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Box Office Democracy: Bottom 6 Movies of 2017

6. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

If this was just about wasted potential, Valerian would easily be on the top of this list.  There are five worse movies this year but none of them have a fraction of the visual artistry displayed here by Luc Besson.  Valerian has some of the best design I’ve seen in a movie all year and two of the most inventive chase sequences maybe ever.  It also features a terrible script that meanders forever over trivial nothing and merrily skips past dense plot without a moment for inspection.  I loved watching the action but I never really understood why any of it was going on.  Toss on top some of the worst chemistry I’ve ever seen between an on-screen couple (and honestly maybe Dane DeHaan isn’t ready to be a leading man) and this is an unpleasant movie to watch at any volume above mute.

5. American Assassin

I sincerely thought that we were past making movies like American Assassin now that we’re on year 16 of the obviously never ending War on Terror.  I assumed we were past movies that seemingly exist solely to demonize and dehumanize brown people on the other side of the world.  This is a movie with no nuance or subtext or anything.  It’s predictable, dreary, and the worst kind of weighty.  It depicts a world in which people are nothing but weapons for the nation as one we should want to be in.  It also runs for 15 minutes past any events of consequence happening and expects us to sit and care about literally nothing happening.

4. xXx: The Return of Xander Cage

If you’ve ever seen those posts where someone feeds a computer a bunch of data about one topic or another and then the computer spits back an attempt at making original things of the same set, you could understand how they probably wrote the script for xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.  It’s trying to be every successful action movie of the last ten years all at once.  It has a multi-cultural cast, numerous exotic locations that all happen to be filled with parties full of white people, and a bunch of supporting and cameo roles given to people intended to draw in audience in foreign markets.  There’s nothing holding the movie together so it’s easily the most boring movie I’ve ever seen that also features trying to use an airplane to hit falling satellites.  Movies are more than the sum of their parts and XXx: The Return of Xander Cage is a great lesson in that.

3. The Mummy

I long for the days when studios would just make movies with the idea that they could make an obscene amount of money from them.  Now it seems like they don’t want hundreds of millions of dollars unless they know it directly leads them to the next 100 million.  There were fine ideas in The Mummy about a woman who would not be cast aside and wanted to seize absolute power to punish her family.  That character doesn’t get to exist on screen because we need develop Tom Cruise to be the hero of the Dark Universe and we need time for Dr Jekyll and for the people who hunt monsters.  It is needless and exhausting.  The Mummy might not be an objectively terrible movie but it is so impossibly frustrating it needs to be recognized here.

2. Ghost in the Shell

Just to get it out of the way: this movie would make it on to this list just because it’s racist and tone deaf.  Deciding, in 2017, that it’s a good idea to make a movie based on an iconic Japanese manga/film/media empire and cast almost exclusively white people is astonishing.  It’s an irredeemable failure solely from looking at the poster.  Then it’s not even a good movie.  They threw out all the stories they presumably licensed the material for and instead gave us a milquetoast cyberpunk paint-by-number.  When the studio found out the Blade Runner sequel would be released in the same calendar year they should have shelved the project until we all forgot what could be done.

1. Transformers: The Last Knight

I suppose I should have some respect for Michael Bay as an auteur at this point.  He can’t possibly be hurting for money.  Nothing would stop him from getting lazy and putting out shorter films to try and goose his grosses by squeezing in another showing.  Bay is going to make these monstrous, incomprehensible, films and they’re going to be exactly as he wants them to be and as long as he pleases.  It would be charitable at this point to call these movies pointless.  There’s definitely a point: People who know things are idiots and people who shoot things are awesome.  They’re never going to stop with these; we should all just adjust our lives to accommodate them.

Disney Reveals Thor: Ragnarok Disc Details

Disney Reveals Thor: Ragnarok Disc Details

BURBANK, Calif., Jan. 10, 2018 — Marvel Studios’ Thor: Ragnarok, the God of Thunder’s third installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, electrified both audiences and critics alike reaching over $845M at the global box office. Now the colorful cosmic adventure, loaded with action, humor, drama and spectacle, bursts into homes Digitally in HD and 4K Ultra HD™, and Movies Anywhere, on Feb. 20 and on 4K Ultra HD™, Blu-ray™, DVD and On-Demand on March. 6.

In Marvel Studios’ Thor: Ragnarok, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is imprisoned on the other side of the universe without his mighty hammer and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok – the destruction of his home world and the end of Asgardian civilization – at the hands of an all-powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela (Cate Blanchett). But first he must survive a deadly gladiatorial contest that pits him against his former ally and fellow Avenger – the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) – and grapple with his silver-tongued adopted brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the fierce warrior Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and the eccentric Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum).

