Theatrical Films

The computer-animated feature film is one of the dominant genres of our era.  Typically these films follow a formula that mixes juvenile humor with hyperkinetic activity designed to keep children of the videogame generation enthralled and then adds celebrity voice actors and plenty of cheeky pop culture references that sail over the heads of the kiddies to reward adults for accompanying their tots to the film.  Pixar, the computer animation studio that virtually invented this genre, has never been one to follow that formula and the latest Pixar release, Up (Buena Vista 1-Disc $29.99, 2-Disc $39.99, BD $45.99) looks like it was made in a different universe from the one that produced the Shrek films.  Yes, Up does contain one “groundbreaking” example of the potty humor kids love, and there are a couple of kinetic chase sequences in the film’s second half.  But Ed Asner and Christopher Plummer are hardly Jack Black and Eddie Murphy, and the pop culture references in Up allude to things like movie newsreels and globetrotting adventurers that don’t exist anymore.  Almost no one in the contemporary audience has ever even seen a newsreel in a movie theater, and with satellites mapping every inch of the globe, there are few unknown places left to explore. 

 

Unlike Pixar’s previous film Wall-e, in which the eponymous robot had more soul than all the overstuffed humans put together, Up is the kind of saga of an ordinary life well-lived that Hollywood hasn’t provided since Leo McCarey and Frank Borzage stopped directing films.  Up is the simple story of Carl Fredrickson—how he became a crotchety old man alienated from society, and how he was able to reconnect with the humanity around him and within him.  We first meet Carl as a taciturn, stocky kid watching a newsreel about his favorite explorer Charles F. Muntz.  Then Carl meets Ellie, a garrulous gap-toothed girl who shares his interests.  Their shared childhood, courtship, marriage, and life together is depicted in a spectacularly sensitive montage (Up dares to use that long-forgotten, silent film--derived cinematic technique in an ineffably poetic manner, and yes that was a miscarriage you saw depicted in this genre-busting film for all ages that pauses to take the time for quiet shots in the interior of the Fredrickson house that add layers of depth and sentiment to the film). 

 

The second half of Up does introduce fantasy elements, but they are rooted in reality.  The balloon house has its inspiration in the stories of SoCal eccentrics like” Lawnchair” Larry Walters, who rose to 11,000 feet in a lawnchair lifted by helium-filled balloons.  The “adventuring” portion of Up may appear at first glance both more fantastic in its setting and more conventional in its animal encounters, but both are built on a firm foundation of close and astute observation of an actual place and of man’s canine companions.

 

The South American portion of Up is set in a superbly rendered otherworldly wilderness that is actually an extremely accurate representation of one of the least explored areas on earth, the flat-topped mountains in the jungles of southern Venezuela that are known as “tepui.”  One of the best extra features on the Blu-ray edition of Up documents a trip by key members of the Up creative team to visit the table-topped mesas the rise thousands of feet above the jungle with their labyrinthine rock formations and self-contained ecosystems filled with strange flora and fauna found nowhere else on Earth.  The trip to Venezuela typifies the effort and care that Pixar has lavished on this film.  The spectacular setting of the tepuis, which inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write The Lost World, becomes as important an element as any of the characters in anchoring the film’s second half.

 

This is not an era in which solitary geniuses like Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin own their own studios and control every aspect of their movies, but thankfully we do have the folks at Pixar who have truly mastered the medium of computer animation. The subtleties of the characters’ expressions, the profusion of ingenious lighting effects, the clever use of sound and a well-integrated score—these are things viewers can expect from Pixar—and in Up they are all used in service of a genre-busting narrative with more depth than a decade's worth of summer blockbusters put together.  As the extras make clear, Pixar’s films, like the cathedrals, the King James translation of The Bible, and the original Disney animated films of the 1930s & 1940s, are a team effort--art by committee rather than the work any individual or overriding genius.  But in spite of our modern era’s obsession with individualism, this doesn’t make them any less impressive.  Up may not be the best picture of 2009, the year isn’t over yet, but it certainly deserves consideration by the Academy in the “Best Picture” category, not just in the "Best Animated Feature" ghetto.

 

Blu-ray is the perfect format for a visually spectacular film like Up.  Though the film was shown in 3-D in theaters, it loses none of its visual flair in the hi-def Blu-ray version, which also includes a plethora of excellent bonus features.  The 4-disc Blu-ray package contains a regular DVD version of the film, which is great for those who have kids and DVD players in their cars, as well as a digital copy for viewing on computers and iPods.

 

This week Pixar is also releasing its fourth feature film, Monsters, Inc.,(Buena Vista $40.99) on Blu-ray for the first time ever in the U.S.  Monsters, Inc., which premiered in 2001, looks and sounds spectacular in high definition.  In addition to all the previous extras from the 2-disc DVD release, the Monsters, Inc. Blu-ray contains two all new bonus features, a documentary on the building of a “Monsteropolis” attraction at the Disneyland in Japan, and a “Filmmakers Roundtable” in which the key creative personnel involved in Monsters, Inc. discuss the creation of the film.  The 4-disc Monsters, Inc. Blu-ray includes a regular DVD copy of the film (with the original DVD bonus features), and a digital copy disc for use in computers and iPods.

