A (currently pictureless) review of Batman: Under the Red Hood.

Sorry for the lack of stills, but I've been very busy and occupied.

When Warner Brothers Animation and DC Comics began producing direct-to-video movies, it was obvious why. For example, if they wanted to do a Wonder Woman TV series, they had to sell a network, sponsors and the general public on it. By doing it direct to animation, they saved a lot of angst...except for the angst inside the competing divisions of AOL Time Warner. (They're still AOL and they always will be.)

To get to the fans who loved these animated characters, DC went direct-to-video. They also occasionally run these movies on Cartoon Network, just once, to get people interested.

The results have been...mixed, as you can see from these reviews from this site (click to read):

Batman/Superman: Public Enemies

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths


Batman: Gotham Knight was interesting, but mostly to dedicated Bat-fans. Wonder Woman and Superman: Doomsday blended a lot of the existing mythology of those characters to try to make them palatable to the general public. Green Lantern didn't make the character popular.

This current production is another synthesis of existing DC Comics mythology. In the history of the Batman character in direct-to-video productions, it's one of the best. That may seem like damning with faint praise, but it set the bar higher for the character than anything previously done for home video. If you were to compare it with the recent TV show The Batman or the current Batman: The Brave and the Bold, it would surpass both.

The controversy behind the story

It starts with one of the most traumatic incidents in Batman's past, the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd. The Joker captured Jason, beat him nearly to death with a crowbar, then blew him up. Batman arrived too late to save him.

The story behind that death, in comic book history, is even darker. Jason was considered an egotistical little jerk, wearing the short pants of the original Robin, and disdainful of his boss. He decided to go after The Joker alone, resulting in his capture, torture and death. (The person who first came up with the idea, Frank Miller, intended to have Jason raped by The Joker, in his graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. DC wouldn't allow that.)

At the end of that issue of the comic, on the last page, DC asked the readers to vote whether Jason Todd lived or died. It was a way to make money off the 1-900 numbers that had just started. Many people were upset that readers were asked to vote for the death of a child, and that DC would make money off the votes. Even worse, some people inside DC have admitted that the vote to kill Jason was very, very close, possibly slightly for his survival.

Although DC has been silent about the situation, there was guilt involved. Guilt, and one of those peculiarities of comic book copyright: you have to publish the character every three years or you lose copyright. But undoubtedly some of DC's writers and editors felt bad about this situation. And that was the reason behind the Red Hood situation.

The original Red Hood was the man who became The Joker. At least, in one current bit of comic book mythology; they always screw around with history. A new Red Hood shows up and starts acting as a vigilante, one who is quite willing to kill criminals, and seems to be going for The Joker.

Okay, what about this particular video, you gabbing nerd?

I was getting to that. The death of Jason Todd is monitored, but not prevented, by Batman's near-immortal enemy Ras Al Ghul. Perhaps out of his own guilt, Ras obtains Jason Todd's corpse and throws it into his resurrection pool, the Lazarus Pit. Jason Todd returns to life, but insane and vengeful.

Red Hood is primarily assaulting another recent Batman villain, Black Mask. (Who himself is interesting; his black skull mask was carved from the onyx lid of his mother, whom he killed.) It's all a plan to convince Black Mask to spring The Joker from his asylum, to make him killable.

The crowning glory of this story is Batman's emotional agony over this situation. At one point he calls Jason's death "my greatest and most tragic failure." As voiced by Bruce Greenwood, Batman adds emotional vulnerability to the character's traditional toughness. When his first Robin shows up, Nightwing/Dick Greyson (voice by Neil Patrick Harris), they are so chummy and complementary to each other that it brightens the generally grim proceedings.

The Killing Joke, The Killer Joker

But the surprise is the voice provided for Joker by John DiMaggio. Think of all the people who've played the part in the past: Burgess Meredith, Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger in live action, Mark Hamill in animation. Then discard them.

DiMaggio's Joker is more serious than Ledger's Joker. He takes no joy in his "jokes," which are particularly brutal. He laughs only to seem more terrifying. He is intelligent, driven and aware. This is the first Joker I've seen for which I could never, ever feel a moment of sympathy.

