Tag Archives: animated

All-Star Superman gets a 4K Ultra HD release on April 18

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All-Star Superman

One of the Man of Steel’s most personal tales in DC history – from the mind of comics icon Grant Morrison, and produced under the expert oversight of animation legends Bruce Timm and Dwayne McDuffie – All-Star Superman will be available to own on 4K Ultra HD for the very first time on April 18, 2023 from Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment.

Grant Morrison’s beloved, Eisner Award-winning vision of Superman’s heroic final days on Earth is brought to exquisite, animated life in All-Star Superman. The film begins as the Man of Steel rescues an ill-fated mission to the Sun (sabotaged by Lex Luthor) but, in the process, is oversaturated by radiation – which accelerates his cell degeneration. Sensing even he will be unable to cheat death, Superman ventures into new realms – finally revealing his secret to Lois, confronting Lex Luthor’s perspective of humanity, and attempting to ensure Earth’s safety before his own impending end with one final, selfless act.

Twelve years after its initial release, All-Star Superman holds a “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  The film was the 10th in the ongoing series of DC Universe Movies and DC Animated Movies that now number more than 50 films across 17 years.

The star-studded voice cast is headed by James Denton (Good Witch, Desperate Housewives), Christina Hendricks (Mad Men, Good Girls) and Anthony LaPaglia (Without A Trace) as Superman, Lois Lane and Lex Luthor, respectively. Other noteworthy cast members are seven-time Emmy Award winner Ed Asner (Up, Elf, The Mary Tyler Moore Show) as Perry White, Golden Globe winner Frances Conroy (American Horror Story, Joker, Six Feet Under) as Ma Kent, Matthew Gray Gubler (Criminal Minds, Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise) as Jimmy Olsen and Linda Cardellini (Avengers: Endgame, Dead to Me, ER) as Nasty.

Rounding out the impressive cast are Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy), Steve Blum (Star Wars: Rebels, Cowboy Bebop, Naruto), Catherine Cavadini (Elvis, Soul, The Powerpuff Girls), Finola Hughes (General Hospital, Staying Alive), Alexis Denisof (Guardians of the Galaxy, Angel), Obba Babatunde (S.W.A.T., That Thing You Do!), John DiMaggio (Futurama, Interview with the Vampire), Chris Cox (Family Guy), Robin Atkin Downes (The Strain, Batman: The Long Halloween), Kevin Michael Richardson (Mortal Kombat, The Simpsons), Fred Tatasciore (Star Trek: Lower Decks, American Dad!) and Michael Gough (Overwatch, Batman: Arkham Origins).

All-Star Superman is executive produced by animation guru Bruce Timm (Batman: The Animated Series) and directed by Sam Liu (Batman: The Killing Joke, The Death and Return of Superman) from a script by acclaimed animation/comics writer Dwayne McDuffie (Static Shock, Justice League/Justice League Unlimited).

McDuffie, an incomparable force in the comics and animation realm, was a co-founder of Milestone Media, the industry’s most successful minority-owned-and-operated comic company. His creations are headlined by Static Shock, for which he won a Humanitas Prize in 2003, and he served as producer in helping guide the beloved Justice League/Justice League Unlimited animated series. McDuffie passed away in 2011 at the age of 49.

SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE:

  • The Art of the All-star Adaptation (New Featurette) – Go behind the scenes and inside the process of screenwriting, character designing and scoring the animated adaptation of the quintessential Superman comic series, All-Star Superman. This fascinating featurette includes insight from executive producer Bruce Timm, director Sam Liu, character designer Dusty Abell and composer Christopher Drake.
  • An All-Star Salute to the Silver Age Superman (New Featurette) – Explore DC’s historical inspirations in Grant Morrison’s love letter to the wildly fantastic Silver Age of Superman in comics.
  • Superman Now (Featurette) – In a moment of inspiration, Grant Morrison was provided an opportunity to revamp the Man of Steel into something modern, something more relevant for today’s audience. This is the story of All-Star Superman – where it all started, and what it came to be.
  • The Creative Flow: Incubating the Idea with Grant Morrison (Featurette) – A detailed look at Grant Morrison’s original sketches and ideas.
  • Audio Commentary – Featuring the thoughts of Bruce Timm and Grant Morrison.
  • Digital Comic Book – All-Star Superman

Movie Review: Abominable

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Abominable

Abominable is a movie we’ve seen dozens of times before, so even though it runs on rails it isn’t altogether bad. The one thing that switches it up even a little bit is its Chinese setting. In the dozen of other iterations of this film, this would have always been set in America. Likely the most interesting thing about Abominable is what it says about the future of Sino-American relations and global culture as even American animation studios with American creative teams try to go after the Chinese market more explicitly.

But otherwise, this is just an animated E.T. with a Yeti.

Our main story revolves around Yi, a teenage girl played by Chloe Bennet (Marvel’s Agents of Shield), herself a Chinese-American, who finds this runaway creature, befriends it and decides she needs to take it back to Mount Everest where it came from. This trip ends up mirroring a planned trip that she and her recently deceased father had always meant to go on. The trip ends up healing her and her grief as they discover more and more of the yeti, who she names Everest, and his magical powers.

But also this seems like a tourist travel video promoting the beautiful and varied landscapes of China. If this movie had been set in America, they would have stopped at the iconic places we all would think of– Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, etc. They do the same with the Gobi Desert and the Yangtze River as it seems Everest’s most powerful magic is to completely distort space and time so that each of these things are within walking distance of one another. But hey, it’s a kids movie.