Fans who bring home the Ultimate Cinematic Universe Edition (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital) of Thor: Ragnarok will experience all the thunderous action and lightning-fast wit in stunning 4K Ultra HD with next-generation high dynamic range (HDR) visuals and Dolby Atmos immersive audio. Exclusive, never-before-seen bonus features include deleted scenes; hilarious outtakes; an exclusive short: part three of the mockumentary “Team Thor,” retitled “Team Darryl” and featuring an eccentric new roommate; the evolution of MCU’s heroes culminating in Avengers: Infinity War” numerous making-of featurettes which explore the unique vision of director Taika Waititi; the story’s unstoppable women; the effortlessly charismatic Korg; the tyrannical leader of Sakaar, the Grandmaster; and the film’s comic-book origins;  audio commentary by Waititi; and more.

BONUS MATERIAL (may vary by retailer):

Blu-ray:

  • Director’s Introduction
  • Deleted/Extended Scenes – Deleted Scenes: The Sorcerer Supreme, Skurge Finds Heimdall & Hulk Chases Thor Through Sakaar and Extended Scenes: Thor Meets the Grandmaster, Stupid Avenger vs. Tiny Avenger & Grandmaster and Topaz
  • Gag Reel – Watch a collection of goofs, gaffes and pratfalls starring the cast
  • Exclusive Short/Team Darryl – Fresh off being unseated as the ruler of Sakaar, the Grandmaster makes his way to Earth to start a new life. It’s been over a year since Thor left Australia and Darryl has been struggling to pay his rent. Now Darryl needs a new roommate to help make the monthly payments. Unfortunately for Darryl, the Grandmaster was the only one who answered Darryl’s “Roommate Needed” ad and with no viable options, the Grandmaster moves in.
  • Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years – The Evolution of Heroes – Marvel’s universe is vast and transcends both time and space. We’ll examine the Cinematic Universe as a whole and revisit each of our heroes’ current location and their place in the current MCU timeline, as it all leads up to the one culminating event: “Avengers: Infinity War.”
  • Getting in Touch with Your Inner Thor – Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi has brought his unique sensibility and sense of humor to the film in a great many ways but it is the evolution of Thor’s own sense of humor, which stands out the most in the new film. This piece explores the impact Chris Hemsworth has made on the development of his widely-loved character and celebrates the mighty cast and crew who reveal the fun and hard work that went into assembling Thor’s eccentric counterparts.
  • Unstoppable Women: Hela & Valkyrie – This piece explores the strong female characters in “Thor: Ragnarok,” their importance in the MCU, their incredible casting and their epic comic origins.
  • Finding Korg – A tongue-in-cheek interview with Taika on casting Korg. He describes the difficult search for just the right evolution of the character design, and the nuances of this instantly classic character in the MCU. This conversation will also delve into all the extraordinary visual effects that brought Korg, Sakaar and the worlds of “Thor: Ragnarok” to life.
  • Sakaar: On the Edge of the Known and Unknown – Sakaar is the collection point for all lost and unloved things. This documentary will answer all known and unknown questions while also exploring the hard work and creativity that went into creating the look and feel of Sakaar. From design inspired by Jack Kirby’s classic artwork to the dedication of the visual development team to the awe-inspiring physical and digital production, you will see this distant world come alive.
  • Journey into Mystery – A deep dive story piece with the writers, director and producer Kevin Feige about the inspirations for Thor: Ragnarok within the comics. Most notably, the contest of champions limited series where the Grandmaster pitted our favorite heroes against one another as he does in the film. This piece also further explores Thor’s comic book origins and classic arcs through interviews with some of the most important comic creators, such as Walt Simonson and Jack Kirby.
  • 8bit Scenes – Final Bridge Battle + Sakaar Spaceship Battle. Dive into these climactic sequences presented in retro video-game format.
  • Directors Commentary

Digital Exclusives:

  • Evolution of Thor and Hulk’s Bromance – We’ll examine this Super Hero friendship, which has spanned through several Marvel films. From their original Helicarrier fight match to the now iconic Hulk punch from Avengers 1, see how Marvel’s most powerful Super Heroes become the most extraordinary Super Hero buddies.
  • Additional Deleted Scenes – Travel to Asgard & Race To The Wormhole

DISC SPECIFICATIONS (applies to film content only):

