From late 1977 through spring 1978, John Lasseter, before becoming chief creative officer at Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios and principal creative advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering, worked at Disneyland, and was a skipper on the Jungle Cruise attraction. Recently, a search for a photo of John skippering the Jungle Cruise came up empty. Surely there must be a photo of Skipper John somewhere? To find one, Pixar has created a contest: the first person to submit a verifiable photo of John as the skipper of the Jungle Cruise from 1977 will win a trip for 4 to the grand opening of Cars Land at Disney California Adventure in summer 2012, and a ride on the Jungle Cruise skippered by none other than John himself!
Keanu Reaves is no stranger to the crime genre! Films like Point Break and Street Kings come to mind, but we think he got his start officially in the TV crime drama, Night Heat. In Henry’s Crime, which is out on Blu-ray and DVD today, Reeves stars as Henry Torne, a wrongly accused man who winds up behind bars for a bank robbery he didn’t commit. After befriending a charismatic lifer (James Caan) in prison, Henry finds his purpose — having done the time, he decides he may as well do the crime. But his outlandish plan to rob the very same bank spins wildly out of control, as he finds himself performing in a stage play and falling in love with the production’s seductive leading lady (Vera Farmiga).
To celebrate the release of Henry’s Crime, our pals at ThinkJam put together a list of our favorite law-breaking and abiding Keanu films. We know they skipped the obvious like Bill & Ted and The Matrix Trilogy but did they miss anything?
Speed – 1994
It all started with, “There’s a bomb on the bus!” This one really put Keanu Reeves on the blockbuster map. With its non-stop high action sequences, and bombs on the bus, train, Sandra Bullock, this movie is an action flick-junkie dream.
Street Kings – 2008
In this fast-paced action-crime film, Keanu portrays a disillusioned LAPD detective haunted by the death of his wife. We love it when he breaks rules and butts heads.
Chain Reaction – 1996
How progressive. This film about alternative energy delves deep into a sociopolitical dialogue that involves the FBI, CIA and basically Big Brother chasing our beloved scientists down!
Point Break – 1991
Classic. This box office success melded surfing with bank robbery, making it by far one of Keanu’s most bodacious films to date. And orphan surfer girl Lori Petty just sweetens the deal.
Henry’s Crime – 2010
Working as a toll collector, Henry gets swept up in a crime he didn’t mean to commit. Now that he’s done the time, he had a lot of time to think about reaping the rewards if he had
The Watcher – 2000
Mr. Reeves plays David aka your worst nightmare if you’re a woman. Talk about a misleading first date. Once you feel like you can trust a man, he’s meticulous about the way he kills you.
Constantine – 2005
Supernaturally tubular Keanu solves mythical crimes in this wild and epic film that plunges viewers into the afterlife and spiritual worlds beyond this realm.
Hugh Jackman’s fall action film Real Steel has unveiled a new featurette, exploring the world of these rock’em sock’em robots avatars. The film opens October 7 and stars Jackman alongside Dakota Goyo, Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, and Kevin Durand. The movie was directed by Shawn Levy, better known for his Night at the Museum films, who claims to have thrived on the challenge of doing something new and different.
The DreamWorks release comes from a story by Dan Gilroy and Jeremy Leven and a script by John Gatins but the real source material is the wonderful Richard Matheson’s short story “Steel”.
Here’s the official synopsis:
A gritty, white-knuckle, action ride set in the near-future where the sport of boxing has gone high-tech, “Real Steel” stars Hugh Jackman as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when 2000-pound, 8-foot-tall steel robots took over the ring. Now nothing but a small-time promoter, Charlie earns just enough money piecing together low-end bots from scrap metal to get from one underground boxing venue to the next. When Charlie hits rock bottom, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo) to build and train a championship contender. As the stakes in the brutal, no-holds-barred arena are raised, Charlie and Max, against all odds, get one last shot at a comeback.
For some, age defines you. You are either young or old. For others, age is a number and you remain your youthful, exuberant self. Then there are the ageless wonders, among them actress Janet Waldo. Generations of people have grown up with Janet’s work even though her name may not be a familiar one. The 87 year old actress sounds as vibrant as she did when she first wowed audiences on radio with Meet Corliss Archer.
Today, she is best known as Judy Jetson or Penelope Pitstop, but she has portrayed countless characters of all ages in a rich career that includes stage, screen, television and tons of animation. After high school in Seattle, Waldo, a distant relative of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was performing in local theater when she won an award presented to her by fellow alum Bing Crosby, who was accompanied by a latent scout. She left for Los Angeles where she appeared in several films before beginning her radio career.
