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Scoop Scuttle and His Pals by Basil Wolverton

Scoop Scuttle and His Pals by Basil Wolverton

So much goes into comedy , especially comedy in comics – there’s funny writing, and funny drawing, and the intersection of the two, plus personal taste and sometimes all of that obscured by the passage of time. Something can be done well, with lots of wordplay, well-thought-out drawings and solidly amusing premises, but still feel outdated or just flat to any particular reader.

That’s where I land with Scoop Scuttle and His Pals: The Crackpot Comics of Basil Wolverton . It collects four series of stories from the 1940s and early ’50s: the reporter Scoop Scuttle, the diminutive Indian fakir Mystic Moot (and his Magic Snoot), indestructible cowboy Bingbang Buster, and goofy SF hero Jumpin’ Jupiter.. There are detailed story notes by editor Greg Sadowski , and the whole package is well-designed and organized, with comics pages about as clear and crisp as you could hope for stuff printed on newsprint seventy years ago.

I didn’t laugh once. I might have had a wry smile a couple of times. Some of it, especially later in the book, was amusing and fun, but nothing got that immediate humor reaction from me. The Scoop Scuttle stories in particular felt too stuffed: too many words with too much supposedly-comic alliteration, too much minor-vaudeville business. So I am not a good person to tell you what’s great about these Basil Wolverton stories.

Now, I’m pretty sure this is minor Wolverton. But I’m no Wolverton expert: I’ve seen some of his stuff here and there, but never dug deeply. This book was titled and published in a way that made it look like it was saying “this is the good stuff!” Looking more carefully after reading it, it seems to actually say “this is some obscure stuff, mostly made as the Golden Age was dying, nicely cleaned up for Wolverton fanatics, and we’re not making any claims about its quality.”

These are all anthology-filler comics stories, from an era where comics were 64 pages long and needed to be filled with various stuff. Part of that Golden-Age-dying was the shrinking of those comics; it looks, from this distance, like Wolverton was squeezed out during that shrinking. What gets squeezed out is not necessarily by quality: popularity is first, and what most closely fits the overall theme and style of the book tends to stay. Wolverton being goofy and sui generis made him an obvious early target for removal: this material would have been the most different stuff in any of the comics it appeared in.

So, if I’m telling you anything you didn’t know about Wolverton, this is not a book for you. This is a book for people who already know a lot more about Wolverton than I do, or maybe people whose comic sensibility is more attuned to mass-market alliterative and nearly-rhyming jokes from mid-century.

One very random example:

“I’m from the Daily Dally! I’m looking for Lester Fester!”

“I’m not Lester Fester! I’m Esther Tester! Now take it on the lam, ham, and scram! I’m strangling my husband, and I don’t want any interruptions!”

If you enjoy wordplay along the lines of “take it on the lam, ham, and scram,” you will find a lot of it here.

Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

Classic Singin’ in the Rain Makes 4K Debut

Classic Singin’ in the Rain Makes 4K Debut

BURBANK, CA – To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the 1952 acclaimed and beloved film, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced today that Singin’ in the Rain will be released on Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack and Digital on April 26. 

Singin’ in the Rain is widely considered to be one of the greatest musical films in cinematic history. The musical romantic comedy was directed by choreographed by Gene Kelly (On the Town) and Stanley Donen (On the Town) and stars Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchel and Cyd Charisse.  

The film was written by Adolph Green and Betty Comden and produced by Arthur Freed. The music is by Nacio Herb Brown and the lyrics are by Arthur Freed.

O’Connor won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and Betty Comden and Adolph Green won the Writers Guild of America Award for their screenplay, while Jean Hagen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. 

In 1989, Singin’ in the Rain was one of the first 25 films selected by the United States Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.   The film ranked 10th on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies list, 16th on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Laughs list, 16th on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Passions list, Singin’ In The Rain was 3rd on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs list, and the film was number 1 on AFI’s Greatest Movie Musicals list.

Ultra HD* showcases 4K resolution with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and a wider color spectrum, offering consumers brighter, deeper, more lifelike colors for a home entertainment viewing experience like never before.   
   
In addition , Donald O’Connor, Cyd Charisse, Kathleen Freeman, Stanley Donen, Betty Camden, Adolph Green, Bad Lurhmann and Rudy Behlmer.
•    Singin’ in the Rain: Raining on a New Generation Documentary
•    Theatrical Trailer

DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION ELEMENTS
On April 26, Singing in the Rain 4K UHD will be available to own for streaming and download to watch anywhere in high definition and standard definition on favorite devices from select digital retailers including GooglePlay, Vudu, Xbox and others, and will be made available digitally on Video On Demand services from cable and satellite providers, and on select gaming consoles.


