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matt_zimmerAlso reviews for the short La Luna and the latest episodes of DC Nation, Futurama, Ultimate Spider-Man, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, and TRON: Uprising.
Disney / Pixar's Brave
This was a good movie. It was interesting to me that Pixar decided not to really break any new ground with this story and animation. It was just a really good movie told really well and it was definitely more traditional than Pixar is used to doing. It may SEEM like a new idea that Pixar finally centered a movie around a female character but it doesn't really play out that way.
That said, I really like the movie for what it says about gender roles. As I said, it was not a NEW message but I think considering how docile Disney Princesses usually are it seemed like a necessary one. This movie DOES contain a first however: this is the first Disney Princess movie where the Princess remains single and doesn't choose a suitor at the end. That was kind of neat and the neatest thing about it is that it was in the end not a huge deal. But I think this was a bigger deal for the Disney Princess brand itself than the first African American Princess in The Princess And The Frog turned out to be, just because that movie while certainly creative, didn't really do anything groundbreaking with that idea.
I really love those three little triplet boys / cubs. They pretty much stole the movie.
The climax was definitely not as rousing as some of Pixar's other offerings but frankly, I don't think that every single one of their movies NEEDS a super elaborate climax. That's something moviegoers have recently only demanded for a couple of decades or so and is not completely something movies (even kids ones) need to be dependent on, or at last they didn't in the past. That said, it's definitely an action sequence and even if it's more smaller and personal in scale, it's brutal enough to earn the film it's PG rating (but just barely).
My favorite character was King Fergus. Billy Connolly did a smashing job as him. Connolly has a great voice, doesn't he? He seems to have been getting more and better work lately and he is equally adept at drama as he is at stand-up comedy. For the record, Fergus is DEFINITELY a comic role.
A very successful traditional movie from Pixar that I enjoyed, even if it didn't really do anything huge for me. ****1/2.
La Luna:
This short is most like Partly Cloudy in tone but even MORE cutesy. However cutesy animation has been so successful for so long because it works. It got the reaction it wanted for me: a warm and fuzzy feeling. Don't ask me to explain the logic of the short or what exactly happened during it (I'm still a bit confused by the concept) but I think it did its job and was definitely better than Partly Cloudy even if the story was harder to follow. Adorable. ****.
DC Nation
DC Nation Demonstrations: The Tumbler
Cool car, no way it would work in real life. ***1/2.
Catwoman #1
This was interesting and completely unexpected. Great anime animation. Only problem is I'm not sure the concept will be able to do justice to the fact that it's serialized. For example, Sword of the Atom works as a serial because of the cliffhangers that were part of a story that could have come out of a 40's serial. The new Catwoman anime is totally different. We'll have to see if they will be able to keep up the momentum. But hey, look Bane! ****.
MAD Presents... "Batman Family Fued"
They left out the funniest gag from the original skit. When Steve Harvey asks for something a penguin does Batman immediately says "robs banks" without missing a beat. This is the first MAD cutdown that actually feels like it's missing TOO much material. **1/2.
Futurama "The Butterjunk Effect"
Very funny episode. It felt like something we've seen the show do multiple times before but despite the concept not being fresh the episode was crammed wall to wall with great lines and sight gags. This episode was funnier than it had any right to be due to the lousy premise. This should have been a loser of an episode but it turned out to be a winner. ****.
Marvel Universe
Ultimate Spider-Man "Awesome"
Technically this was a bad episode but it had enough laugh out loud moments for me to recommend it even with my reservations. You can't hate an episode with Awesome Andy and Coulson buh-nekkid. Best part? The Howard the Duck cameo. I can't give any episode with Howard less than three stars. ***.
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! "Secret Invasion"
Okay, my biggest question was left unanswered: what happened to the Hulk? He wasn't even mentioned this week and his captivity has been my biggest anxiety about this whole Skrull invasion.
And how did Thor get back to Earth? And where was Black Panther? I thought he rejoined the team.
Loved all of the different Skrull designs including a Spidey and a Wolverine one. Cool stuff.
Loved the episode but I was also frustrated by the end of it. ****.
Iron Man: Armored Adventures "The Makluan Invasion, Part 1: Annihilate!"
Sigh. I had REALLY high hopes for this two parter as it sounded like it was gonna be a slam-bang Avengers team-up but it was really just more Gene/Mandarin nonsense. How many times are Tony and the gang gonna have to team up with him before they are actually allowed to smack him down? Tiring.
Still, part 2 is coming next week and if it IS a good series finale maybe my opinion of this episode will have changed. As of now, it's only so-so. ***.
