Red Dead Redemption

So in my previous blog post I mentioned that one of the reasons I’d been away from my blog for so long was that I had too many other things going on in my life. Well, one of those things (which has sucked up hours and hours of my life) is the video game Red Dead Redemption. This has to be one of the most engrossing and fun games I’ve ever played (a close second would be Borderlands, which is just way more fun than any game has a right to be). Red Dead Redemption (referred to hereafter as RDR for brevity’s sake) is based on the Grand Theft Auto game engine (and made by Rockstar Games, the same creative minds behind the GTA games), so if you’ve ever played any Grand Theft Auto, you’ll have a good idea as to the basic gameplay. The big difference, of course, is that RDR takes place in the Wild West instead of the gritty streets of modern America.

This western setting is a big part of what drew me to this game over the GTA series (which I would like to play at some point, but I’m not as excited to play them as I was RDR). One interesting twist that I hadn’t expected when I first bought the game – it actually takes place in 1911, so it’s a much later western era than I had expected (which is one of the themes of the story – the idea that modern technology/society is bringing the days of the “wild west” to an end).

Here’s the background of the story – you play John Marsten, a former outlaw who walked away from his gang after they left him for dead. He got married, had a son, and started a new life for himself with a small ranch. But his past has come back to haunt him – government agents are holding his family hostage, and will release them on one condition – John must hunt down and kill the three members of his former gang.

We begin our adventure in the territory of New Austin, which is basically a southern US desert environment similar to Texas or New Mexico. In the opening scenes of the game, you are shown the location of one of the men you are supposed to kill – he and his new gang have taken over an abandoned Army fort. His men shoot you, leaving you seriously injured, but you are rescued by a woman named Bonnie who runs a ranch in the area with her father. Your first goal of the game (well, as far as the main storyline of the game anyways) is to figure out how you’re going to get into the fort so you can kill your former friend.

Unlike most games of this sort, which generally feature a linear storyline that you move through with very little deviation, RDR features an open-world concept (inherited from the Grand Theft Auto games) which is pretty unique to Rockstar Games. While I don’t have enough experience with other companies’ games to make a definitive statement, from various reviews I’ve read and comments I’ve gotten from more die-hard gamers than myself, no other company has come close to duplicating the open environment that you find in GTA and RDR.

And so, instead of moving directly from one story point to the next, what you have here is an open map that you can explore at your leisure. And what an amazing map it is! The graphics are fantastic (I was surprised at how much fun I had just riding my horse, randomly exploring the landscape and enjoying the view). But more importantly, the game is rich in gameplay opportunities completely separate from the main storyline. There are all sorts of animals you can hunt and plants you can pick (and there are specific tasks to accomplish that allow you to move up through ten levels of such skills as hunting, survival, and sharpshooting). There is also a “treasure hunter” skill that you advance through by tracking down hidden treasures throughout the map (at each treasure location you find a cache of gold, and a map giving hints to the location of the next treasure).

You can take bounties in town, and then go track down the criminal on the bounty and either kill him or lasso him, hogtie him, and bring him back to the sheriff’s office (you get more money for bringing them back alive). And there are all kinds of people that you’ll encounter as you travel around. Most of them will ignore you as they go about their business, but often they will interact with you in various “world events” (as the game calls them). These are usually quick, simple encounters, such as someone who’s just been robbed, and wants you to chase down the thief and return whatever was stolen (usually their horse or wagon), or saving someone from bandits, or from a pack of wolves. Another common encounter features someone coming up to you asking for help, but then pulling you off your horse and trying to steal it (an obvious nod to the car-jacking that is such a core part of GTA).

Last time I checked my stats, I want to say I’d encountered almost three dozen unique world events (and a total of several hundred world events – most of the events are encountered numerous, numerous times over the course of the game). However, nothing says you have to complete these events, so if someone challenges you to a duel, or tells you his buddy is about to be hanged and he needs your help, and you’re headed in the opposite direction, or in the middle of trying to do something else (or you’ve simply run into that event enough times you have no interest in spending time on it), you are free to just ignore them and continue on with what you were doing.

The game also features longer, more involved side missions called “stranger missions”. These involve more time and effort than the simple “world events”. They also really showcase both the brilliant writing of the game, and the wicked (and very warped) sense of humor of the writers. For example (spoiler alert – skip this and the next paragraph if you’re planning on playing through the game and don’t want to read specifics on the stranger missions), in one mission you meet an old man who asks if you can help him gather flowers for a bouquet for his wife. You then get a mission to gather a certain number of three different types of plants (which are scattered across the map, so there’s a fair bit of travel involved in gathering them all. But that is one of the great parts of the game – nothing says you have to complete the mission right away, so you’re free to travel the map doing other things, and just get the flowers as you run across them, and then when you have them all you can get around to going back to the old man to complete the mission). When you return to the old man with the flowers, he takes you into his house to give them to his wife – at which point you are introduced to her desiccated corpse, which has clearly been dead for a while (but her husband very much interacts with her as if she were still alive).

This sort of dark humor and these kinds of bizarre encounters are very common throughout the game (for example, in another stranger mission – titled “American Appetites” – you’re given the task of trying to find a series of missing persons. What you discover (which shouldn’t come as a surprise, based on the title of the mission), is that the missing people have all been eaten by a cannibal). If you appreciate this sort of humor, you’ll really enjoy the many side stories in the game.

In order to move through the main story of the game, you bring up your map, where you’ll see indicators as to the locations of the main story events. To activate a story event, simply travel to the location shown on the map. Generally there are two or three story threads that run concurrently through sections of the game. You can do all of one then all of another, or you can jump back and forth between them. For example, after Bonnie rescues you at the beginning of the game, she takes you into town to get some medicine for your injuries, and tells you that the local marshal may be able to help you on your mission. From this point there are now two story indicators: one for Bonnie, located at her ranch, and one for the marshal, located at his office in town. Each has several missions that you complete in a set order, moving you forward through the story. Bonnie's missions are all related to ranching activities, and work as nice tutorials to help you learn how to do such things as ride your horse and properly use your lasso, whereas the marshal’s missions are all combat related. But while each person’s missions go in a set, linear order, you can do all of Bonnie's missions, then all the marshal's missions, or vice versa, or you can go back and forth between the two.

When these sets of missions are completed, you then open up access to three new characters. Again, each has a series of missions you complete with them, but you have the option to do all of each person’s missions one after the other, or you can bounce back and forth between the different characters, completing a mission for one, then doing a mission or two for another, then jumping back to the first. And of course as you’re completing these missions you are free to take time out to complete stranger missions, to complete the tasks required for your various skills, or to simply wander the map looking for random encounters.

As the story unfolds, you eventually unlock two other map areas – the first is in Mexico, and the second (called West Elizabeth) features a Great Plains area (complete with a herd of buffalo) and a forest/mountain region resembling the Northwestern US. Each new zone unlocks new stranger missions, new treasure locations, new animals and plants, and new people and places to encounter, as well as new events for the main storyline. There are literally hours and hours and hours of things you can do to occupy yourself, including playing such mini-games as poker, black jack, horseshoes, and arm wrestling. And as I mentioned before, the writing is just incredible. Not only is the main story really engaging and well-written, but the various side stories are also really well done. And the characters you encounter throughout the game are all colorful, well-developed, and for the most part very memorable individuals.

