Paterson: The power of a blank notebook

Paterson
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
2016

If you’re looking for a filmmaker who can accentuate the poetic nature of everyday life, you could definitely do worse than Jim Jarmusch. That’s kind of what his whole career is all about, even when he’s making movies about modern-day samurai or guys escaping from jail. This one is one of his more down-to-earth ventures though, following a regular guy with artistic aspirations through a week of his life.

It’s a pretty low-event movie, one that seems to take place mostly in its main character’s head, and even its most dramatic moment featuring a struggle that’s almost entirely internal. And who better to play a guy of few (verbal) words but one that has a lot going on under the surface than Adam Driver, that most inscrutable (in a good way) of young actors. He plays the eponymous bus driver, who shares a name with his hometown of Paterson, New Jersey, and while he seems to just quietly go about his work and observe what is happening around him, we see him regularly write poetry in a notebook that he always carries with him, and we hear him read these poems in voiceover, often delivering them in a somewhat halting manner, as if he is still composing them.

And that’s about all there is to the movie. Paterson continues throughout his daily routine, working on his poetry and trying to take inspiration from his hero William Carlos Williams and his surroundings, although he seems to be struggling a bit. And that’s where the slow-moving, internal nature of the movie becomes fascinating. It seems that everyone around Paterson has some sort of artistic pursuit of their own, from his wife and her multiple creative outlets (including fashion, interior design, baking, and music), to a young girl he meets who is also a poet, to the bartender at his evening haunt, whose pursuit of his love of chess may end up causing him some trouble, to a cameo by Method Man as a rapper working on his verses while waiting for his clothes at the laundromat. Many of them also seem focused on fame, with the bartender highlighting famous Paterson natives on the wall behind the bar and his wife dreaming of becoming a country music star. And most of all, the spectre of Williams, who is certainly Paterson’s most famous son in Paterson-the-man’s eyes, stands out as the person whose example he’ll never live up to.

But is that really the point? While Paterson’s wife pushes him to share his poetry with the world rather than hiding it in his “secret notebook,” isn’t art truly about expressing yourself creatively, no matter who is watching? Or is Paterson’s intensely internal nature keeping him from sharing his poetry with anyone else, and he needs a push to get him to acknowledge to the world that he’s more than just a bus driver? Whatever the case, he definitely becomes forced to face himself and do something, and that’s where the movie attains a kind of sublime power, a call to action to not let your artistic gifts lie fallow.

I’m especially fascinated by the film’s repeated use of twin imagery. Paterson encounters several sets of twins throughout his week, as well as other instances of doubling (two bus riders having a conversation in which they each relate an experience in which a pretty woman flirted with them, but nothing came of it; a pair of old ladies sporting similar attire and hairstyles; the bus dispatcher complaining about his personal troubles on multiple days, and so on). At first, this seems like a cryptic detail that highlights the poetry that Paterson sees in the world around him, but then it takes on relevance in relation to his wife’s urges to photocopy his poetry notebook. But after thinking about it, I feel like it’s the world telling Paterson that he is more than one thing; he contains multitudes. He can be a bus driver, and a loving husband, and a friendly guy at the local bar, and also a poet. It’s an empowering realization, and one that we can all take to heart.

Kung-Fu Klassix: Return to the 36th Chamber

Return to the 36th Chamber
Directed by Lau Kar-Leung
China, 1980



The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is one of the all-time great martial arts movies, cementing Gordon Liu into the ranks of the best kung fu stars and establishing a lot of the standard tropes about training sequences and Shaolin monks. This sequel-in-name-only is an odd way to follow up on that greatness, taking a much more comedic approach and only vaguely paying lip service to the original. But it's still pretty fun, even if it doesn't rise to the level of its predecessor.

This time around, Gordon Liu plays a goofball who poses as a monk to beg for money from people on the street. His brother, who works in a dye factory, starts having trouble with the management, who bring in outside workers and start docking everyone's pay, then threaten violence on anyone who tries to quit. The poor working stiffs (one of whom include a guy with some ridiculous-looking buck teeth) come up with a plan to have Liu pose as a Shaolin monk and confront the boss to tell him to treat his workers fairly. This leads to some goofy bits in which they help him pretend to use his awesome kung fu powers by throwing themselves around after he waves his arms at them:



This all backfires as expected when the boss, a guy with some actual martial arts skills, challenges him to a fight, and the resulting beatdown that everyone is given puts them in a worse place than ever. So, in despair, Liu decides to go to the actual Shaolin temple and get some real kung fu training so he can avenge his pals.

But, since this is a comedy version of the kung fu movie, he can't get officially admitted as a monk, so he has to try to sneak in to the temple, leading to lots of shenanigans as he pretends to be a monk, tries and fails to participate in the training, and gets repeatedly humiliated. But the wise abbot uses some lateral thinking and tasks him with building some scaffolding around the entire temple, with the ostensible goal of fixing the roof. This gives him the chance to not only build his physical skills, but also to watch as the monks train and come up with his own makeshift version of their techniques:



After spending something like a year working on this, he finally completes the scaffolding, so the abbot kicks him out, having seen that he has unwittingly learned everything he needs to know. He returns despondently to his hometown, feeling like a failure. Everyone is excited to see him, and they're sure he's going to use his new kung fu skills to avenge them, but sadly informs them that he didn't learn anything. But then he discovers his amazing reflexes, and realizes that he did learn kung fu after all, so he goes to confront the bosses at the dye factory.

And all this build-up leads to a pretty great series of fights, as he not only uses the standard punches and kicks to beat up the bad guys, but he also utilizes his scaffolding skills to tie guys up with strips of bamboo in mid-fight:



And then there's a final battle that takes place in a construction site, meaning that Liu has plenty of scaffolding and bamboo to use, giving him the chance to do stuff like this:



So, overall, this one is pretty fun, if not one of the all time greats. It's definitely on the goofier end of the spectrum, with lots and lots of humor that's hit or miss, and it takes quite a while to get to the good stuff, but the final series of fights is enjoyable enough that the wait is definitely worth it, especially when you've got a charismatic performer like Liu to watch throughout. And it's got some unique ideas; I love the way some of these older films would come up with techniques and fighting styles that fit the story and characters while still feeling dynamic and exciting. And there's also plenty of the old standby stuff, like the way the bad guys' weapon of choice in the final battle is those stools that people were always using to fight with in old-school kung fu movies.

I'm always up for a classic Gordon Liu movie, and this one was definitely worth checking out. I wouldn't recommend it for first-timers, but if you're looking for a fun bit of Shaw Brothers chop socky, you could definitely do worse.

Kung-Fu Klassix: Eight Diagram Pole Fighter

Eight Diagram Pole Fighter

(a.k.a. Invincible Pole Fighter)

Directed by Lau Kar-Leung

China, 1984

I had been wanting to see this movie for years, and now that I've had the chance, I'm happy to say that it's pretty awesome, if not in my personal martial arts movie canon. It stars Gordon Liu (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Dirty Ho), which is always a sign of quality, and it's full of really good action, often pitched at an operatic level in which the characters' strong emotions are demonstrated in the ferocity of their fighting. 