Product SKUs:   Cinematic Universe Edition (4K UHD+Blu-ray+Digital), Multi-Screen Edition (Blu-ray+DVD+Digital), Digital HD/SD/4K UHD, DVD and On-Demand
Feature Run Time: Approximately 130 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Audio: UHD BD: English Dolby Atmos 7.1.4, English & Spanish 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus, French Canadian 5.1 Dolby Digital, English DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital
Blu-ray: English 7.1 DTS-HDMA, Spanish & French Canadian 5.1 Dolby Digital, English DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital
DVD: English, Spanish & French Canadian 5.1 Dolby Digital, English DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital
Digital UHD: English Dolby Atmos 7.1.4, English DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital
Digital HD: English & French Canadian 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 2.0 Dolby Digital, English DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital
Languages/Subtitles:               UHD BD: English SDH, Spanish, French Canadian
Blu-ray: English SDH, Spanish, French Canadian
DVD: English SDH & CC, Spanish, French Canadian
Digital UHD: English CC, Spanish, French Canadian
Digital HD: English CC, Spanish, French Canadian

CAST & CREW

Thor: Ragnarok features a star-studded cast that includes Chris Hemsworth (Rush, In the Heart of the Sea) who returns to the title role of the hammer-wielding hero of Asgard. He is joined by Golden Globe® winner Tom Hiddleston (The Night Manager, Kong: Skull Island) as Thor’s duplicitous adopted brother, Loki; two-time Oscar® winner Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine, Carol) as the villainous Hela; Emmy® nominee and Golden Globe winner Idris Elba (Luther, Pacific Rim) as the Asgardian sentry, Heimdall; Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park, The Grand Budapest Hotel) as the eccentric dictator, Grandmaster, ruler of Sakaar; Tessa Thompson (Creed, Selma) as the fierce warrior, Valkyrie; Karl Urban (Star Trek trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King) as Skurge, one of Asgard’s  strongest warriors; three-time Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight, The Kids Are All Right), reprising his role of Bruce Banner/The Hulk from The Avengers and The Avengers: Age of Ultron; and Academy Award® winner Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs, Nixon”) again portraying Odin, King of Asgard.

Thor: Ragnarok is directed by Taika Waititi and is from a screenplay by Eric Pearson and Craig Kyle & Christopher L. Yost. Kevin Feige produces and is joined by executive producers Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Brad Winderbaum, Thomas M. Hammel and Stan Lee.

Waititi assembled a talented team behind the camera that included Oscar®-winning production designer Dan Hennah (The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies) and production designer Ra Vincent (What We Do in the Shadows); six-time Goya Award-winning, BAFTA-nominated cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe, ASC (Secretos del corazón, The Others); film editor Joel Negron (The Nice Guys, Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon) award-winning costume designer Mayes C. Rubeo (Avatar, Apocalypto); VFX supervisor Jake Morrison (Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man, Thor: The Dark World) and composer Mark Mothersbaugh (21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie).

Book-A-Day 2018 #9: The Someday Funnies edited by Michel Choquette

We all love a good story. And a behind-the-scenes story can be even better than the story told in the book itself. “Heroic editor spends years of his life trying to assemble a massive, global collection with contributions by the best in the field, but the book never sees the light of day” is a great story. That’s the story Bob Levin told in a 2009 issue of The Comics Journal, about Michel Choquette and his massive book The Someday Funnies, which was almost published in the 1970s, and how all of the pages of completed art were still in storage, never seen but ready to go at a moment’s notice.

That was a wonderful story, and it led to the actual publication of The Someday Funnies in 2011, with those hundred-and-fifty pages of 1970s comics displayed on oversized pages and introduced with commentary by comics historian and critics Robert Greenfield and Jeet Heer plus Choquette’s own account of the path to creating Someday, and closed out with the usual author bios and behind-the-scenes details and an index.

Unfortunately, the actual comics don’t live up to the hype. They’re often jokes, almost all time-bound — because the stated theme of the anthology was to be a look back at the just-ended ’60s — and only a page or two apiece. Yes, the list of contributors is impressive — from Russ Heath and Jack Kirby to art spiegelman and Vaughn Bode, from Frank Zappa and William S. Burroughs to Rene Goscinny and Jean-Claude Forest, from R.O. Blechman and Ed Subitzky to Harlan Ellison and Federico Fellini — but what they contributed is much less impressive. There’s nothing here that I’d expect to see again outside of this context, other than spiegelman’s strip “Day at the Circuits,” which he reworked from the ’72 Someday original into a ’75 version for his comic anthology Arcade. Some of it is OK, some of it is incomprehensible without notes or specialized knowledge (I remembered who Vaughn Meader was, but how many people will?), and some of it rises to the level of pretty good. And some just looks like self-indulgence, of the kind that the ’60s has been inspiring at the time and ever since.

