DVD Review: Superman/Batman: Apocalypse

The Great Stuff:
Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy as the voices of Superman & Batman.

The design of the backgrounds (called layout) & the background paintings. Great composition, colors & detail.

All the prop design looked great too, IMO. Well thought out, within a believable continuity of the characters' established existance, outside of this cartoon-movie.

The Good Stuff:
The animation, the character designs, integrated use of 3D that blends in in to 2D very well.

The music fit it's scenes well & sounded good without being a distraction.

The Poor Stuff:
Use of Wonder Woman & Supergirl; 2 characters I have no real affinity for. I really had no idea how totally apathetic I am to Supergirl -- until I watched this. Had they been clearly listed as main characters, I likely would not have watched this show.

The face designs of Superman/Clark & Batman/Bruce animate & look awkward due to the designs including upper lips above the top of their mouth opening.

A story not concentrating on Batman & Superman, despite the title of the production.

DVD Review: DEAD SPACE: Downfall

I rented this with high hopes as I had heard a lot of good things about it. An animation mix of 3D and Drawn, with the drawn animation at or near the quality of Cartoon Network shows like "Justice League" or "Teen Titans'.

The story makes no sense and the dialogue is ridiculous. No character or setting is introduced, making one feel like it's the second episode of an ongoing TV series. Also, no single character appears to be the star of the show -- adding to the confusion.

Characters I don't know, a setting I don't know, using equipment/tools that are undocumented in terms of power, use and ability. As the viewer there's no entry point in the narrative. Think of Ripley in "Alien" or Luke in "Star Wars"; each is a star character that the brings the viewer into the story.

There is one sequence where 2 characters engage in saying "shit"; trying to say it last, but then the other guy says it one more time. I allow for the possibility that it may have been comedic on paper, but when acted out by voice-actors, it comes off as dumb. Same goes for a scene later on, when 2 characters try to out dialogue "fuck" over the other character. Maybe they had a quota that any swear-word used had to be repeated X many times over...?

When I watched the credits I was surprised to see that the DVD was written by comic book inker / writer Jimmy Palmiotti and his writing partner, Justin Gray. Given these guys read & write comics, I was amazed at their poor practice of basic storytelling skills.

Curt Geda was also involved and IIRC he worked on the various Batman Animated shows for WB TVAnimation. So it goes to say, the drawn animation moves pretty good. Another cool thing I noticed in the credits was that Dan Norton, artist of Image Comic's "Grifter" and "Black Ops" series worked on the show as a prop designer and storyboard revision artist.

I always like to know comics artists are out there working, even if its not in comics anymore.

Final Rating: 1/2 Star out of a possible 4 Stars.

DVD Review: "Superman Batman: Public Enemies"

This came out in the summer of 2009 -- I got a chance to view it this week.

The character designs are patterned off of Ed McGuiness' art style. I applaud the idea of wanting the characters to look like they did in the "Public Enemies" comic story.

However, McGuiness' style is primarily based on Capcom's house style. Compare his work to the character designs from the "Street Fighter II" series of video games and you will see the overwhelming influence. So the character designs in this animation look like a copy of a copy, and are awkward in many instances. The design team would have been better served by looking over Capcom's art and using that as their style base.

The color design used on the character faces was a poor choice. It looks like a shadow in a starburst pattern. Rather than giving depth to the form, it looks as if a sharp object has cast a shadow. Definitely something that should have been corrected in pre-production.

A Producer at Warner Bros. Animation should have made the decision to use designs from the animated "Superman" show, the second "Batman" animated show or even the animated "Justice League" show. If not the exact approved designs, then at least ones heavily inspired by them. The straights and curves of that style works elegantly in animation and it suits these characters in their cartoon format. The backgrounds and prop designs looked great, and the character animation looked close to the animation quality created in the above mentioned TV shows.

A very good choice was made for the returning voice actors. Tim Daly as "Superman", Kevin Conroy as "Batman", CCH Pounder as "Amanda Waller" and Clancy Brown as "Lex Luthor". This was great, all the right voices from the WB Network incarnation of the "Superman", "Batman" and "Batman Beyond" animated TV shows -- also used on Cartoon Network's animated "Justice League" series, not counting Superman.

For me, it felt right to hear those voices for those characters. In part, it is what I have become accustomed to. Having my high expectations met made me feel gratified. Some of the other Warner Bros. Direct-to-DVD cartoon movies have used a voice cast that I did not enjoy.

Of course, the "right" voices NOT matching the "right" model or look of the characters took a while for me to get used to. It did happen, but it was near the end of movie. Note that's a long time to watch a movie and continuously think, "they don't look right".

Story-wise, it moved at a good pace. There definitely was some filler that looked as if it was done just to get more characters in the movie. Overall, the dialogue worked, but there are some quirky moments when they use PG-13 cussing. Nothing is gained from those instances; most especially not earned is any sense of maturity. I would have chosen to stay PG on the dialogue. For example, a TV Host says something to the effect of, "stick it up your ass." It might have been funny if "up" and "ass" weren't bleeped out.

Clancy Brown's voice gives Luthor the presence of Yul Brenner and due to that, the threat of his actions seem credible and menacing. I am supposing this continuity does not tie into that of the "Justice League" or "Batman Beyond" as Braniac was not featured.

Am I glad I saw it... yeah.

Would I pay to own it... no.

Direction / Storyboards: 4 stars

Story / Plot / Dialogue: 1 stars

Background Design: 4 stars

Character Design: 1 star

Prop Design: 4 stars

Color Design: 1 star

Animation: 3 stars

Acting: 4 stars

Final Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars.