The plot kicks off with a battle in which the Yang family, who are loyal to China's royal family, are betrayed by the evil Pan Mei, the queen's father. I'm sure these events have some historical significance, but to somebody who doesn't know their Chinese history, it's basically just political scheming for power. The battle is pretty great though, with the seven Yang brothers using their family's deadly spear technique to kill dozens of enemies before they ate overwhelmed by hordes of guys with spring-loaded weapons that wrap around their spears (and arms and legs), holding them immobile and rendering them helpless and easy to kill. It's a bloodbath, but most of the brothers go down fighting gloriously, and their father, who wields a cool bladed staff, only falls after being shot full of arrows, jumping to the top of a 15 foot tall family tombstone, screaming curses while covered in blood, and dying standing against the monument in a defiant stance:

Only two of the Yang brothers survive the battle (although I think at least one other brother was captured, but he's never seen again). One of them, the sixth brother, is driven mad after seeing his father and brothers betrayed and slaughtered, and he returns home to his mother and sisters, where he spends most of his time either in a near-catatonic state or attacking anyone who happens to be nearby, which forces the women of the family to fight him, including his mother, who wields an awesome dragon-headed staff that was gifted to the family by the emperor. He's played by Alexander Fu Sheng (The Avenging Eagle), who died in a car accident during the filming of the movie, so he kind of disappears at a certain point without playing what should have been a major part of the final battle.

Meanwhile the fifth Yang brother, played by Gordon Liu, seeks refuge in a monastery (after being helped out by a hunter played by director Lau Kar-Leung [Dirty Ho, Legendary Weapons of China]). This isn't exactly a philosophical movie like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin though, so even though the abbot (Philip Ko, Eastern Condors) initially refuses to allow him to become a monk because he's too caught up in seeking vengeance, he overcomes their objections through force of will, shaves his own head, and insists on staying. Having cut off the head of his spear to avoid being recognized as a member of the disgraced Yang family, he decides to learn the monks' method of pole fighting, although he objects to their use of non-lethal methods. They mostly practice on wooden wolf dummies, working out ways to defang the animals rather than kill them, but he demonstrates the superiority of his methods by just smashing the dummy. You would think they would just kick him out for his behavior, but he somehow manages to win them over, mostly because it's necessary for the plot. However, we do get one goofy fight in which Liu attacks a wolf dummy that the abbot manipulates like a puppet, and one pretty awesome fight in which the abbot tries to stop him from heading off to rescue his sister, who was kidnapped by Pan Mei. This scene is probably the highlight of the movie for me, with some amazing acrobatics and some great acting by Liu, who is so determined to save his sister and achieve vengeance for his family that he simply cannot be stopped:



It's also the source of the movie's title, which references the eight symbols of Taoist cosmology, with Liu managing to rearrange the furniture in the monastery mid-fight to create an arrangement of these symbols on the floor:



Having proved his point, I guess, he heads off for a pretty brutal final battle with Pan Mei and his men, a scene that sees him and his sister just destroying guys left and right, whether they're stabbing them with poles or carving them up with their father's bladed staff, or, in one memorable moment, when one guy gets impaled with a pole, then Liu hits the pole so hard it goes flying out his back and impales a second guy:



At one point, it looks like they might not be able to prevail against the large number of men, but the monks show up in the nick of time to turn the tide of battle, and even though they fight non-fatally, they use their wolf-defanging methods to do some pretty nasty stuff:



And then, of course, the good guys prevail and, in a somewhat distasteful manner that's still in keeping with the film's level of violence, murder the traitor while he's cowering in defeat.

Overall, it's definitely a good film, with some great fight scenes and a level of emotion that gives the battles real stakes, but the way the monks so easily capitulate to Liu's perversion of their way of life and the cartoonish level of violence in the final battle end up making this one less than fully successful. The film does seem like kind of an end of an era, a sendoff for the old-school kung fu stories of the 70s just as the industry was about to shift in favor of more modern, stunt-based films like Jackie Chan's Police Story (which came out in 1985). This is a pretty good way to go out though, and it's definitely worth watching.

Kung-Fu Klassix: The Kid With the Golden Arm

The Kid With the Golden Arm
Directed by Cheng Cheh
China, 1979



So, there's this honorable society that's tasked with escorting a shipment of gold to a region that has been hit by a famine, but there's also an evil gang that wants to steal the gold. That's enough of a plot for a kung fu movie, right? I guess so, because that's what happens in this classic film. It's pretty much non-stop action, with the good guys, led by Yang, who has one of those big swords that has rings attached to the blade (guys in old kung fu movies are pretty much defined by their weapons), trying to fend off the bad guys, let by the eponymous fellow, whose arms are apparently so strong, they can fend off anybody's blade:



The good guys also have two guys called Long Axe and Short Axe (which is something of a misnomer, since he carries two axes), who keep score of how many bad guys each of them has killed, Li Chin-Ming and Leng Feng, a pair of star-crossed lovers who regularly bicker about Li's sense of honor even when his life is in danger, and Hai Tao, a wild card who kind of wanders into the battle on his own as a drunken goofball (but not really a drunken-style fighter) who can kick everyone's ass.

On the bad guy's side, there's Silver Spear, Brass Head (who wears a helmet that makes his headbutts pretty deadly), and Iron Robe (who wears, yes, metal clothes as armor, but also carries a razor-sharp fan), as well as a group of guys called the Seven Deadly Hooks, although they get dispatched pretty quickly by the Axe brothers.

The plot seems pretty straightforward, with each side having a clear goal, but there are a surprising number of subplots that pop up related to things like Li Chin-Ming and Hai Tao's rivalry (when the former is poisoned with a "Sand Hand" attack, the latter sticks him in a furnace to burn the poison out of him) or what's really going on with Yang, who seems like a pretty crappy swordsman for a well-respected leader of upstanding individuals. The bad guys make various attacks and lay traps that take out a bunch of  the unnamed members of the team as the good guys try to complete their journey, and various members of both sides meet gory ends (a specialty of director Chang Cheh, who reunites the cast of Five Deadly Venoms here for quite satisfying results). It's a bunch of inevitable fights, but they're mostly pretty awesome, starting out kind of rote, with movements that aren't all that impressive, but the challenge and effort ramping up with each subsequent battle, leading up to a final showdown between Hai Tao and Golden Arms, with twists sure to reveal themselves as betrayers and double-crossers make themselves known.

Much of the action ends up being pretty great, with an early weapon-based battle between Hai Tao and Iron Robe being the point that the action really kicks into high gear:



After that, things get extra awesome, with a battle between the Axes and Silver Spear being nothing shot of epic and the final duel(s) involving Golden Arms, Li Chin-Ming, Hai Tao, and others all acting as gripping, Shakespearean drama full of moments like this:



For a movie that's little more than one fight scene after another, this one is pretty cool, full of great action and drama that makes sense among all the punching and stabbing. If you're looking for some cool old-school kung fu involving a bunch of different styles, some wacky weapons, and some amazingly choreographed battles, you can't go wrong here.

Kung-Fu Klassix: The Avenging Eagle

The Avenging Eagle
Directed by Sun Chung
China, 1978



It's always good to encounter an awesome old-school kung-fu movie that I hadn't seen before, and if this one isn't considered in the top tier of the classic Shaw Brothers period, it should be. It opens on a man riding a stumbling horse through the desert, about to die of thirst. He gets rescued by a good samaritan who give him some water, but he's immediately suspicious, sure that the guy is a policeman trying to catch him. The guy assures him he's just another wanderer, but before too long, they are attacked by another group of riders who reveal that the first guy is named Chik Ming-Sing, he's a member of their gang who has deserted, and they intend to bring him back. After he fights and kills them, with help from the good samaritan, he reveals his backstory.

He was raised from childhood by the evil Yoh Xi-Hung, the leader of a gang of criminals and a vicious man who brought up a large number of children in a life of violence and bloodshed, training them to be fierce killers. The best of these he named his Eagles, and the 13 of them formed a formidable force that did his evil bidding as he sought money and power. Chik was one of the best of them, but in one raid, he was wounded, but managed to escape and pass out in a forest. He was found by a family who took him in, patched up his wounds, and nursed him back to health, which made him reconsider his whole worldview. This display of love and charity made him question his ruthless upbringing, but after recovering, he still went back to rejoin the Eagles.

