Loving Vincent (2017)

Loving Vincent (2017)

Directors: Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman

Cast: Douglas Booth, Saoirse Ronan, Chris O’Dowd 

It has always baffled me how artists are unappreciated when they are alive. That whole thing that only after an artist has died do people truly care about their work. If you know anything about the story of Vincent Van Gough, well, then you’ll know he was one of these artists. He had many personal and internal struggles to deal with in life. Was he crazy? Why’d he chop off his ear? Why did he shoot himself? Van Gogh’s life and work has been the focus of many films throughout the years. For example, Paul Cox’s Vincent (1987), Robert Altman’s Vincent and Theo (1990), Vincent Minelli’s Lust for Life (1956) and most recently Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate (2018) starring Willem Dafoe as Van Gogh. So, Van Gogh’s life was one filled with all the elements for a good film, tragedy, passion, art, love, poverty, money (or lack thereof), so it’s no surprise so many films have been made about him. 

Today I will be talking about Loving Vincent (2017) a film that tells the story of what happened to Van Gogh during his last days on earth, when he committed suicide by shooting himself in the gut. The story unfolds from the perspective of a character called Armand Roulin, the son of a postman who was good friends with Van Gogh. You see, this postman has the last letter that Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo Van Gogh and so he wants his son to deliver this letter to Van Gogh’s brother. The film unfolds as we meet all the different characters that Armand meets in order to deliver the letter. In the process, Armand gets to know who Van Gogh was and the consequences that led to his demise. 

I connected with this movie immediately because it’s about the story of an artist and I am an artist myself, so I am quite sensible to the turmoil’s and tribulations that come with being an artist as well as that special kind of sensibility that we live with, a sensibility that not all possess or understand. Seeing how Van Gogh was bullied and tormented for seeing the world differently, for not being able to fit into that mold that they all wanted him to fit into is heartbreaking. Van Gogh went through many psychological struggles because society didn’t accept him and because he lived mostly in poverty. All Van Gogh wanted was for people to understand how deeply he felt about things, to understand the passion and lust he had for life and beauty. So sad that people would only understand this many years after his death. So, if you are an artist (or an artist at heart) you’ll be able to connect with this film. 

But one of the most amazing things about this movie is how it was made. Each frame was hand painted by a group of more than 100 artists from over twenty different countries. The film took four years to complete! Now try and wrap your head around how difficult it is to oil paint every frame of an entire film, all while still trying to tell a compelling and intriguing story! A lot of films can become an exercise in execution and try and impress with how well they were made while losing that all important element, a good story. This does not happen with Loving Vincent, a film that delivers both a good story and an amazing execution. I wanted to know what truly happened with Van Gogh. Did he truly shoot himself or was he murdered? I loved how the film was told like a detective story, as the main character picks up pieces of the story as he tries to deliver the letter. 

The fact that every frame of the film was hand painted gives us a very unique looking film. Sometimes we as viewers take so many things for granted because at the end of the day, all we have to do is watch a film. Sometimes we are oblivious as to all the hard work that goes on behind the cameras in order for a film to get made. In the case of Loving Vincent, we shouldn’t take anything for granted because it achieved something that had not been done before to this extent. It’s a film miracle. A wonder to behold.  

I loved how the film incorporates so many of Van Gogh’s paintings into the film. Many of his portraits and characters jump to life and walk around many of the beautiful vistas that Van Gogh painted. The film is like seeing all of Van Gogh’s paintings coming to life and breathing, while never losing Van Gogh’s particular style and colors. It’s amazing. I felt like I got to know who Van Gogh was after watching this film and connected with the painter in a more profound way then before. You’ll get to know Van Gogh’s thoughts and feelings because one of the films director’s Dorota Kobiela, made this film after having studied Van Gogh’s painting techniques and analyzing the letters he wrote throughout his life. This is a unique and visually dazzling film, one that requires admiration for how it was made, this isn’t just any old film, it was painstakingly made to give us, the viewers something truly special.  

