Bionic Nostalgia - The Legacy

Fairly quickly after the television debut of "The Six Million Dollar Man" the word 'bionic' entered the lexicon permanently, going from a science fiction term to a science fact in recent years.  While no one has been granted super-strength, speed, or senses from their bionics (that we know of), cybernetic replacement of limbs, as well as things like cochlear implants are almost everyday things. 

As we've seen, the television universe was too big to have just one bionic man.  Soon Steve Austin was joined by the Seven Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman, and Maximilian the Bionic Dog.  In 1976, during Lee Majors' bad mustache phase, Vincent Van Patten became the Bionic Boy in a backdoor pilot that failed to go to series.  Both series, "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman," left the air in 1978, but would return in just under a decade. 

Three TV movies would follow starting in 1987.  The first, simply and awkwardly called The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, was similar to the Bionic Boy in two ways - it was a failed pilot and involved a young man getting bionics, in this case, Austin's illegitimate son. The last two, coming in 1989 and 1994, were Bionic Showdown and Bionic Ever After?. 

The legacy of Martin Caidin's Cyborg novel, and the "Six Million Dollar Man" television series that was based on it continues to today. There are novels, comic books, jigsaw puzzles, the "Bionic Six" animated series (among dozens that feature bionics within them), a new, if short-lived, "Bionic Woman" show, and of course the always-threatened-but-never-announced theatrical film. Bionics remains a part of our lives and pop culture decades later.

Check out the rest of my posts in this series here.

F is for Family

Like many of the television situation comedies of the 1980s and 1990s - like "Seinfeld," "Home Improvement," or "Roseanne" - "F is for Family" is built around the stand-up routines of a popular comedian, in this case, Bill Burr.  What makes this one unique is that it's animated, and set squarely in 1973.  And as a child of the 1970s suburbs, let me assure you, they got this right.  This is no That 70's Show. 

Now I have to admit that I was never really a big fan of Bill Burr.  I always enjoyed when he was a guest on the late great Opie and Anthony radio show, and never turned the channel when his stand up was on, but I never sought it out either, and I've never heard his podcast although I know it's quite popular.  Burr always seemed fun, and funny, but a little mean spirited and pessimistic.  In this format however, I think it works. 

Bill Burr voices the father, Frank Murphy, who in the opening credit sequence set to Redbone's "Come and Get Your Love," we see go from hopeful young man with dreams to the crushed spirit of a family man with responsibilities.  The wordless bit actually reminds me if the beginning of Disney-Pixar's Up in that it conveys so many feelings in an economy of dialogue and time, brilliant. 

Frank's wife Sue is voiced by Laura Dern, and burnout son Kevin by Justin Long.  Sue fights for her rights as best she can as a housewife in 1973, and Kevin tries to better himself but it never seems to work out thanks to his other burnout friends.  Frank struggles with his wife, his family, which also includes a younger son and daughter, and a job that is quickly headed toward disaster. 

Besides Bill Burr, who voices, writes, and inspires, there are two other executive producers who may be of note, Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley.  Vaughn you all know from his many acting roles, including Swingers and "True Detective," and Billingsley was Ralphie in Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story, who since then has does considerable work behind the camera. 

As I said I grew up in the suburbs of South Jersey in the 1970s, with the show taking place in nearby Pennsylvania, and this is dead on.  I not only know these people, in some cases I was them.  The comedy is funny but the people and the situations are real, sometimes too real, and at times override the jokes.  The ongoing subplot of a strike at the airline where Frank works is a serious concern. 

My favorite episode of the first season is "Bill Murphy's Day Off" where the parents take Kevin to a rock concert so he and his friends can see the opening act, Shire of Frodo.  Fans eager to see the headliner Lifted Riffs don't let them even start a song but Riffs is a hoot.  While both bands are parodies of different aspects of Led Zeppelin, Riffs really takes it to town with a song called "Lick My Pickle," a clever and hilarious riff on "The Lemon Song."  Loved it. 

The second season became available, all ten episodes of it, just a couple months back.  Frank adjusts to new jobs and old, Sue fights the glass ceiling, and Kevin tries to make a go if his own band.  There are bigger parts for Frank's rich swinger neighbor played by Sam Rockwell, and his two younger kids as well, one a bullied boy standing up for himself, and the other a smart girl up against many of the same barriers as her mom. 

