Reviews

Ain’t DVD a wonderful thing?

Work is slow today and I don’t have any classwork to speak of yet. So while browsing around, I noticed that Gargoyles Season 1 is on DVD!

It’s 13 episodes, and I’m tempted to buy it for the first five alone. It was all one plot, and amazingly done. For a mid-90s Disney cartoon, this was hardcore stuff. Blood was shown! gasp! The battle scenes weren’t glossed over either, and there was some pretty dark subject matter at times.

If you want to get more of a plot summary, check out this review of the set.

When this first aired, I remember it was on at 2:30 in the afternoon. I routinely arrived home from school at about 2:35. As a result, I didn’t get to see very many complete episodes. But what I did see hooked me. To my 6th grade self, this was my first exposure to the idea that animation could go beyond kiddie shows.

I had the opportunity a couple years ago to watch a good chunk of the series on old VHS tapes. While not every episode as wonderful as my memory made the show out to be, the best ones are still spectacular. The ones dealing with Shakespeare and Arthurian legends were always among my favorites. There was this whole grand epic feel to the show that is rarely duplicated. One episode in particular sticks out: Goliath was mystically thrown back in time to the Blitz of London. He met up with some 1940s gargoyles and it went from there.

Plus, it had Keith David doing the badass voice of Goliath as only he could.

I really want to buy this set, but I’ve got enough waiting to watch as it is.

I went and saw “The Aviator” on Sunday with John. Good movie, very interesting, just a tad long.

Before the film, we were treated to the trailer for the upcoming movie “Sin City”. As an aside, I just have to mention that I love movie trailers. There’s just something artful in managing to cram most of a movie into a minute or two. When it’s done well, anyway. The Sin City trailer qualifies.

You can see it for yourself here. Unfortunately it’s a very small, lo-res version, but you’ll get the idea. I’m hoping a larger version pops up online soon.

I haven’t read the (supposedly excellent) comic books it’s based on, but the visual style seems to capture perfectly the art I have glanced at from the comics. And the cast: Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, Kate Bosworth, Josh Hartnett, Benicio del Toro, Brittany Murphy, Elijah Wood, Clive Owen, Rosario Dawson, and others. Worth seeing just for that alone.

The music in the trailer is amazing too. Thanks to the internet, I’ve figured out that the song is “Cells”, by a British band called The Servant. I’d love to get my hands on the instrumental version used in the trailer, but for now the $.99 cent track I got from Napster will have to do. You can hear it streaming here, in the right column of the page.

This is going to be a far from inclusive list. Plus, I’m only including full albums that rocked. I’m not counting singles or individual tracks that I really liked. Might list a few of those at the end.

First up, a tie for Album of the Year.

• William Shatner – Has Been – Laugh if you must. The album is at times hilarious, touching, and insightful. And always very listenable. Shatner hams it up at points, and I’m glad to see that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. I expected every track to be along the so-bad-its-good lines of his covers of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, or Rocketman, and was pleasantly surprised.
• The Killers – Hot Fuss – One of the few albums I can listen too from first to last, and enjoy everything in between. Not a bad track in the bunch. Catchy choruses and great riffs.

Honorable mentions:

• Bubba Ho-Tep soundtrack – One of the best cinematic scores I’ve heard in years. There’s a definite western riff to it, and the lone guitar theme still haunts my dreams. I treasure my autographed copy. Apparently quite hard to come by now.
• RJD2 – Since We Last Spoke – I heard the title track on WBER over the summer and was instantly hooked. Solid techno/hip-hop.

Those are the new in ’04 albums that rocked my world this year. Other music I discovered, but might not have been put out this year includes:
Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse, No Doubt – The Singles, Splashdown (more on them in a feature post eventually), The Decemberists (particularly Billy Liar), Offspring, Bad Religion, and others.

I’m having a hard time narrowing down films I saw to just one favorite. Plus, I have yet to watch The Live Aquatic, and from what I hear it could be a real contender. I still need to see Team America as well. So now, in simple no-particular-order list form, movies I really enjoyed this year:

• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow – I’m a sucker for art deco and old school pulps. Worth watching as a visual accomplishment alone.
• Spider-Man 2 – Best comic book movie of the decade thus far.
• The Incredibles – Pixar hasn’t let me down yet. Pure fun from start to finish.
• Bubba Ho-Tep – I still need to buy this on DVD. Only Bruce Campbell could pull off a geriatric Elvis fighting a mummy and still make the movie heartwarming.

Yeah that turned out shorter than I expected. My memory really stinks. If anybody else remembers movies I saw and liked, please let me know…

I did see Oceans 12 tonight. Frankly, a bizarre movie. Fun to watch, but… well… bizarre again is the only word. Julia Roberts as a character as Julia Roberts meeting Bruce Willis as himself. My head asplode. Oceans 11 was far superior.

This is the first in a series of entries I’ll be making today, tomorrow, and beyond. 2004 gave me a lot of enjoyment in the areas of technology and entertainment. I thought it’d be nice to salute a few of them.

In case you don’t realize it by now, I read comic books. Contrary to widespread belief, it’s not all burly men in tights beating each other up. I enjoy a good Batman book as much as the next guy, but variety is the spice of life.

Without a doubt, my favorite new comic that I started reading this year is Losers. It debuted in 2003, but I’m a late adopter once again.

My favorite summary of the concept, from a review: “Losers is The A-Team, only, you know, not retarded.” It’s pretty apt really. Losers is an action movie distilled down to it’s finest moments, but not at the expense of characterization or plot. The titular losers are an elite covert ops CIA squad. The government (as it does from time to time in stories like this) screws them over and thinks them dead. Now they’re out to clear their name and bring down the mysterious ‘Max’ who masterminded their screwing.

Andy Diggle writes, and the singular named Jock provides wonderful stylistic art. Issues 1-6 and 7-12 are collected for sale very affordably on Amazon, and #19 just hit the newsstands.

It’s light fare overall, but it’s just so fun to read that I can’t resist the siren’s call.

Other comics i particularly enjoyed this year:

• Y: The Last Man – Yorick is the last man on Earth after a plague kills all other males. And no, it’s not the wish fulfillment fantasy you might expect. Link.
• Astonishing X-Men – Joss Whedon of Buffy and Firefly fame turns his writing chops on a New Classic X-men book. Link.
• Ex Machina – A close second for my favorite of the year. The world’s only super hero runs for mayor of NYC as an independant… and wins. Politics combined with flashback super-heroics brilliantly. Set often against a backdrop of fallout from Sept. 11th. Link.

Gotta cut myself off here, I could go on forever. Tomorrow, on to either movies, TV, or books. Then at some point I’ll round up the greatest tech additions to my life this year.