She did numerous roles in comedies and dramas before CBS cast her in Meet Corliss Archer, a teenage sitcom series designed to compete with A Date with Judy. She played the part from 1943 until it ended its radio run in 1956. By then she was married and turned down the part for television in order to raise Lucy and Jonathan with her playwright husband Robert Edwin Lee (Inherit the Wind).
When Waldo resumed her career, she wound up doing some television work, such as the recurring character Emmy Lou on The Ozzie & Harriet Show, commercials and the then-new field of television animation. She was cast as teenage Judy Jetson in Hanna-Barbera’s The Jetsons and has voiced the character exclusively ever since (the one exception being having her recorded voice replaced by pop star Tiffany for the 1990 movie).
During the 1960s, Waldo could be heard on all three networks and in multiple roles from Granny Sweet and Anastasia on Secret Squirrel to Penelope Pitstop (first seen in Wacky Races), and of course, Judy. (more…)
For those of you who missed out on Disney’s fan fest, D23, the studio provided us with a recap which we will run intact below. But we know what you really care about is what was said and shown about next year’s The Avengers. Well, there were some clips, another blindingly fast set of clips. According to a report over at Newsrama these included “a conversation between Tony Stark and Loki — with Tony Stark notably appearing behind a bar. Stark details the Avengers lineup — ‘a couple of master assassins, a demigod, and a living legend that actually lives up a legend’ — and Loki retorts back, ‘I have an army.’ ‘We have a Hulk,’ Stark replies.
“The montage sequence also included a monologue from Fury, detailing the purpose behind the Avengers — that they were organized to take on the threats that S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t.”
Bleeding Cool added, “In the clip, Loki is shown trapped in a cage on the helicarrier. It’s a cage built to hold The Hulk, and he’s told that if he’s too much trouble, they’ll just drop it out of the botttom of the helicarrier, 30,000 feet to the ground below. Maria Hill and Steve Rogers watch from the bridge on a monitor while Tony Stark and Nick Fury step up to Loki and have a little threatening banter with him.”
“At the start of Feige’s presentation,” Newsarama continued, “a reel was shown of the five previous Marvel Studios films — Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk (no Edward Norton footage was shown), Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. The clips focused on the interconnectivity of the movies, scenes like Tony Stark appearing at the end of Incredible Hulk and Johann Schmidt discovering the Tesseract at the beginning of Cap. That vignette ending with the tagline ‘assembly begins next summer’.”
We admit it, we here at ComicMix love the work of Paul Giamatti. He inhabits his characters and makes them unique and memorable, from John Adams to Harvey Pekar. It’s one reason we’re looking forward to next week’s release of [[[Win Win]]] on Blu-ray and DVD. It prompted the folks over at 20th Century Home Entertainment to send us the top films prior to this one that explores the divide between parent and child, one of the most universal themes in literature, plays, and film.
For those unfamiliar with Win Win, here’s the official word: It’s a sad state of affairs when a parent / child relationship is strained and the one Kyle (Alex Shaffer) has with his mother is no exception. This void that he needs filled is discovered by the Flaherty family consisting of Mike (Paul Giamatti), Jackie (Amy Ryan) and little Abby (Clare Foley).
Many other movies focus on this theme, and our feature will highlight some of the best that handle this difficult subject with aplomb including: White Oleander, Thirteen and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.
White Oleander (2002)
White Oleander portrays a teenager who journeys through a series of foster homes after her mother goes to prison for committing a crime of passion. Astrid, played by Alison Lohman, is the teenager who throughout nearly a decade experiences forbidden love, religion, near-death experiences, drugs, starvation, and how it feels to be loved. During these years, she keeps in touch with her mother via letters to prison. The film has a strong female cast which also includes Michelle Pfeiffer and Renne Zellweger.
Thirteen (2003)
Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood) is a normal 13-year-old girl who is also a straight-A student. After befriending a new girl at school, Evie (Nikki Reed), Tracy’s world is turned upside down. Evie introduces her to a world of sex, drugs, cash and petty crime. Tracy’s whole identity rapidly changes and it isn’t long before her new world and attitude finally takes a toll on her, her family, and old friends. Due to her new persona, the relationships between Tracy and the people that care for her most are pushed to the limit.
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)
This film boasts an all-star cast of before-they-were-superstars, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp and Juliette Lewis. The story follows Gilbert (Depp) who has to care for his younger brother Arnie (Di Caprio) and his obese mother, which gets in the way when love walks into his life in the form of Becky (Lewis).