However, immediately after his return, Yoh announced that they had discovered one of the remaining generals who had once imprisoned him, and he sent Chik and some of the other Eagles to kill him. And wouldn't you know it, it's the guy who's family nursed Chik back to health. Chik tried to stop them, but the other Eagles butchered the family, including women and children. Still, Chik stuck with Yoh and his gang, because they were the only family he knew.

Back in the present, Chik and his mysterious helper fight off some more of the Eagles, and he reveals that his ultimate goal is to track down one Cheuk Yi-Fan and die at his hand. In another flashback, he tells of how the Eagles were sent to murder the entire family of an official who was one of Yoh's enemies, but while the others gleefully killed everyone they could, Chik's heart obviously wasn't in it. The last person alive was the official's daughter-in-law, and Yoh, seeing that Chik was beginning to question his life of violence, forced him to kill her, even after she revealed that she was pregnant. Cheuk Yi-Fan, the official's daughter and the husband of the murdered woman, was absent at the time, so after Chik ran away from Yoh's clan, he swore that he would seek death at Cheuk's hand to balance the scales of justice.

At this point, the astute viewer will probably be able to determine the identity of the man helping Chik gain revenge on his enemies, but the ultimate reveal doesn't come until later, when the two of them decide to storm Yoh's stronghold and confront the villain together. This leads to an epic battle, as they fight off innumerable henchmen and confront Yoh himself, who, in the tradition of these sorts of movies, is the toughest foe of all, even though he is an old man. Things get especially dramatic when Yoh reveals that Chik's ally is actually his worst enemy and tries to convince him to come back into the fold so they can rule the criminal empire together, leading to a nail-biting, brutal finale of a fight that leaves Chik's ultimate decision to the very last second.

This is exactly I want martial arts movies to be: an operatic display of emotions as related through intricately choreographed violence, with plot twists and last-second reveals, men fighting for justice and villains receiving their gory comeuppance. The fights here are pretty great, and full of the wacky weapons that guys would carry around in old-school kung-fu movies, like spikes attached to chains, brass rings, weird hammers, short knives, and clawed gauntlets. Chik wields one of my favorite weapons, the three-sectioned staff, and Cheuk mostly fights with his bare hands, until he reveals that he has blades hidden in his shoes that attach to his armored wristbands. It's all pretty awesome, and it's beautifully structured in a way that leads up to that big, dramatic finale that's up there with some of the best cinematic martial arts fights ever. This one is a keeper, and one that belongs on the list of great martial arts films. I can't believe it took me so long to see it.
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Here's a very brief sample of the kind of thing you can expect to see in this awesome movie:

Kung-Fu Klassix: Legendary Weapons of China

Legendary Weapons of China
a.k.a Legendary Weapons of Kung Fu
Directed by Lau Kar-Leung
China, 1982



Man, I have no idea what was going on in this movie. It's got something to do with a society of "pugilists" who use semi-magical tricks (making the wind blow through the power of their punches, hypnosis, apparently shooting fireballs and/or smoke bombs while fighting) to fight their enemies. However, these powers are mostly trickery (although one character refers to them as "witchcraft"), but the government is still using them to recruit people to fight invading Westerners, making them believe they can gain the power of immunity to bullets. Lei Kung, one of the leaders of the society, left the organization and dissolved his branch of it because of this, so the others want to have him killed. And that's the main plot of the movie, with three or four different assassins from different factions of the society trying to track this guy down and murder him.

I think that's what was happening, anyway. There's one young guy who's kind of dumb and bumbling, and another guy who is obviously a girl in disguise, although everyone is amazed when her secret is revealed. Her uncle (the great Gordon Liu) is also on the case, but she appears to be leaning toward Lei Kung's side, bringing her into conflict with the other assassins. And there's also Lei Kung's brother, Lei Yung, who looks just like him and either wants to kill him and take over the society or help him. Plus, Lei Kung has gotten old and isn't as powerful as he used to be, so he's refusing to admit his true identity, which leads to a subplot in which he (or maybe his brother?) hires an impersonator to take the fall for him.

That's as close to a summary as I can come up with, since the plot of this movie was near-incomprehensible to me. Usually, I can get over that if the fighting is worth the time spent on dumb jokes and random nonsense, but other than some general weirdness (like the evil leader of the society using his powers to make some of his followers kill themselves in gruesome ways, with one guy tearing his own eyes out and another ripping his junk off, I think), this is just a confusing slog.

However, it's got a hell of an awesome final fight, with Lei Kung and Lei Yung facing off in a fight in which they use the 18 traditional weapons that give the movie its name. It's a great scene, full of everything the rest of the movie lacked, like understandable combatants, visible movements, dynamic acrobatics, exciting stakes, and lots of mindblowingly cool moves. I normally prefer to have some context for fights, since while they can be great on their own, relatable emotions and genuine dramatic stakes can turn them into great combinations of action and drama. In this case, however, there's little else about the movie that I found especially worthwhile, so feel free to just watch this fight on its own:



And just for fun, here are some GIFs of some of the other enjoyable stuff, like Gordon Liu fighting with his shoulder blades:



Guys under hypnosis maiming themselves:



Or Gordon Liu just looking awesome:

Kung-Fu Klassix: Dirty Ho

Hopefully this will be something of a semi-regular feature around here...

Dirty Ho
Directed by Lau Kar-Leung
China, 1979



Well, this is the goofiest, yet most enjoyable, martial arts movie I've seen in a while. It's pretty nuts, starting out as what seems to be a rivalry between businessmen/jewel thieves and building, in that hard-to-follow way that old-school kung-fu movies often do, into a complex plot that has to do with the succession of the Chinese Emperor's heirs. Of the two rivals, the younger, Ho, gives the movie its name, since he's uncouth and uncultured compared to his counterpart, Wang, who likes to surround himself with art, music, and fine wines. The plot sees Wang, who is played by the great Gordon Liu, take Ho under his wing as he battles assassins for reasons that eventually become clear, and the two of them face off against ever-more-dangerous opponents on their way to the expected climactic fight.

What makes all this especially amusing is that Wang wants to keep his kung-fu skills secret, so for most of the movie, any fights he has are done surreptitiously, with him and his opponents kicking each other under the table while everyone else in the room is unaware or trading quick blows while people have their heads turned. This makes for some especially bizarre fight scenes, such as a bit in which Wang is sampling some nobleman's wine, but the nobleman and his servant keep attacking him in between pours and sips. It's hard to explain, and I wasn't even sure what was going on at first, but as the scene progressed, I became more and more delighted at the sheer oddness of a wine-tasting battle.

In another great bit, Ho breaks into Wang's house and attacks him, and Wang passes off a female musician as his bodyguard, then when Ho tries to fight her, he stands behind her, pushing her hands and feet to make her punch and kick him and making for a hilarious scene as she beats him up without understanding what is going on:

The move is definitely a comedy, full of goofy facial expressions and noises, and some of the silliness that would show up in kung-fu movies of the period. There's a fight with some beggars who are all pretending to be cripple, although it doesn't seem to give them much of an advantage, and an unfortunate bit in which a gang of effeminate men attack Ho and make him question his sexuality. But overall it's a lot of fun, with Liu especially seeming like he's having a great time acting completely oblivious while he fends off attackers without letting on that he knows what's going on.

The fights are impeccably choreographed, all leading up to a climactic scene in which Wang and Ho, sharing a long staff, face off against three foes, one of whom uses one of those spears with a big, sword-like blade on the end and another using what appears to be some sort of weighted chisel, and the whole thing is like an intricate dance, with each side switching weapons and positions, moving around each other and striking each other in close quarters. It's crazy and awesome, everything I would hope for in a Gordon Liu fight.