"F is for Family" is coming of age, it's nostalgia, it's emotional, it's funny, and it's definitely worth checking out. If you grew up in the seventies, ever didn't want to turn into your parents, or tried to turn everything into a bong, this show is for you. 

Marvel's New Animated Spider-Man

The worst part of superhero reboots is retelling of the origin story over and over and over again. Despite the official Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Spider-Man thankfully skipping over that detail in Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming, when the folks at Disney XD rebooted the animated version, based on the new movie Spidey, they felt the need to beat us over the head again with that same origin story that we all know now. 

The animated shorts, how Disney XD leads into their Marvel shows these days, tell that story all over again, adding very little to the tale we all know.  Even the terrible Amazing Spider-Man gave us something new in that area.  Peter Parker in this new 'toon is less geeky and nerdy as much as he is annoying and obnoxious.  He's almost arrogant.  Unlike the Parker of the comics who we sympathize with and identify with, I really don't like this guy.  I almost want him to fail. This is so not Spider-Man.  Simply spouting science does not make a Peter Parker.

As we watch this annoying kid learn his new powers and video document them with complete arrogance in the "Origins" shorts, the showrunners carefully insert appearances of cast members like Harry, Liz, Smythe, and even a Stan Lee cameo, but key characters like Aunt May and Uncle Ben are rarely seen.  Not seeing May or Ben until the last of six shorts completely diffuses the tragic lesson of "With great power comes great responsibility." 

Whether it is network rules to protect children or misguided writing, but we never get to see the actual origin of Spider-Man with the burglar.  It's diluted, and we feel nothing as we don't know Ben or May.  Add this in to the fact that this version of Parker is already unlikable, this was not a great start, and perhaps, as in the MCU version, the origin should have been left untold, rather than told badly. 

The actual show is better in both execution and presentation of Peter Parker.  He still spouts science, but he's a little more humble.  The depiction of the Vulture is less than stellar, especially after his terrific MCU revamp, this animated mash-up of the Beetle and Black Canary is a bit embarrassing. Much time is spent on school stuff, including introductions of Miles Morales and Anya Corrazon (Arana). Without those name drops, I might have been bored. 

Other name drops include vibranium and Wakanda, placing the series solidly within the wider Marvel Universe.  One supposes we will just have to imagine the "Ultimate Spider-Man" cartoon never happened, just like all those early animated appearances of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

In the second official episode, continued from the first, we are once again more concerned with the school than with the superheroics.  We're introduced to Dr. Otto Octavius as a teacher, and Max Modell's Horizon is lifted from Dan Slott's comics run.  Spider is still in his homemade costume and the Scorpion is considerably less interesting than his Homecoming counterpart. 

Even after finally perfecting his costume and facing off against a pseudo-Spider-Slayer, the episode is more about the school soap than the superhero saga.  Horizon seems more like a breeding ground for potential future Spider-villains and their tech.  Still this is more origin stuff when I would rather have adventures of the fully formed hero. Later we see the Rhino and the Black Cat, revamped versions, and of course their episodes focus more on school than superheroics.

The new series is not bad, but it's not what I want, so until we get a seasoned Spider-Man doing the superhero thing with the cast in place and rogues gallery established, I may give this a pass. 

Len Wein and the Golden Age of Comics

There's a saying among comics fandom, a play on words really, that the real golden age of comics is ten. Traditionally the Golden Age is considered roughly from 1938 to 1951 when all the great characters were created and things were simpler and better in general. Also as implied, when most folks start reading comics they are a magical age when they believe all the wonders they read, and that nostalgia stays with them, forming the basis for their love of the genre. For me, that love came roughly between the ages of six and twelve, and most of the good comics that formed my magic time were by a guy named Len Wein.

The man passed away this past weekend, and many folks have memorialized him, in personal blogs, comics press, and even the mainstream media. Most mention his huge triumphs in the field. Len Wein created Wolverine, Swamp Thing, co-created the New X-Men, and edited Watchmen - all events that advanced, shaped, and transformed comics as an entertainment medium - and all true. However, that's not really what I remember him for. I remember him for the comics that shaped me and my thinking, and my love of comics.

