SUPERMAN/BATMAN: PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009, Blu-ray released September 29, 2009 - MSRP $29.99)

You know I've got a soft spot for these DC Comics animated adaptations. I've given fairly positive reviews to the two previous efforts in the series - Wonder Woman and Green Lantern: First Flight. So you're probably expecting more of the same from my review of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies on Blu-ray disc. And you'd be right! In fact, I think it might be the best of the bunch!

From what I can tell, that's probably not the popular opinion. I got my copy of the Blu-ray disc quite late and so had the opportunity to browse other reviews kicking around internets. While the disc itself would be constantly highly rated, reviewers seemed unanimous in slamming the simplistic story. I felt like the simplicity really worked in this case!

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is essentially a one-hour fight scene. There isn't much character or story. But plenty of excitement. And, at the end of the day, isn't excitement what draws us to a superhero adventure? Here's the setup, in a nutshell - Lex Luthor has swindled his way into becoming the president of the US and declares Superman and Batman public enemies. Villains and heroes alike hunt them down and try to beat the crap out of them. Awesome! That's pretty much all there is to it. But you know what? With such a a short runtime, that's okay. What drags the production down for me is the character designs. Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is an adaptation of a DC Comics miniseries (I didn't read it so I can't comment on how faithful the script is to the original Jeph Loeb story.) As such, the filmmakers attempted to mimic the character designs of the comics' artist, Ed McGuinness. To the productions detriment, if you ask me. The designs, while looking a whole hell-of-a-lot like McGuinness' are too chunky and muscled and despite some champion work by Lotto Animation, the characters don't animate very well. Give me the old, simplified Bruce Timm models any day!

The Blu-ray looks fantastic! Really well done. Probably the best looking disc of all the DC Comics adaptations that Warner has released thus far. And, despite the lack of an uncompressed soundtrack, it sounds strong and pretty dynamic! Where the Blu-ray fails for me is in the bonus feature department. Aside from the requisite collection of trailers and six Bruce Timm best-of-Justice-League episode picks (all looking better than ever compressed with the VC-1 codec, I might add), the only extra materials on the disc are a short featurette exploring the relationship between Superman and Batman, and a sit-down dinner with the actor who performs the voice of Batman. Don't get me wrong, what we're given is pretty cool. I can take or leave the featurette but the dinner chat, running almost an hour long, is really great. Just like the Green Lantern: First Flight disc, however, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is sorely lacking in any detail on the production itself! One again, we're robbed of a commentary track, or making-of featurette. Come on, guys! As cool as it is to hear Kevin Conroy chat about his almost twenty years voicing Batman, I'd rather know something specific about the film I just watched. How about an interview with Sam Liu? If this Newsarama interview with the director is any indication, he has a lot to say about the production. What about Stan Berkowitz? Having adapted the comics to screen, he most likely has a few insights to share. Urgh...It's so frustrating to feel like nobody at the studio cares about this end of things anymore. Here's hoping they rethink their position of avoiding production docs and commentaries for next years Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths Blu-ray Disc release.

Also on The Bllu-ray Blog: Superman/Batman: Public Enemies Blu-ray Disc review

Labels: Animation, Batman, DC Comics, Superman, Warner Bros., Warner Home Video

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937, Blu-ray released October 6, 2009 - MSRP $39.99)

Stunning. Absolutely stunning. I wish I could turn back time to watch the gorgeous visual presentation of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Blu-ray disc for the first time, all over again. Experiencing this, the first Diamond Edition release from Walt Disney Home Entertainment's new line of classic films on Blu-ray, was akin to feeding my hungry eyes a platter of pure 2D animated magic.

I don't think I really need to run down the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for you, do I? (Read the full original English text by the Brothers Grimm here, if you don't know it yet.) Disney's interpretation is pretty much a classic by now. And though it feels it's being told in a style that's far from contemporary, Snow White holds up. Enough about the the story, let's get to the meat of my commentary. Let's talk about the Blu-ray disc itself!