And just when I thought I couldn’t enjoy the game more (and released just before I finished the main storyline, so the timing was perfect), Rockstar released a major new single-player update for the game: Undead Nightmare. As the name implies, this drops your characters right in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. And like the main game, the update is brilliant. The main story is pretty straight-forward: John Marsten's are bitten by a zombie (at which point John is forced to tie them up and board up his house so they can't get out). John then sets out to discover what has happened and how to stop it. Along the way he helps to secure the towns and settlements, while encountering many of the main characters form the original game.

As far as general gameplay goes, Undead Nightmare plays in much the same ways as the original: you have your main story missions, plus various side missions (appropriately called “survivor missions” instead of “stranger missions” like they were in the main game). There are new treasures to go after, and new tasks to accomplish to advance through the levels of your hunting and sharpshooting skills. But instead of the survival skill that you had in the main game (which required you to gather various numbers of different plants), you now have the goal of finding and breaking the Four Horses of the Apocalypse (I first encountered (and consequently broke and rode) Pestilence, and I’m currently riding around the map on War, which is just unbelievably cool).

While I’m not necessarily a huge fan of the zombie genre, it is one I enjoy (I’ve played a number of zombie video games that were lots of fun), and Undead Nightmare really delivers. Zombie encounters are exactly what you’d expect – really easy when there’s only a couple of zombies, but suddenly really, really difficult when you make the mistake of getting in the midst of a large group of them. And I love the wild west setting (which is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in a zombie game, movie, etc.). One of the interesting twists that the western setting gives you is zombie animals -- you see undead horses and cattle roaming around, and have to fight off undead grizzlies and mountain lions.

About the only complaint I have with the game overall is some of the controls (this is definitely one area where I would say Borderlands is very much the superior game). There are times that it is difficult to get your horse to do what you want it to, and I find myself way too many times crouching when I triy to run because of how they did the crouch. Now admittedly, I’m sure that many of these problems are as much my lack of hand-eye coordination as they are actual problems with the controls themselves (and I’m sure if I were more of a die-hard gamer I wouldn’t have some of the problems that I do). But that’s still the main thing (really, the only thing) that I find annoying about the game, and the big area where the game could be improved.

I loved the original story, and can’t wait to finish Undead Nightmare to see how it plays out, and I look forward to future expansions to the game (as well as the inevitable Red Dead Redemption 2, although I’m sure that’s a ways away). In conclusion, if you’re a video game player at all, and you like a good western, then this is a must-play game. And even if you’re not, I still cannot recommend this game highly enough.

The More Things Change . . . .

Seems like forever since the last time I updated this blog (although 3 ½ months is certainly a much shorter gap than the almost 3-year break I took previously). The problem has been a combination of being busy with too many other things, and having a hard time getting motivated to write. In effort to address at least the motivation issue, I’ve decided to make a slight adjustment to the nature of ye ol’ blog, somewhat inspired by my previous blog entry. Instead of doing just a movie-centric blog, I’m going to expand the content to include movies, TV shows, comic books, novels, video games, music, horticulture (okay, maybe not horticulture); in other words, whatever random topics happen to catch my attention and inspire me to write. And with the change in format, comes a change in title. I’m taking the title of my previous blog entry and turning it into the title for the entire blog – “And Now For Something Completely Different . . . .” (and if you don’t know where that particular line comes from, well you’ll just have to look it up. Oh, and shame on you!).

For our first entry of our new and (hopefully) improved blog, I’m going with a spooky, post-Halloween theme (I’m only a week late, which for me is pretty good). Topics for discussion today include one old movie, and one brand new TV show. So last night I watched an old supernatural horror/thriller made way back in 1983 – The Keep. I picked up this movie partly because I love the cast, and partly because I vaguely recalled enjoying it the first time around (sadly, it doesn’t play as well 25+ years later, but it’s still not too bad a movie). The first surprise that I got as the opening credits rolled was that it was written and directed by Michael Mann (of Miami Vice fame). This certainly isn’t the type of movie you’d normally associate with this director (this is, however, one of his very early films).

The movie takes place in the mountains of Romania during World War II. A Nazi army captain, played by Jürgen Prochnow (an actor I’ve always really liked), is given orders to garrison his soldiers at a mysterious and forbidding stone keep blocking a pass through the mountains. After his men begin to die horribly one by one, a group of SS soldiers is sent in to deal with the problem, led by Gabriel Byrne (another brilliant actor). Other great actors in the film include Ian McKellen as a Jewish scientist brought in because of his knowledge of the keep, and Scott Glenn as a mysterious stranger who knows the secret of the keep. As the movie unfolds, you quickly learn that the keep was built to imprison a powerful evil that is desperate to escape its prison.

The visual effects for the movie are really cheesy, especially by today’s standards (and were probably at least a little cheesy even by ‘80s standards), and both the writing and acting have their weak, silly moments. What the movie really has going for it, though, is atmosphere. There’s an eerie, spooky feel that the movie maintains throughout, even during the cheesier scenes. Especially impressive is the keep itself, which really does look like it was built to hold some ancient evil. The other thing the movie really gets right as far as atmosphere is the music. The score was done by Tangerine Dream, a new age/electronica group that not only have done several excellent soundtracks (over 60, I was surprised to learn on Wikipedia), but have also done some great non-soundtrack albums (if you like electronic music, that is).

As I was watching the movie, the wannabe filmmaker in me (oh, if only I’d gotten into film in high school, instead of computers) really keyed in on the music. I don’t think I can over stress just how important a part of a movie a good score/soundtrack is. The right music can make an indelible impression on the viewer, forever tying the music to the film in the viewer’s mind. Ennio Morricone’s scores for Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns is a perfect example of this; and who can forget Mike Oldfield’s theme song for The Exorcist?

Other musicians whose scores I really enjoy include Vangelis (who won the Oscar for Best Original Score for Chariots of Fire, as well as scoring Blade Runner and 1492: Conquest of Paradise for Ridley Scott – both phenomenal scores), Graeme Revell (who’s done dozens of great movie scores), and of course the brilliant Danny Elfman, who was the front man of Oingo Boingo before going into movie scores. He’s probably best known for his work with Tim Burton (having done the scores for all but two of his movies), but has done films and TV shows too numerous to mention.

But enough talk about music for today (although in some future blog entry I’m sure I will return to the topic of movie music) – let’s get back on track with our post-Halloween theme. At the beginning of our show I mentioned a brand new TV show. The show in question would be AMC’s The Walking Dead, which premiered on Halloween night. As the name implies, this show is about a zombie apocalypse (and thus, not for everyone). It is based on a very successful comic book series (one which I haven’t read yet, so no idea how good the original comics are, or how close the show is to said comics). I have to say, while not perfect, I loved the pilot for this show! Of course, the fact that it was written for the screen, directed, and executive produced by Frank Darabont (director of such classic films as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) probably has a lot to do with that.

Okay, let’s play TV/film critic for a moment, and get the negatives out of the way first. Sadly, there were a few aspects to the story that I found a bit derivative/predictable. The main character awakens from a coma in a hospital to find it completely abandoned, which feels a lot like the opening to 28 Days Later. This same main character later heads for Atlanta, which is supposed to be a safe haven protected by the military where the CDC is busily working on a cure, only to discover the city is filled to the brim with zombies (this is such a standard part of most zombie films as to almost be cliché, but it’s hard to be too upset about its inclusion, because it is such a standard that it almost wouldn’t feel right to NOT have it). The big story aspect that really disappointed me, though, is the tried and true “love triangle” – the main character’s former partner (both were deputy sheriffs) and his wife have assumed that he’s dead, and so naturally have become romantically involved. This is one of those silly story complications that has just been over-used to death. I’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out here before I pass final judgment.