As I was beginning to learn to read, more from comic books and Dr. Seuss than from any of the Dick and Jane readers at school, Len Wein wrote the comics that thrilled and amazed me. When comics were coming down off the social relevance trend of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Wein sought to bring back the characters that made comics fun for him. He re-established the paradigm of superheroes and super-villains, and returned a fun Silver Age and even Golden Age vibe to the oncoming Bronze Age of comics.

In Justice League of America, a comic he was only on for a short time, he turned these characters from a group of heroes who sometimes worked together into a team of friends who were a finely tuned fighting unit, who knew each other, watched each other's backs, and even socialized together. Wein returned not only traditional Silver Age villains like Amazo, the Key, Felix Faust, T.O. Morrow, the Shaggy Man, Eclipso, (and indirectly the Queen Bee and the Lord of Time), but also revived Golden Age superheroes like Earth-Two's other super-team (a decade before the All-Star Squadron) the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and gathered the old Quality Comics heroes as the Freedom Fighters of Earth-X, a parallel world where Germany won World War II - soon to be featured in an animated series on CW Seed. In an age where young readers were being newly introduced to these characters in the reprints of the 100-Page Super-Spectaculars, Wein brought us new stories of these greats.

Wein also, in his all-too-brief fifteen issue run on JLoA, expanded the membership for the first time in years. He added the Elongated Man, a move that was a long time coming; moved the emotional android Red Tornado over from Earth-Two, after killing him in one of comics' earliest hero deaths; and inducted the mysterious and seemingly out-of-place Phantom Stranger into the team's ranks. He was able to make the Stranger work within the team better than any later writers, probably because Wein himself was writing the character in his own title at the same time. He always had a mastery of these new members, as well as guest-stars, the Justice Society, when under his pen. Speaking of the JSA, Wein had the honor of writing the hundredth issue team-up of the JLA/JSA, as well as introducing the concept of adding a third team to the annual mix, and even wrote the only one-issue teaming of them. Speaking of guest-stars, he also helped engineer the first unofficial DC/Marvel crossover at the Rutland Halloween Parade.

Speaking of the JSA, another story that resonates with me to this day is Flash #215, written by Wein during his short stint on that title, which I've briefly talked about before. With a dramatic Neal Adams cover and interiors by Irv Novick, in my opinion, the Flash artist, this story told the tale of Barry Allen waking up in bed with his Earth-Two counterpart's wife Joan, finding that he'd replaced Jay Garrick. After that weirdness, Barry goes on the find Jay in the limbo dimension and fighting the Vandal Savage, yet another Golden Age character that Wein breathed new life into. This remains one of my favorite Flash stories, and made me love Jay Garrick.

Also notable from this era were his Adventure Comics stories with Supergirl and Zatanna respectively, which I still love. I bet if he'd stayed on JLoA longer, he would have brought Zatanna on to the team much earlier than she ended up joining. While they were going on at roughly the same time, and I did not read them at the time, I did eventually read Wein's fantastic stories of the Swamp Thing, Phantom Stranger, and Korak, and dug them. And let's not forget that he also co-created the Human Target, a back-up feature I never understood as a kid, but loved as an adult.

This was the mid-1970s now, and Len Wein had moved across the street to Marvel Comics, where he would create Wolverine as a Hulk foe; assemble the New X-Men, reviving that title which had been in low-selling reprints for a while; and had longer (if not as memorable, to me at least) runs on titles like Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, Fantastic Four, and Marvel Team-Up. What I do remember him on was Defenders, which he picked up on after Steve Englehart left the book. Wein would recruit Nighthawk to the team, one of my favorite Defenders, after an eerily familiar clash with Marvel's parallel universe evil Justice League, the Squadron Supreme (or was it Sinister? I always get confused).

Len Wein would return to DC Comics however as an editor. He was editing both Justice League of America and Flash ironically when I met him at a Creation convention around the time of those two titles' 200th and 300th landmark issues respectively. I told him how much I enjoyed his Justice League stories, but also expressed, perhaps too cockily, an opinion that the 200th issue shouldn't be so full of guest-stars as the 100th issue was. He took the left-handed compliment well, smiled, and said I would be pleased with Justice League of America #200. I was, the tale, which pitted the original members against all the later members of the team in a retelling and return to their origin, is not only one of my favorite stories, but also a lot of folks' too.