Occasional dumb jokes aside, this one is something special, one of the most unique and strange examples of the ways that kung-fu movies of the 70s would go to weird places and stretch themselves into nonsensical plots just to get in some good fights. You always hope for something like this when you watch one of the older martial arts movies, and this time that expectation paid off.

If this sounds like your idea of a good time, you can watch the whole movie on YouTube. I don't know if this is only temporarily available, since I don't know how much attention the rights holders to old kung-fu movies pay to YouTube, so just in case it gets taken down someday, here's the fight I took the gif above from, and here's the final battle. Enjoy!

The Rabbi's Cat: It's as good in motion as it is on the page

The Rabbi's Cat
France, 2012
Directed by Joann Sfar and Antoine Delesvaux
Based on the comic by Joann Sfar



Joann Sfar has such a particular, idiosyncratic style of artwork that one might not expect his comics to translate all that well to animation, but this adaptation of one of his best-known (in the United States, anyway) works proves that notion wrong. If anything, Sfar's artwork makes a lovely transition to movement, with his tactile shading providing a lush, textured look to surfaces while still retaining a hand-drawn look, the characters moving with a nice combination of realism and cartooniness, and beautifully detailed art filling the screen, mostly sticking to a single style but occasionally shifting to distorted or simplified exaggerations for dream sequences and the like. It's absolutely lovely, a joy to watch play out throughout the film's running time, and along with some excellent voice acting and a plot that just kind of meanders along in whatever direction it feels like going, it makes for a wonderful, whimsical bit of entertainment, but one that also provides some thoughts to ponder if one is so inclined.



For those unfamiliar with the source material, the story follows a cat and his owners (if a cat can be considered to be owned by anyone), a rabbi and his daughter who live in Algiers in what appears to be the 1920s or 30s. Early on in the story, the cat eats the rabbi's parrot, which gives him the power of speech and kicks off all sorts of interesting shenanigans as the rabbi tries to teach him about Judaism. Later, the cat loses his power to talk, and the plot heads off into some weird places, as the rabbi ends up caring for a Russian Jew who fled to Algeria, then goes on an expedition with him to find an Ethiopian Jerusalem that was supposedly the origin of both the black and Jewish races. It's an odd and kind of flighty plot, but what exactly happens isn't really the point; it's more about following around these characters as the cat struggles to understand humanity and religion, even though he would just prefer to spend time with his mistress, the rabbi's daughter. But for viewers, any time spent with these characters is a treat, with the voice acting and animation allowing them to display a real warmth for each other, both a physical closeness and also the kind of affection and irritation that families have.



The discussions of religion are fascinating as well, with the cat attempting to learn about Judaism but fighting against a lot of the ideas on logical grounds with a feline contrariness, while allowing viewers to understand the comforting feelings that faith can provide. The rabbi himself has a wonderful attitude, solid in his beliefs but willing to say he doesn't know when the cat prods him with an inconsistency or contradiction. Later on, he meets up with an Arabic cousin who joins the trek to the Ethiopian Jerusalem, and they make a wonderful pair, holding what seem like conflicting beliefs, but willing to accept each other for what they are and share each other's joy and sorrow. It's a rather feel-good look at religion, an inclusive, accepting atmosphere that puts people before dogma (while still acknowledging, through both Jewish and Muslim characters that appear in the story, that there are those in any religion who are much more concerned with the letter of the law than with its spirit). It might be a rose-colored view of a past that never was, but by making some of the most contentious religions on the planet seem warm and friendly, it provides a window into what can make beliefs so important to people, without condemning those who don't toe that particular line.



Religion aside, the film is a gorgeous trip into a world that springs to life from Sfar's imagination, and it's full of great visuals, goofy asides (including a meeting with Tintin that reveals him as kind of a racist, or at least a condescending jerk), cute character moments, love and warmth between people (and animals), expressive flourishes, nice voice acting (I like the way the cat's meows don't try to replicate an actual feline sound, but just consist of actor François Morel saying "Meow"), and a wonderfully realized setting. It turns out that there was no need to doubt the suitability of Joann Sfar's sensibility for animation; it ends up being a perfect realization of the look and feel of his comics. And hopefully it won't be the last time we get to see it either.

Gladstone's School for World Conquerors: They're not all bad

Elsewhere: Continuing my streak of writing about movies rather than comics, I contributed a thing about Four Lions to The Factual Opinion's latest movie column. Check it out if you're at all interested in a British comedy about would-be suicide bombers. Fun!

Also, I'm one of the contributors to this zine, which was put together as part of the Team Cul de Sac initiative to benefit cartoonist Richard Thompson, who was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. I'll post more information, including where you can get a copy, as it is made available.

Links: I thought this comic about living with epilepsy was really interesting, even though it seems to suffer from an awkward translation, which is strange, since its creators are apparently English-speakers. Still, it's quite good.

And I might be late linking to this, but you can read Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca's Eisner-nominated Afrodisiac in its entirety for free here. Check it out!

Gladstone's School for World Conquerors #1
Written by Mark Andrew Smith
Art by Armand Villavert

The superhero genre of comics may be essentially dead, but there might be a little bit of energy to wring from its bones, at least in the indie margins proliferated by the likes of Adam Warren or, uh, well, there must be somebody else doing interesting work. Mark Andrew Smith, co-creator of such neat-o comics as The Amazing Joy Buzzards and Aqua Leung, looks to be making an attempt to join the ranks of those who are trying to do something interesting rather than just rehash all the usual riffs on Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man, with Gladstone's School for World Conquerors, a reversal of the occasionally-glimpsed "superhero academy" micro-genre. It's possible that this could turn into something pretty enjoyable, at least as a genre riff on a well-established type of serial storytelling in other mediums, but as with so many first issues, it's kind of difficult to tell, since this is mostly introduction to the setting and cast.

The issue begins with what seems to be a non-essential prologue in which an alien speaks directly to the reader and relates the backstory of the titular place of learning; it might be an attempt to establish an atmosphere, but it's slightly awkward, neither completely goofy nor serious, just a bit "off" from the regular cape style. And maybe that's the point, since what follows is more or less standard high school drama with a bit of villainous flair injected. We quickly get to know the pompous rich kid who gets upset at any grades below A, the withdrawn girl who secretly likes the popular guy, and the rival cliques who provoke a schoolyard dust-up. It's nothing groundbreaking, but Smith does make the interpersonal dynamics interesting, given that these are evildoers-in-training. The aforementioned fight is a solid bit of action, and the speechifying and banter are enjoyably "bad", kids trying to be all mean and tough.

Smith does seem to be setting up some interesting ideas regarding the world in which this school is situated, and he does fill the book with nice details, like classes on "victory speeches" and goofy code names for all the students, so future issues could build on this one to form a pretty satisfying series. A large part of that enjoyability will be due to the artist, Armand Villavert, though; he's got a cool, cartoony style that's clean and dynamic, yet full of fun details, like the way Mummy Girl (the aforementioned shy girl) has prehensile embalming cloths:



Or the speed-line-filled action:

And the designs of the characters is top notch; I especially like the K- and N-tipped scarf worn by Kid Nefarious, and the neat-looking students wandering around in the backgrounds of scenes add a sense of life to the book, making it feel like there's a lot more to explore beyond this issue's focus. Villavert is also greatly helped by colorist Carlos Carrasco's bright palette, which really pops the images right off the page. All in all, it's a gorgeous-looking comic, sure to stand out on the stands.

So it's certainly worth checking out, but will it last? That's the question; if Smith and company can continue to build their world into something interesting and fun (and keep the book going beyond a few issues, which is something that often plagues Image books), this could turn into something special, one of those series that people can point to as evidence of life remaining in the direct market. That would certainly be an ideal result, but it's a pretty steep hill to climb; I hope these guys are up to it.