Robert A. Harris, the famous film historian and preservationist responsible for restoring innumerable films like Lawrence of Arabia (in 1989), Spartacus (1991), My Fair Lady (1994), Vertigo (1996) Rear Window (1998) and more recently the Godfather films, has stated the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Blu-ray disc is "...essential to any serious collection." I'd say that's putting it lightly. This disc is as good as home video gets. Disney has given the film, which many consider to be one of the most important in cinema history, the royal treatment. It looks and sounds absolutely terrific! The studio could have scrubbed it to the bone, removed all grain, sacrificed detail, chopped it to fit your widescreen plasma display or performed any number of operations that would have "improved" the film for modern home video audiences. Instead, they've allowed Lowry Digital to carefully bring the 1937 animated to life, scanning all elements at 4K and using the same proprietary technology that has taken care of classics from The Wizard of Oz to the Star Trek TV series. I can't imagine Blu-ray getting any better than this.

That being said, this Blu-ray presentation won't be for everyone. There will be a portion of the audience disappointed by the warts-and-all transfer presented on the disc. There are damaged or misplaced cells within the film which cause it to appear out of focus for a time. This is fine detail that even Walt Disney wouldn't have noticed during the creation of the film because of the lack of resolution of the Technicolor process. The studio could have digitally "corrected" this effect but chose instead to leave the work as it was created. Brilliant! Again, this is what Blu-ray should be.

By the same token, the sound on the disc is fantastic! I'm sorry for all the unadulterated raving and praise I'm showering on this release but, man, they've really knocked it out of the park. The 7.1 DTS-Master Audio track could have been really insulting and over the top, translating the original mono elements into some surround-sound abomination. But again, Disney provides a truly dynamic presentation while remaining true to the spirit of the original work. And just to cover all of their bases, the studio has included the original mono track, for all you purists out there.

The bonus features on the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Blu-ray disc are wonderful but problematic. Let's start with the wonder. There is so much stuff packed on to two Blu-ray discs! I spent hours combing through every nook and cranny of this thing - a commentary track hosted by historian John Canemaker and featuring comments by Walt Disney himself, deleted scenes and storyboards, short documentaries and the Hyperion Studios tour which encompasses hours upon hours of shorts (Silly Symphonies in HD!), galleries, featurettes and audio snippets. And don't even get me started about the creepy "Magic Mirror" which greets you every time you put the disc in. That thing will talk to you about the time of day, the weather outside, how many times you've watched the disc...Brrr...Creepy...

What I didn't like about the extras was the Hyperion Studios tour navigation and the fact that Disney has failed to include all of the bonus features from the 2001 DVD release. In order to watch the features buried within the Hyperion tour (and they are multitudinous!) , the disc forces you to navigate your way through a maze of "rooms" within the studio. So, say for instance that I wanted to watch the "Steamboat Willy" short (Did I mention that all the Silly Symphonies are in HD! SILLY SYMPHONIES IN HD!!! "THE OLD MILL", "FLOWERS AND TREES", "GODDESS OF SPRING" AND MORE IN HD!!!! ... You should really just stop reading now and run out and buy this disc.) I'd have to find my way over to the "Sound Stage" before selecting it. This is a drag. By the same token, I found it annoying that there wasn't a "Play All" button that would have just taken me on the tour, allowing me to sit back and enjoy all the contents. I found myself having to press play on a new feature at least every few minutes. Hell, some of the little nuggets of information, like "Stories from the Camera Department" are less than 60 seconds long!

From what I can tell, this new Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Blu-ray is missing a few critical features from the 2001 DVD. Most critically a 40-minute documentary hosted by Angela Lansbury and more abandoned and deleted scenes. It's a shame we're all going to have to hold on to our old DVDs to have everything. I mean, the feature is the thing here and it is glorious. But this would have been a perfect disc for me, if Disney had made it a bit more comprehensive. Seriously, ditch the Tiffany Thorton music video (Who the hell is Tiffany Thorton anyway?) and give me more deleted scenes!

One final gripe - the packaging. I live for this stuff. I love Blu-ray and home video. And despite my familiarity with these sorts of things I found the dual package marketing strategy baffling. It took me ages to figure out that Disney was offering the same contents in two completely different packages, targeted at two different audiences. One release is in standard Blu-ray packaging, implying that the DVD included in the package is a bonus. The other release is in standard DVD packaging and strongly implies that the Blu-ray content is the bonus. ARGHH!! What a frustrating thing to do to your customers, Disney! I mean, I get it. I understand what the goal is but there's got to be a better way. Just saying.

NOTE: The Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Blu-ray disc is only $9.99 at Amazon.com at the moment (Oct. 6, 2009.) Use the code "snowhite" to get $10 off their already amazingly low price!