Later Wein would go on to edit Watchmen, write the new Blue Beetle series, and oversee the Who's Who project, all wonderful stuff. He continued to write and edit for years to come, including Batman, Wonder Woman, and After Watchmen. He won many awards, even wrote for television animation, the last work I saw from him was the adaptation of Harlan Ellison's script for Two-Face on the 1966 "Batman" television series. We have lost one of the greats in the comics field, and we are all poorer for it. Len Wein was and is a legend, and he'll be missed.

RIP June Foray

After a sad and morbidly misleading fake death by internet rumor, June Foray, voice actress extraordinaire, has passed away for real, last night, at the amazing age of 99. A voice from my childhood is gone.

Having grown up with the Warner Bros cartoons, my early Saturday mornings built around them, the loss of June Foray is a major blow to my childhood. Even back in the day, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, everyone knew that Mel Blanc was the wonder voice behind all those cartoon characters, but then, even I was canny enough to realize that there were some female voices (Granny, Witch Hazel, and others) that couldn't possibly be Blanc. Asking adults, I learned that this was June Foray. The late Chuck Jones has been quoted as saying that June wasn't the female Mel Blanc, but Mel was the male June Foray. She was that good.

More than the Looney Tunes, the cartoon that really brings June Foray to mind for me is the "Rocky and Bullwinkle Show." In this series, Foray was the voice of not only Rocky the Flying Squirrel, but also Natasha, Dudley Do-Right's romantic interest Nell, and a number of voices in Fractured Fairy Tales. I remember vividly Sunday mornings with my big brother, pancakes, and Bullwinkle and Rocky, and June Foray.

Over the years Foray did voices in a variety of projects, including "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," and "Horton Hears a Who," to name just a few. She worked in radio, television, film, even videogames, and did voice work for nearly all the animation companies and franchises. We have lost a legend, June Foray will be missed.

Remembering Adam West

This one hit me hard, folks, and I learned about it much the same way I had heard that John Lennon was dead. I awoke the next morning to my radio playing Beatles song after Beatles song, thinking what a great way to start the morning, with Beatles music.

For Adam West, it was similar, happy to sad. I had just spent a terrific day with The Bride at EPCOT, we were getting on the bus, and I checked my phone, hitting Facebook. I saw a really cool picture I'd seen before - my good friend Andy Burns, our friend JP Fallavollita, and Andy's daughter (in fierce Wonder Woman cosplay) standing in front of the Batmobile (the real Batmobile) with, you guessed it, Adam West and Burt Ward. I was jealous the first time I saw the picture, and jealous this time, so I posted as much. I was in a good mood, and then I saw other Facebook posts on my feed… Adam West had passed away at the age of 88. I was crushed. It was if my childhood had dropped out from under me. I was staggered by this for a couple days. It couldn't be true.

My earliest memory regards an incident in my family first house.  I was around two and stepped on a heating grate burning my foot.  I don't remember any of that, but what I vividly do recall is my brother giving me a toy Batmobile to get me to stop crying.  At our second house shortly after that the room I shared with my big brother had only two things on the walls: a Detroit Lions pennant and a picture of Batman.  I have talked before about the 1966-69 "Batman" TV series starring Adam West being the gateway drug to comics for not only myself, but for an entire generation.  In many ways, my childhood has taken a hell of a hit. 

Adam West as Batman affects me to this day.  This past weekend I thought of him on three different occasions before learning of his passing.  Andy's photo on Facebook was one.  I saw Return of the Caped Crusaders on Blu-Ray in a store and I thought I needed to own it sooner or later.  And at EPCOT on the Test Track ride, I deliberately tried to design a car just like the Batmobile. 

Other than his wild global success as Batman, Adam West had a pretty rough life, battling depression, alcoholism, and typecasting.  It wasn't until he came to terms with always being remembered as Batman that things turned around for him. Gone were the days of getting shot out of a cannon and doing terrible pilots like "The Precinct."  Batman could overcome anything.  His unique deadpan camp humor even found a home on "Family Guy," conquering a whole new television generation. I even met him once, great guy.

