Reviews

Being familiar with the name of the anime series, at first, that sporadically airs on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim showcase (I'm not a late-night TV watcher), I was interested in the theatrical film version of COWBOY BEBOP. Unfortunately, I didn't have cash when the film came out in selective theaters. Fortunately, I got the film on DVD and I fell in love with it.

2071 is the year and Mars is the planet to be since the Earth was damaged by a geological disaster. Human civilization and the things that make it up have thrived. So has the criminal element. A tanker truck is exploded during morning rush hour in Alba City, Mars's capital metropolis, releasing a deadly virus that kills once inhaled. The ISSP (Inter Solar Systems Police) is baffled, due to red tape, ineffectiveness and corrpution. A large reward, 300 million woolongs (Martian currency) is advertised, and the bounty hunting crew of the spacecraft, "Bebop", are on the case (Bounty hunters are referred as "cowboys"). It's Scooby-Doo and his pals, R-rated style.

Imagine a 20-something Clint Eastwood who's Jewish and moves like Bruce Lee, and you have main hero Spike Spiegel, a devil-may-care guy who deals with his adversaries with wit, bullets and Jeet Kun Do. He's a cool cat with cool moves. His good partner, Jet Black, is an ex-ISSP man, who lost his arm during a police case. Being the oldest, Jet's respects the old ways of combat and honor, making him hungry for being a "solo act" and not dealing with Spike's "eagerness" during tense situations.

Sexiness and craftiness is handled by Faye Valentine (the sexiest character in anime, I think), a "gypsy" who dresses like a harlot yet fights like the boys. Her downfall is gambling her money and her life. She's lucky when it comes down to her life. Faye and Spike are hard yet playful rivals when it comes down to the bounty. They look like lovers but fight like siblings. Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV (what a name!) could be their sister. Yeah. Kid sister. 13 years old and the only Earth-born member, Ed's an idiot savant. She's a genius with computers, but her feelings and mercurial, feline-like personality get in the way of normal social logic. In one scene, she dives into a vase. Spike refers to her as a trained seal. Any parent would probably drink if Ed was their kid. Imagine if she discovered boys? And there's Ein, a dog from the Welsh Corgi breed who's smarter than your average Welsh Corgi, let alone a dog. Not only he can play shoji, the Mars version of chess, Ein can identify bounties, like the movie's wraith-like villain, Vincent Volaju, an soldier thought to be dead three years ago during a war on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. This guy has death written on his face.

Another hunter after Volaju is Electra Ovilo, an agent for a shifty pharmaceutical company and a woman whom Spike falls for. "I like the kind of woman who can kick my ass," he says while fighting her. But Electra has Vincent on her mind. The connection between them would be saying too much.

The routine plot and the standard TV animation by Sunrise (they worked on the show) is actually helped by the vivid characters and the electric jazz-rock-funk score of the TV series' composer Yoko Kanno (the female answer to Lalo Schifrin, the creator of the "Mission: Impossible" theme) and the band Seatbelts. Also, director Shinchiro Watanabe, the helmsman of all 26 episodes and two "Animatrix" shorts, makes "Bebop" a sweet stew of different locales and cultures (the animators have traveled to New York, Paris and Morocco for references), subtle comedy, tense drama and fierce action sequences. The dogfight scene, with Kanno's toe-tapping score, is superb: Spike avoiding three army jets in his Swordfish craft.

Like Osamu Tezkua's METROPOLIS, BEBOP is an interesting allegory to the Sept 11. attacks. In fact, the film was released in its native Japan ten days before the attacks, making it a hot potato for Sony Pictures' Destination Films department. They released it anyway, and I'm happy for that. The DVD extras are neat too, including six documentaries that focus on the TV show's transition to theatrical film, the international appeal and the four main heroes. Seeing both the English and Japanese voice actors is a treat.

With no sense of social cowardice in an unsure world, "Bebop" is a smooth, sweet middle finger for those who feel animated films and TV shows should be only for kids.

That's the best description I could come up with after seeing "The Big Lebowski", a quirky, belly-shaking, tripping shamus comedy.