BASICS
Ultra HD Blu-ray                        $24.99

Standard Street Date: April 26, 2022
Ultra HD Blu-ray Languages: English, Latin Spanish, Canadian French
Ultra HD Blu-ray Subtitles: English SDH, Latin Spanish, Canadian French
Running Time: 67 minutes
Rating: Rated G

No One Else by R. Kikuo Johnson

No One Else by R. Kikuo Johnson

Naturalism is not a single thing: every art form has a different kind of naturalism. So if I say that R. Kikuo Johnson’s graphic novel No One Else  leans towards a prose fiction kind of naturalism, I don’t mean just that it aims to tell a story about real people in a real world.

Comics naturalism is close to film naturalism: use the panel like a camera eye, honestly, depicting what a person would see in that position and following sequences of events as they happen. Everything may not be clear at any moment, but the information to understand the story is all there, on the screen or the page, for the eye to process.

Prose naturalism, though, since Raymond Carver, is about not saying things – it’s about what’s deliberately left out of the story, the things careful readers will notice and catalog. This is inherently trickier , since it presupposes an ideal reader, one who can tell what’s missing. So it’s a form that can break easily, over time or with new audiences; I’d never want to try to translate a writer like Carver.

I think Johnson is playing a Carveresque game here. I’m just not sure if I’m clearly seeing the missing pieces, or if there are aspects to life in Hawai’i, or something else, that I don’t know. The trouble with prose naturalism is exactly that: not being sure if you’re seeing the holes that are in the story on purpose, or the holes that are in your necessary experience to read the story.

No One Else is a family story, the story of three people: Charlene, her brother Robbie, her son Brandon. The back cover copy focuses on Charlene, but she’s the least knowable of the three, the most tightly sealed. She’s a nurse , both for pay and for the aged, dementia-broken father who lives with her and Brandon.

Brandon is young – late elementary-school, I think, just old enough to be left to care for himself but not all that good at it or happy with it. He loves his cat, Batman, and isn’t that thrilled with anything else.

Robbie is the prodigal; he shows up partway through the book. He’s a working musician on a low level: it looks like he tours a lot, playing small gigs, and that covers his living expenses, but he has no house or roots or anything else to tie him down.

You may guess that he and Charlene have entirely different views on life.

Among the things No One Else will not say or touch on:

  • Charlene’s father’s name, or more than a hint of his history
  • Anything at all about her mother, dead or estranged
  • Anything at all about Brandon’s father
  • Charlene and Robbie’s childhood
  • The significance of the boat sitting in Charlene’s yard
  • Why brush fires lurk around the edges of this story
That last is, I think, one of the important gaps: sugar-cane cultivation includes burning fields, which is controversial. (Cane growers like it; everyone else who lives anywhere near does not.) It’s also a clear visual metaphor for other elements in the story.

But are those other pieces important the same way? This is a family story; are the holes in this family significant? I’m not sure. Johnson is quiet and naturalistic, as I said – his panels and pages are naturalistic in the comics sense as well – so he shows us a lot of events and leaves it for us to understand.

There’s a major event in the first few pages, for example, that we need to understand clearly. A question of responsibility, in particular, and whether that influences behavior later in the story. I’m not going to spoil that event, but it sets up the entire book: everything else happens because of that. So I’m also not going to talk about plot at all here: the plot is that something happens, and then we see what happens afterward.

Johnson’s pages are excellent, his people real in their faces and movements and unknowable depths. No One Else has depths that I don’t think I’ve plumbed, which is impressive for a short book of half-size pages. But I do worry that I might not be able to completely understand it: that there are aspects of this book that require an ideal reader with experiences I don’t and will never have, who grew up somewhere else among other people, who knows and believes other things. I may have to chance that, and read it again.

Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

The Golden Age, Book 1 by Roxanne Moreil & Cyril Pedrosa

The Golden Age, Book 1 by Roxanne Moreil & Cyril Pedrosa

The title is ironic. Or maybe more than ironic: this is not the story of a golden age , but there is a book in this fictional world called “The Golden Age.” So it is, perhaps, a story called “The Golden Age” that centers on another story called “The Golden Age.”

The back cover says The Golden Age, Book 1  takes place in the kingdom of Antrevers: the narrative never gets that specific. It is a medieval kingdom , somewhere vaguely Western European. Given that the creators – co-writer Roxanne Moreil and writer/artist Cyril Pedrosa – are French – you could call it a fantasy version of France, and not be far wrong.

In the manner of fairy tales, there is no wider world: we don’t know what countries border Antrevers, and it doesn’t matter. This kingdom is the world of the story; everything will happen within it.