Other than these few slightly weak story points, though, I absolutely loved this show. The cinematography and editing are both especially excellent. You really get to see just what a television show can accomplish when it’s done with cinematic sensibilities (clearly one of the advantages of having a film director on board as the main creative force behind the show). Let’s start with the opening scene. We see our main character, a deputy sheriff, leaving his vehicle and walking down a deserted highway carrying a gas can. Abandoned vehicles litter the street. He reaches a gas station, where we see a small, hand-written sign reading “No Gas” and more abandoned cars. Our hero hears something, and moves towards the noise. Looking under a car, he sees a pair of slipper-clad feet, and a small hand reaching for a teddy bear. Moving around the car, he sees a young girl walking slowly away from him. He calls out to her. She stops, then slowly turns around. Not surprisingly, she is a zombie. As she begins to move towards our hero, he hesitates for a moment, then pulls his sidearm and puts a bullet through the middle of her forehead. We watch her body fall backwards to the ground, then cut to opening credits.

And right there the show lets you know very bluntly and boldly (and surprisingly graphically, especially for a basic cable channel) exactly what it’s about. I loved it. Before the opening credits even roll, you’ve got a really good idea what you’re in for (so if it’s not your type of show, you’ll know it right from word go, and can change the channel before investing any real time watching). After the opening credits, we jump back in time to before the zombies arrive, where we see the main character sitting in his squad car with his partner (same guy who ends up involved with his wife later in the show). After a brief conversation between the two men to let us get to know a little about them, they become involved in a post high-speed chase shootout that leaves the main character seriously injured from a gunshot wound.

When the hero awakens in a hospital bed an indeterminate amount of time later, he finds the hospital both deserted and completely trashed (including dead bodies in the hallways and a line of bullet holes along one wall). He comes across a padlocked door spray-painted with the words: “Don’t Open. Dead Inside.” Finally he stumbles outside. The camera stays close in on him, focused mostly at his feet. You see him walk past a dead body wrapped in a sheet, then another, then another. The camera then pulls back to an overhead shot, where you discover there are dozens and dozens and dozens of dead bodies stacked up in rows outside the hospital. It is incredibly well shot and edited together to really hit you with the impact of just how many dead there are. It is one of the best scenes in the show, and I loved how it was done.

Things are pretty standard from there as he is saved from zombies by a pair of survivors, who explain to him what’s been happening (in brief, at least – they don’t go into as much detail as I would have liked; specifically, at no point does the man ask what date it is or how long the zombie plague has been going on, which in my mind at least is one of the first questions I’d be asking if I'd just come out of a coma – especially if I'd come out of it into such a bizarre and unbelievable a scenario). He leaves the pair to head off to Atlanta, where as mentioned above he discovers it is overrun by zombies. One interesting twist is that after his car runs out of gas, he finds a horse, and ends up riding into Atlanta on horseback, which had a retro western sort of feel that I liked. Of course, things don’t work out so well for the horse (but I’ll leave the details of that to your imagination).

And that’s about where the first episode ends. In the scenes of upcoming episodes, we see our hero connect with a group of survivors in Atlanta, while at the same time his wife, son, and partner are in the wilderness with other survivors also trying to stay alive. Based on what I’ve seen so far, this show has the potential to be really, really good, and I can’t wait to see the next episode. Of course, as the one review on the show that I read pointed out, The Walking Dead is likely going to have to pull in an entirely different audience from that of AMC's other hits Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and if it doesn’t it could have a hard time staying on the air (which would suck). We’ll have to wait and see how it does.

And thus concludes my return to the blogosphere. With any luck, by expanding the concept of my blog to go beyond the realm of just movies, I’ll be able to stay motivated/inspired enough to actually update the stupid thing on a more regular basis. Until then, “Be seeing you.” (another quote you’re just going to have look up if you don’t know where it came from)

And Now for Something Completely Different . . . .

For this entry I’m going to do something a little bit different, in that my focus is shifting some from movies into books and comics (as well as movies). I mentioned in my previous entry that I wanted to discuss the concept behind the movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The more I developed this idea in my head, the more I expanded on it, and so what I’d originally planned as a short, quick entry about one movie has expanded into a full-sized entry that covers a couple of movies, a couple of TV mini-series, a comic series, and a book. In order to explain the concept of this entry, let us begin with a quick introduction of the movie that inspired this entry, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (or LXG for short). For those folks who aren’t familiar with it, the film is based on the comic book series of the same name, written by Alan Moore (author of comic series V for Vendetta, Watchmen, and From Hell). It takes place in Victorian England, and features characters drawn from a variety of popular works of fiction from this era.

What I want to talk about in this entry is the idea of bringing famous characters from other works of fiction together into a new story. I’ve only run into the concept a handful of times, but I find it really fascinating (and when done right, really fun to watch/read). Of course, due to copyright issues, I’m guessing you can generally only do this with really old stories, where the characters have entered the public domain (or you have the resources to acquire the rights to use the characters – an issue that I guess 20th Century Fox ran into with the movie, which is why they list their character as AN invisible man, because they hadn’t secured the rights to call him THE Invisible Man – no idea how all that works, though). That being said, copyright issues aside, I just love the idea of taking well-known characters that are from the same genre of stories, or from stories set in the same general area/time period, but that are from separate, distinct stories, and bringing them all together into a combined universe.

While I have found other examples of this idea, LXG definitely is at the top of the list in doing this in a huge way (especially the comic books). The movie features all of the main League member characters from the comics –Mina Harker (from Dracula), Allan Quartermain (from King Solomon’s Mines), Captain Nemo (from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, and an invisible man. The movie also adds two additional characters – Dorian Gray, and Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer (grown up and a member of the US Secret Service). There was a fair bit of discontent among fans of the original comics at the inclusion of Tom Sawyer, not only because he’s not in the comics, but also because he is an American fictional character, and not a character out of Victorian England (which Dorian Gray at least is).

I have mixed feelings about Tom Sawyer’s inclusion in the movie. On the one hand, it pisses me off because it’s a prime example of blatant studio interference in the movie-making process (Fox insisted on his inclusion in the movie, because they felt that an American character would make the movie more appealing to American audiences). That being said, personally I have to admit that I liked his inclusion in the film. I liked the idea of Tom Sawyer grown up and a Secret Service agent. I also think it really fits well with the concept of the comic books (regardless of what other fans might think), which pulled random characters into the story from all over the place.

I decided to re-read the comics while I was writing this (since I hadn’t read them in a few years), and I also found a Wikipedia entry that listed all of the various characters included in the comics. It’s almost insane just how many minor characters in the comic are from other works of fiction. For example, they give the name of a prostitute who was killed by Mr. Hyde – who the other characters are trying to track down at the time – and it turns out the name used is actually that of a main character from an old novel. In a later issue they briefly show The Artful Dodger (from Oliver Twist) as an old man leading his own group of young thieves. One of the secondary characters they bring in that I especially enjoyed seeing was C. Auguste Dupin, a French detective created by Edgar Allan Poe (and a precursor to such future detective characters as Sherlock Holmes).

Another interesting variation on this concept that Alan Moore uses in the comics is to create supposed ancestors of famous characters from later time periods. For example, one of the supporting characters is Campion Bond, who is supposedly the grandfather of future spy James Bond. Another example (that I read about in an interview with the artist), is that in one of the London crowd scenes, everyone in the crowd was drawn to look like a Victorian era version of (in essence, an ancestor of) the characters of East Enders (a very popular British soap opera).