 

Also out this week is the romantic comedy The Ugly Truth (Sony $28.96, BD $35.95), which teams Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up) and Gerard Butler (300) in a battle of the sexes saga with a plot that could have passed muster for a Rock Hudson/Doris Day film save for a surfeit of raunchy language that gives this film its “R” rating.  Critics faulted The Ugly Truth, which rated just 15% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, for “a lack of charm,” but audiences found enough to like in the film to push its domestic box office total to nearly $90 million.

 

The critics were kinder (67% positive) to Merry Gentleman (Genius, $19.95), a yuletide noir about an unlikely romance between a hitman and an abused wife, which was directed by Michael Keaton, who also plays the professional assassin, but this downer of a holiday film never found an audience.  If Merry Gentleman is going to make any impression, it will have to be on DVD.  The best-reviewed film out on DVD this week (aside from Up, which garnered a well-deserved 98% rating) was Lance Hammer’s Ballast (Kino $29.95, BD $34.95), a tough indie movie made with non-professional actors and filmed on location in the shotgun shacks and juke joints of the crack-ridden black underclass in the Mississippi delta.  With Precious getting all kinds of Oscar buzz this year, Hammer’s film, which received a limited release in 2008 and is just as uncompromising as Precious, deserves some more attention as an unsparing look at a desperate and despairing segment of society.

 

TV on DVD

The major TV on DVD releases of this week are the 17-disc G.I. Joe—A Real American Hero: Complete Collector’s Set (Shout Factory $179.99), which collects all 95 episodes of the Saturday morning series that ran from 1985 to 1991, and Justice League: The Complete Series (Warners $99.98), which includes both the original Justice League series, which appeared on the Cartoon Network from 2001-2004 and Justice League Unlimited, which aired from 2004 to 2006.  The two Justice League series were created by WB animation vets Bruce Timm and Paul Dini.  Both the Justice League Collection and the nostalgia-laden G.I. Joe set, which comes packaged in a faux footlocker, are among the top DVD gift set releases for this upcoming holiday season as is Dawson’s Creek: The Complete Series (Sony $119.95), a 24-disc collection of the 1998-2004 WB series that gave us James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, and Michelle Williams.

 

Also due out this week is the second 4-episode volume of the new Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated series (Warners, $14.95), as well as new collections of JAG (the 9th season), Nash Bridges (the 3rd season), and The Untouchables (Season 3, Volume 2).

 

Anime

The only new anime releases out this week are Naruto: Shippuden the Movie 1 (Viz Media, $24.92), and Special A Collection 1 (Sentai Filmworks, $39.98).  The Naruto movie, which was released in Japan in 2008 and debuted at #8 on the Japanese box office charts, finds the ninja hero protecting a priestess, even though her apparently infallible predictions have forecast Naruto’s death. The Viz Media release includes an English soundtrack as well as the Japanese track with English subtitles. 

 

Sentai’s Special A anime is based on the 17-volume shojo manga by Maki Minami, which is published here by Viz Media.  The 24-episode Special A anime series, which was produced by AIC and Gonzo, aired on Japanese TV in 2008.  The first Sentai Special A release includes the first dozen episodes of the romantic comedy, which finds its humor in a battle of the sexes between a boy and a girl who have been competing at school and in sports since they were 6 years old.

 

Among the many re-packaged anime releases this week are the Dragon Ball Season 2 Collection (Funimation, $49.98), a five-disc set that includes 720 minutes of the first (and in many ways, the best) Dragon Ball series, and the Tsubasa Season 1 Box Set, which is based on the manga series from Clamp (published here by Del Rey), and is being released in both regular (Funimation, $49.98) and Blu-ray ($59.98) editions.

 

Blu-ray Re-releases

Warner Home Video’s Blu-ray Edition of Logan’s Run ($28.99) provides a great look at what pre-Star Wars science fiction movies were like.  Released in 1976 less than a year before Jedi Saga began, Logan’s Run is a high concept science fiction saga with a premise (but little else) taken from a novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson.  In a future society devastated by an eco-catastrophe mankind has been forced to live in self-contained domed cities where strict population control is enforced by eliminating all citizens over 30 years of age.  Sex has been divorced from reproduction and free love is practiced in the city, where lives are short, hedonistic, and constricted. 

 

Logan’s Run is certainly not without its absurdities including the cheesy pastel colored tunics with different colors for the various age groups and the city’s interior, which looks like a shopping mall (not surprising since the film was shot in two Texas malls).  Still Logan’s Run remains an interesting film thanks to its basic concept, an innovative score from Jerry Goldsmith and strong performances from Michael York, Jenny Agutter, and the late Richard Jordan.  The film won an Academy Award for its visual effects and some of the effects, such as the matte paintings look great in the new Blu-ray transfer, though the hi-def quality doesn’t do any favors for the exterior landscape in the opening where it makes the environs of the domed city look like a poorly painted model train environment.  Still this is a unique saga that science fiction fans will want to own, and Blu-ray is the perfect format to capture the scope of this film, which looks amazingly good for a movie that was made 34 years ago for just $6 million.