Antrevers has been getting poorer and life harder for a generation or so. Crops are not as fertile, life is not as easy. Again, trade and development are left unmentioned: this is a single kingdom in a static, medieval world. The nobles have been increasing taxes to maintain their position; the peasants have been complaining, and starting to rebel, in turn. Repression of those peasants has been ramping up, under Louys de Vaudemont, one of the most powerful nobles.

The old king has just died. If his name was thrown out, I didn’t catch it. He leaves an aged wife – also left unnamed, and her exact title after his death is vague, too – and two children. There’s a younger son, but his older sister, Tilda, is expected to inherent – this is not a world with a Salic Law, I suppose.

Tilda is our main viewpoint character: a bit headstrong, determined to use her authority and power to make life better for the entire kingdom, to reverse the downward slide of all of Antrevers. To that end, she has been talking about shaking up the power of the nobles – not eliminating that power, probably not even curtailing it that much, but putting some royal limits on what nobles had gotten used to doing unfettered. She is young and energetic and sure she is right. She will learn others are equally sure of their rightness , believing entirely different things.

We enter this world like diving into a pool: Pedrosa’s first few pages are full-bleed, with bright colors, single images in an illustrative, almost impressionist style filling our vision. He mostly settles down to bordered panels after that, but breaks out the full-page art for major moments: this is a visually stunning book. He brings all of the fairy-tale energy and life of his earlier Three Shadows, combining it with the mastery of color and space he showed in Portugal .

Similarly, Moreil and Pedrosa introduce us to a group of peasants first: our story may be mostly among the powerful, but it’s about all the people of this kingdom. From there, the narrative makes its way to court and Tilda, as she meets faithful retainer Lord Tankred and the young swordsman Bertil, who may also have been a childhood playmate of hers. The three of them are soon traveling together, for reasons I don’t want to spoil, but you can guess at how the old nobles are reacting to Tilda’s impending coronation.

Tilda looks to gather allies: we’ve heard a lot about “the Peninsula,” and she heads there, to rendezvous with Lord Albaret, who she knows is loyal to her. They will find other places along the way, particularly a hidden community of women – something like a secular nunnery, or sanctuary – as the story circles around the ideas of governance, power, and noblesse oblige. Tilda has good intentions, but do revolting peasants want any Queen, even a fairly benevolent, forward-thinking one? And can Tilda conceptualize a government without someone like her ruling it by decree?

On top of all that, this is a fantasy story. There is some power that Tilda will find, at the end. She also has visions throughout: visions that make her weak, shattering her normal life and making her collapse, visions of war and fire and danger, in which she is an imposing, commanding figure.

This is Book 1. It ends on a cliffhanger, after more than two hundred pages. But the story, I’m told, ends in the second book, which is out now. I can’t tell you about that book yet – I need to find it now, myself – but I can tell you the first one is compelling and gorgeous and all-enveloping and amazing.

Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

The Cabin in the Woods Receives its 4K Debut

The Cabin in the Woods Receives its 4K Debut

Ultra HD™ + Blu-ray™ + Digital Best Buy Exclusive SteelBook®
Street Date: 4/19/22
SRP: $27.99

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Writer-director Drew Goddard’s wicked and twisted horror-thriller, The Cabin in the Woods, arrives April 19 on 4K Ultra HD™ + Blu-ray™ + Digital Best Buy Exclusive SteelBook® from Lionsgate.
 
Produced and written alongside Joss Whedon, The Cabin in the Woods features Kristen Connolly (The Happening, The Bay, Revolutionary Road), Chris Hemsworth (The Avengers, Thor: Ragnarok, Snow White and the Huntsman), Anna Hutchison (Robert the Bruce, Encounter, Vengeance: A Love Story), Fran Kranz (Mass, The Village, Training Day), Jesse Williams (Grey’s Anatomy, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, Brooklyn’s Finest), two-time Oscar®-nominated actor Richard Jenkins (2017, Best Supporting Actor, The Shape of Water; 2008, Best Actor, The Visitor) and three-time Primetime Emmy® Award winner Bradley Whitford (2019, The Handmaid’s Tale; 2015, Transparent; 2001, The West Wing). The Cabin in the Woods will be available on 4K Ultra HD™ + Blu-ray™ + Digital SteelBook® for the suggested retail price of $27.99. 

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS
A rambunctious group of five college friends steals away for a weekend of debauchery in an isolated country cabin , a group of technicians in a control room are scrutinizing, and sometimes even controlling, every move the terrified kids make! With their efforts continually thwarted by an all-powerful “eye in the sky,” do they have any chance of escape?