Now, it’s true that thirty-nine years is a long time for expectations to build up, and Someday Funnies grew out of a planned comics supplement for Rolling Stone magazine in 1972. But it kept growing, until the Rolling Stone piece would be just a teaser for the upcoming book, and then RS pulled out, and then a series of actual or potential book-publishing deals also fell through, leaving Choquette with a Montreal self-storage unit full of comics and correspondence and no use for them in 1979. It’s not Choquette’s fault that it didn’t happen…well, maybe it was. He could have delivered that original RS supplement and then moved on to a larger project. He could have closed out the book at some point, and kept the scope limited and specific. Frankly, at this distance, it looks like the usual story of a deal-maker high on his own deal-making, wanting to keep going with the fun part of the job (signing up artists, finding new talent, flying around the world) and avoid the vital anthology work of making choices and finalizing the package. (I think he did do the latter, eventually — but probably too late, and maybe not strongly enough to make a publication date in the 1970s.)

Someday Funnies is an interesting artifact, a comics time-capsule of both comics-makers in the early ’70s and the cultural impact of the ’60s when it was still fresh; as far as I can tell, all of these strips were done between 1970 and 1974. (For all of the details of Choquette’s travels and work here, there’s no explanation of which strips were delivered and finalized when; no timeline of the actual work assembled here.) One of Choquette’s less inspired requirements of the original project, that every piece include a blank space that would be used for some unifying element to be decided on later, was eventually filled by new 2011 art by Michael Fog, depicting Choquete’s travels in the ’70s. Again, the background story is the more interesting, vital one — the way this book came to be is more exciting than the actual thirty-five-year-old strips it contains.

One last consumer note: Someday Funnies is a physically big book, the size of a tabloid newspaper. So it can be cumbersome to hold and read as well, and some people may find it difficult to store. (I don’t intend to keep my copy permanently, so I don’t have that problem.)

I’m glad Someday Funnies was eventually published, and all of the contributors — well, those who hadn’t died in between — got to finally get paid and see their work in print. That also was the perfect end to the real story of interest here, of Choquette and his travails. But you don’t need to read or care about the book to know and appreciate that story, and it may be easier to care if you haven’t read it.

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

Cinamon Hadley, The Girl Who Was Death, Has Died

Cinamon Hadley, whose appearance inspired the look of Death in the Sandman comic series, passed away today according to Sandman co-creator Neil Gaiman.

The body-piercer and goth icon whose portrait was immortalized as the second eldest in a family of anthropomorphized forces called the Endless, Hadley was described as extremely tall, extraordinarily thin, with bone-white skin, impeccable make-up and thin, black hair.

According to Gaiman in The Sandman Companion, he imagined the character as looking like ‘60s singer Nico as she appeared on the cover of Chelsea Girl. But the comic’s artist, Mike Dringenberg, had other ideas, and thought of a good friend in Salt Lake City. Gaiman writes, “He sent me a drawing based on a woman he knew named Cinamon—the drawing that was later printed in Sandman 11—and I looked at it and had the immediate reaction of, ‘Wow. That’s really cool.’”

Cinamon was diagnosed with the advanced stages of small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the colon in 2017. After a brief remission, the cancer returned and spread.

Our condolences to her family, friends, and fans. We hope she’s well met by someone who looks a lot like her.

 

Book-A-Day 2016 #6: Baking With Kafka by Tom Gauld

Is Tom Gauld our most erudite cartoonist? From the evidence of his work, he well could be — there’s a parade of authors both classic (Shakespeare, Austen) and genre (Ballard, Gaiman) and modern literary (Franzen, Mantel), and a dazzling awareness of tropes and ideas and genre furniture in his work, and it’s hard to think of any other cartoonist who has worked so much with this material.

Naysayers might point out that all of this material originally appeared in the book section of the British newspaper The Guardian, and so one could thus expect that bookishness would be baked into the premise. That’s true, but, still Teh Grauniad asked Gauld to be their cartoonist in the first place for a reason, and it’s not because of his amazing facility at drawing likenesses of famous writers.

(Just in case: Gauld does not have an amazing facility for drawing likenesses of famous writers. At least, I’ve never seen such from him, and his minimalist style would tend to go in the opposite direction. But there I go explaining the jokes again.)

Baking With Kafka is a collection of Guardian cartoons. Some of them may have appeared elsewhere, before or instead of or also, because this book, like so many others, doesn’t explain where it’s contents appeared previously. (Cue my standard if-I-ruled-the-world complaint.) They are all about books, in some way or another, or, at least, about the kinds of things that bookish people care about.