Via: The Blu-ray Blog

Labels: Blu-ray, Disney, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Two films competing at the Reanimania festival are relentless in their vision. The Canadian Edison & Leo by N. Burns and the Brazilian Passaros by Filipe Abraches.

You have not seen a film like Edison & Leo before; a stop motion feature that takes extreme liberties with the life story of Thomas Edison. It does so with plenty of dark humor contained in a father-and-son narrative that surpasses Darth Vader and Luke’s in dysfunctionality. Edison is portrayed as a cheating, robbing and selfish husband/inventor/father. After alienating his older son, accidentally killing his wife, he electrically charges his younger son, Leo, and calls him his “greatest invention”. Electric Leo grows up unhappy until the day he decides to challenge his father. Along the way, many instances of John Watersesque drama occur. There’s even an attack by the Pasana tribe on the Edison house.

Passaros is a hand drawn short film that makes powerful use of bird motifs. An elderly woman feeding hundreds of caged birds on her rooftop receives a younger, male guest. As they dine together, authority figures barge inside the kitchen, sack the man and lock him in one of the woman’s cages. After being freed by the woman, the man whose face has come to resemble that of a bird’s, reaches the edge of the building and decides to flee for his life. The close ups of birds, coupled with the mastery of shapes in the animation (watching the woman dicing and preparing the bird dinner is intense) are what give this dialogue-less film its unique eeriness.

Another noteworthy film competing in the short film competition is Desanimé by Anne Leclerq. This puppet animation dealing with loneliness relies on micro-movements such as eye twitches to put the viewers in the emotional space of the protagonist, a young woman. The film also cleverly combines animation with live action. In a couple of exterior shots near the end of the movie, the woman walks amongst crowds of live action. She clearly looks like she does not belong with these people, but that is the point: she’s a secluded person. The combination of both mediums dramatacizes the emotion.

On day 2 began MARANI, Reanimania’s animation market. The company that started it off was Touch Fx, a local animation studio. There are not that many animation studios in the Caucasus region. According to Touch Fx, there aren’t any that specialize in high quality CG feature animation. None besides them: Touch Fx is a commercial effects studio turning to feature production. They have two movies on the way: Kukaracha, a co-produced animation with Russia and The Kam, a mo-capped cowboy movie that is completely theirs. Tests sequences from both movies looked impressive and entertaining. Touch Fx churns out a lot of work with a small staff. A couple of talented directors, one IT and effects guru, one art department lead, one character and setup lead, one senior animator and a handful of modelers, riggers and junior animators. Even the CEO of the company, Vahe Sarkissian, models in his spare time. All of this as they do advertisement spots here and there. The company plans to finish both films in the next two years. I believe Touch Fx will go far but not without presenting themselves better. Their demonstration could have been prepared better: sure the lady with the butterfly wings welcoming the attendees looked cute, but she was not distracting people from the fact that a Q & A session was absent from the showcase.

What you did not want to miss after Touch Fx was the second part of Yoshi Tamura’s workshop entitled “2D Animation: Motions and Emotions”. Mr. Tamura, a feature animator with a credit list that includes The Princess and the Frog, Igor and Tarzan shared many of his secrets with a group of ten inquisitive animators at the Naregatsi art center. What made Tamura’s workshop interesting was his insistence on researching poses and thinking about the filmmaking aspects of a given scene before actually animating. In brief, here is the method Tamura elaborated on during the workshop:

-Understand the movie you’re working on, know its logline and believe in it.

-Get to know the characters you are working on. Even if they are secondary, know what their psychology and motivations are.

-Do thumbnail drawings of the scene you are working on. Mr. Tamura spends half his time doing thumbnails. He calls this the fun and research stage, and believes that you are never wasting your time doing thumbnails: this is how you obtain the best acting and composition for your scene.

-Refer to your own life experience when thumbnailing your poses. This will help the audience refer to their own when watching the movie.

-Discuss you work with your supervisor and move on to the next stage: the pose test.

-The pose test is a rough animation that features only timing and spacing of thumbnail drawings or models if working in 3d. This stage shapes the animation style of the motion.

-After discussing the scene, move on to the first pass of animation which features the main poses (or accents) of the animation. At this stage you will include accel/deceleration and again review your work: your timing can longer change so you might have to get rid of secondary accents from your animation if they are not legible.

-After more feedback, go to the 2nd pass and add details such as facial animation.

The example Tamura used to explain this methodology was a short sequence from Igor in which Pinky is talking to and pointing at Brain.