Win Win (2011)
Academy Award® Nominee Paul Giamatti stars as a lovable yet long-suffering lawyer and high-school wrestling coach who takes us on a brilliantly heartfelt journey through the game of life…where you can’t lose ’em all. When Mike Flaherty (Giamatti) comes across a teenage runaway who also happens to be a champion wrestler, Mike’s luck turns around in spectacular fashion. But his win-win situation soon becomes more complicated than he ever imagined when the boy’s family affairs come into play. Co-starring Oscar® Nominee Amy Ryan and directed by Oscar® Nominee Tom McCarthy, this touching and funny comedy will leave you cheering.
“This isn’t about humanity! This isn’t about the future!”
So said a member of the Outcasts cast late in the show’s abbreviated run and it’s a shame because a story set in the future should be about that very thing. Creator Ben Richards wrote earlier this year,
“The inspiration behind Outcasts was the desire to tell a pioneer story, and the only place you can do that really now is in space.
“I wanted to explore second chances, most fundamentally whether humanity is genetically hardwired to make the same mistakes again and again.
“The stories that kick start the series are intense, and hopefully moving, but the world view is never cynical or willfully pessimistic.”
In other words, he was hoping for the critical success of Battlestar Galactica but told stories more worthy of Space: 1999. The BBC series ran eight weeks earlier this year while it came to America in June to meet the same dismal critical reception. Now, BBC Video releases the complete series on a three-disc set.
Never heard of the show? That says a lot about how poorly received it was on both sides of the Atlantic. It was a serious-minded SF series, a counterpoint to the more over-the-top SF from England including Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Primeval. Sadly, it may have suffered more from self-importance than bad production.
Set in the middle of the 21st Century, mankind has ruined the Earth and its survivors have been coming in drips and drabs to the world of Carpathia, a mere five years’ travel distance. The remnants of humanity are trying to forge a new society but they all come with such baggage that fresh starts seem impossible. We join them ten years after the first colonists arrived and long after regular contact with the nuclear-devastated Earth was lost. A ship, perhaps the very last from Earth, arrives as we begin the series. We then see how life tries to work with the Protection and Security team keeping the peace while the Expeditionaries goes foraging for foods and medicines while studying their new home.
Richards wrote five of the eight episodes and may have had good intentions, but his internal story logic and execution left a lot to be desired. There’s a sprawling, attractive cast ill-served by their individual storylines and they never really gel as an ensemble. His talkative scripts rob the show of momentum and its slow pacing, reminiscent of 1999, doesn’t help.
His characters all feel like ones we’ve seen before, in far better science fiction concepts. There’s the President (Liam Cunningham), the madman (Jamie Bamber), the better former VP (Eric Maibus), the man with a secret past (Daniel Mays), and so on. It’s an international group, trying to reflect humanity so there’s Maibus the American, Bamber the Brit, and the South African (busty model Jeanné Kietzmann). If only we grew to care about them.
About the freshest element in the series is the notion of the Advanced Cultivars, artificially created humans designed to survive in the alien environment and blamed for unleashing a virus that killed many of the colony’s children, threatening the humans’ future.
The thing is, each episode should be advancing stories and themes but there are a lot of retreads and flashbacks and no real sense that the society is settling in. Still, there’s something, some quality to each episode that keeps you watching, keeps you hoping things get better. By the sixth episode, things feel like they are finally coming together then the subsequent episode spins its wheels and the final episode ends on a less-than-compelling cliffhanger. One that will never be resolved because the ratings dropped so dramatically that the series was yanked from its high profile time slot after five airings and dumped on late Sunday nights when good British telly watchers had gone to sleep. The day after the finale aired, the BBC announced the show’s cancellation.
The episodes look fine in high definition and there was at least some interesting thought into the colonization of this alien world that is as bleak as the stories told on its surface. One of the set’s extras if a set tour for Forthaven, which details the thinking. The other is “Reach to the Stars”, a featurette that has cast and crew try to convince you they’re doing something unique and wonderful.
You can judge for yourself whether this was a missed opportunity or hidden gem. Either way, these eight installments are all you’re ever going to see of this world and its dreary inhabitants.
In the mid-1920’s, an up-and-coming young animator had a brief encounter with an up-and-coming child star. Although they only met in passing, Mickey Rooney remembers Walt Disney as “a very charming man.” More than 50 years later, in 1981, Rooney would find himself starring in one of Walt Disney Studio’s most beloved animated films, The Fox and the Hound. Rooney voiced the character of Tod, an orphaned fox cub who forms an unlikely friendship with Copper, a coonhound voiced by Kurt Russell. The film also stars Pearl Bailey, Pat Buttram and Jack Albertson. The Fox and the Hound and its sequel The Fox and the Hound 2 will be released in a 30th Anniversary 2-Movie Collection on August 9, 2011.