It contains such awesome works as “The Four Undramatic Plot Structures” and “My Library” (with books color-coded as to whether or not they have or will be read), “The Nine Archetypal Heroines” and “How to Submit Your Spy Novel for Publication,” “Jonathan Franzen Says No” and “Niccolo Machiavelli’s Plans for the Summer.” All of those are a single page in size; no one must keep a thing in memory from page to page — except, perhaps, a sense of object permanence and the ability to read the English language.

Some people will hate this book. Perhaps they hate it because they hate literature, or books in general. Perhaps they hate it because Gauld’s style is too simple and illustrative for them. Perhaps they hate it because they are hateful people full of hate who live only to hate. There are many reasons, none of them, I insist, good ones.

All of the smart readers will love it. And you consider yourself a smart reader, don’t you? There you go.

(For those unsure as to how smart they are: the cartoons here are much like those in You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack . You might also want to consider Gauld’s recent full-length graphic novel Mooncop .)

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

Lady and the Tramp Signature Edition Arrives in February

Lady and the Tramp Signature Edition Arrives in February

Image result for lady and the tramp signature collection 2018BURBANK, Calif. (Jan. 4, 2018) — This February, Disney’s cherished animated classic, Lady and the Tramp, joins the highly celebrated Walt Disney Signature Collection. Every member of the family will treasure this timeless tale—loaded with three versions of the film, classic bonus material and three all-new features—when it heads home on Digital and on Movie Anywhere Feb. 20 and on Blu-ray on Feb. 27.

The Walt Disney Signature Collection edition offers three exciting ways to watch Lady and the Tramp—the original theatrical version, sing-along mode and Walt’s story meetings—both Digitally and via the Multi-screen Edition (formerly the Blu-ray Combo Pack). The Multi-screen Edition includes Blu-ray, DVD and a Digital copy, giving in-home consumers the flexibility to watch the film on different devices. In addition to classic bonus features, all-new extras invite viewers to enter Walt Disney’s original office suite on the Studio lot, discover Walt’s personal passion for pups, and receive a celebrity-hosted spaghetti and meatballs cooking lesson.

As one of the greatest love stories ever told, Lady and the Tramp is sure to melt the hearts of generations with its beloved characters, brilliant animation, memorable music and sweet sentiment. The animated treasure tells the story of Lady, a lovingly pampered cocker spaniel, and Tramp, a freewheeling mutt with a heart of gold. Through the Signature Collection edition, viewers can relive the pair’s thrilling adventures, sing along with the film’s unforgettable songs like “Bella Notte,” and swoon over one of the most memorable movie moments of all time—the iconic scene in which Lady and Tramp share a plate of spaghetti and an accidental kiss.

Lady and the Tramp is the sixth title to join the Walt Disney Signature Collection, which includes groundbreaking films created or inspired by the imagination and legacy of Walt Disney, featuring timeless stories and characters that have touched generations. The film takes its place alongside Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio, Bambi and The Lion King.


Bonus Features:

BLU-RAY & DIGITAL*:

Film Versions

  • Original Theatrical Edition – Enjoy this cherished Disney classic that captivates audiences of all ages.
  • Sing-Along Mode – Sing along with all your favorite songs as you watch the movie.
  • Inside Walt’s Story Meetings – As you view the film, hear reenactments of Walt’s story sessions with animators and see how their ideas were realized on-screen.

New Signature Bonus

  • Walt & His Dogs – Through archival recordings and photos, hear the tales of the dogs Walt Disney owned and loved over his lifetime.
  • Stories from Walt’s Office – Take a tour of Walt’s office suite on the Studio lot, carefully re-created to look just as it did when he occupied it.
  • How to Make a Meatball and Other Fun Facts About “Lady and The Tramp” – Watch a delicious lesson on how to make perfect meatballs with teen chef Amber Kelley and Oh My Disney Show Host Alexys Gabrielle.

Songs

  • “Peace on Earth”
  • “What Is a Baby/La La Lu”
  • “The Siamese Cat Song”
  • “Bella Notte”
  • “He’s a Tramp”

Classic Bonus Features

  • Diane Disney Miller: Remembering Dad – Walt’s daughter shares memories of her father and Disneyland’s early days, as well as a look at his apartment above the firehouse.
  • Never-Recorded Song – “I’m Free as the Breeze” – Take a listen to a song originally meant to be sung by Tramp.