It astounds me to think of the level of thought and research and effort that the writer and artist had to have put in to incorporate all of these dozens of characters into their stories. Admittedly, when you really look into it, it almost feels like overkill, but it’s still awfully cool. But even without all these extra secondary and minor characters, just bringing together the main characters the way the movie does really makes for a fun story (even if the movie’s execution is only okay and not great).

There are only a couple of other theatrical films that I’ve run across (at least that I can think of) that have followed this same concept. One is the sadly disappointing Van Helsing. This is a movie I really wanted to like. I like both stars, Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale, and I loved the idea of bringing together several old school Universal horror movie monsters into one movie – namely Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein’s monster. Done right, I think you could make a really interesting movie. But in this case, the story was incredibly dumb, and the movie overall was really mediocre.

Another film that used the classic Universal horror movie monsters, but in a much more intentionally silly, tongue-in-cheek way, was The Monster Squad. This movie pulled in pretty much all of Universal’s horror characters – in addition to Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and the Wolfman, it also included the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It’s been enough years ago that I watched this movie that I don’t remember much about it (I had to jump onto Wikipedia to refresh my memory as to the plot), but as I recall it was a pretty enjoyable movie (and one I need to watch again one of these days).

A book series which has done something similar to LXG is the Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer – the big difference being that Riverworld featured a variety of historical figures as opposed to fictional characters. This series has never been made into a theatrical film; however, the Sci-Fi Channel adapted it into both a 2-hour movie (meant to be the pilot for a regular TV series that was never done) and a 4-hour mini-series. I’ve never read the original stories, but from what I’ve read online, both Sci-Fi Channel versions make significant changes from the books. I watched both movies, and both were alright without being spectacular. The concept behind the stories is really intriguing, though – all of humanity from throughout time has been resurrected on a distant planet that is composed of one long winding river. This allows you to bring together a wide variety of historical figures into the same story (for example, the mini-series featured Samuel Clemens – aka Mark Twain – as one of the heroes, and Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizzaro as the main villain). The story possibilities you could develop in this environment are pretty much endless.

Another example of this combining of characters that I want to discuss is also a book, but one that has never been adapted to the screen (although I’d love to see a well-done movie version of it). The book in question is A Night in the Lonesome October, by Roger Zelazny (which also happens to be my all-time favorite novel). It is a short novel, and is written in a simple, very easy to read style. It’s written almost as a journal, with each “chapter” comprising a single day, running through the month of October, some time in the late 1800s, just outside of Victorian London (while the exact year is never given in the book itself, someone on Wikipedia with too much time on their hands figured out that it takes place in 1887, based on the fact that in the story there is a full moon on Halloween, and this is the only year during the Victorian era that this occurred).

The basic plot of the story is that whenever there is a full moon on Halloween, the possibility exists that a mystical gateway can be opened between our world and a dimension of ancient beings – beings very obviously based on the elder gods of H. P. Lovecraft’s stories (for anyone who’s curious – a full moon occurs on Halloween generally every 19 years, with a few exceptions here and there. The fact that I found this information is proof that I have too much time on my hands). Whenever this occurs, various individuals gather and spend the month of October essentially playing an elaborate game as they prepare for Halloween, at which time they come together on two sides – one side trying to keep the gateway closed, while the other tries to throw it open (which would essentially lead to the end of the world).

Here’s the interesting part (well, one of the interesting parts, at least) – all of the people who play this "Great Game " (as they call it) are based on either characters from Victorian era horror stories, historical figures, or standard horror story archetypes (such as a witch, or an evil priest). But there’s a twist that the author gives it that I absolutely love. He never comes right out and names the characters (but at the same time, he makes it very obvious who he’s talking about). For example, there is a vampire simply known as “The Count”, and a mad scientist trying to bring a creature to life who is only referred to as “The Good Doctor”. Then there’s “The Great Detective” and his assistant (a very obvious reference to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson), who aren’t actual participants, but complicate things as they investigate a murder in the area. My absolute favorite, however, has to be the main character, a knife-wielding gentleman who goes simply by Jack. I just love the idea that Jack the Ripper (of all people) is the hero of the story.

There are a number of other things about the story I just absolutely love, and it is beginning to end just a wonderful book (I’ve read it numerous times). However, none of that relates to the theme of this entry, and I figure I’ve gone off-topic enough in discussing a book that hasn’t ever been made into a movie (this being a movie blog and all). I did want to talk about it, though, since it does use the same concept as the movies I’ve mentioned in this entry (and it gives me an opportunity to talk about my favorite novel).

Another combination I’ve seen done a number of times (mostly in comic books – it's a concept that I think would be hard to pull off in a movie; maybe you could do it in a mini-series) is bringing the characters of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz together. There are all kinds of possibilities there, especially if you go back to the original books (which have a much broader and more interesting cast of characters than most of the movie versions of the books).

Regardless of what characters are used, I just love the idea of taking various characters from different sources and bringing them together to tell new and exciting stories beyond the scope of the original books the characters appeared in. This is a fascinating concept that I’d love to try in my own writing – the first step, of course, being to decide which characters to bring together. So the question I would put forth to you, dear readers, is, “What characters would you bring together into a new story if you could?” And with that I conclude this month's blog. Next month we will return to our regularly scheduled movie discussions (without all these silly tangents into books and comic books and other non-movie subjects).

Comic book movies (that you might not recognize as comic book movies)

As someone who’s both a big movie buff and a major comic geek, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with comic book movie adaptations. When they’re done right (such as the Iron Man movies and the original X-Men movie), it’s a wondrous thing – movie magic at its finest. On the flip-side, however, you also get stuck suffering through steaming heaps of dung like the Wolverine movie, where the filmmakers blatantly couldn’t care less about the source material or its fans, which just makes us comic geeks want to beat someone within an inch of their life for completely screwing up a beloved character. What I find interesting, though – and what I’ll be focusing on in this post – is just how many comic-book based movies have come out in the last few years. More specifically, how many of them have come out that feature no super powers, and zero characters dressed in spandex.

When the average moviegoer hears the phrase “comic book movie,” they are almost certainly going to immediately envision something featuring superheroes of one sort or another. Which isn’t too surprising, considering that not only comic book movies, but the large majority of comic books themselves are primarily about superheroes. That being said, there are still a vast number of comic books out there covering every imaginable genre – crime fiction, westerns, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romance, you name it. And a surprising number of these have been made into movies. So what I’ll be focusing on here are movies that are based on comic books that most people would likely not realize were based on comic books (although some are certainly less surprising than others).

Let’s start with two movies that shouldn’t surprise anyone as being comic book movies (although neither features superheroes of any sort), both based on the works of the brilliant Frank Miller – Sin City and 300. Both of these are just great films (I’d even say Sin City is among my top ten favorite movies of all time). But let’s talk about 300 first. To begin with, to all those idiot critics out there who complained about the film’s lack of historical accuracy, let me re-emphasis: THIS IS A COMIC BOOK MOVIE!! Yes, the comic book was inspired by actual historical events, but it was never intended to be an accurate portrayal of said events. It was meant to be a fantastic, larger-than-life depiction of them. And the movie follows suit. It’s not supposed to be a historical film, much less a documentary. It is a fantasy, pure and simple. It just happens to be a fantasy loosely based on a real event.