The animation is crisp and beautiful. It’s everything we expect DreamWorks to do. Everest’s playful design is quite reminiscent of another Dreamworks Animation main creature– Toothless from the How to Train Your Dragon films. Kids will absolutely love him.

It’s also worth noting that writer and director Jill Culton is a veteran of Pixar who worked on not only the Monsters, Inc. films but also several of the Toy Storys. Everest is essentially Sully mixed with Toothless, and that’s not a bad combination. But as I said, we’ve seen this movie before. And frankly, it’s been done better. Monsters, Inc IS this movie, except the human Boo is the magical monster. But if you’re going to steal, then stealing from that and ET isn’t a bad place to start.

One of the most interesting choices of the film is that its antagonists, played by Eddie Izzard and Sarah Paulson read as English and American. That can’t be accidental, as it’s their greed, pride, etc that leads them to want to capture the yeti for their own nefarious purposes. It’s hard not to read something into that, although perhaps it’s completely earned.

Or perhaps we shouldn’t read anything more into it oh, the same way we don’t particularly read Maleficent or Cruella Deville as being “English” in an American context. Maybe it’s just a cute movie about a teenage girl and her friends who go on a magical adventure with a yeti.

Regardless, while you can do far better then this by-the-numbers animated film, you can also do much worse. If your kids drag you to Abominable, you won’t hate it, and you might even enjoy aspects of it. It’s not Pixar or How to Train Your Dragon, but it’s trying to be. And that’s not so terrible.

2 1/2 out of 5 stars

Movie Review: Coco

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Coco-Family-PosterPixar seems to have the magic capable of making children smile and adults weep. And with Coco, they add to that a masterful, universal story about family filled with music and visuals to delight the senses.

And while it is universal, it is also very specifically Mexican, while also never feeling false or like it appropriates their culture. Given our current political climate in the United States where Mexicans are denigrated as “bad hombres,” “drug dealers” and “rapists” (and that’s just by the president), this presents a true representation of a culture where family and remembering your legacy is key. It also ends a long and painful history where Disney has really failed in representing Latinos and Latinx culture.

Our story centers around Miguel, a young boy who is obsessed with music despite it being banned from his family for generations. His nonagenarian great-grandmother Coco was abandoned as a child by a musician father who went off to seek his fortune. Left without a patriarch, the family’s matriarchy learned to make shoes, a trade which is their family’s legacy and heritage.

On the Day of the Dead, they place all of the photos of their extended and departed family on the ofrenda to remember them, including a photo of Coco as a child with the face of her musician father torn out. Miguel comes to believe that this missing great-great-grandfather might in fact be one of Mexico’s greatest singers of all time, Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt), so he breaks into de la Cruz’s memorial at the graveyard to borrow his guitar to play in a talent competition.

Because of the weakening of the barriers between worlds on Dia de los Muertos, Miguel finds himself transported to the land of the dead where he must find a member of his family to give him a blessing to help him return. Hearing a con artist ne’er-do-well skeleton named Hector (Gael Garcia Bernal) mention that he knows how to get access to de la Cruz (who is still a hugely big deal in the afterlife apparently), they decide to team up. Hector’s price is he needs Miguel to put his picture on his ofrenda so he can cross over to see his family and loved ones. Having been forgotten, he is in danger of completely fading away, suffering a “second death” from which no one knows where you go.

This brings to the forefront the film’s theme on the importance of remembering your family and loved ones. Perhaps better than any other Pixar movie to date, this has well-developed themes that make it not only entertaining but meaningful.

Also unlike other Pixar movies, this is a musical. But unlike the traditional Disney princess model of musical, here the music is an organic part of the story and storytelling. They sing songs that are thematically relevant, but they always do so because there is a talent competition, a concert, or so on. In this way, it’s very similar to last year’s Sing Street. There’s also an easy comparison to Kubo and the Two Strings, although that film did less with its music as a storytelling device, but both films up the ante with delivering authentic stories about family and loss mixed with a realistic, loving tribute to another culture.

And the music is excellent. One of the recurring songs is de la Cruz’s biggest hits “Remember Me.” This takes on special significance when understanding that it is the remembrance of our family that continues to sustain them even after death. A final version of the song sung at the end with Miguel reunited with his family will not leave a dry eye in the theater.

And then there’s the visuals. Pixar is able to deliver a beautiful, stylized version of the land of the dead that is surreal, vibrant, and beautiful. The use of color, especially of orange marigold petals, brings life to the film in unexpected ways. The “sugar skull” look of so many different faces gives each character a different look and feel.

The most spectacular are some of the creatures that act as “spirit guides” in the land of the dead. Based on dragons, monkeys, dogs, and other creatures they are day-glo, beautiful, and magical. Miguel’s great-great grandmother’s spirit guide is a giant winged cat-dragon who may be the most impressive visual feat of the film.

The music and the visuals brings up one of the more interesting details many will not notice, but when Miguel plays his guitar, his fingers are playing actual chords and his strums and finger picking is correct for the music he’s playing. This is yet another example of a film taking the time to make sure all its details are right and authentic.

A word of caution: don’t go see this movie in 3D. It doesn’t need it. And wearing sunglasses in the theater will only dampen the beauty of the color palatte, as well as making it harder to wipe away tears that will flow from all but the most stone-hearted among us.

This is not a perfect film. The plot twist at the end is a tad predictable, but for a medium whose entire raison d’être is repeat viewings ad nauseum on home video, it doesn’t need to be. Will it hold up over repeat viewings? Absolutely.

With so many families now spending time during the holidays going to see movies together, there is simply no better choice out there than Coco. Make a date to take your familia as soon as possible.

Final rating: 4.5 out of 5