This review was based on a complimentary electronic copy provided by the creator.

Catfish: It's all movies these days, I guess

Hey, whatever gets me writing, I guess. But first, have some links: This Kickstarter for Dash Shaw's animated movie The Ruined Cast looks like it's worth contributing to, I think.

I encourage checking out the Dogs of Mars series on Comixology; it's illustrated by Paul Maybury, and it looks really nice. First issue is free, second is 99 cents. Not bad!

Here's an artist who I wasn't familiar with, but looks pretty amazing: Jeremy Sorese. That link leads to his story "In the Parlor Room", which is currently being serialized, but he's got lots of other nice comics and illustration work on his site; I think he might be one of my new favorites.

As for other artists that I like who have webcomics, here's Koren Shadmi's The Abaddon. Cool.

This webcomic is a kinda cute, satirical take on the Pied Piper story, but the really neat thing about it is the way it uses horizontal scrolling, moving different layers of the images at different speeds to make an illusion of 3-D. Beautiful.

And for one of the very best comics I've read lately, here's Sarah Glidden's devastating "The Waiting Room", a journalistic story about Iraqi refugees in Syria. Wow.

Catfish
2010, directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman



Note: There are probably some mild spoilers here, in discussing the very premise of the movie, but hopefully nothing too experience-ruining until stated otherwise.

Being as generally out of the loop as I am, I have no idea what the general consensus, revelations, etc. are on this movie, so my main question upon watching it is, is it real? That is, is it the genuine nonfiction documentary it presents itself as, or is it a narrative film masquerading as one? Either way, it's a pretty fascinating piece of work, generating conflicting opinions and examining the nature of "truth" in our modern, online society, in which anyone can connect with anyone else, and choose which face to present to them, ranging across a huge spectrum from pure and unfiltered to blatantly false. As a documentary taking a close look at a specific case of trickery, it's pretty interesting, but if it's fiction, it's fucking brilliant, adding enough layers of obfuscation and manipulation to leave one's head spinning.

The hook is pretty simple, following Yanev, a twentysomething photographer living in New York, as his filmmaker brother and their friend decide to document his online relationship with a young girl named Abby who has begun making painted replicas of his photos, Rob Granito style. Soon, he also begins communicating with Abby's mother, Angela, and especially her older sister, Megan, a sexy dancer/musician/free spirit, with whom he ends up falling into a romantic relationship. Maybe it's the expectation that nothing is as it seems that gives us the feeling that this will all probably turn out to be too good to be true, but the filmmakers do a remarkable job of selling the believability of the electronic relationships, showing all manner of online communications, such as Facebook messages, photos, excerpts from emails, and text messages, all familiar sights to modern technology users, from the fonts and pixelated images to the telltale green-and-white Iphone text boxes. Maybe that's why the phone calls we see seem to be the most awkward exchanges, yet are as nonetheless believable as everything else.

But, as mentioned, it is all too good to be true, and the reveal of the truth (or "truth") is where things get really interesting, but is also where we venture into hard SPOILER territory, so read on at your own risk. When the authenticity of some songs that Megan seemed to write and record for Yanev incredibly quickly comes into question, he understandably freaks out, and they decide to pay a surprise visit to the family at their home in Michigan. At this point, we expect a scam of some sort and just want to find out the answers, but the revelation is surprisingly complex, in terms of both the actual truth (which is all tangled up with the various lies, and might be fiction itself anyway) and whatever judgment we might render on the perpetrator. All the online communication turns out to be coming from Abby's mother Angela, a homely housewife with a working-class husband and two mentally handicapped stepsons. While we may have thought of her as a liar and manipulator, we soon see that all her ruses apparently started as an attempt to escape from the difficulty of her daily life, and spiraled out of her control until she had created a vast web of fake personalities, fictional relationships, and made-up events. Is she somebody to be pitied? Even that is hard to say, since she continually makes up new lies, even while confessing to her old ones.

This point is where the movie kind of stalls, as Yanev interrogates Angela to try to find out what is and isn't real, how much of the woman he fell in love with is made up and how much is part of Angela, and just what the deal is with this obviously disturbed person. As interesting as the whole situation is, Angela ends up being kind of boring in person, although that's probably part of the point. And of course, the question of the movie's authenticity keeps viewers on their toes; is this a purposeful deflation of expectations, an attempt to make the entire story seem more "real" by relentlessly focusing on this person along with Yanev to find out what makes her tick?

That way probably lies madness, since questioning one aspect of the film causes one to wonder about everything. Yanev seems kind of false, at least at first, with a goofy grin usually plastered on his face. But as the movie proceeds, it just seems like camera-shy awkwardness. A lot of the events seem too contrived, such as a postcard that Yanev sends to Megan which we see later, but, as with any documentary, that could just be an example of selective editing from what was surely a great deal of footage that didn't make it into the final film. It's a constant tightrope walk between possible truth and possible fiction; as with the very subject of the film, the more time we spend with these people, the more we think we know them and want them to be real. Or is it the other way around, and we think it's all a ruse and search out every possible contrivance or discrepancy, congratulating ourselves on our debunking skills? Is the scene in which Yanev confronts Angela in an almost casual way rather than staging dramatic argument an example of veracity, or is it a deft defiance of expectations? Is the weird bit in which Yanev asks Angela to speak to him "as Megan" contrived, or is it a moment of human awkwardness? If the movie is fiction, how did they get the mentally impaired boys to play their part? If it's fact, Angela's husband's title-providing monologue seems awfully convenient, doesn't it?

END SPOILERS, so the conclusion can be read.

Maybe it's better not to know the "real" answer of the movie's authenticity. The state of uncertainty turns it into a Schrodinger's Cat-style paradox of truth, somehow both true and false and all mixed up together into a delightful stew of confusion. Narrowing those possibilities down to one single answer limits the possibilities, much as meeting an online acquaintance in real life can inevitably be disappointing. That's the price of human connection, or whatever facsimile thereof we currently consider acceptable.

Summer Wars: Not really all that seasonal

Links: I'm kind of late linking to this, seeing as it has already met its goal, but I wanted to point out this Kickstarter campaign by Joshua Hagler, whose comic The Boy Who Made Silence I really loved.  This one is for a 3-D animation project, but he's a pretty great artist, so I'm excited to see anything he does.

I enjoyed Think of the Children, a webcomic which imagines that Fredric Wertham and pals were actually fighting against a demonically possessed William B. Gaines during that whole Seduction of the Innocent affair that comics people are so obsessed with.

The first issue of Double Feature Comics is up, featuring stories by Tim Seely & Ross Campbell and Dennis Hopeless & Mike Norton.  Only 99 cents for either Ipad or PDF formats.  Get it while it's hot!

You could also check out this comic from LA Times Magazine by Don Winslow and Sean Phillips.  Nice.

And here's a free download of an uncompleted graphic novel by Vasilis Lolos, if you're wondering where he's been lately.

On a more timely note, I won't be at the MOCCA fest this weekend, but if you're going, you might want to check out The Tavern of Ill Repute, an event at the I Made an Art gallery, taking place on Saturday, April 9, and including work by artists (names like Danny Hellman and R. Sikoryak, as well as several others), new animation, performers, live music and a clown (?). Sounds like it could be fun.

Okay, I'm behind on comics reviews, but here's something else:

Summer Wars
Directed by Mamoru Hosada

Japan, 2010

How is it possible that a cartoon can feel so much more personal and full of life than most live-action movies? As an anime produced by a leading Japanese studio (Madhouse), Summer Wars must have taken tons of people and money to produce, but compared to any number of blockbusters, this one feels like something inspired by life, as if somebody worked to project their own family history onto the screen. It’s an effect that works to give the crazy plot about the end of the world via virtual reality internet hacking an emotional impact, something that sticks in the heart rather than just dazzling the eyes.