What can you say about this movie? It’s got it all – violence and bloodshed, sex, political intrigue, powerful characters, a lush (yet very dark) visual style. I was completely engrossed in this movie from beginning to end. Gerard Butler is fantastic as King Leonidas (and is an actor whose work I’ve continued to enjoy ever since), and Lena Headey is wonderful as his queen (the line she delivers when she kills the traitorous senator is easily one of the best in the movie). Now I fully admit that this is the kind of movie that’s not going to appeal to everyone, but I loved every minute of it (and I’d love to see Hollywood put out more films like this).

Then there’s Sin City. This is another movie I just can’t say enough good things about. For starters, I’ve been a fan of Robert Rodriguez as a director going all the way back to El Mariachi. And the fact that he brought in Frank Miller to be co-director on the movie (and used the original comics as his storyboards) I think was a stroke of genius. The biggest plus this movie has going for it is that it’s based on a great set of stories. In my mind (although, as a writer, I admit I may be a bit biased) there’s nothing more important in a movie than the story. I don’t care how great your actors are, how top-notch the director is, or how massive a special effects budget you have, if you’re starting with a weak story, you’re going to end up with a weak film.

Which, of course, is why Sin City shines. Because on top of a great story, it did have a top notch director, and a cast full of brilliant actors & actresses (and I’m guessing a pretty solid effects budget). Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis especially stand out in my mind as giving great performances, but even the bit players are great actors. Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Powers Boothe, Rutger Hauer, Elijah Wood, the list goes on and on (and I’ve written before about how much I loved Devon Aoki as Miho). I’m also a huge fan of the visual style of the film – the black & white with just splashes of color here and there really has an impact. It’s just such a great movie. Now if only they’d get around to getting the sequel released!!!

Let’s switch gears a little now, and move on to a movie (and sequel) that still has a solid comic book feel to it, but isn’t quite as blatantly a comic book movie as the two above, and that would be the wonderful Men in Black (I and II). How can you not love these movies? Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones both give great performances (not to mention Frank the Pug, who steals pretty much every scene he’s in, and the wonderfully funny worms). And once again you have a movie that starts with a solid story (more so the original than the sequel, but sadly that tends to be the norm with sequels), and more importantly, really great dialogue.

Which is something I’d like to take a quick detour to discuss. I think one of the biggest things that makes a movie truly memorable is great dialogue (this is one of the reasons I’m such a huge fan of all things Joss Whedon – the man really knows how to write great dialogue). If you think of all the movie moments that really stand out in your mind, I’ll bet a lot more of them are going to be memorable quotes than really big explosions (not that there aren’t a few movies that have some pretty memorable action scenes, mind you). And this is why we see so many forgettable, throwaway movies these days – too much focus on big action scenes and visual effects scenes, and not enough solid, memorable dialogue.

And shifting back to Men in Black, my favorite line in that movie comes when Will Smith asks Tommy Lee Jones why keep aliens a secret, saying that people are smart and could handle it. And Tommy Lee Jones replies, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.” Such a great line. And Tommy Lee Jones’ solid delivery in that simple scenes to me is one of the most memorable parts of the movie (and is but one of many great lines in the movie). And here’s some exciting news for anyone out there who doesn’t know already – Men in Black III is due out in 2012! Keeping my fingers crossed that it’s as good as the first two.

So far the movies I’ve talked about, while clearly not super-hero movies, are still pretty easy to recognize as comic book movies. So how about we take a look at a comic book movie that bears no resemblance to what one would normally think of as a comic book movie – Road to Perdition, a Prohibition-era movie starring Tom Hanks, Jude Law, and Paul Newman (and let’s not forget Daniel Craig, BEFORE he became famous as the latest incarnation of James Bond). Yes, believe or not, this movie was based on a comic book. I haven’t read the original graphic novel, but I hear good things about it (and I need to pick it up one of these days). I do know that I absolutely loved the movie. Being a huge fan of gangster movies certainly helps, but this movie also has a great story and just an amazing cast. Tom Hanks does a near-perfect job as a loving husband and father who also happens to be a mob hitman. This is a character that could have easily gone to either side – either too much of a nice guy/family man for you to believe he killed people for a living, or too much of a hardened killer to buy him as a dedicated father. Hanks really does a great job of straddling that line and making both sides of that character believable (and I think director Sam Mendes also plays a big part in this).

Paul Newman once again shows us why he’s such a Hollywood legend. He gives a solid performance as a father torn between his real son and his surrogate son, and makes a great old-school Irish mobster (an even more impressive feat considering he’s not the least bit Irish). And Jude Law certainly gives us one of his more intriguing performances as the psycho hitman who’s chasing after Hanks and his son. The movie was nominated for numerous awards (and won the Oscar for best cinematography), and with good reason. This is a beautiful, stirring film, and one I highly recommend.

Another film that does not at all feel like a comic book movie is the Jack the Ripper thriller From Hell, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore (author of both V for Vendetta and Watchmen), and starring Johnny Depp. I love this movie (interestingly enough, I actually enjoyed the movie much more than the original comic). Depp is fantastic as always, and I’ve always been fascinated with Jack the Ripper, so I’m automatically drawn to any film connected to him. Now the big thing to take into account with this particular movie is that it is VERY loosely based on the comic (I would guess that fans of the original probably hated the movie; for myself, I actually had a really hard time getting through the comic – it’s a very in-depth story that you either really get into, or really don’t, and sadly I just found it to drag way too much). One of the big differences is that the comic is not really a mystery story. The true identity of the killer is actually revealed very early on, and from there the story is much more of a character study, looking into the mind of a man capable of becoming a serial killer.

The movie, on the other hand, falls solidly in the mystery/thriller genre, with the emphasis being on Johnny Depp trying to discover who the killer is. This is a big part of why I liked it better than the comic – I love the mystery element, which to me is part of what makes the Jack the Ripper mythos so interesting. By starting out knowing Jack’s real identity, you take out half the fun, which is trying to figure out who the murderer is. Regardless of its differences from the original story, however, From Hell is a great example of a comic book story completely different from the traditional super-hero comics most people are used to.

Before finishing this off with one of my all-time favorite movies (comic book related or otherwise), I wanted to mention a couple of very recent non-super hero comic book movies, one really, really good, and one not so much. The not so great movie is one that just came out, and that’s the horror-western Jonah Hex. Now I must admit I’ve never read any of the Jonah Hex comics, but I do have a passing familiarity with the character. And one of the few pluses of the movie is that Josh Brolin really does justice to the character. His performance really shines in what is otherwise a fairly mediocre movie. John Malkovich, on the other hand, really failed to impress me. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he phoned in his performance, but at the end of the day the character really isn’t distinctive from any of Malkovich’s other baddies. And while Megan Fox always makes for some welcome eye candy, she really doesn’t have much else going for her as an actress (her role here as the pseudo-sidekick/love interest really feels like a throwaway character the movie would have done just as well without).

The movie tries to do the retro sci-fi thing similar to Wild Wild West (now there's an interesting possible blog topic – retro sci-fi/steampunk movies!), but doesn’t completely embrace and go over the top with it like Wild Wild West did (and just isn’t nearly as much fun as Wild Wild West was). And while the supernatural elements are brought over from the comic, they probably could have been done better. The biggest failing in the movie, though, is the direction. My main complaint is that the movie should have been done as a western, and it isn’t. Instead you get a generic summer blockbuster style movie, that just happens to be set in the Old West. I think this movie could have been so much better if it had been crafted to have the feel of an old Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, especially considering the dark, grim nature of the title character. A little more drama and emphasis on character, and a little less focus on the action scenes and big explosions would have gone a long ways towards making this a really enjoyable film, as opposed to the mildly enjoyable, but ultimately forgettable popcorn movie that it was.