Deleted Scenes

  • Introduction of Boris – Tramp wasn’t always meant to be Lady’s only suitor. Meet Boris the aristocrat and Homer the peasant in this deleted scene.
  • Waiting for Baby – Lady watches as Jim Dear plans out his new son’s future in this early storyboard.
  • Dog Show – See the storyboards for this deleted scene in which Lady and Tramp unexpectedly find themselves in the middle of a dog show.

Classic Bonus Features on Digital Only*

  • Lady’s Pedigree: The Making of “Lady and the Tramp” – A behind-the-scenes look at the making of Walt Disney’s first feature-length animated film based on an original story.
  • Finding Lady: The Art of the Storyboard – Explore the origins of the storyboard and how they’re used by filmmakers today.
  • Original 1943 Storyboard Version of the Film – View a unique presentation of the original 1943 storyboards for “Lady and the Tramp.”
  • PuppyPedia: Going to the Dogs – Wild and wacky comedian Fred Willard takes us on an outing to the dog park to learn all about dogs and their owners.

Deleted Scenes

  • Turning the Tables – In this story-reel presentation, Tramp dreams of a world where dogs run the show and humans are on the other end of the leash.
  • The Arrival of Baby – In this alternate scene re-created from original storyboards and with original voice talent, Lady makes way for a new arrival.
  • Baby Arrives – Lady is baffled by the strange goings-on in the house—the arrival of a squealing bundle only deepens the mystery.
  • Lady’s Sweater – Lady gets a new sweater for her birthday and must figure out an ingenious way to lose it for good.

Trailers

  • 1955 Original Theatrical Trailer – More than just a trailer, this preview features several minutes of footage from the film and introduces each major character.
  • 1972 Theatrical Re-Issue Trailer – This trailer from the 1972 rerelease heralds Disney’s “happiest motion picture.”
  • 1986 Theatrical Re-Issue Trailer – Released theatrically for the 1986 holiday season, this trailer highlights the love story between Lady and the handsome Tramp.

*Bonus features may vary by retailer

DISC SPECIFICATIONS:

Product SKUs: Multi-screen Edition (Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy), Digital HD/SD, DVD
Feature Run Time: Approximately 76 minutes
Rating: G in U.S. and Canada
Aspect Ratio: 2.55:1
Audio: Blu-ray = English 7.1 & 2.0 DTS-HDMA, Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby Digital Language Tracks
DVD = English, Spanish, and French 5.1 Dolby Digital Language Tracks, English 2.0 Dolby Digital Language Track.
Digital = English, Spanish, and French 5.1 or 2.0 Dolby Digital Language Tracks (platform dependent)
Subtitles: Blu-ray = French, Spanish, English SDH, English ESL
DVD = French, Spanish, English SDH, English ESL, English Closed Captions
Digital = French, Spanish, English SDH, English Closed Captions

Box Office Democracy: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

I think The Last Jedi is my favorite Star Wars film.  It’s hard to say, these movies need so much time and will be seen over and over again.  I’m unwittingly comparing it in my head to my more recent viewings of the original trilogy and not the dazzling first ones but I have to trust it will hold up.  The Last Jedi is ambitious, and thought-provoking and fun in a way that none of the “core” Star Wars films ever have been.  This is the kind of movie someone would make if they spent their childhood loving the material but realized as an adult that it depicted a world that would never function.  Rian Johnson makes a more functional galaxy with more authentic characters and he’s made the best big-budget science fiction movie in some time.

It’s tough to write this review after having seen the battle lines being drawn across the Internet over the movie.  People are polarized and it’s pushing opinions to the far reaches.  I believe Kylo Ren is the most interesting character in all eight Star Wars movies but that might be an overreaction.  I know that his internal struggle and strife is the only time the dark side has seemed like a real thing people would be interested in.  This is a movie that took the laughably bad Anakin Skywalker arc from the prequel trilogy and made those feeling feel real.  Here I can find the nuance and conflict that we had to paste on to the prequels with speculation and supplemental material but all here in one go.  I would say that this is probably how people thought about Darth Vader after watching Empire Strikes Back but I’ve seen that movie, there are only a handful of meaningful head tilts signaling anything at all.  For the first time I feel like I’m not being asked to fill in big gaps of narrative or run to read some tangential novel released years later.

I’ve heard people say that none of the characters changed or grew in this movie and I simply can’t agree with that at all.  If after the events of this movie Poe isn’t doing some big time soul searching, this whole trilogy is a massive failure.  Granted we don’t see him become less of a reckless hotshot but it’s certainly what I expect to happen.  You can grow and change and not have it be immediately visible.  Finn, the person who lived to be a soldier, starts to see the galaxy that isn’t in a state of constant war and starts to see the context.  His relationship with Rose is engaging and exciting.  I enjoy the look at military heroism and idealism as Rose moves from idolizing Finn for his supposed deeds in the first film and then seeing that he’s a flawed person and kind of lapping him by the end of the film.  I need more of those characters pushing and pulling on each other.  Maybe even smooching but I do not want to wade in to the intricacy of Star Wars shipping politics.