Rating: 5 out of 5

Tekkonkinkreet (2006)

Title: Tekkonkinkreet (2006)

Director: Michael Arias 

Tekkonkinkreet is a film that comes to us from Studio 4C, the same guys that produced the amazing and unforgettable animated anthology Memories (1995), the mind blowing animation on Animatrix (2003) and most recently the feature film titled Mutafukaz (2017), which I’ve yet to see, but hear great things about. I hold this animation studio in high regard because their stuff is always cutting edge…its state of the art quality stuff. For example, on Tekkonkinkreet they started to fool around with mixing computer animation with traditional animation and the results were nothing short of amazing. It’s the kind of animated film you will want to watch more than once. So, what is this strangely titled movie all about? 

The title of the film, which might sound weird to English speakers, actually means ‘steel reinforced concrete’ in Japanese, which makes sense when you think about how the story takes place in this complex city landscape, where buildings are piled up into one another. At times the city itself feels like a character all its own, dying, decayed yet menacing. But the main characters in the film are actually two kids named ‘Black’ and ‘White’. Black is the older brother type, always taking care of things, solving problems and saving White from trouble. White is a kid, a daydreamer, whose head is up in the clouds dreaming about a perfect world where man and nature can coexist in peace and happiness. I loved how he sees himself as an alien, reporting what he sees down here on Earth. Together, Black and White see “Treasure Town” as their town, not to be messed with by anyone. It may be old and decayed, but it’s theirs, it’s actually the only thing they can call their own. So you better not mess with it, or else. So, what happens when a Yakuza gang lord strolls into town with the idea of turning Treasure Town into a pleasure den in order to trap young people and turn them into puppets?

So yeah, at heart this is a story about young people looking for freedom from the suffocating urban jungle that they live in. White is always dreaming of playing amongst flowers, insects, animals. He dreams of swimming in the ocean with dolphins and looking for interesting rocks at the edge of the beach. But his reality is another one. He is homeless, and lives on the grimy dirty streets of Treasure Town, where every day is a struggle to survive. I thought that was a beautiful message to address with a film, how the city, the concrete, the cars, the pollution, the crime on the streets all that stuff that we deal with on a day to day basis can get to us. Of course we will day dream of a more beautiful place whenever we can. 

The film is also about religion and governments wanting to control people, to trap them, ensnare them somehow to keep them distracted, so they won’t even realize they are being used. This is all represented by the main villain, who says he is doing all this in “Gods” name. In many ways Tekkonkinkreet also reminded me of Pinocchio, with its story centered on ensnaring the youth with drugs and games. Best part about the story is how the youth themselves identify the enemy and realize they have to do something to protect “their city” from this great evil. This is a very rebellious film, with many symbolisms pointing towards taking matters into our own hands if we have to, reaching into that dark, violent part of ourselves if need be. Black is named Black because he realizes he has this capability of tapping into his dark side. White is pure, chaste, childlike. Polar opposites that totally need each other, like the ying and the yang. Like tit for tat. One cannot live without the other. They are brothers, eternally intertwined. I loved how the film truly augments that feeling of a strong, brotherly love. And how it speaks about how we are both good and evil, for what is light, without dark. Nothing is pitch perfect good, or pitch black evil. 

Finally, the visual side of the film is astounding. This is one of the greatest strengths of the film, but what’s great about Tekkonkinkreet is that it balances those great visuals with a great story, so it’s a fantastic balancing act between eye candy and an immersive, emotional tale. Director Michael Arias seems like a guy who likes to charge his films with emotional content and I love that. Tekkonkinkreet is not a spectacle void of emotions. The film also has elements of magical realism, because it’s not a complete fantasy, yet characters do jump inhuman lengths from one building to another. Characters seem to defy gravity at times, going as far as deftly having fights on top of moving cars and trains. There’s also a strong surreal vibe to the film, with dreamscapes and visions being vividly depicted and yeah, the film even has some sci-fi elements in it, with what seemed like cyborgs or aliens to me. I say “seemed” because another thing I liked is that certain elements of the film aren’t fully explained, they are left open for you to interpret in your own way. What is firmly orchestrated though is what these images represent, and to the observant film watcher, these symbolisms should not go unnoticed. 

Rating: 5 out of 5

The Illusionist (2010)

The Illusionist (2010)

Director: Sylvain Chomet

Sylvain Chomet is a very special animator that all lovers of traditional hand drawn animation should be exposed to. His style is so unique, it’s a true delight to watch. The first time I was exposed to his work was while organizing a short film festival. I was looking for some of the best short films ever made and upon my research I stumbled upon a 25 minute animated short film entitled The Old Lady and the Pigeons (1997). This short film won many awards when it was released and it’s not without merit, the short film is a wonder of animation, beautiful, grotesque and nightmarish at the same time! And this is a short film about an old lady who goes to the park every day to feed pigeons! Search it out on you tube, you won’t be disappointed! So anyways, the short film was a hit on my short film festival, people clapped and cheered at it. So of course, I searched for Chomet’s other films. I had to see this wonderful animator’s whole body of work.