The other, and MUCH better, comic book movie that came out recently (back in April) was The Losers. Now this movie was everything a comic book movie (or any movie adapted from another source, as far as that goes) should be. It was respectful of the source material, and as true to the source material as it could be while still maintaining all the sensibilities of a good movie (sadly, the flip-side of movies like Wolverine that essentially ignore the original comic book stories are movies that try too hard to be completely faithful to their source and its die-hard fans, which generally makes for a weaker movie, because cinema is a completely different storytelling medium from books or comics or video games, and as such there are changes that really need to be made to the way the story is put together to make a good movie, even if that means changing or removing things from the original).

I’m a pretty big fan of the original comic series of The Losers, and so I went into this movie with equal parts excitement and nervousness. The movie did not let me down in the least. They got the characters right, and a lot of the story elements in the movie came right out of comics (I read an interview with one of the screenwriters, and he commented that he’d read all the comics, and that when he read good lines in the comics that he really liked, he pulled them directly into the script instead of trying to re-word them to make them more his, which I thought was brilliant).

I also loved the tone of the movie – light-hearted and fun without becoming overly silly (the comics are more serious in tone, but the light-hearted tone really worked well in the film). This movie is exactly what The A-Team movie should have been (and sadly wasn’t). It doesn’t try to be the big action blockbuster; instead it goes for a simple, straightforward action comedy feel (much like the feel of The A-Team TV show). Sadly The Losers under-performed at the box office (which is too bad but not really a surprise), but people who didn’t go see it don’t know what they’re missing. This is the sort of underrated gem of a film that all too often gets overlooked at the theatres these days (which is really a shame, considering the worthless junk that people do rush out to go see). I’d love to see a sequel to this (since the comics have a much longer story than what is covered in the movie), but that’s probably not likely to happen.

There are a number of other comic book movies that I originally considered discussing, such as Wanted, V for Vendetta, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (all movies that I really enjoyed), but in the end I decided to make this a little shorter of an entry (so that I could get the silly thing finished, if for no other reason), so I’m going to skip them this time around and move right to my final movie (although I’m thinking I’d like to do an entry specifically on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, though not so much on the movie itself as the underlying concept of the movie – and more so the comic books it’s based on).

To bring this entry to a conclusion, I want to review what at one point in time was my absolute favorite movie (and is still very high on the list), and that is The Crow. This is a fantastic film based on an incredible comic (one I highly recommend reading). It tells the tragic tale of a young couple who are murdered by gang members. A year after their death, the man is brought back to life in order to avenge himself and his fiancé. Adding to the tragic nature of the film is the fact that the star, Brandon Lee, died during filming. Brandon Lee’s performance is both intense and poignant – he really brings this character to life. And I loved the dark, Gothic nature of the film, both in story and in visual style (but that’s very much a personal preference for me – I’ve always had a love for films of this sort). This movie (along with the next movie he directed, Dark City) also made me a huge fan of director Alex Proyas, who is high on my list of favorite directors (even though he has only directed a handful of movies).

One of the other great things about this movie is the soundtrack. This is among my favorite CDs, and the music really enhances the intensity of the film. I’ve always loved movies with a well-done soundtrack/score, and am a firm believer that the right music is critical to a great movie. And The Crow did a fantastic job of really taking advantage of the power of its music.

The movie was successful enough to spawn not only three sequels, but a television show as well. Of course, none of the sequels came close to the original film (not a surprise, really – the combination of the actors, the director, and the original story came together in just such a beautiful way that there’s no way you’re going to reproduce that in a sequel). I never really watched the TV show, which is almost too bad, as I’m a really big fan of Mark Dacascos, and I’d love to see his interpretation of the character (have to watch the series on Hulu one of these days, I suppose, since it only ran one season). I think it really says something when a dark, comic book based revenge movie can generate this kind of success. The Crow is a prime example of what you can achieve when you do a comic book movie right. It does a great job of staying true to the source material, while still playing as a great movie.

And with that, I think I will bring this entry to a close. Hopefully, dear readers, you’ll walk away from this week’s blog with a better appreciation for the diversity of stories coming out of the comic book world. There’s a lot more going on than just dudes in spandex, and with luck Hollywood will continue to find great comic book stories to make into movies, that don’t necessarily feature super-heroes (especially considering how much more writing talent you’ll find in the comics industry than in Hollywood).

Animated Films

So I was thinking about an overall theme for a series of blog entries (if for no other reason, I figured it would make it easier for me to come up with ideas for individual posts, since I sometimes have a hell of a time coming up with a good idea for my next blog entry), and decided I could focus on different genres of film that I enjoy (which sprang out of the idea of doing a blog about video game movies). A number of genres that I’m a big fan of quickly came to mind – westerns, war movies, heist films, mob movies. But then I latched onto a subject that’s not so much a genre of film, as a category of film, and one that sadly I think doesn’t get nearly the respect (in this country, especially) that it should, and that is animated films.

Let’s get a little nomenclature out of the way first – I don’t care what it might say in the dictionary, animated films are NOT cartoons. Cartoons are animated television shows aimed primarily at children. Which, of course, is the big problem that animated films have with American audiences. In the mind of the average American film-goer, animation is automatically linked to Saturday morning cartoons, which is why 98% of all US animated films are family/children’s movies. And sadly that final 2% struggles to find an audience, simply because people looking for a serious, non-children’s movie are likely to ignore it (simply because it’s animated), and people looking for a family-friendly movie who do go see it are immediately going to pan it and give it bad word-of-mouth, because it wasn’t the kid-oriented movie they were expecting (again, simply because it was animated).

The simple truth that American audiences don’t get (and let me state now that all of this is simply my opinion based on personal observations – other people may look at all of this from a different viewpoint and completely disagree with me), is that animation is simply a medium. It’s a way to tell a story, and there’s no reason why you can’t tell any sort of story that you like. I run into the same situation when I talk about being a comic book buff (and I’m a HUGE comic book buff) – when you say the words “comic book” to most people, they immediately assume juvenile fiction featuring super-heroes. And while admittedly that’s the main focus of the mainstream comic book industry, there is a world of serious, well-crafted literature to be found in comic books if you take the time to look (but that’s a whole other discussion that I could go into at great length, but I will refrain, as this is a movie blog – although one of these days I need to do a review of “comic book movies” that have been made that have nothing whatsoever to do with superheroes).

As an example of the sort of animated movie that suffered (in my mind) from this perception of animated films as strictly kids’ movies, let’s take a look at the highly underrated Titan A. E. This is a brilliantly animated, wonderfully enjoyable science fiction film. Here’s the problem, though (at least in part) – it was directed by Don Bluth, creator of such kid-friendly films as The Secret of NIMH, The Land Before Time, and All Dogs Go To Heaven. And while it’s only rated PG, Titan A. E. pushes the boundaries of the rating, and is by no means a little kids’ movie. But because of the director’s previous film, Fox of course had to push it as a family movie. And shock of shocks, the critics weren’t at all impressed (but my very, very low opinion of newspaper movie critics is a subject for a whole other rant). So what happens? All the parents who take their kids to it opening weekend based on the director’s previous films are disappointed because it’s not really a kids’ movie, and the sci-fi fans who the movie was meant for don’t bother to go see it because they figure it’s a kids' movie. And thus a good movie fails at the box office at least in part because of misconceptions on the part of the audience.