Adam got the Batman gig after producers saw him playing a James Bond parody for Nestle Quik commercials.  Ironically he would be considered for the role of the real Bond years later.  He beat Lyle Waggoner for the title role on "Batman," who probably would not have been able to pull it off.  Batman would take over the world – Adam West himself has been quoted as saying that the sixties were all about the three Bs - Beatles, Bond, and Batman - and it's true.  And "Batman" would not have worked without West.  He was the only choice. 

West had done other things, movies like Mara of the Wilderness, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, and Poor Devil all of which I loved, and are recommended, but he always returned to Batman, whether it was on "Superfriends," the 1970s Filmation "Batman," as the Grey Ghost, Back to the Batcave, or the aforementioned Return of the Caped Crusaders. 

Adam West passed away on Saturday after a short battle with leukemia, he was 88.  In my mind and in my heart, he will live forever as the only Batman that counts.  We have lost a true legend, and the Bat-Signal burns for you, my friend. 

Vixen Season Two

Last year, before the live action debut of Vixen on "Arrow," I reviewed season one of her animated digital series on CW Seed. You can check it out here.  This year the character has not only a second animated season, but her grandmother, the Golden Age Vixen, who in Arrowverse continuity was a member of the Justice Society of America, is now part of the "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" crew. 

Her role in "Legends" was tricky as showrunners originally wanted Megalyn Echikunwoke to reprise her role but when she was unavailable, the time travel series turned to time travel for a solution and recruited Maisie Richardson-Sellers as Vixen's grandmother who also used the Tantu Totem to gain animal powers and fight crime and injustice.  When her lover, Hourman, was slain by the time traveling Reverse-Flash during World War II, she joined the Legends to hunt the evil speedster down.  That quest continues through this, the show's second season. 

In the second season of the animated "Vixen" on CW Seed however, Echikunwoke returns to reprise her original voice role. Vixen's journey to uncover her heritage and powers continues.  We once again see guest-stars the Flash and Cisco Ramon, as well as Firestorm when Vixen is called upon to help stop the Weather Wizard from destroying Monument Point.  As you can see from the linkage, this series is solidly entrenched in the Arrowverse continuity. 

Vixen's quest leads her to the discovery of four other totems similar to her own, but granting powers of the four elemental forces.  An old enemy of her family with the fire totem seeks revenge in this tale of consequence and reunion, that also guest-stars DCTV second stringers like Black Canary and the Atom. 

Bottom line, this is a fun adventure, and there are sure to be more as there are still two other totems out there.  CW Seed is a cool app too, now with the much missed "Constantine," and soon to host its possible animated continuation.  Great stuff.

Moana

Moana ~ The Bride is a theater rat, and it's one of the few things we don't share often. I find Broadway dreary and boring. Oh sure, there are quite a few songs, even a few shows that I dig - West Side Story and Jesus Christ Superstar come to mind, but that's really it. I slept through Starlight Express, Les Miz made me want to claw my eyes out, and Cats made me question my love of those fuzzy felines. I'm not a Broadway guy.

However, there's one show I really want to see, and yet The Bride refuses, touting her dislike of rap as the cause, and that's Hamilton. I love it and would pay top dollar to see it. Of the only five albums I purchased this year, two were the soundtrack to Hamilton and the Hamilton Mixtape. I'd hoped this would bridge the gap, but the only show I want to see is the only show she won't see.

Then came Moana.

We both share a love of Disney, so much so we do a semi-regular podcast about all things Disney called The Make Mine Magic Podcast (and keep an eye out there as we'll both be reviewing Moana on the 'cast sooner or later), so we were seeing their newest animated feature the first weekend it was out. Much to my delight, and her surprise, the film featured more than a few songs by Hamilton mastermind Lin-Manuel Miranda. That said, the music is amazing, and we both loved it – the soundtrack another purchase for 2016.

The film itself has its origins in the animator/directors researching Polynesian mythology and history (both of which Moana is a gateway drug to), from which Maui the demigod emerges. Played flawlessly by The Rock, Maui is a very different kind of Disney hero. He considers himself almost literally the gods' gift to mankind as his theme song, "You're Welcome," deliciously illustrates. Originally conceived as a tale of Maui, it soon transformed into a more traditional journey for a more traditional Disney princess, Moana. Together, though at first in conflict, they save her people's way of life.