That plot? After establishing a future world in which the internet has been taken over by an especially Japanese version of Second Life called OZ, in which everyone has a cutesy avatar and interacts via a shiny, candy-colored virtual space, we are introduced to a student named Kenji, who is quickly dragged over his head into two different situations at once, in the on- and offline worlds. A fellow student named Natsuki pays him to come along with her to a big family get-together for her great-grandmother’s ninetieth birthday, waiting until it is too late for him to back out to reveal that she is passing him off as her boyfriend. He gets thrown into the chaotic interactions of all the family members, as they gossip, eat together, argue, play, and act like a group who are intimately familiar with each other.  Meanwhile, Kenji receives an anonymous midnight email containing a string of coded numbers, and being a math whiz, he cracks them, then wakes up to discover that he seemingly enabled a hacker to take over any and every account in OZ, completely disrupting not only the online world, but any offline services he wishes, including traffic signals, power grids, trains, and emergency services, with little in the way of reason beyond a trickster-like delight in widespread mayhem.

The interesting thing is where Kenji’s two worlds collide, as Natsuki’s family alternately rejects and accepts him, teaming up with him to fight the online threat or viewing him as an interloper. There are subplots about a family black sheep who is involved with the ensuing chaos, a younger cousin whose online avatar, a rabbit wearing a Marty McFly jacket, is a martial arts champion that becomes a defender against the all-consuming cyber-monster, and Granny’s matriarchal leadership, not only of the family, but of various powerful acquaintances who she encourages to pull together in the time of chaos, seeming to single-handedly hold the country together.  There’s a foreseeable family tragedy, leading to scenes of devastatingly relatable emotion, and a pulling together of forces, as multiple generations marshal their resources in a ragtag effort to stand against what ends up being a world-threatening villain.

Somehow, this all ends up being an enormously satisfying conflict, perhaps due to the realistic family dynamics of Natsuki’s clan, combined with the over-the-top unreality of OZ, which is presented as a virtual reality playland full of cartoony avatars and ever-expanding physical space, even though the characters themselves only seem to experience it through tiny browser windows and cell phone screens.  The scale of the conflict keeps expanding, as the hacker turns from a creepy Shiva-like monster into a gigantic, roiling mass of Facebook profiles, eventually facing off against Natsuki in an inscrutable Japanese card game for all the world’s marbles, a kind of silly yet effectively tense battle which includes what must be the most dramatic winning throw of a card in history.

That this all works so well is a testament to the good writing, the creation of characters that interact believably. Their shared sadness and joy, fear and triumph are palpable, even in the face of just-beyond-believable events, and the reactions of the observers are what sell the real stakes of the battle even beyond the real-world consequences that we see, making the furious staring at screens and pounding on keyboards, or Kenji’s deciphering of 2048-bit encryption in his head, compelling and tense.  This is one hell of an entertaining movie, goofy and strange and sad and happy all at once, a cyber-thriller that manages to hit the viewer right in the emotional soft spot, and stay there after the brightness of the visuals fade.  That’s something special.

Rip-Off Theatre presents: Things that would belong on Tumblr, if I knew what Tumblr was supposed to be for: Space-wasting memes, they are a diversion

This comes courtesy of the great Shaenon Garrity, with the following instructions:

All the animated movies in the world, sort of

- X what you saw
- O what you haven't finished/seen or saw sizable portions
- Bold what you loved
- Italicize what you disliked/hated
- Leave unchanged if neutral

CLASSIC DISNEY
-------------------------------
[X] 101 Dalmatians (1961):  I always liked this one, and as a kid, I though "Crazy woman driver!" was an absolutely hilarious line.  I hope I've become less sexist since then...
[X] Alice in Wonderland (1951)
[X] Bambi (1942)
[X] Cinderella (1950)
[X] Dumbo (1941)
[X] Fantasia (1940)
[X] Lady and the Tramp (1955)
[X] Mary Poppins (1964)
[X] Peter Pan (1953):  I loved this one as a kid, and there are parts I still get delighted when I watch (most stuff with Captain Hook), but damn, those Indians are fucking racist, aren't they?
[X] Pinocchio (1940)
[X] Sleeping Beauty (1959)
[X] Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
[ ] Song of the South (1946):  This one is so notorious, I just want to see it out of curiosity someday.

DISNEY'S DARK AGE
-------------------------------
[O] The Aristocats (1970)
[ ] The Black Cauldron (1985)
[X] The Fox and the Hound (1981): I remember kind of liking this as a kid, maybe? The farmer's pants fall down when he shoots, that's funny.  Plus, bear fight!
[X] The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
[X] The Jungle Book (1967)
[O] The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977): I have no idea if I've seen all of this.
[X] Oliver and Company (1986): Saw this in the theater (I would have been 7), don't think I've seen it since.
[X] Pete's Dragon (1977): I'm sure I saw this as a kid, but I barely remember any of it.
[X] The Rescuers (1977)
[X] Robin Hood (1973): Another one I used to love as a kid, but isn't actually all that good.
[X] The Sword In The Stone (1963): This one isn't bad at all, from what I remember.

THE DISNEY RENAISSANCE
-------------------------------
[X] Aladdin (1992): I was the right age when this came out/was on video to really like it and not quite be too old.  Man, I thought the action was awesome, Robin Williams was hilarious, and the music was good.  Not so much now, but it's still all right.
[X] Beauty and the Beast (1991)
[X] A Goofy Movie (1995)
[O] Hercules (1997)
[X] The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996): What a crazy, doomed-to-failure idea for a kids' movie. I should watch this again and see what it's like with the space of years.
[X] The Lion King (1994): Everybody loves this one, right? Maybe I saw it too much as a kid, but I'm thinking it was kind of boring.  It's probably on the other side of that "too old" line.
[X] The Little Mermaid (1989): I gotta say, I studied the scene where Ariel gets legs and swims bottomless up to the surface very intently as a young'un.
[O] Mulan (1998): Is this the first Obnoxious Eddie Murphy Sidekick Animal role?  That's most of what I remember about this one.
[X] Pocahontas (1995)
[X] The Rescuers Down Under (1990): I loved this one as a kid, for some reason.
[O] Tarzan (1999): The thing I remember most about what I've seen of this is the gruesome death-by-hanging of the bad guy. Tough stuff for a kids' joint.

DISNEY'S MODERN AGE
-------------------------------
[X] Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
[X] Bolt (2008)
[ ] Brother Bear (2003)
[ ] Chicken Little (2005): I hated this without even seeing it.
[X] Dinosaur (2000)
[ ] The Emperor's New Groove (2000): I've seen episodes of the spin-off TV show...
[X] Fantasia 2000 (2000)
[ ] Home on the Range (2004)
[X] Lilo & Stitch (2002): This one is pretty great, isn't it?
[X] Meet the Robinsons (2007):  I actually thought this was quite good.
[X] Treasure Planet (2002):  This, on the other hand, was kind of awful.

PIXAR
-------------------------------
[X] A Bug's Life (1998): So is this or Cars the accepted "worst" Pixar movie? It's still pretty good.
[X] Cars (2006)
[O] Finding Nemo (2003): This one's pretty good, and some people like it best, but I don't think I've ever seen it all the way through, and I don't feel the need to do so.  Weird.
[X] The Incredibles (2004)
[X] Monsters Inc. (2001)
[X] Ratatouille (2007)
[X] Toy Story (1995):  It might be nostalgia, what with seeing this at a time when I was outgrowing toys but still fondly remembering them, but I still think of this as one of my favorite movies of all time.
[X] Toy Story 2 (1999): I don't hate this movie, but I don't think I hold it in the esteem that a lot of people seem to.  It's a pretty good sequel, but not much more.  We'll see what I think when I get around to the third one...
[ ] Toy Story 3 (2010)
[X] Wall-E (2008) 
[X] Up (2009): This was great, but those first 15 minutes are what really stick.  Man, was there anybody who didn't readily admit to crying at that scene?