Pacifist deadbeat and bowler Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (lovable shaggy dog Jeff Bridges) is a victim of mistaken identity when two dopes rough him up and p*** on his rug, wanting money. The real target is a wealthy, paraplegic philanthropist (David Huddleston of "Blazing Saddles"). "The Dude" wants reimbursement for the rug, but finds rich Lebowski is a hypocrite. However, his trophy wife Bunny (Tara Reid of the first two "American Pie" films) is kidnapped and asks "The Dude" (love that nickname) to play courier for the ransom, yet there's something rotten in Denmark.

Joel and Ethan Coen (they're both writers, producers and directors in my view) has performed another masterpiece for movie fans who don't want the same, run-of-the-mill junk from the dream factory all the time. The actors' performances are well steered. John Goodman, a stock actor in the Coens' universe, is funny as Walter, Bridges' volatile bowling chap and a class-A oaf, who thinks everything has to do with the Vietnam War, which he fought in, much to The Dude's grief. Julianne Moore (who looks like my kindergarten teacher which I had a crush on) is sexy as Maude, the rich Lebowski's daughter who creates strong, feminist artwork (any relation to the same named sitcom with Bea Arthur) and helps out the Dude (in more ways than one :)). Plus, other Coen figures, John Turturro (a grad of my elementary school, St. Clare in Queens, NY) and Steve Buscemi (former Valley Stream, Long Island resident and firefighter), are fun too. What caps the film is the "Gutterballs" sequence (the Kenny Rogers song, the Saddam Hussein lookalike, Moore as a Viking, Bridges as a TV repair guy and the bowling pin dancers rock!) and "The Stranger", played by dry-voiced Sam Elliot, who questioned his participation in the film. Was he supposed to be God or what? Then again, weirdness is the rule of the Coen Brothers' films and it hasn't failed them. Far from it, to quote "The Stranger".

Enjoy this film. ;)

Two schmucks try to rob a rich guy's house. They get mistaken as the owners when beautiful women show up for a casting party.

I saw this on Comedy Central. What a s--- of a film.

The unedited version has nudity but who cares? Buy a copy of Playboy and feel sorry for Ted Lange (Issac the bartender from "The Love Boat") who plays the bad guy badly.

Before the wraith of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebod, who slaughtered some of their fellow students at Columbine High School in April 1999, Anthony Broussard, a dead-end teen, killed his girlfriend, Marcy Conrad in 1981, in the town of Miltipas, California. He bragged and showed his friends his dirty work; they didn't "narc" to the police for a few days. A 18-year-old student had a conscience, though, and Broussard was sent to the slammer.

Tim Hunter's "River's Edge" is based on that same story and still remains scary, riverting and powerful at the same time. John "Samson" Toilet (Daniel Roebuck of "Nash Bridges") is a fat, non-empathic fool who strangles his girlfriend after she demeans his late mother. He shows his buds the naked body and they divide over Samson's fate. Crispin Glover's Layne is electric and stupid. He protects Samson like a big brother (or a lover?) from the cops while Matt (played by a young, surprising good Keanu Reeves) is haunted by the image of the dead girl and does the right thing. He even get laid by Clarissa, one of the girl's close friends, played by Ione Skye, who shares Matt's feelings over the killing.

Some people may disgusted by the film's comedy, but it's needed to help the audience deal with the situation. Dennis Hopper as the one-legged ex-biker-turned-free weed-dealer is a hoot. So is Glover. But what makes the film haunting isn't Roebuck (who admits his crime to Hopper in an spine-tingling scene), it's Tim (Joshua Miller), Matt's brother, who looks to John as a better role model than Matt in the film. Fortunately, at the end, the bond between idol and fan is broken.

Watch this film with an open mind. Especially if you're a parent who has a troubled kid.

I first saw this movie on local TV when I was thirteen, going on fourteen in 1991. Big mistake for me, since the film was edited. I bought on DVD and watched it again. Priceless.