4K ULTRA HD / BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

  • Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Drew Goddard & Writer-Producer Joss Whedon
  • We Are Not Who We Are: Making The Cabin in the Woods
  • Primal Terror: Visual Effects
  • An Army of Nightmares: Makeup & Animatronic Effects
  • The Secret Secret Stash
  • Wondercon Q&A
  • Theatrical Trailer

 
CAST
Kristen Connolly                     The Happening, The Bay, Revolutionary Road
Chris Hemsworth                    The Avengers, Thor: Ragnarok, Snow White and the Huntsman
Anna Hutchison                      Robert the Bruce, Encounter, Vengeance: A Love Story
Fran Kranz                              Mass, The Village, Training Day
Jesse Williams                       Grey’s Anatomy, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, Brooklyn’s
                                                Finest

Richard Jenkins                      Oscar®-nominated for The Shape of Water, Oscar®-nominated for The
                                                Visitor
, Step Brothers
Bradley Whitford                     Primetime Emmy® for The Handmaid’s Tale, The West Wing, and Transparent

PROGRAM INFORMATION
Year of Production: 2011
Title Copyright: © 2012 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Type: Catalog Re-Release
Rating: Rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, language, drug use and some sexuality/nudity
Genre: Horror , Mystery, Thriller
Closed-Captioned: N/A
Subtitles: English, Spanish, English SDH
Feature Run Time: 95 minutes
4K Format: 2160p Ultra High Definition 16×9 Widescreen (2.40:1) 
4K Audio: English Dolby Atmos, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Audio, English 2.0 Dolby Audio Optimized for Late-Night Listening
Blu-ray Format: 1080p High Definition 16×9 Widescreen (2.40:1) 
Blu-ray Audio: English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio™

THE LAW IS A ASS

The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense

THE LAW IS A ASS #449: I SIC A POINT OF LAW ON ISAAC

I was wrong.

Last column, I wrote about the first five minutes of the “Pilot” episode of For Life in which we learned that Aaron Wallace was framed, unjustly convicted of being a drug kingpin, then, while still serving life sentence, became a licensed attorney in New York who practiced from prison. I explained how that would have worked. It wouldn’t.

I figured the show couldn’t possibly make another mistake until after its first act break. I was wrong. As I continued watching , I learned it had made another mistake in those first five minutes. Then yet another in its sixth.

Aaron had filed a new trial motion on behalf of Jose Rodriguez. Six years earlier, Jose was dating Molly Davison, a 15-year-old girl from a “good family.” In shows like this that’s code for she was white and privileged. Molly’s parents didn’t approve of the relationship. Ultimately, Jose broke up with Molly.

She kept calling him. After Jose turned 18, Molly called and said if he came over one last time, she’d be alright. He went. They had sex. Jose fell asleep. When he woke up he found a suicide note from Molly in the bedroom and found Molly in the living room, overdosed on drugs she had purchased from Freddy Dawkins.

At Jose’s trial, Molly testified she never wrote the suicide note, which had disappeared. Freddy testified Jose, not Molly, bought the drugs. Jose was convicted of attempted murder, for supplying the drugs that almost killed Molly, and statutory rape, because, as the show put it, “in the state of New York, [sex between] an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old is considered statutory rape.”

Except, it isn’t.

New York is one of several states that has what’s commonly called a “Romeo and Juliet” exception to its statutory rape law. That’s not something people who are barred created for people who quote the Bard. It’s an exception that applies to sex acts between teenagers so that consensual sex between people who are between 15 and 21 isn’t a felony. At best it’s a misdemeanor. Sometimes it isn’t even a crime at all.

The statutory rape laws in New York , found in Article 130 of the New York Penal Laws, require a defendant to be older than 21, if his or her partner is between the ages of 15 and 17 for the crime to be statutory rape. As Jose was 18 and Molly was 15, Jose didn’t commit statutory rape.

The crime that comes closest to applying to sex between an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old is NYPL § 130.55, sexual abuse in the third degree. It’s a misdemeanor, not a felony. And it has an affirmative defense built into it that applies if the defendant is less than five years older than his or her partner and said partner is older than 14. Molly was 15. Even under the new math 15 is older than 14. As Jose was only three years older than Molly, the affirmative defense should have kept Jose from being convicted of even this crime.

But he was convicted, because he had to be convicted for the story to work. After all, who ever heard a lawyer arguing that a client who wasn’t convicted of anything should get a new trial?

Jose was also convicted of attempted murder. Let’s go back to the trial to see how Aaron got Jose out from under that conviction.