If we want to accept the premise that the entire Star Wars series is the story of the Skywalker family (and I’m not sure I do want that, but here we are) this was another smashing success for me.  Mark Hamill has spent most of his career at this point as a voice actor, and it was so apparent in his performance here.  There are lines and readings where you can still here the kid annoyed at his uncle because he wanted to go get power converters. But there’s also the person who has had to live the last thirty years in a galaxy that he didn’t change nearly as much as he thought he would.  I wish we got a little more Leia but they didn’t know they weren’t going to get another chance with her.  It’s a sad thing but it is what it is.

The Last Jedi has the inside track to become my favorite Star Wars movie because it is challenging.  It takes a universe that, for all the turmoil depicted around the margins, has been a place of very safe storytelling and shakes it all the way up.  It shows us not just the corrupt slug gangsters but the people in glittering casinos making money off of selling fighter ships.  It’s willing to show us heroes getting old and instead of being cagey or clever like Obi-Wan or Yoda, becoming kind of hopeless and despondent.  It gives us villains that are complicated and conflicted at moments before their sudden but inevitable betrayal.  I’ve never felt this excited, this alive, after walking out of a Star Wars film in my lifetime as I did after The Last Jedi.

Teen Titans: The Complete First Season Arrives in January

Teenage super heroes never looked so good as Warner Archive Collection brings another favorite from the Warner Bros. Animation canon to Blu-ray™ with the January 23, 2018 release of Teen Titans: The Complete First Season. Pre-orders are now available via wbshop.com and your favorite online retailers.

With awesome super skills and powers galore, these crime-fighting partners kick butt and squash evil like nobody’s business! But as roommates in Titans Tower, it’s every hero for him/herself when it comes to living in peace. Not even super heroes can settle fights over who’s in control of the TV remote.

In these 13 action-packed adventures, the Titans face all your favorite villains – Mad Mod, The Puppet King, Killer Moth and, of course, their arch-nemesis Slade – in one power-packing showdown after another. Some battles even pit the Titans against each other. Featuring bold animation, funky music and fun characters, this complete Season One from the hit TV series is an intergalactic knockout.

The renowned Teen Titans core cast features Khary Payton (Cyborg), Tara Strong (Raven), Scott Menville (Robin), Greg Cipes (Beast Boy) and Hynden Walch (Starfire).

Guest voices line up like a Murderer’s Row of celebrity actors, led by the ever-present Ron Perlman as Slade. Also featured in Teen Titans: The Complete First Season are Malcolm McDowell (Mad Mod), Clancy Brown (Trident), Wil Wheaton (Aqualad), Dave Coulier (Captain, Tramm), James Arnold Taylor (Overload, Cash), Kevin Michael Richardson (Mammoth), Rino Romano (Kai), David Sobolov (Cron), Dee Bradley Baker (Cinderblock, Plasmus), S. Scott Bullock (Thunder), Quinton Flynn (Lightning), Tom Kenny (Mumbo, Fixit), Roger Bumpass (Dr. Light), Keith Szarabajka (Trigon), Tracey Walter (Puppet King) and Lauren Tom (Gizmo).

Produced by Glen Murakami, Teen Titans: The Complete First Season features direction by Michael Chang, Alex Soto and Ciro Nieli, and scripts from Rob Hoegee, Amy Wolfram, David Slack, Adam Beechen, Greg Klein, Tom Pugsley, Rick Copp and Teen Titans guru himself, Marv Wolfman.

Executive Producers are Sam Register and Sander Schwartz. Associate producer is Kimberly Smith. Producers are Bruce Timm and Linda Steiner.

Episodes on Teen Titans: The Complete First Season are:

Final Exam
Sisters
Divide and Conquer
Forces of Nature
The Sum of His Parts
Nevermore
Switched
Deep Six
Masks
Mad Mod
Car Trouble
Apprentice: Part 1
Apprentice: Part 2

REVIEW: Dunkirk

REVIEW: Dunkirk

Regardless of the subject matter, director Christopher Nolan remains an interesting, inventive director. It’s no surprise, then, that this summer’s Dunkirk was a sober look at war through the eyes of the participants. That it lacked a traditional story and characters was just par for the course.