In this Youtube clip, Yoshi Tamura breaks down a shot he worked on from Flushed Away in which the protagonist is angrily banging his phone against wall. Mr. Tamura does a great job in explaining how the filmmaking aspects of the shot (the camera framing and the audience’s identification with the character) defined the poses he used in the animation of the character. Along the way, he also touches upon a difference between working in 3d and 2d.

Labels: Armenia, Edison, Reanimania, Touch Fx, Yoshi Tamura

The first Yerevan international animation film festival, ReAnimania ’09, kicked off today in Armenia’s capital. The fest began with the screening of Animal Crisis, a Spanish comedy competing in the feature category. While this film’s drawbacks come from the limitations of Flash animation (i.e.. crappy front view walk cycles), it does take the medium away from the cinematically flat and minimal to the world of Warner hurt gags and Ren and Stimpyesque dirtyness. It does so with an Orwellian script and a pleasure in mutilating Disney archetypes: the heroic stallion, the seedy lion and the treacherous Hyena. Think of this film as South Park with animation principals applied throughout. My favorite instant of the film: watching a Flash hippo clap. A never before seen motion; at least by me.

Other highlights from the first day included an intimate interview with Michel Ocelot of Kirikou and Azur et Asmar fame. The conversations with the director set the tone of the festival. When Ocelot was asked why he is interested in making films for children, he replied that he does not think about his audience when starting to work on a film. He only strives to do a good job. Ocelot believes that animation should go in the direction that graphic novels have taken a while back: dealing with issues in a way that audiences from any age group can appreciate. In the mind of the French animation author, "Animation is never just for children."


This statement was concurred by Vrej Kassouny, the interviewer and director of the festival. Kassouny stated one of the main goals of Reanimania is to make its audiences aware that animation does not equal to films for children. Animation is an art form, and like any art form you can work with it in different ways.

With retrospectives on Armenian animation, Bruno Bozzetto and Alexander Shiryaev; the Pitching & Producing for animation and 2D workshops, competitions in feature, short, graduation, TV an educational films; forums and studio showcases, Re-Animania is surely to shed some new light on animation during the next three days. It runs until Oct 6th at Kino Moscow in Yerevan, Armenia.

Find the festival schedule and read about the history of Armenian animation on ReAnimania's site.

Labels: 2D, 3D, Animation, Armenia, cartoons, competition, festival, international, Yerevan

The first Montreal Stop Motion Film Festival will take place on October 24th and 25th. If you already have a stop motion film, you still have a few days left to submit your film. There are no submission fees (but you should read the rules first). Submit your film by September 30th!

In addition to submitting your professional, independent or academic film, you'll need to:

• Complete the submission form.
• Provide 2 images from the film.
• Provide a photo of the director.

The festival is the brainchild of Erik Goulet, one of the most enthusiastic supporters of animation in the city, especially if it's pixillated or has an armature or clay in it. After a long stint at Softimage, Erik is now an instructor at Concordia University's Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in the Film Animation program. He created the Stop Motion Award to further raise visibility of the art and technique.

(Erik has also contributed to fps in the past, interviewing Ray Harryhausen in the first online issue of fps.)

Labels: festivals, Montreal, stop-motion

We've heard rumours and speculation about both the Japanese and North American release dates for Studio Ghibli's Ponyo on Blu-ray disc but now we can finally confirm, thanks to the Asian Blu-ray Guide that Gake no ue no Ponyo will be hitting the Japanese market on December 8th! Whether or not we'll see it on this side of the Pacific before is still anyone's guess but this we do know for sure - the Japanese release will not only feature English subtitles but Disney's English dub as well! So, if there's no sign of Ponyo hitting a shop near you before the holidays this year, you can feel safe placing that order for the Blu-ray through YesAsia or other import e-tailer.

Click through for a look at the bonus features you can expect from the Japanese Ponyo Blu-ray:

• Storyboard
• Theatrical Trailers (2 Types)
• TV Spots (11 Types)
• Tie-in TV Spots (3 Types)
• Nitterechin Spots (2 Types)
• Non-credit Ending (Long Version)
• Theme Song Release
• Press Conference
• Dubbing Session Footage
• Premiere
• Interview with Miyazaki Hayao
• Producer Suzuki Toshio x NTV Editor Tsuchiya Toshio Discussion
• NEWS ZERO Ponyo Spin-off Segment
• Miyazaki Hayao Quotations
• Venice Film Festival Footage
• Theme Song Music Video
• Korea Version Theme Song Music Video

In other Ghibli/Ponyo news, the delayed (due to music-clearance issues) release of the lengthy "making-of" collection that was supposed to be on shelves back in July should street in Japan the same day, December 8th. This collection will not have the stink of English on it anywhere! It's Japanese language only. No subtitles, no dub. The hope for a bittorrented English fan-sub reigns eternal...