Joker kills in this story. Red Hood kills. The violence is sometimes pretty disguised or out of direct sight, but sometimes it is very visible. A man burning to death, by the Molotov cocktail he was about to throw on another man, is pretty grim. This is most certainly not a story for children to watch.

On the double DVD set, the extras are pretty odd. There is a bonus animated short involving DC's scarred, murderous Western bounty hunter, Jonah Hex. It involves a murderous whore and Hex's particularly Tales from the Crypt vengeance against her. I suspect this was intended to be a "big thing" if the live-action Jonah Hex movie had attracted an audience.

There's also a number of comic book creators talking about Dick Greyson and his transition from Robin to the independent hero Nightwing. Much as I might like comic book creators talking with semi-animated stills, this was pretty boring. Perhaps because the real story behind the movie - the death of Jason Todd outlined above - was being avoided by everyone concerned.

And there's also two episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, the two-parter which told (in remarkably honest detail) the murder of Dick Greyson's acrobat parents, and how he was almost tempted to vengeance against their murderer - but restrained himself. It is a wonderful story, and deserves to be remembered - but as something already released in several formats, it didn't cost DC a lot.

Finally, they announced their next project, with practically nothing from animation but a few animatics and a lot of comic book stills; Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. It does involve Darkseid and Apokalyps, of course, but its central story is the introduction of Supergirl. Apparently based on recent DC comics stories, it has Kara Zor-El arriving on Earth, suspected by Batman, taken under Wonder Woman's wing to be tutored as a warrior woman and released as a new heroine. After the darkness of Under the Red Hood, a bit of cheery teenage superheroine action will be a relief.

Spam whack-a-mole tiem is OVER.

That's it: sorry guys, but comments are being turned off because we're getting hit constantly by Chinese spambots. :P

Oh well, this makes my ASIFA-Hollywood membership officially useless...

Nice, ASIFA-Hollywood. Real nice.

International Animated Film Society
ASIFA-Hollywood

Dear ASIFA-Hollywood Member,

From the time the Annie Awards were created, every year the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood reviews the awards in order to improve them.

Over the years, these annual evaluations have resulted in such major changes including changing the Annie Awards from a lifetime honor to an award which recognizes current achievements and excellence in the field of animation, and conducting the Annie Award voting online to ensure that voters have reviewed all of the nominees work before casting their ballot.

Following the creation of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science almost a decade ago, the Annie Award is now recognized by the entertainment industry as the highest honor given by the animation community, and ASIFA-Hollywood is regarded with the same kind of prestige as the Motion Picture and Television academies.

In order to maintain the integrity of the award the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood has decided to limit voting for the Annie Awards to only qualified members of ASIFA-Hollywood who are animation professionals. Non-professional and Student members of ASIFA-Hollywood shall not be eligible to participate in the Annie Award voting.

Therefore to participate in Annie award voting you must register to qualify to vote. This application process must be completed by August 31st, 2010. This is your only opportunity to qualify to vote this year! Your qualifications will then be vetted by a panel representing many studios and job classifications and you will be informed by email of acceptance or denial. If denied, you will be given an additional 30 days to appeal and provide sufficient proof of eligibility. Your eligibility status will also be available on your on-line profile page.

All professional members should apply for the Production categories (Best Feature, Best Short, Best Television Program, etc.). We also encourage you to apply for any of the individual categories in which you have credits or other verifiable recognition of your experience or expertise. If you are not sure if you qualify in a particular category, please apply and clearly explain your experience.

Each year, upon renewal of your membership, you will be given another opportunity to update your qualification categories. New members will also be given 30 days to qualify to vote upon acceptance of their membership.

To begin the process, please log onto the updated website for ASIFA-Hollywood at www.asifa-hollywood.org. Your login name is your email address. Your password should be listed on your membership card. If it is not listed, or you have misplaced your membership card, please select Forgot your password? and it will be emailed to you.

Once logged in, select Membership-Annie Voter Application. Then check the box for Production and any other category in which you believe you qualify to vote. Add your qualification evidence in the box next to the selected categories. When complete, select Update at the bottom of the page. Your status will be emailed to you after the qualification committee reviews your application.