TRON: Uprising "Price Of Power"
Beck was acting super stupid this episode. Yeah, the weapon infected him but he should have double-checked to make REALLY sure it was destroyed. That is going to bite him later.
The fights were tight this episode. They fully used the half-CGI / half-hand-drawn medium to the fullest.
Interesting episode. ****.
Disney / Pixar's Brave
This was a good movie. It was interesting to me that Pixar decided not to really break any new ground with this story and animation. It was just a really good movie told really well and it was definitely more traditional than Pixar is used to doing. It may SEEM like a new idea that Pixar finally centered a movie around a female character but it doesn't really play out that way.
That said, I really like the movie for what it says about gender roles. As I said, it was not a NEW message but I think considering how docile Disney Princesses usually are it seemed like a necessary one. This movie DOES contain a first however: this is the first Disney Princess movie where the Princess remains single and doesn't choose a suitor at the end. That was kind of neat and the neatest thing about it is that it was in the end not a huge deal. But I think this was a bigger deal for the Disney Princess brand itself than the first African American Princess in The Princess And The Frog turned out to be, just because that movie while certainly creative, didn't really do anything groundbreaking with that idea.
I really love those three little triplet boys / cubs. They pretty much stole the movie.
The climax was definitely not as rousing as some of Pixar's other offerings but frankly, I don't think that every single one of their movies NEEDS a super elaborate climax. That's something moviegoers have recently only demanded for a couple of decades or so and is not completely something movies (even kids ones) need to be dependent on, or at last they didn't in the past. That said, it's definitely an action sequence and even if it's more smaller and personal in scale, it's brutal enough to earn the film it's PG rating (but just barely).
My favorite character was King Fergus. Billy Connolly did a smashing job as him. Connolly has a great voice, doesn't he? He seems to have been getting more and better work lately and he is equally adept at drama as he is at stand-up comedy. For the record, Fergus is DEFINITELY a comic role.
A very successful traditional movie from Pixar that I enjoyed, even if it didn't really do anything huge for me. ****1/2.
La Luna:
This short is most like Partly Cloudy in tone but even MORE cutesy. However cutesy animation has been so successful for so long because it works. It got the reaction it wanted for me: a warm and fuzzy feeling. Don't ask me to explain the logic of the short or what exactly happened during it (I'm still a bit confused by the concept) but I think it did its job and was definitely better than Partly Cloudy even if the story was harder to follow. Adorable. ****.
DC Nation
DC Nation Demonstrations: The Tumbler
Cool car, no way it would work in real life. ***1/2.
Catwoman #1
This was interesting and completely unexpected. Great anime animation. Only problem is I'm not sure the concept will be able to do justice to the fact that it's serialized. For example, Sword of the Atom works as a serial because of the cliffhangers that were part of a story that could have come out of a 40's serial. The new Catwoman anime is totally different. We'll have to see if they will be able to keep up the momentum. But hey, look Bane! ****.
MAD Presents... "Batman Family Fued"
They left out the funniest gag from the original skit. When Steve Harvey asks for something a penguin does Batman immediately says "robs banks" without missing a beat. This is the first MAD cutdown that actually feels like it's missing TOO much material. **1/2.
Futurama "The Butterjunk Effect"
Very funny episode. It felt like something we've seen the show do multiple times before but despite the concept not being fresh the episode was crammed wall to wall with great lines and sight gags. This episode was funnier than it had any right to be due to the lousy premise. This should have been a loser of an episode but it turned out to be a winner. ****.
Marvel Universe
Ultimate Spider-Man "Awesome"
Technically this was a bad episode but it had enough laugh out loud moments for me to recommend it even with my reservations. You can't hate an episode with Awesome Andy and Coulson buh-nekkid. Best part? The Howard the Duck cameo. I can't give any episode with Howard less than three stars. ***.
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! "Secret Invasion"
Okay, my biggest question was left unanswered: what happened to the Hulk? He wasn't even mentioned this week and his captivity has been my biggest anxiety about this whole Skrull invasion.
And how did Thor get back to Earth? And where was Black Panther? I thought he rejoined the team.
Loved all of the different Skrull designs including a Spidey and a Wolverine one. Cool stuff.
Loved the episode but I was also frustrated by the end of it. ****.
Iron Man: Armored Adventures "The Makluan Invasion, Part 1: Annihilate!"
Sigh. I had REALLY high hopes for this two parter as it sounded like it was gonna be a slam-bang Avengers team-up but it was really just more Gene/Mandarin nonsense. How many times are Tony and the gang gonna have to team up with him before they are actually allowed to smack him down? Tiring.