The story is not so different, but the animation improves as it always does from flick to flick, but let's be real – the music is the real star here. Several songs are written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and even a couple sung by him. As a bonus for folks who buy the soundtrack, there are also demos of these tunes and even a couple outtakes of songs not used in the movie. I loved this film, I loved the soundtrack, and maybe now I might be able to talk The Bride into Hamilton. And Moana is highly recommended.

Disney's The Rescuers

Disney's The Rescuers ~ This animated feature comes from a different era of Disney animation, the time after Walt Disney's death but before the new generation of animators who would usher in a renaissance in the 1980s. The Rescuers was the first film to include both the old guard and the new kids, a bridge between animation dynasties. Watching it, you can see the changing of the guard happening as tradition mixes with technology and new thinking.

The story itself comes from the book series by Margery Sharp, a property that Disney had been eyeing since the early sixties. The series follows the adventures of rich philanthropist mouse Miss Bianca who rescues animals in trouble. The journey from page to screen is so fraught with changes, I've heard it's nearly unrecognizable. An example of this is that at one point Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians was considered as an antagonist in the film.

Eva Gabor as Miss Bianca and Bob Newhart as Bernard are mice and members of the Rescue Aid Society who set out to, what else, rescue a young girl from the evil Madame Medusa, played by Geraldine Page. There's a certain international flair that borders on stereotyping because it's a global mouse organization, headquartered below the UN and all.

Eva Gabor is fun, but the songs are forgettable, and Bob Newhart seems wasted here, and that's s shame. It moves quite slowly, even for a mystery. The screen does brighten however when Madame Medusa is on screen. Supposedly based on an animator's wife, she is a deliciously manic maniac. Much more fun than Cruella could have ever been, and her movements are mesmerizing.

In some ways The Rescuers seems like it was done for younger kids, but then there are some parts, accompanied by suitable scary music, that are downright frightening. The good guys win in the end of course, although the little girl is so 1980s sitcom annoying I almost wanted her gone. Good for the kids, and the adults too.

Pete's Dragon 1977

Pete's Dragon ~ Even with my interest in Disney, I doubt I would have seen this one any time soon if it wasn't for the remake in theaters recently. Even when I was a kid, it seemed kinda juvenile and just a bit silly. And that is just based on the images of Elliott the dragon and the television commercials I had seen. As I watch it today it's definitely meant for younger kids.

Based on an unpublished short story, a boy comes to town with his invisible dragon protector while pursued by his evil hillbilly parents. A live action film with only Elliot the dragon animated, presumedly his shadow being state of the art animation for the time, it's no Mary Poppins, despite its trying desperately to be. Elliott is cartoonish, pink and green, and voiced by Charlie Callas, an unfunny comedian best known to me for his silly noises and ruining Sinestro.

The musical antics feel like they might be better set on a stage than a movie, notably the score as well as one song were nominated for Oscars. Helen Reddy, Mickey Rooney, and especially Shelley Winters are all fun, but seem out of place here. The whole time the movie feels like it's just trying too hard. And I really wanted to like it, I tried, but couldn't get there.

Good for the kids maybe, but not for me.

Finding Dory

Finding Dory ~ The general parallels to the Star Wars franchise are hard to ignore here in this sequel to Finding Nemo. In the original movie it was a quest, a learning journey, with few signs of seriousness or darkness - not to say it wasn't serious - but this was a different movie than its sequel. Nemo was about parenting and about learning, but Dory gets downright dark and serious, much like The Empire Strikes Back. The fish have grown up.

We all laughed at the character of Dory, voiced by Ellen Degeneres, and her extremely short-term memory in the first film. As long as you don't know someone like that, or think about how she got that way, it's funny, but really, it's quite tragic. We find that like Marlin (Albert Brooks) lost his son Nemo and went to search for him, ultimately finding him - Dory wandered away from her parents, and never found them again, and never knew if they were looking for her. When you really think about it, it gives a whole new meaning to the film's title, Finding Dory.

The film begins with her losing her parents (or her parents losing her) in the past, then in the present day, follows her journey from there. After remembering one thing, she is off to first find her parents, and then save her friends. It's a fun road trip, but as I said, a bit darker than its predecessor.