Your application and your vote will help recognize excellence amongst your fellow artists and bring greater recognition to our art form. Thank you.

(facepalm)

Good news on the AX front...

Maybe the new management of AX is actually THINKING THROUGH some of the things about AX that wallow in a sweaty mass of lameness.

Last year, AX charged $20 for a pass for the shuttle buses. Unless you booked a hotel through the con, which can be sketchy.

This year, however, AX is GIVING people who buy a 4 day pass a shuttle bus pass! Holy moly! They are doing the right thing, for once! This could be a trend! Stay tuned.

OK, this actually creeps ME out. In a good way.

Kawaii Kitteny used a piece of software called "Crazy Talk" (unfortunately only out on Windows) to imitate the Clutch Cargo "SynchroVox" technique on a video featuring her Asian ball joint dolls. This is eerie and spooky, altogether ookie, and just totally awesome. Don't watch if you have nightmares about Chucky, though. You have been warned.

More info on Crazy Talk here: http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/

The Big, Green Goodbye.

Disclaimer: I work at Universal Studios Florida, at the Shrek 4-D attraction. The opinions expressed here are my own, and are not those of my employer Universal Studios/NBC Universal, or their licensee DreamWorks Animation SKG. Okay?

The original movie Shrek was a lot of fun. Most fun of all was the amount of fun poked at Disney. It was inevitable; one of the DreamWorks partners, Jeffrey Katzenberg, was treated badly by Disney's CEO at the time, Michael Eisner. Katzenberg could have made the film a lot nastier, and a lot less funny, but the satire was restrained enough to remain funny.

Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third were...well, sequels. They coasted on the goodwill and good times of the first movie. They also established some cliches for DreamWorks animated features which are troubling. Many animated productions from DreamWorks and other studios were full of pop music to appeal to parents, pop-culture references to other movies, and famous actors performing animated voices. Many DreamWorks movies became as formulaic and cliched as the Disney tradition of the Disney Princess and the "I Want" song.

And perhaps that was the reason that Shrek Forever After was announced as the final chapter; for a while it was promoted under that title. Rather than string out the characters and the story forever, eventually with other voice actors taking the place of the originals, they decided to put an end to it.

If it is the end, it is very satisfactory. As mentioned elsewhere, it is based on It's a Wonderful Life. Shrek (Mike Meyers) is feeling domesticated and ineffectual and bored. He is no longer feared; he is a celebrity fawned over by adults and children alike. This makes him blow up at his babies' first birthday party, and makes him bitter at his wife Fiona (Cameron Diaz).

Which opens the door for Rumplestilskin (Walt Dohm), a magical deal-maker who is detested by everyone in Far Far Away. The result of the deal he works: Shrek was never born. He never saved Fiona. He never became friends with Donkey (Eddie Murphy). He has only one day to turn about his deal by getting Fiona to fall in love with him.

What makes this movie for me is the treatment of Fiona. Throughout the films, she has been far too much the Disney Princess that she originally satirized. Even when in her natural, hefty and green state, she was always wise, sweet and supportive. (I liked the ogress Fiona far better than the human Fiona.) She was, like so many women in tepid fantasies, an accessory to the male lead.

In this film, in the "Potterstown" version of Shrek's world, Fiona did not get rescued. She rescued herself. Her curse of a half-human, half-ogre existence made her tough and dedicated. She becomes the leader of an ogre army, fighting for survival against Rumplestilskin and his army of witches. Perhaps it's personal, but to me, Warrior Princess Fiona is hot.

The end of the film is as predictable as a fairy tale, of course. There is the suggestion that things have changed for Shrek and everyone, that the universe of Far Far Away has been changed for the better by this experience. And one thing has. For the first time, I actually accept the tenderness and sweetness of Shrek under his grouchy exterior. In the first movie, Shrek said that "ogres are like onions; we have layers." It took four movies for the filmmakers to reach that layer.

But I still miss Warrior Fiona. I hate seeing her as a housewife only. She can be much more, and in defense of her children, her man and her species, I wish I could see her become something more.