This is how I came upon The Triplets of Bellville (2003). I wasn’t expecting to get my mind blown by a film about a grandmother who trains her grandson to become a world class cyclist, but there I was entranced by the awesome mix of visuals and sound. The thing about Chomet’s films is that the unique visual style of his drawings will keep your eyes glued, but so will the sounds and the absence of dialog. To Chomet, actions speak louder than words. We get sounds, we get music, but when someone speaks, it won’t be often, and usually it will sound like a language you might know, but it will more than likely be a muffled sound sounding like language, meant to transmit an idea, an emotion. Kind of like when Charlie Chaplin speaks gibberish in Modern Times (1936)? Or how he speaks "German" in The Great Dictator (1940)? You swear Chaplin's speaking in a known language, but he’s actually speaking gibberish? Like that. This is how language works in a Chomet film, which makes for an amazingly unique audio visual experience. I was very impressed by The Triplets of Bellville, which is why I was delighted to discover he had one more film in his animated repertoire: The Illusionist (2010), the film I’ll be talking about today.

The Illusionist tells the tale of an aging Illusionist who is on the verge of becoming passé, his act has become old hat, replaced by young rock and roll groups. So he decides to travel the country, searching for new venues that will appreciate his particular talent. So he travels to Edinburgh where he finds a variety of venues that give him a job, but basically, he’s a lonely guy living from gig to gig. On one of his venues, he meets this young woman whom he immediately befriends. She is extremely poor, so he decides to buy her a pair of shoes. She immediately becomes attached to the Illusionist and decides to become his traveling companion. He on the other hands becomes her protector and provider, so they become friends. But questions immediately arise, she’s a young woman, and he’s an older fellow. What are his intentions with her? Is he merely interesting in helping the girl? Is he in love with her? Is she in love with him? Is it a platonic thing? Is he just a Good Samaritan?

The Triplets of Bellville (2003) was such an exhilarating experience, a nonstop barrage of amazement, such a tour de force of animation that of course my expectations for The Illusionist were extremely high. And while The Illusionist does deliver in many ways, mostly with its visuals and over all ambiance and feeling…sadly it fails to deliver a film with substance to it. It feels like it could have worked better as a short film rather than a 90 minute film. The story is just too thin, not enough happens, to justify a full length picture. But putting aside my desires for a slightly more complex story, there’s still a lot to be enjoyed here. I mean, Chomet manages to capture Edinburgh, he makes it magical. He does something with its localization that not a lot of movies can do: it makes you want to live there. This has happened to me with some Hayao Miyazaki films, like Ponyo (2008), were I felt like I living in that little town by the sea. Well, the same thing happened to me with The Illusionist (2010). It made me want to live in this easy going, magical looking city. But yeah, that’s about all this film has to offer, the beautiful art work and animation, which I still enjoyed to the max. I mean, any love of traditional hand drawn animation will have a feast here. 

Ultimately, this is a film to be enjoyed from a purely visual perspective, it’s meant to be enjoyed simply as a visual treat, because there’s not a lot of mental stimulation, not a lot of meat with the potatoes. Sure the film does address certain themes, like when do we become obsolete? Should we adapt to the changing times? What is platonic love? But it’s all touched upon lightly, this film is more about absorbing visuals, feelings, emotions and the beautiful artistry with which the visuals were brought to life. But if I was to recommend a Sylvain Chomet film, one that would really blow you away, it would be The Triplets of Bellville (2003), it’s the superior of the two. Chomet went on to direct live action films as well, but I’ve yet to dive into those. Last words on The Illusionist (2010), it’s purely style over substance, but oh what style!