But I don’t want this entry to be a rant (well, not too much of a rant), so let’s shift into the positive. What I really want to focus on here is all the great animated films out there that people are potentially missing out on because they only think of animated films as 'cartoons'. And the best place to start is with the brilliant films of director Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi got his start with Terrytoons, working on such classic cartoons as Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle. Then in 1972, he released his first feature film, the infamous Fritz the Cat (which is most notable as being the first animated film to receive an X rating – although by today’s standards it would likely only receive an R). He continued to release controversial, yet critically praised, animated films from there.

His most well known (and my opinion, his best) movies were released in 1977 and 1978, and those were Wizards and The Lord of the Rings, respectively. Wizards has to be one of my top 10 all-time favorite animated movies. It’s a very well done post-apocalyptic fantasy/sci-fi film, that focuses on two brothers, one good and one evil. The good brother uses magic, while the evil brother uses technology. The film’s story is solid and in many cases thought-provoking, and the animation, while not super realistic like so many movies strive for nowadays, still has a very distinctive style that is enjoyable to watch.

Next came the brilliant The Lord of the Rings. Prior to Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy, this was the definitive Lord of the Rings film. Unlike Peter Jackson, Ralph Bakshi was only able to get the movie studio to greenlight two movies as opposed to a full trilogy, and even more tragic, after the first film was released he wasn’t able to get studio backing for the second half (which is a damned shame, in my opinion, and a clear sign that Hollywood producers were just as generally stupid back in the '70s as they are now). Like Jackson’s films, Bakshi stayed as true to the original books as he could (while still being forced to streamline the story to fit a movie’s length and pacing). And he really did do a good job of it.

Most enjoyable for me, though, was the visual style of the film. Bakshi used a technique called rotoscoping, which involves shooting live action scenes with real actors, then having the animators trace over the film frames to produce the animation. This produces a more realistic animation style, and allows for more complex scenes to be animated (this technique was also used on Titan A.E.). He also used a photographic processing technique called posterization (named so because it was originally used in making posters), which I’ll let my good readers research on their own if they want to know more about it (since it’s kind of hard to describe, and I don’t feel like copying the Wikipedia entry here). If you’ve seen the film, the shots that look like live action, but with a distorted, pseudo-animated quality to them, these would be posterized shots.

When released, the film was without question a financial success (on a $4 million budget, it made $30.5 million at the box office), but for whatever reason, the studio decided not to pursue the second half of the film, so you only get half of the story. And while Peter Jackson’s version is clearly superior (not surprising, considering he had a significantly higher budget, was allowed to make each book into a separate film, and was actually allowed to make the entire trilogy), Ralph Bakshi’s version is still an absolute must-see in my book. Bakshi continued to make films after this, some that I enjoyed, some not so much, but these two stand out as the two I would highly recommend to any film buff.

The next movie I want to touch on is the cult classic Heavy Metal. I’m only going to discuss this one briefly, as it’s not one I own (and I haven’t watched it in years), but it’s a significant enough movie (that really fits the topic of non-kid friendly animated films) that I felt I’d be remiss if I didn’t give it at least some mention. The 1981 movie was executive produced by the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine, and featured a series of short stories, all either taken from, or inspired by, stories from the magazine. And just like the magazine, all of them featured a fair bit of violence, sex, and nudity, and are definitely not for children (or the easily offended). Being a collection of stories, each with their own writers and animators, you get a variety of quality, and some parts of the movie are definitely better than others. All in all an okay film, but not really high on my list of great movies. It is, however, a great example of the use of animation to produce a movie specifically geared for a mature audience. An interesting bit of trivia about the movie – it took 15 years from the theatrical release before the movie was released on video. And this had nothing to do with the popularity of the movie; no, the release was held up because the filmmakers had gotten theatrical and soundtrack release rights for the music, but hadn’t thought to get video release rights. And so it took them 15 years to iron out the legal issues surrounding the music in the movie (which is a key aspect of the film, so you really couldn’t release the movie without the music). This is yet another topic I could do an extended rant on – how all those greedy, selfish bastards in the RIAA are continuously causing problems for DVD releases (although that mostly applies to television shows as opposed to movies, so probably not something I’ll go into on my blog).

Leaving Heavy Metal behind, let’s now move back into the realm of great animated films that I can highly recommend as being well worth seeing. Let's start with Watership Down and The Plague Dogs. The reason I’m covering them together is they are both based on the novels of Richard Adams. I’ve only read the book of Watership Down (which is a wonderful story), but based on how much I enjoyed the movie version of The Plague Dogs, I’m guessing it’s also a great novel. These are both of these are great, great movies. However, they are not exactly kid-friendly movies. I especially would not recommend them for younger kids, as both movies are pretty violent, even though they're rated PG and PG-13, respectively (I was somewhat annoyed (although hardly surprised) to see how many 1 star ratings Watership Down got on Amazon, evenly split between fans of the novel who were disappointed with the movie version (which I completely understand), and idiots who were shocked and upset because it wasn’t a movie for little kids (it had bunny rabbits on the cover, how could it not be a kiddy movie???) – which is exactly why I wanted to write this blog post). That being said, I feel that both films are prime examples of animated films meant to appeal to a broader, more discerning audience than just children, and truly exemplify how animated movies can tell amazing stories that live action/CG can’t really capture (and while that is changing as CG technology improves, I still feel that some stories just work better as traditional animation).

Watership Down is easily the more successful and well known of the two films, so we’ll start with it. There aren’t enough good things that I can say about this movie (and I don’t care what criticisms others may have about the story or animation). Firstly, it does a very good job of staying true to the book (well, as true to the book as any movie can be expected to be – which of course means that most die-hard fans of the book will be disappointed, but at the end of the day, that tends to be true for any movie adaption of a beloved book). Most importantly, it maintains the darker, more violent aspects of the original story, without trying to soften it or make it more lighthearted to appeal to a younger audience (this is most likely because the movie was produced in Great Britain as opposed to the US). And not only do you get an amazing story, but the animation is just absolutely gorgeous (at least I think so). The movie is so enjoyable to watch just on a purely visual basis. I may be biased, though, because without question Watership Down is one of my all-time favorite movies, of any category. If you haven’t seen this movie, you really should.

The next film adaptation of a Richard Adams novel was The Plague Dogs (directed by the same man who directed Watership Down). While it doesn’t quite have the same beautiful visual quality as Watership Down, the animation is still well done, and the story is really well done. Having not read the book, I can’t vouch for how close it is, but from what I’ve read online the filmmakers worked to try and keep it as true to the book as they could. While not as high on my list as Watership Down, it’s still definitely a movie worth seeing. One word of caution, though – while the story is superb, the dark, tragic nature of the story makes it hard to watch at times (and I fully admit to crying by the end of the movie, but that’s just me). It hits you hard, which makes it a tough movie to watch multiple times, especially when you know how it ends (in a lot of ways it reminds me of Bridge to Terabithia in that respect – if you’ve seen that movie you’ll have an idea what I’m talking about). Interestingly enough, this is the one big change from the book. From what I’ve read online (again, not having read the book), the movie drops the epilogue of the book, which provided a much happier (and more fully resolved) ending to the story than the one the movie leaves you with.