In the new trial motion, Aaron argued Freddy had changed his account and now said Molly purchased the drugs. At some point, off camera, the court granted the motion. Now we didn’t see either Aaron’s motion or his argument in favor of the motion, still I can state with some degree of confidence that the trial court would not have granted it. See, later in the episode, Aaron talked to Freddy Dawkins in prison about how he was going to testify. Which means Aaron didn’t have Freddy’s testimony locked down and wasn’t sure how he’d testify.

A new trial motion based on changed testimony would have to have some evidentiary supplement attached to it to satisfy the court that the witness was actually going to offer different testimony. Say a sworn affidavit from Freddy detailing what his new testimony would be.

No judge would grant a motion for a new trial, possibly ending the defendant’s conviction and hefty sentence, because defense counsel supposed a witness was going to change his testimony. You can’t end a sentence with a supposition.

After Jose testified in the new trial, Aaron announced he intended to call Freddy Dawkins and the police officer on the scene who saw Molly’s suicide note. (Wait, Jose’s first lawyer knew about this police officer and didn’t call him in Jose’s original trial? First, said attorney didn’t argue the Romeo and Juliet exception, then failed to put on a key exculpatory witness. Just how bad was this attorney on a scale of zero to absolute zero?)

That’s when assistant district attorney Dez O’Reilly went to work. He exerted pressure on Freddy, and Freddy recanted his earlier recantation. Ah the old recant the recantation trick. Both on TV and in real life recantations of recantations have more frequency than a short wave radio. Dez also arranged for the bus transporting Aaron and Jose from the lock-up to the courtroom to reroute and deliver them last instead of first. By the time they got to court, the police officer who was to testify was gone. He was working an undercover case and that two hour morning slot was his only window to testify.

Okay , we didn’t see Dez doing these things, so we don’t know he did them. But from the smirk he had on his face, we know he did them.

The next thing we knew, Aaron and Jose were back in prison. As there was more trial later in the episode, the court must have continued it. I don’t know why didn’t the judge go on with the trial after Aaron learned he had no witnesses? It was only 11:00 a.m., plenty of time for something.

Even if the judge pulled a Perry Mason – noting that it was nearing the noon hour then recessing until 2:00, so Perry could use that recess to set up his last ditch legal trick/miracle – the trial should have resumed later that day. Here, and for no reason, the judge must have continued the case to another day, because Aaron needed more than a two-hour lunch break for his last ditch legal trick/miracle.

After all, it takes time to fabricate evidence.

Aaron called his wife on his hidden cell phone and had her purchase a box of the same note paper Molly used for her suicide note. While Aaron’s wife was traveling to the prison to deliver the paper, Aaron wrote an “anonymous” letter to himself on a prison typewriter. Then Aaron got the note paper his wife brought him and took it, along with a note that Molly sent Jose while he was in prison and Jose himself, to an inmate who was a forger. Jose had memorized Molly’s suicide note. He dictated it to the forger, who forged Molly’s handwriting on a duplicate suicide note. Next Aaron went to someone in the prison kitchen who treated the note with chemicals and heat to age it and remove the fingerprints. (Or something like that, the show wasn’t real clear what was going on here.) Then Aaron went back to his wife in visitation and gave her the fabricated suicide note and the cover letter. She mailed them back to Aaron. That Aaron could organize all this on such short notice was amazing. That the letter actually got back to him in time was incredible. That he got away with this all stretches credulity farther than Plastic Man in a Cat’s Cradle.

The cover letter Aaron wrote purported to be from a anonymous police officer who had responded to Molly’s overdose and said he found the suicide note at the scene and kept it for some reason even though he had been instructed to destroy it, then, years later, sent it to Aaron because of a guilty conscience. At Aaron’s request, the court called Molly for the express purpose of corroborating whether the note included in the latter was the actual suicide note she wrote.

Aaron had Molly read the note in open court. Then he asked her “Are those the words you wrote to Jose the day you overdosed?” Molly confirmed that those were the words she wrote but said the note she was holding was not the note she wrote.

Aaron asked Molly where the original note was. She said her parents destroyed the note than coerced her to lie about Jose so that she wouldn’t be arrested for buying drugs.

And in the very next scene, Jose was released and cleared and everything was good.

Except, of course, for the fact that Molly was prosecuted for perjury and her parents prosecuted for suborning perjury and destroying evidence.

No, that probably didn’t happen. Remember the Davisons were a “good family.” So they probably didn’t suffer any consequences more severe than those that would have been leveled by a young Bob Barker.

But what about Aaron? Didn’t he face disciplinary actions for knowingly presenting falsified evidence to the court? I’d like to say I don’t know. Even though I didn’t watch any more episodes of For Life, because of my research for these columns, I know what happened in them. If you’re good, I’ll tell you about them later.

If you’re really good, I won’t.