SuperBowl #43: Saints vs. Colts

I did not start out caring who won, but typical of myself, I ended up pulling for the team who looked to be the underdog... in this case the Colts.

Overall, a decent game. Nothing that that 'MOVED' me, but it was not boring. I may have enjoyed it more had I been a major Saints fan. It was fast-paced, seemingly going bye too fast considering our cultural importance of this sporting event.

I had a good time watching the game with my Father, Step-Father and Step-Mother. Healthy vegetable snacks plus some salami and cheese stuff too.

Also need to point out that watching in HD is pretty sweet in comparison to standard-def TV. Now I need to recycle all of my old CRT TV's... heh, FoSho.

DVD Movie Reviews:
I recently watched 2 movies on DVD. "9", a computer animated Tim Burton production & "The Surrogates", a Bruce Willis film based on a graphic novel series with 2 published volumes.

9
This was an interesting and creative production. In a post-apocalyptic Earth, a group of dolls are built and attain life from the soul of their scientist creator. Their are 9 of these dolls and the story picks up on them discovering who they are and working together to overcome adversarial robots.

The animation, camera-work, sound / foley work, world design, textures and lighting are all amazing. World class talent went into the nuts-and-bolts and the character-animation-acting.

So why don't I give it 5 stars...? Well, the pacing was s l o w. There were moments where my wife and I looked at one another and wondered aloud...why don't they get to the point. This occurred multiple times over the course of the film. This could have been handled in editing, even if the scenes were already done.

My Final Rating: 3 out of 5 stars


The Surrogates
After "Die Hard" and it's sequels, I am always ready for a Bruce Willis motion picture. Plus this is SciFi, and I LOVE me some SciFi. And it's based off of a comic book and I digg comic books. And the comic book was drawn by the awesome artist Brett Weldele!

Oh my goodness...right? This movie looks be a total festival of stuff I like!!! All that's missing is Moon Bloodgood and I'd pass out. So, I rented it, already being bummed that I wasn't able to get out to the theaters to see it upon the initial release.

...and? Well there was room for some awesomeness in the SciFi. The new TV show, "Caprica" is doing SciFi special effects that seem on par or better than this film. As a feature film, I am biased to believe the SFX ought to be better than a made-for-cable TV show.

I appreciate that this movie looks to be told in real environments and is not just a green-screened make-it-all-up production. But the world they present is less realized than the world shown in "The Island" (2005 with Ewan McGregor). It is a more realistic set-up and a better lead character portrayal than was shown in "I-Robot" (2004 with Will "Fresh Prince" Smith).

Bruce Willis has more performance to give than this film showed of him and there could have been more action. The story treads in the water of "Ghost In The Shell" but does not expound on the possible implications of integrating robots into our lives nearly as profoundly as Masamune Shirow's epic Manga.

If you like this movie or felt there was 'something' missing, you should check out the following:
"Ghost In The Shell" (graphic novels) & (anime movies)
"Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex" seasons 1 and 2 (TV show)
"A.I."
"Avatar"
"I-Robot"
"RoboCop"
"The Island"
"War Games"
"Blade Runner"
"Matrix trilogy"
"Bicentennial Man"
"Caprica" (TV show)
"Terminator I, II, III"

My Final Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Day 345 of 2009
So the year is about up and I'm making my second Blog post. I could blame Twitter... but that would be wrong. Although Twitter is a great way to just get something off your chest or mind and move on.

So this post is basically an account of what my blogged 2009 hopes were. Overall, this was an exceptional year with a tremendous amount of blessings.

Tier 1 hopes...

• These were met, with a deep appreciation to the Lord, etal. Both my wife and son went through the birthing process, completed it in good health and remain in good health. We are fortunate to have a wonderful, beautiful baby son!!! (YAY!) ^__^

Tier 2 hopes...

• I still have a job (yay!).
• We are no closer to buying a house (bummer).
• My allergies cleared up for the most part (yay!).
• One thing related to 2001 came up (boo!). But in large part, it is why my allergy symptoms got better. Stash this one in the category of, "be careful what you wish for, you might just get it".

Tier 3 hopes...

• I lost about 30 lbs., but do not consider myself remotely in shape (okay). Although its a good starts and I remain motivated to continue getting in good shape.
• None of my credit cards or school loans or car loans are paid off (boo!).
• I did not get promoted and I did not get any salary increase at work (bummer).

Tier 4 hopes...

• Well I did complete 1 of the 2 classes I need for my Creative Arts degree (okay.)
• I no longer am aiming for the Certificate in Creative Arts Entrepreneurship. Reason being that I am no longer aiming towards earning my MBA (fine).
• Besides working in the profession, I did nothing towards completing my PMP (boo!).
• Overall I do not think the Wolverine movie "sucked", but they never got his hair right even once, and they totally goofed up his back history... so whatever (fine).

-Josh ^_^

Day 1 of 2009...
Not sure that I have any vows to make in going forward for this year.

That said, I am hopeful that the following will occur:
Tier 1 hopes:

• Gina will have a smooth delivery of our baby.
• Both the baby and Gina will be in good health.

Tier 2 hopes:

• I will stay employed, given the bad economy
• We will buy a nice family house, hopefully closer to my work.
• My allergies will clear up.
• All things related to 2001 will continue in an A+ manner.
  

Tier 3 hopes:

• I will get back in shape.
• I will pay off all of my credit card debt, in full.
• I will get promoted and/or receive generous raises in salary.

Tier 4 hopes:

• I will earn my AA in Creative Arts.
• I will earn a Certificate in Creative Arts Entrepreneurship.
• I will earn my PMP.
• I will be in position to enroll at Pepperdine Santa Clara in 2010 to earn my MBA.
  

Lastly... the Wolverine movie had better not suck!