DON BLUTH
-------------------------------
[] All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)
[X] An American Tail (1986)
[X] An American Tail: Fieval Goes West (1991)
[O] Anastasia (1997)
[X] The Land Before Time (1988)
[ ] The Pebble and the Penguin (1995)
[ ] Rock-a-Doodle (1991)
[X] The Secret of NIMH (1982): I remember liking this well enough, but when I read the book, I was pissed that they added a bunch of magic and shit.  Was this my first experience with a disappointing adaptation?
[ ] Thumbelina (1994)
[X] Titan AE (2000)
[X] A Troll in Central Park (1994): I saw this many more times than I should have, due to my little brother being obsessed with it, as young kids are wont to do.  It's kind of awful.

CLAYMATION
-------------------------------
[O] The Adventures of Mark Twain (1986)
[X] Chicken Run (2000)
[X] Corpse Bride (2005)
[ ] James and the Giant Peach (1996)
[X] The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
[X] Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
[X] Coraline (2009): And here's an adaptation that might even improve on the original.

CGI GLUT
-------------------------------
[X] Antz (1998)

[X] Bee Movie (2007)
[X] Happy Feet (2006)

[X] Ice Age (2002)

[X] Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)

[ ] Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)[X] Kung Fu Panda (2008):  Not bad; there's some cool artistic stuff going on in this one.
[X] Madagascar (2005)

[ ] Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
[ ] Monster House (2006)
[ ] Over the Hedge (2006)
[X] The Polar Express (2004): Wow, this was awful. A true adaptation would have lasted maybe 15 minutes, if you stretched it out, so they added a bunch of noisy, stupid nonsense. Painful to sit through.

[X] Robots (2005)
[X] A Shark's Tale (2004)

[X] Shrek (2001): People sure loved this when it came out, didn't they, like it was some sort of amazing combination of adult and kid humor, but it was actually rudimentarily-animated kiddie shit with a few slightly-dirty jokes and cultural references thrown in, back when CGI was new enough to seem fancy.  I don't hate it, but goddamn was it overrated, and each sequel just got more tiresome.
[X] Shrek 2 (2004)
[X] Shrek The Third (2007)

[ ] Shrek Forever After (2010)
[X] Monsters vs. Aliens (2009): This wasn't half bad, mostly by not being flat out terrible.

IMPORTS
-------------------------------
[ ] Arabian Knight (aka The Thief and the Cobbler) (1995): I'd really like to see this, any version.
[ ] The Last Unicorn (1982)
[ ] Light Years (1988)
[X] The Triplets of Belleville (2003): Goddamn, this is a really fucking good movie.
[X] Persepolis (2007)
[X] Waltz With Bashir (2008): I liked this one a lot; good, serious animation for adults.  It's like them comical books I always talk about.
[ ] Watership Down (1978)
[ ] When the Wind Blows (1988)

[X] Wonderful Days (2003): Korean anime-style sci-fi; I remember it being decent.
[X] Yellow Submarine (1968)

STUDIO GHIBLI/MIYAZAKI
-------------------------------

[X] The Cat Returns (2002): Pretty cute and fun.  Cats!
[X] Grave of the Fireflies (1988): Devastating.
[X] Howl's Moving Castle (2004): As good as most of these.
[X] Kiki's Delivery Service (1989): Gotta love the girly stuff.
[X] Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986): Fun adventure, with a surprising amount of violence.
[X] Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979): Not a bad beginning.
[ ] My Neighbors The Yamadas (1999)
[X] My Neighbor Totoro (1993): I love the gentle atmosphere here.
[X] Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984): An even better start.
[X] Only Yesterday (1991): I think I've seen this; it's not very memorable, unfortunately.
[X] Pom Poko (Tanuki War) (1994): Raccoon testicles!
[X] Porco Rosso (1992): Flying pig!
[X] Princess Mononoke (1999): Damn good, if you don't watch the dubbed version, which was full of horribly miscast celebrity voices.
[X] Spirited Away (2002): I think this is my favorite, but only barely ahead of all the others.
[X] Whisper of the Heart (1995): So, so sweet.
[X] Ponyo (2009): Nice, if simplistic.

SATOSHI KON
-------------------------------
[X] Millennium Actress (2001)
[X] Paprika (2006): Satoshi Kon will be sorely missed.  Damn, this was such a good movie.
[X] Perfect Blue (1999)
[X] Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

SHINKAI MAKOTO
-------------------------------
[ ] She and Her Cat (1999)
[ ] Voices of a Distant Star (2001)
[ ] The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)
[ ] 5 Centimeters per Second (2007): I really ought to see one or more of these at some point.

OTHER ANIME FILMS
-------------------------------
[X] Akira (1989): I've only seen this once, and I didn't understand it very well.  I should watch it again sometime, and read the manga.

[O] Angel's Egg (1985): Early Mamoru Oshii; I should watch it again and try to understand it.
[ ] Appleseed (2004)
[ ] Appleseed: Ex Machina (2007)
[ ] Arcadia of My Youth (U.S. Title - Vengeance of the Space Pirate) (1982)
[X] Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2003): A pretty darn good long episode of the series, although not reaching the heights of the best ones.
[ ] The Dagger of Kamui (U.S. Title - Revenge of the Ninja Warrior) (1985)
[ ] Dirty Pair: Project Eden (1987)
[X] End of Evangelion (1997): Ditto what I said for Akira (except the part about reading the manga).
[X] Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone (2007)

[X] Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance (2009)

[ ] Fist of the North Star (1986)
[ ] Galaxy Express 999 (1979)
[X] Ghost in the Shell (1996): This movie is awesome, full of cool ideas and great action.  I try to rewatch it every so often.

[O] Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004): I think I had trouble staying awake for this one; I should try again...
[X] The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006): This was recommended, but I didn't think it was all that good.  Kind of a low-rent Miyazaki, without a compelling hook and a boring character arc.
[ ] Lensman (1984)
[ ] Macross: Do You Remember Love (U.S. Title - Clash of the Bionoids) (1984)

[X] Memories (1995): A cool sci-fi anthology, with the highlight being Satoshi Kon's "Magnetic Rose".  The other parts are decent though.
[X] Metropolis (2001): I think this might have been my introduction to Tezuka; it helped me learn to love Mr. Mustachio.

[ ] Neo-Tokyo (1986)

[ ] Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985)
[X] Ninja Scroll (1993)
[ ] Patlabor the Movie (1989)
[ ] The Professional: Golgo 13 (1983)
[X] Project A-ko (1986)
[ ] Robot Carnival (1987)
[ ] Robotech: The Shadow Chronicle (2006)
[ ] Silent Möbius (1991)

[X] The Sky Crawlers (2008): Mamoru Oshii's latest, and it's kind of a snoozefest.
[ ] Space Adventure Cobra (1982)
[X] Steamboy (2004): Late-period Otomo; it's no Akira, but it's fun.
[ ] Sword of the Stranger (2007)
[ ] Unico and the Island of Magic (1983):  Tezuka! I really want to see this one.
[ ] Urotsukidoji: The Movie (1987):  The tentacle-rape classic; I wouldn't mind seeing it out of curiosity.

[ ] Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer (1984): Mamoru Oshii adapting Rumiko Takahashi; I should try to get my hands on this one.