Spider-Man: No Way Home Announces Home Video Details

Spider-Man: No Way Home Announces Home Video Details

The smash box office hit , Spiders Unite
• Weaving Jon Watt’s Web
• 2 Special Panels:
• The Sinister Summit – Villains Panel: Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, and Jamie Foxx sit down for a roundtable discussion of their sinister characters.
• A Meeting of the Spiders – Heroes Panel: The Heroic Spider heroes sit down for a roundtable discussion on Peter, Stunts, and skintight suits.
• 3 Stories From The Daily Bugle
• Spider-Menace Strikes Again
• Spider Sycophant
• Web of Lies
• 2 Stunt Scenes Previsualization
• Apartment Fight
• Shield Fight
DVD
• 2 Behind the Scenes Featurettes
o A Spectacular Spider-Journey with Tom Holland
o Graduation Day

CAST AND CREW

Directed By: Jon Watts
Written By: Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers
Produced By: Kevin Feige, Amy Pascal
Executive Producers: Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, JoAnn Perritano, Rachel O’Connor, Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach
Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, with Marisa Tomei

SPECS

Runtime: Approx. 148 minutes
Rating: PG-13: Sequences of action/violence, some language and brief suggestive comments
4K UHD: Feature: 2160p Ultra High Definition / 2.39:1 • English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 compatible), French (Doublé au Québec), Spanish, English & French (Doublé au Québec) – Audio Description Tracks 5.1 Dolby Digital
Blu-ray™: Feature: 1080p High Definition / 2.39:1 • Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD MA, French (Doublé au Québec), Spanish, English & French (Doublé au Québec) – Audio Description Tracks 5.1 Dolby Digital
DVD: Feature: 2.39:1 Anamorphic Widescreen • Audio: English , French (Doublé au Québec), Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, English & French (Doublé au Québec) – Audio Description Tracks Dolby Surround

John Constantine Headlines New DC Showcase Compilation Disc

John Constantine Headlines New DC Showcase Compilation Disc

BURBANK, CA (February 22, 2022) – Warner Bros. Animation continues to glean beloved characters from DC’s robust library for the popular DC Showcase line of animated shorts, this time opting to elevate Constantine, Kamandi, The Losers, and Blue Beetle in the 2021-2022 compilation release, DC Showcase: Constantine – The House of Mystery. The R-rated shorts collection will be available from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on Blu-ray (USA $24.99 SRP; Canada $29.99 SRP) and in 4K on Digital starting May 3, 2022.

Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, and inspired by characters and stories from the iconic DC Universe, the all-new quartet of DC Showcase shorts are produced by Rick Morales (Mortal Kombat Legends franchise, Injustice). Jim Krieg is producer, and Sam Register is executive producer.

While Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth!, The Losers and Blue Beetle have all appeared as enhanced content on past DC Universe Movies, the extended-length Constantine – The House of Mystery makes its public debut as the anchor for this dynamic shorts compilation.

Matt Ryan (Constantine, Legends of Tomorrow) reprises his live-action and animated role as the Hellblazer himself in Constantine – The House of Mystery. In the all-new short , John Constantine wakes up in the eerie House of Mystery with no recollection of how he got there. Fortunately, Zatanna and his friends are all there. Unfortunately, they have a bad habit of turning into demons and ripping him to shreds, over and over again! Camilla Luddington (Grey’s Anatomy) and Ray Chase (Licorice Pizza) reprise their roles from Justice League Dark: Apokolips War as Zatanna and Jason Blood/Etrigan, respectively, while Robin Atkin Downes (The Strain) and Damian O’Hare (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) reprise their roles from Constantine: City of Demons as Negral and Chas, respectively. In addition, Grey Griffin (Scooby-Doo franchise) and Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bamba, Longmire, Young Guns) join the cast of the short, which is directed by Matt Peters (Injustice) from a script by Ernie Altbacker (Batman: Hush).

Also included in the animated shorts collection are:

KAMANDI: THE LAST BOY ON EARTH!

Directed by Matt Peters (Justice League Dark: Apokolips War) from a script written by Paul Giacoppo (Young Justice, Star Wars: Resistance), Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth! was initially released as a bonus feature on Justice Society: World War II in Spring 2021. Jack Kirby’s beloved DC comic creation features the last civilized teenage boy on a post-apocalyptic Earth ruled by talking animals. In this short , Kamandi and his friends Prince Tuftan of the Tiger Kingdom and humanoid mutant Ben Boxer are kidnapped by a gorilla cult dedicated to finding the reincarnation of their god, The Mighty One. Golgan, the cult’s leader, puts Kamandi’s team through a series of deadly tests to find if any of them know the secret of The Mighty One. The thriller features the voices of Cameron Monaghan (Gotham, Shameless) as Kamandi, Steve Blum (Star Wars: Rebels, Cowboy Bebop, Naruto franchise) as Golgan & Tuftan, Adam Gifford (Masters of the Universe: Revelation) as Zuma, and Armen Taylor (Justice Society: World War II) as Ben Boxer.

