malick takes us back to the beginning, and I mean the beginning. We’re talking the Big Bang, a cooling planet and the beginning of life. The lush origins of our world through the early days of the dinosaur is a wonder to watch and it transfers brilliantly to the home screen in the Blu-ray edition coming this Tuesday from 20th Century Home Entertainment.

Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain are a happily married couple, raising three boys in an idyllic American suburb. Most of the film follows their development through those pivotal childhood years and like a work of literature, says more through what is not spoken than is conveyed in dialogue.By setting this in the past, it automatically evokes a sense of longing in the audience. Curiously, this is a past without much in the way of technology: no radio or television, just a phonograph. (more…)

The Lion King

The second age of Disney greatness made raising children in the 1990s a real treat. Taking youngsters to an animated film recreated some of the magic the parents experience when they were first brought to the theater. To its credit, Disney continued to carefully curate its collection of classic films, filling in the gaps left by the far more mediocre fare that marked the 1970s and 1980s. Interestingly, one of those final films was where one of the current age’s greatest was born.

I still remember sitting in the theater with the kids and saw the trailer for The Lion King, which consisted of the opening song, a gutsy move but a brilliant one. Everything you needed to know was present; the sheer majesty of the animal kingdom, the quality of the animation and color palette, and the amazing score.

The fourth film from the Jeffrey Katzenberg/Michael Eisner regime, The Lion King felt special from the outset and has remained that way despite repeated viewings. Now finally out on Blu-ray today, the movie looks and sounds better than ever.

One of the reasons, the movie works is that it deals with universal themes, notably those of coming of age and the relationship between father and son. While the notion of the “Circle of Life” may have been beaten to death since it was reinforced here, respecting the life cycle is a good lesson for audiences young and old alike.

In the best of the Disney tradition, the film also nicely blends action, drama, and humor so it has a rhythm of its own. The littlest viewers can giggle at Timon and Pumba’s antics while others can feel the adrenaline pump during the battles, but there is certainly something for everyone, done with style and panache.

What’s interesting is that once the film’s concept was put into active development, it had to compete for animators with Pocahontas, which most saw as the next slam dunk film. Freed from the same level of scrutiny, the younger animators who signed on rose to the challenge and then some. It was inspired to blend Tim Rice and Elton John for the songs while Hans Zimmer delivered one of his finest scores.

The usual array of extras for a Diamond Edition film are all on display, and actually had me ready for more. The package contains Blu-ray and a standard DVD discs and comes with a fine user interface. New to this collection is a 39 minute “Pride of the Lion King” featurette that reunites former Chairman Katzenberg, Zimmer, producer Don Hahn, and co-directors Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff. This is followed with an additional 21 minutes of memories, “The Lion King: A Memoir”, hosted by Han. The co-directors introduce five previously unseen Deleted Scenes, explaining how these did not make the final cut. Also represented is the missing song, “Morning Report”, which was restored for the Broadway adaptation. The affection for the movie is demonstrated with the freshly animated Gag Reel with outtakes produced specifically for the disc.

The extras from the previously released Platinum edition return here so you get the audio commentary, Art Gallery, and the Sing-Along Mode.

If you have an iPad, the film comes with the new Disney Second Screen app stuffed with production art and interactive games. For those who use the BD-Live function, this one comes with  the “Virtual Vault” access which will show you “The Making of ‘The Morning Report'”, three additional Deleted Scenes, “Stage, Film, Story and Musical Journey” featurettes, Elton John’s “Circle of Life” music video, a Film-to-Storyboard Comparison, two short Demo Sequences and an Unfinished Scene.

One thing I wish they addressed head on was an acknowledgement in some way that the film owed a debt to Osama Tezuka’s Kimba the White Lion. The parallels are too striking for it to have been sheer coincidence.

As we enter the holiday season, this goes on your Must Have list.

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