As I head into the last section of this blog entry, no discussion of animated films would be complete without some mention of Japanese anime. And as I am a very big fan of anime, I’ll be doing much more than just mentioning it. Japan seems to be the one country to have fully developed animation into a broad spectrum medium, easily equal to live action. Japanese animated movies run the full gamut from family/kid movies all the way to hardcore pornography, and everything in between. You can find sci-fi/fantasy, dramas, thrillers, comedies, you name it. For pretty much any category of movie out there, Japan likely has at least one animated film that fits the bill. There are enough solidly enjoyable anime films that I’ve seen that I could easily do a full blog post on just anime, but as this entry is already plenty long enough, I’ll try to narrow it down to just some of my absolute favorites.

Naturally the first director I need to discuss is the one who is likely most familiar with American audiences, and that is the brilliant Hayao Miyazaki. Of course, part of why he’s found success in the US (at least in my mind) is that his films by and large fall fully on the family-friendly side of the movie spectrum, putting them more in line with the American mindset on animated movies than a lot of Japanese anime. But this doesn’t change the fact that he is an amazing storyteller, and every one of his films more than deserves the accolades and success that they have received. I would say that Pixar is the only American animation studio that even comes close to being able to tell the mature, complex, yet completely family-friendly stories that Miyazaki tells in his films. And call me old-fashioned, but I’m going to buck the current trend and say I much prefer the traditional style animation of his movies to the CG style of Pixar’s (which is not a criticism of Pixar at all – I really enjoy their movies as well).

On the subject of Pixar, while I’m not going to discuss their movies -- since they clearly don’t have any problems with people not seeing their films -- I do want to briefly discuss why I think their movies work as well as they do, and why they are across the board better than the rest of the animated family/kids’ movies being produced in the US these days. This relates to Miyazaki’s movies in that he does the same thing (it’s not surprising that John Lasseter, executive producer of Pixar, intros the US DVD releases of all of Miyazaki’s movies, and was the driving force behind getting them released in the US). It’s all about the stories (something the other studios just don’t seem to get). Here’s my opinion of how Pixar/Studio Ghibli (the studio that produces Miyazaki’s films) movies differ from other animated family movies: with most kids' movies, you get a story clearly written specifically for kids. The filmmakers then go back and throw in a handful of scenes/bits of dialogue meant to try and entertain the parents in the audience. Sadly the problem here is that these occasional moments aren’t going to offset the mind-numbing silliness of the rest of the movie (and in way, way too many cases, the filmmakers make the questionable choice of putting in risqué and in my mind somewhat inappropriate moments that they’re hoping will make the adults laugh while being over the heads of the kids, the assumption being that the kids won’t realize Mommy and Daddy are laughing at something they’re not old enough to need to know about).

With Pixar/Studio Ghibli movies, what you get is the exact opposite. Their writers craft stories pointed specifically and directly at adults. They are complex, well thought-out, moving and emotional stories. They then go back and make sure there are at least a couple of very silly, kid-friendly characters, and a good helping of exciting, action-packed animated scenes to make sure the kids are entertained. And what you end up with are brilliant movies the entire family can enjoy. Because let’s face it, the simple truth of the matter is that kids (especially younger kids) are paying little if any attention to the story. They’re way more focused on the silly talking dog who’s constantly distracted by squirrels (from Pixar’s best movie to date, Up). So why on earth would you try and write a story that only works in the mind of a 5-7 year old, and just expect the parents to suffer through it? So for what little it’s worth, here’s my advice to all writers of family movies (be they animated or live action), as well as to moviegoers looking for family movies the entire family can truly enjoy – you want a story that’s written with the parents in mind, and NOT the kids. And to the good folks at Pixar, all I can is – keep up the great work!!

And on that note, let’s get back to Hayao Miyazaki and his wonderful films. Although it’s actually one of his later films, the movie that first brought Miyazaki to the attention of American audiences (in a BIG way) was Spirited Away, which beat out 20th Century Fox’s Ice Age and Disney’s Lilo & Stitch to win the Best Animated Film Oscar for 2003 (and very deservedly so). Amusingly enough, Disney, which holds the American distribution rights for all of Studio Ghibli’s movies, had only bothered to give the movie a limited theatrical release, until it won the Oscar, after which Disney suddenly decided to go ahead and give it a full wide release. While not my favorite Miyazaki film, it’s really high on the list, and easily among my favorite animated movies (but that’s a true statement for most of his films). For those folks reading this who somehow haven’t seen this movie yet, I’m not going to go into details about the story, I’m just going to tell you to see it! You won’t regret it (and if you do, all I can say is go back to watching your reality television, as quality storytelling is obviously beyond you).

While I absolutely loved Spirited Away, I would have to say that my favorite Miyazaki film would be the one that directly preceded it, Princess Mononoke. This is one of the few Miyazaki films that’s not really geared for kids (not younger kids, at least). It is an epic fantasy adventure about mankind versus nature (the inhabitants of a mining town battle against the spirits of the nearby forest, while a young warrior tries to convince both sides to put aside their differences and live in peace). The animation is amazing, there’s plenty of action, and the story is compelling and a joy to watch unfold. I highly recommend this movie.

I own almost every one of Miyazaki’s movies that have been released on DVD in the US, and have enjoyed every one. Anyone who enjoys good storytelling is not likely to be disappointed by any of his movies. But his films are far from the only Japanese anime worth checking out. There are a numerous great movies, covering a broad range of subject matter. Before bringing this long and winding entry to a close, there are a couple of notable movies that I wanted to touch on. The first is Ninja Scroll. This is a fantasy/martial arts film set in feudal Japan. Our hero is a wandering swordsman who finds himself battling a group of ninja who are searching for a ship filled with gold (well, there’s more to it than that, but that’s the quick summary of the plot). The visuals are very well done, and the villains all have supernatural abilities, many of which you’d have a hard time pulling off in a live action film without them looking silly. But seeing them in an animated film, they look great. The fight scenes are also very fun to watch (another example of this is Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, which is such a better movie than the silly live action version that Jean-Claude Van Damme was in).

The final film I want to touch on is Perfect Blue. This psychological thriller tells the story of a former pop idol turned actress, who finds herself tormented by a stalker, while those around her are murdered – with her as the prime suspect. She becomes more paranoid and delusional as the film goes on, and the film does a great job of intertwining her delusions with the things going on around her. It also blends scenes from the TV show she is starring in with things going on in the real world, leaving the viewer constantly guessing what’s really going on. It brings to mind (at least for me) the movies of Brian De Palma, and is easily as enjoyable as any live action movie of the genre. If you enjoy a good thriller, especially a complex psychological thriller, then this film is well worth your time. And while this is a movie that could very easily be done as live action (as was originally intended to be live action, but then the production's budget was cut, so they chose to make it animated instead), that the fact that it is animated in no way makes it a less enjoyable or well-made movie.

These are but two of the many, many great anime films out there. Among the more well known in the US are such movies as Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Appleseed (all great sci-fi movies that I highly recommend to any fans of science fiction). But as long as this entry has gotten (and as overdue as I am to get a new entry published on the ol’ blog), I’ll forgo detailed reviews and simply recommend them as worth watching. And so I at last bring this entry to a close. My one hope would be that the reader walk away from it with, if not a new-found appreciation of animated cinema, at least a curiosity to investigate the numerous wonderful animated films that are out there, and a willingness to approach them with an open mind. Do not do like so many (I’ve particularly seen this in customer reviews on Amazon) and immediately condemn a movie as not being any good simply because it’s not (and was never meant to be) a children’s movie.