THE LOSERS

The legendary rag-tag team of World War II outcasts – Captain Storm, Johnny Cloud, “Mile-a-Minute” Jones, rookie Gunner and Sarge – find themselves marooned on an uncharted island in the South Pacific that is completely overrun with dinosaurs! Their would-be ally on this deadly mission, the mysterious and beautiful Fan Long of the Chinese Security Agency, tells them their job is to rescue the scientists that have been sent to study a time/space anomaly. Perhaps… but what is her mission?  Ming-Na Wen (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Book of Boba Fett) leads the cast as the mysterious Fan. Along for the journey is Dean Winters (John Wick, 30 Rock) as Captain Storm, Dave B. Mitchell (Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms) as Gunner & Sarge, Eugene Byrd (Bones, Arrow) as Mile-a-Minute Jones, and Martin Sensmeier (Westworld, The Magnificent Seven) as Johnny Cloud. Initially included as a bonus feature on Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One, The Losers is directed by Milo Neuman (LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes: The Flash) from a script by Tim Sheridan (Batman: The Long Halloween).

BLUE BEETLE

Sufferin’ Scarabs! Silver Age Blue Beetle is back! And had he ever starred in a 1960s Saturday-morning limited-animation cartoon with its own jazzy earworm of a theme song, it would have been just like this short! Welcome to the adventures of Ted Kord, alias the Blue Beetle, as he teams up with fellow Super Heroes Captain Atom, The Question and Nightshade to battle that nefarious finagler of feelings, Doctor Spectro. Matt Lanter (Timeless, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, 90210) stars as Blue Beetle alongside Jeff Bennett (Johnny Bravo, Curious George) as Captain Atom & Pops, Ashly Burch (The Ghost and Molly McGee) as Nightshade, David Kaye (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe) as The Question, and Tom Kenny (SpongeBob SquarePants) as Dr. Spectro. Originally attached to Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two, Blue Beetle is directed by Milo Neuman (Freedom Fighters: The Ray) from a screenplay by Jennifer Keene (Phineas and Ferb) based on a story by Jeremy Adams (Mortal Kombat Legends franchise).

Launched in 2010, DC Showcase was originally comprised of four animated shorts: The Spectre (2/23/2010), Jonah Hex (7/27/2010), Green Arrow (9/28/2010) and Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam (11/9/2010). An additional short, Catwoman (10/18/2011), was attached the following year to the release of Batman: Year One. For 2019-2020, DC Showcase returned with five shorts: Sgt. Rock (8/6/2019) Death (10/22/2019), The Phantom Stranger (3/17/2020), Adam Strange (5/19/2020), and the interactive Batman: Death in the Family (10/13/2020).

DC Showcase: Constantine – The House of MysterySpecial Features

Blu-ray and Digital

  • DC Showcase: One Story at a Time (New Featurette) – Since the 1993 debut of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Warner Bros. Animation has revolutionized and mastered the feature film world with their critically successful DC Universe Movies and DC Animated Movies. In 2010, the creative team hit upon the idea of presenting some of the more under-utilized DC characters in shorter stories – and thus , the DC Showcase was born. The shorts program has provided a fertile venue for creators and animators to explore the vast array of DC’s diverse heroes, worlds and universes, and gives audiences a taste of their infinite possibilities. Featuring some big names as well as the deeper cuts, these short films reflect different styles and sensibilities, and are inspired by renown creators like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Alan Moore. This documentary takes a look at the roots of DC Showcase – from Catwoman and Sgt. Rock to Death and Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam, as well as the current quartet of shorts. Included are interviews with producer Rick Morales and directors Matt Peters & Milo Neuman as they explore the featured heroes and villains, the comics that inspired them, and these adventures’ place in the bigger picture of the DC animated universe.
REVIEW: The King’s Man

REVIEW: The King’s Man

Once upon a time, Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons produced a cheeky series called The Secret Service, which got turned into a fun film called Kingsman. While the comics remain fun reads, the film series has deteriorated when left entirely in Matthew Vaughn’s hands. He’s good filmmaker as witnessed by Kingsman and the underrated Stardust. But , we get a sense of how the independent covert intelligence agency got started, born in the wake of tragedy. Orlando (Ralph Fiennes, Duke of Oxford watches helpless, as his wife Emily (NAME) is gunned down on a visit to a concentration camp in South Africa. He is left to raise his young son , honoring her dying wish that he never see war again. Raised in a rarified cocoon by manservant Shola (Djimon Hounsou) and nanny Polly (Gemma Arterton), Conrad (Harris Dickinson) craves to see the world and join the military.