Via: The Blu-ray Blog

Labels: anime, Blu-ray, Hayao Miyazaki, Ponyo, Studio Ghibli

GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT (2009, Blu-ray released July 28, 2009 - MSRP $29.99)

I couldn't help but think of Law and Order: SVU while watching Green Lantern: First Flight. And not just because the lead character is voiced by Chris Meloni, one of the cops on the hit NBC show. But because the take on the character and the group he belongs to is such that we're meant to perceive them as being an intergalactic police force, patrolling the cosmos and protecting life from galaxy to galaxy. Cool concept. And it works.

Green Lantern: First Flight comes to us as the newest DC Comics/Warner direct-to-video animated feature. And it's another in their long line of success stories, following hot on the heels of Wonder Woman and the anime-styled anthology Batman: Gotham Knight. With the understanding that these projects suffer from massive time and budget restraints, the quality that producer Bruce Timm and his teams are able to achieve is simply astounding. Yet still, writer Alan Burnett faced impossible odds, having to shoe-horn poor, old Hal Jordan's origin story into the first ten minutes of the film - ten minutes comprised of a five minute opening titles sequence (Hey guys, how 'bout we drop that from the runtime next time in favour of a little more story?) The upcoming live-action Green Lantern film, directed by Martin Campbell and starring Ryan Reynolds will no doubt make two hours out of that same story material, glossed over here. But while things feel a bit rushed out of the gate, Burnett is soon allowed to settle into a nice rhythm with his script, exploring the relationship of Hal as rookie space-cop in the Green Lantern Corps, being trained to use his new-found magical-ring powers by seasoned vet of the force, Sinestro (Victor Garber). This is Training Day in space!

We get a few scenes that are meant to give us that "cop show" vibe before the story thrusts us into superhero-epic territory, where the film ultimately feels more at home (Was it just me, or did it feel like they were always trying too hard to remind us that the Green Lanterns are cops?) There's a grand, exciting and extremely well animated climax sequence that's worth the price of the disc alone. This is the kind of action you hope to see in a Green Lantern film! Martin Campbell has a lot to live up to now.

I have to give credit to the design team on this film. Wow. Incredible work. Green Lantern: First Flight looks wholly original, with designs more inspired by anime than by North American comics. And man, do they work in this context. In fact, the Japanese influence can perhaps be felt a touch too strongly in one particular instance. It was pointed out to me by nerd-blogger extraordinaire, Rob at Topless Robot, that Green Lantern's initial transformation into the superhero we know and love is almost identical to that of Sailor Moon. Compare the two and see for yourself!

The first five minutes of Green Lantern: First Flight:

And a Sailor Moon transformation:


Pretty similar, huh?! Nevertheless, the animation comes off well, with the character designs rarely falling too off model and the more nuanced and intricate movement being saved for the action sequences. Well done.

The Blu-ray looks great, as well. I can't get enough of 2-D animation in high-def. From Disney classics to Persepolis, I think I could just spend every day watching nothing but old school animation on my PS3. And the audio is no sloutch here either. All in all, a great presentation!

My only real complaint with the Green Lantern: First Flight Blu-ray is directed at the bonus features. While this disc may be packed with extras (including five episodes of Justice League and a Duck Dodgers cartoon!) it doesn't offer a single glimpse behind the curtain. I want to know how this thing was made! We aren't even offered a commentary track this time. At least the Wonder Woman disc gave us that. And what about that early promo featurette? You know the one, showing us Meloni and Garber in the studio, recording their lines. Where is that little piece of film? Urgh...After watching all the little docs that they do offer us, I feel like it's all just a promotion for writer Geoff Johns and his upcoming comic books stories. A shame that Timm, director Lauren Montgomery, Burnett and the team had to be short-changed to shill some comics. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the upcoming Superman/Batman: Public Enemies Blu-ray disc will see fit to show us how the Warner animation magic is made!

Via: The Blu-ray Blog

Labels: anime, DC Comics, Green Lantern, Warner Bros., Warner Home Video