I've been a fan of writer/director Andrew Stanton (also the voice of Crush) since John Carter, so I'll watch just about anything he's involved in. This was no disappointment, highly recommended, but be warned, tears alert. Also, don't forget to watch Piper, the Pixar short that accompanies it, it's awesome, as they all are.

Batman: Assault on Arkham

Batman: Assault on Arkham ~ I had this one tucked away for a while before I actually ever looked at it. The reason being I thought it was connected to those awful Batman Arkham videogames that I can't stand. I knew it was an animated feature, but the idea that it might be based in that weird game universe really put me off. However when I did finally get around to watching it, I was pleasantly surprised. This is nothing like I expected.

Assault on Arkham is not even technically a Batman feature, it's about the Suicide Squad, possibly a preview to hip folks as to what to expect in the upcoming film of the same name. And it's also not strictly a superhero flick either. This has the flavor and style of a heist movie circa the turn of the century, slick, cool, very new age Oceans 11. The villains are gathered, begrudgingly work together, and pull off what they need to despite clashing personalities. Yes, it has standard Suicide Squad procedure, but the way it's pulled off is so well done and heist genre. I loved it.

There were places where I was pulled out of the story, notably some weird anime bits, characters who looked too much alike, the Joker mugging for the camera, and of course the creepy Penguin with a British accent and eating fish whole, bones and all. The characters have chemistry, and the dual stories of them breaking into Arkham while Batman searches for the Joker's dirty bomb and follows them in, are enticing.

This was better than I thought it would be, highlighted by "Batman The Animated Series" voice veteran Kevin Conroy, and Hynden Walch, who does a wonderful approximation of Arleen Sorkin's Harley Quinn. An entertaining 76 minutes with a wild score by Robert J. Kral, and some great lines - worth the time.

I have to say however, if the upcoming Suicide Squad movie, despite how that trailer looks, is anything like this, I can't wait to see it now.

Coonskin

Coonskin ~ Up front, folks, this one may be rough, so if you have certain sensitivities, you might want to skip this review. And, as a white writer in a politically correct world, I also feel the need to tread lightly when talking about this 1975 animated feature by Ralph Bakshi. Like I said, it's rough, take a deep breath, and follow me if you dare.

The opening, visually and verbally is strikingly and disturbingly racist. It's a precursor to what is to come, and sets the pace well. I understood what it was, accepted it for its time, and still winced as if physically struck. No matter how much DMX using the N word one listens to, there's just no preparing for this opening. What followed the racist Vaudeville joke told in animated blackface, was also hard to take, but at least it was full of talent and power.

Scatman (Scat Man in the opening credits) Crothers sings the seemingly racist song "Coonskin No More" with liberal use of the N word, but it's an amazing song as well. It's sad that many folks have forgotten what a tremendous talent the man was musically, although he's usually remembered for his acting. After recovering from thinking about how Crothers went from doing "Hong Kong Phooey" to this and then moved on to The Shining, I realized what Bakshi was trying to do, a little song and dance, and a little shock and awe.

This was his attempt to show the black experience, granted from the eyes of a boy who grew up in a black and Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. Bakshi was creating what he called his own ghetto art, blending the genres of blaxploitation, crime drama, and folk tales with a realistic and unapologetic racism that maybe a lot of the world doesn't want to admit existed, or sadly, still exists. Yeah, I'm putting a fancy spin on it, and despite its truth, it's very hard to watch in 2015.

Coonskin is a mix of animation and live action, owing much to The Song of the South as its characters and lessons are similar. The cast also includes Philip Michael Thomas who later gained fame on "Miami Vice," Pulitzer Prizing winning actor/director/writer Charles Gordone, and the one and only Barry White. The actual story is very seventies, so seventies in fact, I am sure that Quentin Tarantino loves this flick. And he does.

About an hour into Coonskin I realized that I had in fact seen some of it at least before. Doing a little research I learned that it had also been released as Street Fight, which is where I saw a bit, and also Bustin' Out. This is not a great movie, it's not even a good movie. There's a lot going on, a little bit of everything, with very little to hold it together. Some interesting animation, and music, some intriguing commentary on race, but also a lot of the usual crap like sex and drugs that Bakshi throws into everything he does for no reason.

I can't recommend Coonskin, except for the curious, the fans of folks involved, and those with strong stomachs and high tolerance for the politically incorrect. Watch at your own risk.