Actor/director Rob Reiner takes Stephen King's novella "The Body" and makes it a sweet, nostaglic masterpiece. Four 12-year-old boys go on a two-day trek to find the body of a dead kid to be famous. Instead, they grow up. The performances are memorable and easy to relate to. Wil Wheaton's Gordie is a boy struggling to find his place in the world while dealing with the recent death of his brother (a very young John Cusack); the late River Phoenix's Chris is a hard kid who wants nothing to do with his white trash roots and helps Gordie not to fall the pit of going nowhere. Corey Feldman's Teddy is a mercurial soul, having fantasies of war in order to please his father, a WW2 vet committed to an asylum for nearly burning his left ear off and Jerry O' Connell's Vern is an lovable coward who reminds me of Curley from "The Three Stooges". Don't forget Kiefer Sutherland's performance as Ace, a hard bully to end all hard bullies. I can see why he was picked as Jack Bauer on the hit TV show, "24".

What gives the film its soul is Wheaton and Phoenix. I like the former's performance because he reminds me of me, an awkward kid who's anemic in his father's eyes. It (and the film) inspired me to be a writer, and I'm grateful for that. As for Phoenix, not only his performance as Chris was powerful (he should have been nominated for his confession scene about stealing the milk money), his unfortunate death mirrors the character's demise, making the film haunting and brilliant at the same time.

Some (like Leonard Maltin) complain that the use of profanity dulls the film because profane words were largely taboo in the 1950s, yet the characters are middle-lower class (like King was before he was famous) and deserve to be honest (See the "Porky's" trilogy and "LA Confidential).

Buy, not rent, this movie and watch. And reflect on your childhood. :)

Based on the video game, "Heavy Gear" is a pretty cool CGI series. On the planet Terra Nova, in a distant future, war veterans have become providers of entertainment, fighting in huge armor called "gears". Hence, the The heroes are the Shadow Dragons and the bad guys are the Vanguard of Justice. Each group's members and personalities contradicts the group's names, making the show quite interesting. My favorite characters are Shadow Dragons Serv (Clancy Brown) and Sebastian (Ed Hopkins).

The awesome animation is supplied by Mainframe Entertainment ("Reeboot", the Transformers' Beast Saga), and the stories are tight and action-packed. Check out "Heavy Gear" or you'll be sorry!

HM 2000 is a fun, action-loaded adult-animated movie that makes no apologies for being what it is: a guilty pleasure. I loved the mixture of 2-D and 3-D animation, and the voice performances by Julie, Mike and Billy are wickedly impressive. Plus, the mad-thumping soundtrack by bands like Days of the New, MDFMK, System of a Down is a sweet icing on the cake.

Based on "The Melting Pot", a comic book by Simon Bisley, Eric Talbot and Kevin Eastman (Julie's husband and head of the adult illustrated magazine "Heavy Metal"), HM 2000 is wickedly twisted, telling the tale of a power-mad space pirate who wants to live forever and the female warrior who wishes to stop him since she murdered her people and destroyed her homeworld.

I wished this movie came out in US theaters, but movie-house owners are too chicken, fearing parents and politicos. What the heck is "The Simpsons" and "South Park"? Instead of a honest adult-animated film, there's a con job named "Titan A.E" which bombed at the box office. This sequel's more respectful of the 1981 classic, and I hope there's plans for a third "Heavy Metal" film.

Keep the metal heavy!

When "Farscape" premiered March 19, 1999, on The Sci-Fi Channel, I was hooked on it like a fish. "Buck Rogers" meets "Star Wars" meets "The A-Team" meets "Moby Dick" meets "Heavy Metal Magazine" is the best way to describe the show. The cast is very talented, especially Ms. Edgley, who plays the devious trollop, Chiana. Rowwwww. "Star Trek" is dead; long live "Farscape".

When I first saw it, I was expecting Japanese anime, but I got more from "Heavy Metal". The animation, though dated, is pretty good, and I like any animated film that has mature themes. "So Beautiful and So Dangerous" and "Taarna" are my two favorites. I'm hoping to see the long-awaited sequel along with that other big film, "Star Wars: Episode One".