[ ] Urusei Yatsura: Only You (1982)
[ ] Vampire Hunter D (1985)
[ ] Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust (2000)
[O] Wings of Honneamise: Royal Space Force (1987):  This is supposed to be good, but I fell asleep watching it, so I wouldn't know.

CARTOONS FOR GROWN-UPS
-------------------------------
[ ] American Pop (1981)
[X] The Animatrix (2003): I think Shinichiro Watanabe's "Detective Story" was my favorite part, but there were some other really cool bits too.

[ ] Beavis & Butthead Do America (1996).
[ ] Cool World (1992)
[X] Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001): This was supposed to be a revolution in computer animation, but it ended up being a leap forward in boringness.
[X] Final Fantasy: Advent Children (2005): This was better, if only for superfans of Final Fantasy 7.
[ ] Fire & Ice (1983)
[ ] Fritz the Cat (1972)

[ ] Halo Legends (2009)
[X] Heavy Metal (1981): Stupid, but amusing in parts.
[ ] Heavy Metal 2000 (2000): This is supposed to be awful, but I'm curious about it, possibly just because of the original.
[ ] Hey Good Lookin' (1982)
[ ] Lady Death (2004)
[X] A Scanner Darkly (2006): Probably the best Philip K. Dick movie adaptation, with animation being the only medium to make the Scramble Suit believable.  

[ ] Sita Sings the Blues
[X] South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
[ ] Street Fight (Coonskin) (1975)
[X] Waking Life (2001): I fucking loved this when it came out, but I don't know if I would think it was as deep if I watched it again.  I'll probably still like the animation.

OTHER ANIMATED MOVIES

-------------------------------
[ ] The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
[ ] Animal Farm (1954)
[ ] Animalympics (1980)
[X] Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon The Movie (2007)
[X] Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000): As a former regular reader of Ain't It Cool News, I remember there being a big uproar about this being censored because it was too disturbing for kids or something.  With a decade's perspective, it sure seems like a weird thing to get worked up about.

[X] Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)

[ ] Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)
[ ] The Brave Little Toaster (1988)
[ ] Bravestarr: The Movie (1988)
[ ] Cats Don't Dance (1997)
[O] Care Bears: The Movie (1985)

[X] Charlotte's Web (1973)
[ ] Fern Gully (1992)
[ ] G.I. Joe: The Movie (1987)
[ ] Gobots: Battle of the Rock Lords (1986)

[ ] Green Lantern: First Flight (2009)
[ ] He-Man & She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword (1985)
[X] The Hobbit (1977)
[X] The Iron Giant (1999)
[ ] Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010)

[O] Justice League: The New Frontier (2008)
[O] Lord of the Rings (1978)
[ ] Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1992)
[ ] My Little Pony: The Movie (1986)
[ ] Pink Floyd's The Wall (1982)
[O] The Prince of Egypt (1998)
[ ] Powerpuff Girls: The Movie (2002)
[ ] Quest For Camelot (1999)
[ ] Ringing Bell (1978)
[ ] The Road to El Dorado (2000)

[ ] Shinbone Alley (1971)
[X] Space Jam (1996): Not even Bill Murray could save this one.
[ ] Starchaser: The Legend of Orin (1985)

[ ] Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (2009)

[ ] Superman/Batman: Apocalypse (2010)
[ ] Superman: Doomsday (2007)
[O] The Swan Princess (1994)
[X] Transformers: The Movie (1986)
[ ] Wizards (1977)
[X] Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
[ ] Wonder Woman (2009)
[ ] Balto (1995)
[X] Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)

Conclusion: I've seen lots of Disney, CGI crap, and well-regarded anime, but there's always more to watch.  Must...consume...more...media...

Peepo Choo: Now I want to read Buboe Sore

Elsewhere: I wrote about Werner Herzog's film My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? over at The Factual Opinion.

Links:  Here's a tie-in comic to that Hero Tomorrow movie that I wrote about a while back, although I don't know if anybody who hasn't seen the movie would be interested...

This site, which features a bunch of short sci-fi comics stories, seems interesting.  I'm not sure about the quality of art or writing, having only sampled a little bit, but I like the idea of world-building on such a vast scale.  Maybe worth a look, and it could end up turning into something pretty cool.

Peepo Choo, volume 1
By Felipe Smith

Felipe Smith certainly seems to be living the dream, having been recruited by Japanese publisher Kodansha to create this manga series, and then having his work be translated back into English by the domestic publisher Vertical.  He's achieved modest fame on both sides of the Pacific!  Interestingly, his comics fit into the category that doesn't have a whole lot of traction in the West, at least not in the manga section of the bookstore: the sexed-up, ultra-violent, fairly nonsensical seinen genre, aimed at adult (or "adult", if you prefer) men.  That sort of thing might rule the superhero corner of the American comics market (with a chaste, "cover up the naughty bits and censor the swears" pussification) and provide entertainment for legions of train-riding salarymen, but it's mostly unheard-of over here, lost among the piles of sparkly shojo and spiky-haired "I wanna be the best" shonen.  And after reading this volume, maybe it deserves that lower profile; it's mostly brainless, goofy nonsense, full of blood and tits and cackling laughs and garish, stupid cultural misunderstandings.  Keep it hiding on the shelves of not-so-similar material, and it still has the power of shock, something for people to happen across and goggle at the depravity to be beheld.

Not that it's a worthless exercise in nihilism or anything; Smith is actually quite entertaining in his skewering of cross-cultural fandoms and enthusiasms, and his look at the way Japanese and Americans manage to distort and misappropriate each other's culture is funny and insightful, if incredibly hyperbolic.  Several characters get introduced in this first volume, tied together only tangentially or thematically, but obviously on their way to crashing together as the story continues.  These include a Chicago fanboy of a Japanese cartoon who assumes everyone in Japan is obsessed with it, making it a land of cheerful, cartoonish togetherness; a psychotic yakuza enforcer who thinks he is emulating American gangbangers; a busty teen model/schoolgirl; and a mask-wearing hitman who takes a creepy, sexual enjoyment in the rivers of blood he regularly spills.  They're all destined to collide when the hitman (who moonlights as a comic store owner) takes a trip to Japan for a hit and brings some employees along with him, for little discernible reason.  Smith only just gets started on the expected meet-ups; most of this volume sets up the characters' expectations of what Japan/America is like, sure to dash them all in the most effectively heartbreaking fashion.



That might be the ultimate aim, but Smith seems to just enjoy coming up with displays of grotesque behavior, with the dial turned up to eleven.  Violence, whether caused by sadistic yakuza or efficient hitmen, is gory and disgusting, with brains and intestines flying and blood spurting everywhere.  Sex, whether real or imagined, is less alluring than kind of gross, the naked breasts covered with drops of sweat (and possibly other fluids), people contorting into weird, unsexy positions, the women all so topheavy that they seem about to burst out of even the most modest garments.  Most of the Americans seem to sport sneering faces, mocking those who like things they don't understand, whether they are superhero fans characterizing manga and anime as weird and nonsensical (and rightly so, if the titular anime is any example, being full of gibberish language, puke, shit, and stupid dancing), or fans of that very Japanese media calling cape comics overmuscled and homoerotic.  All behavior is taken to the extreme, making for an entertaining, if somewhat exhausting, romp through Smith's take on humanity's worst impulses.



It's a pretty ridiculous collection of craziness, and while it seems like a parade of freakishness as of the end of this volume, it looks like it could go in interesting directions, as Smith takes his established weirdos and bounces them off each other to hopefully entertaining ends.  Or maybe it will just be more boobs, sex, blood, and mocking laughter; either way, it should be pretty fascinating to watch, if only to see something the likes of which doesn't appear on American shelves as often as it could.  There's room for art of all stripes in comics, and the id-engaging, over-the-top appeal to base impulses is as good as any.  More of this, please.