Rating: 4 out of 5   

From Up on Poppy Hill (2011)

From Up on Poppy Hill (2011)

Director: Goro Miyazaki

Writer: Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki will always be a legend in the world of animation; he helped establish Studio Ghibli, one of the best animation studios in the world and is responsible for directing and animating many of their wonderful films. Some of my favorites are Spirited Away (2001), Nausicaa of theValley of the Wind (1984) and Ponyo (2008), but it’s unfair to name only three of his films, because he’s made so many good ones! I’d say that they are all my favorites. Sadly Hayao Miyazaki is working less and less these days, probably due to his old age. His last directorial effort was The Wind Rises (2013). The good thing about Miyazaki is that he is one of those directors who keeps making excellent films no matter his age, unlike some directors who kind of  “lose it” in their last days. But it looks like he’s working less and less all the time. Thankfully, his son Goro Miyazaki has taken the reins of studio Ghibli and has already produced two animated features: Tales from Earth Sea (2006) and the film I’ll be reviewing today From Up on Poppy Hill (2011). Does Goro Miyazaki have the same ability as his father to create worlds of wonderment and endearing tales that touch the heart?

From Up on Poppy Hill is a story that takes place within a school in Yokohama, Japan. On one side of the school it’s the girls and on the other side, the boys. On the boys’ side, the school is threatening to close down a building which serves as a club house for the boys. This building means a lot to the students because it’s like a mini university within the school; it’s their own private little world. It’s where all the little geniuses get together to explore their favorite school courses. Even the school newspaper is written and printed there. This desire to save the club house brings the school together; boys and girls join forces in order to save this ancient building. In the midst of all this, we have a romance brewing between a boy and a girl who come together in an effort to discover their roots and uncover who they really are.

There are certain elements that distinguish Miyazaki’s films from all others; one of them is the importance that he gives to the environments. The setting and the world in which the story unfolds is as important as everything else. Miyazaki creates worlds that I want to live in. For example in Ponyo (2008) the main characters live on this cozy little house, on top of a hill, right next to the ocean. The home looks so warm and inviting that it’ll make you want to be there, feeling that cool ocean breeze right next to Sosuke and his mom. Goro Miyazaki creates something similar for From Up On Poppy Hill, a story that unfolds in a cute little town in Yokohama Japan, during the 60’s. This little town will make you want to pack your bags, travel back in time and walk in the streets of that cozy little town, buying a warm dumpling from a street vendor and eating it as the rain falls. So Goro Miyazaki’s films share that importance to ambiance and atmosphere that his father gave to his own films. These are not the only similarities between Goro and Hayao Miyazaki’s films.

Hayao Miyazaki’s films are always about endearing, immediately likable characters and warm hearted situations. They are an explosion of happiness and a celebration of life and how beautiful it can be. Most of the time there’s no place for sadness on Miyazaki’s films. Some might argue that this happy go lucky nature of Miyazaki’s films makes them unrealistic, or difficult to identify with, but I beg to differ because characters in Miyazaki’s films do go through transformations and their journeys, which are filled with challenges and difficulties, but they go through them with a positive attitude and a good heart, which sometimes makes all the difference in the world. Goro Miyazaki’s From Up on Poppy Hill offers us these positive vibes as well. Same as in his father’s films, characters in Goro Miyazaki’s films do good things for each other simply because. The main character in the film, a fatherless high school girl, wakes up early in the morning to make breakfast for her entire family. The film is filled with good natured scenes like this one, like the scene in which the girls help the boys clean and fix their clubhouse. Boys and girls working together to change their world; instead of propagating that old stereotype of boys and girls hating each other all the time. It’s a beautiful scene. It’ll make you wish you were 12 again, playing in a clubhouse like that one with your friends.

But I guess what makes this film so ‘Miyazaki’ is that Hayao Miyazaki wrote it, and Goro Miyazaki directed it, so we get a double dose of Miyazaki on this one, father and son working together to give us an extra Miyazaki film! Even though the Miyazaki’s make films with a happy nature about them, within the context of the film, they also tackle serious issues. Spirited Away (2001) is all about a little girl learning to accept her responsibilities in life and pulling her own weight in the world. From Up on Poppy Hill also stars a little girl (another Miyazaki staple) who misses her father, a sailor who drifted away into sea one day and never returned. Is he still out there? Will he ever return? She handles all these issues while also falling in love with one of the boys in her school. There’s this beautiful scene where they are both riding a bike together through town during a cold, rainy evening, I loved it. I don’t know what it is about the Miyazaki’s, but they know what warms our hearts, and they put that into their movies. I think what attracts me the most to their films is that warmth. Simply seeing people being good to each other as opposed to the harshness we sometimes confront in our daily, real world lives. But then again, I think the real world can be the way it’s represented in these films even if they might be a bit idealistic at times. So what, I’m with the Miyazaki’s, I say let’s dream big about what humanity is capable of becoming. Go out there today and be randomly good to someone, simply because.