The elaborate end credits feature scenes and characters re-imagined from throughout the Shrek films. They remind us of the good times and fun from those movies. (Note that scenes from Shrek the Third are barely glimpsed; it's admittedly the weakest of the four.) The credits also offer thanks to the creative people who worked on the Shrek films for the last decade. If that isn't closing the door, I don't know what is.

In one of the last scenes, the book "Shrek Forever After" is put on a bookshelf. Up there, I glimpsed other titles like "Shrek and the Beanstalk" and "Princess Fiona and the Pea." With the good box office this movie achieved, there will be the strong temptation to make those movies.

I hope DreamWorks resists. The Shrek Saga was good, but it's time to move on. The trailers for two new DreamWorks productions that accompanied Shrek Forever After are entirely different, although they rely on previous movies. Despicable Me takes the premise of the evil mastermind who is saddled with three mischevious kids. And MegaMind clashes two cliches, the superhero and the supervillain (although MegaMind looks a little too much like Galaxar of Monsters vs. Aliens).

Let Shrek stand on his swampy laurels, guys. Make him your corporate mascot if you want. But do other, newer, more original animated stories.

Screwing up the brand, take 2,000...

Time-Warner is STILL trying to monetize the Looney Tunes. The next steps in the total Lucas-like immolation of the greatest American cartoon legacy are being readied. Ph33r.

I am soothed, finally: Daria finally out on DVD.

Here it is. The whole thing. From "Sealed With A Kick" to "Is It College Yet?"

It's a beautiful package, all things considered. Including the omitted songs and the fact that "Is It Fall Yet?" is still the shortened version and not the original version that aired. In the latter case, I wouldn't be surprised if the only version of the TV movie that MTV had still hung onto was the short version. In the case of the DVD of the original Spumco Ren & Stimpy episodes (Season 1 plus the first half of Season 2) Paramount Home Video actually had to use archival material kept by John Kricfalusi to get the best possible release. MTV Networks is notorious for these sort of things.

One other nit to pick: they didn't release all the goodies in the vault. There was a 30 minute "the making of" special, plus Garbage premiered a video during the initial "Is It College Yet?" airing, "Breaking Up The Girl." Later, Garbage released a "movie clips" version of the video...I've got it for you right here:



Thing was, there was a whole animated intro for the song that only aired once. I remember that they did an "anything can happen in a cartoon" gag where the band's animated counterparts took off into the air. Of course, that all could be buried in a filing cabinet in a locked room at 1515 Broadway, with a sign reading "Beware of the Leopard" on the door.

At least the "Freakin' Friends" Mystik Spiral video is included...plus a .PDF of a spec script for a Mystik Spiral spinoff series that never made it even to the animatic stage.

Again, all this is nits picked by an unashamed Daria fangirl. I'm delighted it's finally out, I'm doubly delighted it's out at a more-than-fair price: it's "streeting" for less than $50. Well done.

RIP Michael Pataki...

Alas, George Liquor won't be able to taste the Double Down meat sandwich, because his voice and his soul, Michael Pataki, passed away yesterday. I didn't get a chance to meet him but he was a really excellent voice actor. With Carl Macek and voice actor Allen Swift, that makes the three losses for the animation world. Because they always go in threes, don't they?

R&S character Kowalski would love this...

Meat between two pieces of fried meat. George Liquor would call it a "manly" meal. And the Ripping Friends would have seconds.



KFC Double Down...they need to hire John K. to do their ads. Srsly.

Loss of a pioneer: RIP Carl Macek

The bad news came to me via Cartoon Brew: Jerry Beck broke the news that his former partner in Streamline Video, Carl Macek, had died of a sudden heart attack. This occurred Saturday, April 17th.

Carl Macek was one of the first people in Hollywood who realized that the cartoons Japan made for their domestic consumption had great potential for American audiences. He took several Japanese series, wrote new stories, and redubbed them to create Robotech. Scoff if you must, but Robotech was the first taste of anime for some people. He also brought seminal classics Akira and Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro) to America, with little compromise. I still think the Streamline dub of Totoro is wonderful, perhaps better than the Disney/Pixar dub.