Still, part 2 is coming next week and if it IS a good series finale maybe my opinion of this episode will have changed. As of now, it's only so-so. ***.
TRON: Uprising "Price Of Power"
Beck was acting super stupid this episode. Yeah, the weapon infected him but he should have double-checked to make REALLY sure it was destroyed. That is going to bite him later.
The fights were tight this episode. They fully used the half-CGI / half-hand-drawn medium to the fullest.
Interesting episode. ****.
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Date: 2012-08-03 04:45 am (UTC)La Luna: Weird mythology, but you just kind of have to go with it. These are the guys that clean up the moon. The grandfather and the father are taking the kid out for the first time, it seems. I thought it was funny, especially with the brooms/facial hair.
Futurama "The Butterjunk Effect" - I thought the premise was all right. Rather than futuristic roller derby, they went with butterflies. It was good to partner Leela and Amy together, and as you said, we got some funny stuff out of it.
Ultimate Spider-Man "Awesome" - I'm upset that Juggernaut was completely wasted, and the Peter/Cage science project thing was kind of stupid, but Coulson was great, and Awesome Andy is a favorite of mine. We NEED an episode explaining what Howard the Duck was doing in SHIELD captivity!
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! "Secret Invasion" - It was a cool episode, but unfortunately, adapting the comic so well did mean breezing over some of the other plots, like the creation of the X-Men Super Skrull and what the Baxter Building was doing in another dimension and how the Fantastic Four got out. It doesn't really matter how Thor got back (in the comics, he was DEAD before he returned), and I guess Panther was dealing with stuff globally? Hulk's plot is separate from this, it seems.
Iron Man: Armored Adventures "The Makluan Invasion, Part 1: Annihilate!" - Eh, I dunno. The first time all three of them in armor and Gene being back, it's good the focus was on them while all this large scale stuff happened.
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Date: 2012-08-03 01:21 pm (UTC)Ultimate Spider-Man: That would be awesome.
The Avenger: Again I have the benefit of never having read the comics so I have nothing to compare the cartoons to. I always tend to enjoy comic adaptations more than most fans because of this.
Iron Man: Armored Adventures: After seeing part two I agree with you. My original review was way off although to be fair to me I said I might change my mind depending on how part two was.
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Date: 2012-08-05 02:09 am (UTC)The Avengers: Which helps a lot, but weren't you at least wondering how the Skrulls got all those various powers from the X-Men or what they ultimately wanted with the Fantastic Four? The episodes themselves set that up.
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Date: 2012-08-05 02:42 am (UTC)The Avengers: That would have been nice but I just assumed they had infiltrated ALL of the superhero teams.
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Date: 2012-08-07 07:35 am (UTC)The Avengers: Yeah, probably.
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Date: 2012-08-07 02:28 pm (UTC)Off-topic slightly, but do you know the thing I hated most about John Kerry (besides him conceding the election too early?) He made a statement before his debates that Bush was an excellent debater and won every debate he had ever been in. He was trying to downplay expectations and he did so by denying reality. I thought is was a HUGE insult to Ann Richards and Al Gore who creamed that idiot in every debate he was ever in.
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Date: 2012-08-09 01:40 am (UTC)As for Kerry, did he really say that about Bush and his debates? Did he WATCH any of them? There's downplaying expectations, and then there's...that.
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Date: 2012-08-09 12:29 pm (UTC)Yes, Kerry was stupid enough to say that (and more than once). He was a terrrible candidate and I can't believe Dems were foolish enough to nominate him. Romney is ten times worse of a candidate but the difference there is that he was STILL the best the Repubs had (next to Huntsman who was a non-starter due to being sane) so nominating him made sense. But we actually had a few good candidates to choose from. Us letting Kerry be our nominee when Howard Dean and Wesley Clark were just standing RIGHT THERE was absolute foolishness on the Dems' part. Clark especially would have crushed Bush in the general election and would not have allowed himself to be swiftboated.
I LOVE Al Gore but how stupid were we to nominate ANOTHER stiff and boring guy against Bush? He was just as rich as Bush so we couldn't make that an issue. And he voted for the Iraq war so that advantage was dust. And he was even in Skull and Bones in college so we couldn't even get the crazy conspiracy theorists behind us. It was a choice between the rich, well-connected, gaffe machine who supported the war in Iraq... and the OTHER rich, well-connected gaffe machine who supported the war in Iraq.
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Date: 2012-08-25 01:56 pm (UTC)And is Dunkelman the greatest name ever, or what?
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