Rating: 5 out of 5

   

Short Peace (2013)

Short Peace (2013)

Directors: Katsuhiro Otomo, Shuhei Morita, Hiroaki Ando, Hajime Katoki

The more I dig into the world of anime films the more I find, sometimes I find treasures, and sometimes I find pieces of coal that need to be refined. You know how that goes, one film leads to another! Case in point, while exploring Japanese animated anthology films like Robot Carnival (1987) and Memories (1995) I learned that Katsuhiro Otomo the creator behind Akira (1988) was involved in directing one of the shorts in yet another animated anthology film called Short Peace (2013), so of course I was salivating at the prospect of seeing this film, the talent involved is composed of masters in animation.  I went into this one knowing next to nothing about it save for Otomo’s involvement, so this one could go either way. It could be a treasure or a piece of coal. So which was it?

Short Peace is composed of four stories that are connected by one theme and one theme alone: Japan. It was kind of tricky for me to grasp what held these four tales together, but the fact that they all take place in Japan and that that they all seem to focus on Mount Fuji when they end kind of led me to this conclusion, also because nothing else joins these stories together, they are quite disparate in nature. Reading up a bit about the film, they focused in Japan during different eras, so one takes place during feudal times, one is in the future, one is in the present, but the one that takes place in the present is actually a video game, because part of the marketing scheme for this anthology was to also release a video game along with the film.

Sadly I didn’t really fall in love with this anthology like I did with Memories (1995), Neo Tokyo (1987) and Robot Carnival (1987). My main problem with it was that the stories are not very engaging. Short stories should get to the point quickly; they should give us a lot of information in a very short time but with a quick jolt to the system. Now when you simplify the story to the point where there’s not enough meat to the short, well, you’re left with a short that you don’t connect with because it’s too simple, it feels like padding, like you are stretching it for running time. On Short Peace the stories are either too simple and end abruptly without proper closure. Short films aren’t meant to leave you hanging, they should start and end and tell their story all within their 20 to 30 minutes of running time; sadly that doesn’t always happen with the short films in Short Peace. To me they were very uneventful in a way.

Now this is not to say that the animation isn’t astounding, quite the contrary, on a visual level the film is solid. It’s the content that needed a bit more beefing up; it needed more weight to it. As it is, with some of the shorts here you’ll feel like you walked into a movie already in progress and by the time they end you’ll feel like you left the theater without seeing the ending. Take for example Katsuhiro Otomo’s ‘Combustible’ a short film about a young man who always wanted to be a fire extinguisher in ancient Japan. Technically speaking the short is impressive because it’s animated in a way that it looks like ancient Japanese scrolls, which is extremely interesting from a  visual angle. It’s a tragic love story that builds up to something, yet ends up never delivering, leaving you without closure. Suddenly, boom, it’s over. What happened to everybody and everything? Combustible had potential, but failed to deliver in my book. And this was the segment directed by Otomo! It was the one I was most looking forward to! And while innovative from a visual stance, story wise it was missing a lot. 

The film isn’t a total loss because there were two stories on it that I enjoyed a lot. The one called ‘Possessions’ was actually nominated for ‘best animated short film’ and it’s about this traveler who is walking around the forest when a storm breaks out and he has to shelter himself in this little hut, which just so happens to be haunted. This one was visually stunning, with a very unique look. They used computer generated images which were made to look like traditional animation. The whole idea behind this short is that old, used things are requesting their validity in this world. Suddenly a bunch of old umbrellas come to life, piles of garbage become steam spewing dragons and a piece of silk cloth becomes possessed by the spirit of a woman. Here’s a simple story that gives us everything we need, a beginning, a middle and an end and we’re left happy because the short says something and it entertains. Also, the colors on this one are beautiful. This short was awesome all around.  