Macek didn't restrict his involvement in the animation industry to creating America-friendly versions of anime, he also helped the four original "Big Shots" of Spumco sell Ren and Stimpy to Nickelodeon. True, there were unintended consequences to that as well. But Macek's role in the initial big splash of R&S was apparently crucial.

Macek was a rarity: a geek making a living from being geeky. Something we all aspire to. And he died too soon. 58 years is too young.

Belated review: A Non-Crisis on DC Animated Earth.

It’s been out for about a month, but this is the first time I had a chance to see the latest DC Comics direct-to-video movie, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. In all honesty, it wasn’t a high priority. It is a nice project, but it’s not a major advance in either animation or superhero movies.

In fact, it came from scripts written for the Justice League Unlimited series by Dwayne McDuffie. He, in turn, took the idea from one of the older ideas in DC Comics – swiped by Star Trek for the “Mirror, Mirror” episode. The first time I became aware of it was in my childhood, when the modern Flash of the 1960’s discovered a parallel world with the Flash of the 1940’s. Alternate universes are an old story at DC, and in fact appeared in at least one of the Super Friends shows.

In this particular alternate universe, the most powerful metahumans have organized as the Crime Syndicate. Underneath their chairman Ultraman, characters like Owlman and Superwoman run crime families of super-powered thugs. And of course, the DC Universe’s bad guys are their good guys; in the pre-credits sequence, their version of the Joker dies heroically so that Lex Luthor can escape to our universe. And of course, he enlists the Justice League to bring the Crime Syndicate down.

There’s very little plot, but a lot of action. There are well-choreographed fight scenes; because this isn’t intended for kids, you can see Superman actually throwing punches at Superwoman. But, aside from two characters, there’s very little to intrigue us. Superwoman is a Wonder Woman gone completely bad; her black outfit and black ponytail (suggesting whips and S-and-M?) and her sultry admission that she’s a sociopathic killer makes her a standout villain. I don’t like making sexist statements, but she is hawt.

Owlman is something else, though. Not only is he an evil Batman, he’s informed by Ayn Rand’s philosophy, as was Rorschach in Watchmen. He takes the Big Bad Weapon that could wipe out a single Earth, and decides to use it to wipe out all of existence. “Human life is a cancer,” he grimly intones, as he fights Batman to a near-standstill.

Some fans have quibbled about the choices of voice actors; none of them are from the classic DC animated series. But the choices work, and are good, as with the aforementioned Superwoman (Gina Torres) and Owlman (James Woods).

It’s good to have McDuffie writing for the DC Universe again, after all his work on Cartoon Network’s Ben 10 series. My only complaint is that the final production of Crisis on Two Earths is aimed at action rather than character. This will appeal to the long-time DC Comics fan, but it won’t make any converts. It’s smarter than the similar Marvel Comics animated movies and series like Super Hero Squad, but that’s not surprising. For all the work and expense Warner put into it, it’s still a rental, not a must-buy.

New song: Anime Fan

This last weekend at MarsCon (don't ask where it is, I don't know, except it's up North and I didn't go there) Luke Ski and Carrie Dahlby finally gave that nauseating Christina Aguilera song "Candyman" the lyrics that make it worth listening to. Their version is called "Anime Fan" and as far as I can tell, it references every popular anime ever made. (At the end it even references hentae - it includes bits from one of Luke's spoken bits about the Japanese schoolgirl with the too-short skirt and Scrotor, the Sex Demon from the Fifth Dimension.)

Here's the link on The FuMP web site to the song. For the next week and a half, you can download a 128K version of the song for free - after that, a 192k CD quality version will cost you 99 cents to download.

And here's the poster Luke drew for the song...

LOGORAMA WINS! LOGORAMA WINS!!!

The animation Oscars went to Up for best feature and Logorama for best short. I am totally stoked!!! Also happy to see Kathryn Bigelow win for best director, the first woman to get that distinction, ever; Christoph Waltz for his incredible performance in Inglourious Basterds.

Comic-Con leaving San Diego?

2012 might be the end of San Diego Comic-Con...perhaps we need to prepare for Anaheim Comic-Con?

Personally I think the only solution that can contain San Diego is Vegas, Baby, Vegas.