In time, he discovers Orlando, Shola, and Polly have been covertly gathering intelligence as Europe moves toward The Great War, pitting cousins King George, Kaiser Wilhelm, and Tsar Nicholas (all Tom Hollander) against one another. Events propel father and son into action, testing their bonds as the world teeters on the edge of chaos.

There are definitely some fun moments such as the network of servants and household staff around the world that share information, feeding Polly (Arterton, who may be having the most fun), who synthesizes the information for Orlando. But they are overshadowed by the over-the-top antics of Rasputin (Rhys Ifans) and a collection of cardboard villains led by The Shepherd. a shadowy figure who is anything but menacing. (And sharp-eyed viewers will figure out his identity.) The notion that Mata Hari (Valerie Pachner) seduced Woodrow Wilson for the Shepherd to blackmail is an absurdity.

The action is fine as it is but doesn’t get the heart stirring. The characters are predictable and two-dimensional and newcomer Dickinson can’t keep up with the stellar cast, which also includes Charles Dance, Matthew Goode, and Daniel Brühl. Vaughn and co-writer Karl Gajdusek are at fault here. Vaughn’s direction is fine but not enough given the weak material he created.

The film is out in the usual formats including the sturdy Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD Combo Pack. The 1080p transfer is perfectly fine for home viewing in 2.39:1. The DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 is excellent.

There are a handful of perfunctory Special Features including Recreating the Trenches (2:17); A Generation Lost (11:22); Oxfords and Rogues (18:33); All the World’s a Stage (26:41); Instruments of War (17:01); Fortune Favors the Bold (11:46); and Long Live the Kingsman (4:11).

REVIEW: The 355

REVIEW: The 355

Students of history know that 355 was the code name assigned to a woman who spied on behalf of George Washington, during the war for independence. We never learned who she was and the digits have been immortalized in pop culture ever since. Most recently, it was appended to the female empowerment action film The 355 , out now on disc from Universal Home Entertainment.

The brainchild of star Jessica Chastain , she pitched it to Simon Kingberg as they were shooting X-Men: Dark Phoenix and it should have been out in 2021, but you know, Covid-19. The movie is overall an entertaining enough experience but its overall laziness in design and execution makes it a lesser effort.

While it’s nice to see operatives from CIA, MI6, Germany’s BND, China’s Ministry of State Security, and Colombia’s National Intelligence Directorateavoid political considerations to band together, the film also takes a very cynical approach to their efforts. We have several members of these agencies betray their principles and oaths , endangering the entire world. The MacGuffin in this case is a hard drive containing a one-of-a-kind piece of software that can pierce any firewall and seize control of nuclear missiles, electric grids, etc.

We have CIA agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Chastain) betrayed by her best friend and new lover, Nick (Sebastian Stan), which means the harddrive is in play. Mace crosses paths with German agent Marie Schmidt (Diane Kruger) who are rivals who beat one another until they find common cause. NID’s Luis Rojas (Édgar Ramírez) seems to have taken for himself, which means psychologist Graciela (Penélope Cruz) is sent into the field for the first time to retrieve it. When it goes into the wild, Mace recruits MI6’s Khadijah Adiyeme (Lupita Nyong’o), now out of the game, to aid her since she understands the enormity of the threat.

In time, they form bonds and kick ass. The MacGuffin continues to move from hand to hand, country to country until it is in Shanghai, up for auction which brings in Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan). Then things continue to unravel and go boom.

What’s missing here is a true sense of surprise. The agents are types, not characters, their dialogue and personality quirks perfunctory rather than refreshing. Kingberg cowrote this lackluster script with Theresa Rebeck and they seemed to be filling out a Bingo card.

Don’t get me wrong, the action is swell and the set pieces are well worth watching, with the leading ladies doing most of their own stunts, but after a while, it feels tired. Details are missing, questions at the end are left unanswered and the denouement is dissatisfying. Worst of all, they never connect the title to the team of women.

The film is out in the usual packages including the trusty Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD Combo Pack. The movies looks great, the 1080p transfer nicely capturing the colors and details. The lossless Dolby Digital audio track does a fine job capturing the explosions, dialogue, and score.

The film’s special features include two Deleted Scenes (6:19); Chasing Through Paris (4:57); Action That Hurts (5:26); Reconstructing Marrakesh (5:33); Chaos at the City of Dreams (3:50). Two VFX Breakdowns (2:12, 2:43).