The film, out ow on disc from Warner Home Entertainment, is 106 minutes looking at the first day of the British withdrawal from the shore while dodging German gunfire from the ground and the air. The film offers up a 360-degree view of the carnage and heroism from the point of view of enlisted men, officers, pilots, and civilians.

Beyond the slightly unorthodox storytelling, the film is a visual masterpiece, with Nolan relying on traditional special effects, eschewing CGI, which gives the story a gritty, raw feel. He shot it with director of photography Hoyte Van Hoytema, using IMAX 65 and Panavision 65 cameras, releasing the film in differing formats depending on the house. The commercial video push is for the 4K Ultra HD edition but the film looks pretty spectacular on Blu-ray although it is said to pale next to the 4K version.

The events of Dunkirk, rescuing more than 300,000 men over eight days, largely though civilian vessels, is a small item in the history of World War II and is often overlooked here, especially since we hadn’t entered the war yet. As a result, the story unfolds like something brand new in all its tension-filled glory. We are made to feel as if we were also on the beach, tired, hungry, soaked, and certain death was seconds away.

While the cast is filled with familiar faces – Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hardy among them – every performance is unstated, the dialogue kept to a bare minimum. The role with the mot lines is like that of the civilian fisherman, Mark Rylance, an actor known for his subtle, quiet work. Most of his work is with his character’s son, Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney), and their friend, George (Barry Keoghan), both reacting differently to getting this close to the war. The first man they rescue is a shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy), a stark reminder of wounds that go deep.

You have to pay attention while getting caught up in the story since there are three main storylines and each unfolds at different speeds.

The Blu-ray was overseen by Nolan, color correcting and pushing the 1080p, AVC-encoded transfer to its limits. Similarly, Nolan eschewed Dolby Atmos for a lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio track. It is a perfect complement so no one should feel there was loss.

Nolan also insisted the Special Features be packed on a separate Blu-ray disc. The strong Behind the Scenes material is organized into five chapters with a “play all” function. There are sub-chapters as well.

Recreating the look and feel of the 1940 setting takes up much of the material in these diverting featurettes:

  • Creation (22:19)
    • Revisiting the Miracle
    • Dunkurque
    • Expanding the Frame
    • The In Camera Approach
  • Land (16:39)
    • Rebuilding the Mole
    • The Army on the Beach
    • Uniform Approach
  • Air (18:30)
    • Taking to the Air
    • Inside the Cockpit
  • Sea (36:57)
    • Assembling the Naval Fleet
    • Launching the Moonstone
    • Taking to the Sea
    • Sinking the Ships
    • The Little Ships
  • Conclusion (1519)
    • Turning Up the Tension
    • The Dunkirk Spirit

Additionally, there is a featurette about the U.S. Coast Guard (2:02).

CB Cebulski Makes His Marvel

  • News
  • December 20, 2017

 

It’s been a busy week for Marvel Comics! This past weekend new Marvel editor-in-chief CB Cebulski apologized for using the pseudonym Akira Yoshida in a piece for The Atlantic. Since then, many revelations about the future of the Marvel line have come to light.

Jim Starlin will be parting ways with Marvel as they look forward in how they want to handle Thanos as a character. Dan Slott, after uncharacteristically being absent from Twitter for weeks, will be wrapping up his record breaking run on Amazing Spider-Man, possibly opening the door for Nick Spenser to take the helm which had previously been widely speculated. Dan Slott’s future at Marvel is still unknown.

A wave of cancellation announcements have been made since CB has taken over the reigns as well. Titles including Guardians of the Galaxy, U.S. Avengers, Royals, Uncanny Avengers, Iceman, Jean Grey, Hawkeye, Unbelievable Gwenpool, Like Cage, Secret Warriors and Generation X are all confirmed as canceled. All but confirmed as canceled include America, and Defenders, though Defenders could be on hiatus because of Bendis’ recent health issue. His leaving the company could end up putting the book to bed either way.Another book, Captain Marvel, appears to be going on hiatus for an unconfirmed amount of time as they appear to be changing editorial direction while keeping the creative team in tact.

These are the sort of big changes one may expect from a comics publisher bringing in a new editor-in-chief. It’s hardly the first time we’ve seen major shake ups like this and it will not be the last. While it’s disappointing to see a number of comics cancelled that prominently feature underrepresented communities with creative teams also representing those communities, it is important to note that all of those characters still exist in the Marvel Universe and will hopefully be heavily featured in other titles soon as well as giving other more diverse characters the chance to have the spotlight.

We wish Marvel the best during this transitional phase and most importantly we look forward to reading the new Marvel Comics that will be announced in the New Year.

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