Although he is quick to deny it, Mickey Rooney is the definition of a Hollywood legend. With a career that spans nine decades, he has defied the odds in an industry that often typecasts performers. He got his start crashing his parents’ vaudeville act while still a toddler and, just a few years later, he became a silent film sensation; starring in the popular “Mickey McGuire” shorts. In the 1930’s Rooney made a successful transition to sound films, headlining in the long-running “Andy Hardy” series and teaming with his friend Judy Garland in such classic musicals as Strike Up the Band and Girl Crazy. Rooney was awarded a special Juvenile Oscar at the 1939 Academy Awards ceremony and the next year was nominated in the competitive Best Actor category for Babes in Arms, the first of four Oscar nominations. He also won an honorary Academy Award in 1983 in recognition of 50 years of memorable film performances. Having also won an Emmy and two Golden Globes by that time, many actors would be content to rest on such precious laurels but Mickey Rooney, now 90, continues to work on stage, screen and television and recently wrapped a cameo role in the highly anticipated Walt Disney Pictures Holiday 2011 release, The Muppets. (more…)
[[[Will Eisner’s P.S. Magazine: The Best of The Preventive Maintenance Monthly]]] By Will Eisner, selected and with an overview by Eddie Campbell 272 pages, Abrams ComicArts, $21.95
As far back as 1940, during the publicity campaign for the launch of The Spirit Sunday section, Will Eisner spoke of the potential for comic books to do more than entertain but to educate. Within a decade, he got to put theory into practice by winning the contract to package P.S. Magazine: The Preventive Maintenance Monthly for the United States Army. After over 700 issues, the magazine continues to chug along with the likes of Murphy Anderson and Joe Kubert following in his might footsteps.
Anyone reading a biography of Eisner knows that he took on P.S. in part because he wearied of the weekly grind required of The Spirit and because he was restless but unless we’ve enlisted, getting to see the legendary magazine proved problematic. Thanks to Abrams’ ComicArts imprint, that is being readied with this volume, a sampler of Eisner’s work from 1951-1971. Cartoonist Eddie Campbell gleefully took on the herculean task of sifting through thousands of pages to find representative work decade by decade. Apparently, he was contracted for an overview and got deep into the research so what we got to read is based on his enthusiastic efforts. (more…)
[[[Bad Island]]] By Doug TenNapel 224 pages, Scholastic Graphix, $10.99
Author/artist Doug TenNapel impressed me last year with his Ghostopolis, a fresh graphic novel for young adult readers. He’s back this month with Bad Island and I am less impressed. He has an ambitious story to tell, actually two stories that parallel and intertwine at times, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
The biggest problem I have is that this family of four castaways on a mysterious island react unlike real people, constantly taking me out of the story to scratch my head and wonder how that happened. The family set out on an enforced bonding vacation that the eldest child, teenage Reese objects to. What aspires to be a three hour tour finds the tiny ship tossed by a storm that leaves the shipwrecked and the crew left on a deserted island.
Their efforts at survival are given incredible short-shrift with dad, Lyle, proving fairly inept. There’s an unrealistic calmness among the quartet with way too much focus from younger daughter Janie’s obsession over her pet snake. That dad allows her to carry the snake corpse around is inexcusable.
When there is evidence that alien life exists on the planet, they accept this way too calmly so there’s a lot of running, screaming and activity without a great deal of rational reason.
On the other hand, the other story involves aliens but it’s still a story about a father and son. The tension between them remains the same as Lyle and Reese, but both are not well-developed enough to make you care. He gives us an unbelievable human family contrasted with an alien reality that is woefully underdeveloped.
As hinted at on the cover, there island itself is a character in the story but I don’t want to give away some of the book’s obvious fun.
While the writing fails to work this time around, TenNapel’s art and storytelling remains engaging. The color, from Katherine Garner and Josh Kenfield and an army of ten, works exceptionally well, making the graphic novel pleasing to the eye. He and the colorists differentiate the island antics and the outer space thread making it clear to readers where we are and what is happening.
I wanted to like this more than I did, but the poor characterizations and leaps from logic robbed the book of its potential power.
This film boasts an all-star cast of before-they-were-superstars, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp and Juliette Lewis. The story follows Gilbert (Depp) who has to care for his younger brother Arnie (Di Caprio) and his obese mother, which gets in the way when love walks into his life in the form of Becky (Lewis).