The other one I loved was the one called ‘Gambo’ which is, again, a simple story about this small village that’s being attacked by a giant red demon that starts killing villagers and the soldiers who are trying to stop him. Thankfully, there’s a giant white bear who serves as a protector to this village and so at one point it’s all about Gambo the white bear vs. The Red Demon. I liked the concept of this huge white bear serving as a protector to this small village, he seems like a pure, gentle soul that at the same time won’t hesitate to rip your throat out if need be. This short is awesome looking because it has this sketchy vibe going for it and also because it has this one really gory, gory scene which just went on forever. Gambo proved one thing again, this film is composed of pretty visuals with not a whole lot of meat to them.

The last story in the anthology is the one called ‘A Farewell to Weapons’ and it’s about these Japanese soldiers who go around deactivating old weapons from an ancient bygone war. Their job is to go in, deactivate and collect old war robots. Technically speaking it’s an awesome short, the animation has a unique look and the designs are awesome, especially those suits the soldiers wore? With all their technical gadgetry, they reminded me of the suits in Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. On this short there are a lot of explosions, a lot of lasers and gun shots, but sadly it doesn’t feel like an important story. It just feels like a day in the life of these soldiers. It has a pacifist message which didn’t go unnoticed by this viewer; it’s just that I didn’t care much for anything that was happening in it. It felt like I was seeing a scene from Call of Duty or something, only I wasn’t playing it. Personally, there’s nothing more boring to me then following soldiers around, I don’t know, I expected something more exciting. This one was sort of boring in a way, worst part is they end the movie with this one, so the film ends on this boring short. 

So yeah, I guess you could say I was half way disappointed with this one. I mean, Katsuhiro Otomo equals excellence to me, so I expect nothing but the best in terms of production value, which is what I got here, a good production. But I do think that producers should request excellence in the writing as well the visuals or else we get an anthology that’s half cooked, missing in one department. Stories should have some weight to them, if they don’t simply entertain us, then they should move us and entice us, and not just in a visual level. On the other hand, this is a very Japanese film, perhaps there are certain aspects of their culture I’m not connecting because of that? Yet, if that was the case, why haven’t I had a problem with any other number of Anime films I’ve seen recently? Films tend to play with universal themes that we can all connect with, no matter what part of the world they are from. Sadly, as evidenced by some of the stories on this short film, blandness is also universal. This is not the worst anime anthology I’ve seen, it’s a quality production with beautiful visuals and animation, there’s no denying that. It just needed to be more engaging. So it’s the classic case of style over substance.  

Rating: 3 out of 5     

Heavy Metal 2000 (2000)

Heavy Metal 2000 (2000)

Directors: Michael Coldeway & Michel Lemire

Voice Actors: Julie Strain, Michael Ironside, Billy Idol

It took eight people to write Heavy Metal 2000, the film I will be reviewing today, and you know how that goes, the more writers a film has, the worse the movie is going to be! And this movie had eight writers! Was the resulting script a disaster? Or did these eight writers achieve their goals of making a movie that paid tribute to one of the greatest sci-fi/horror magazines on the planet? So anyhow, this is Heavy Metal 2000 (2000), the sequel to the animated cult classic anthology film Heavy Metal (1981). Now if you know anything about the original film, then you probably know that it’s composed of various stories, all done by different animation houses. This amalgamation of talent yielded an melting pot of short films with some of the worst and some of the best animation you will ever see, so it’s interesting in that sense. Nothing stays the same for very long, just when you think you’ve had enough of a particular short, soon another artistic style and voice takes over. The soundtrack on Heavy Metal is a memorable one, including many awesome rock and roll bands from the 70’s and 80’s. Today I review the sequel, Heavy Metal 2000. The thing to remember while watching this sequel is that it’s vastly different than the first film.

In contrast to the first Heavy Metal (1981), this sequel isn’t an anthology film; Heavy Metal 2000 sticks to only one story, this immediately shatters our expectations of it. Fans of the first film expected this sequel to maintain the anthology format, so they were disappointed to discover that with this sequel, they were going to get just one feature length story. I enjoy the amalgamation of different artistic talents that an anthology brings, but I also appreciate the fact that this sequel was going for something different. In its defense I will say that even though Heavy Metal 2000 isn’t an anthology, it still manages to retain that feel of what Heavy Metal Magazine is all about. If you didn’t already know, both of these movies are inspired by Heavy Metal Magazine, a magazine totally devoted to science fiction, horror and fantasy comics. It is a magazine filled with stories that are exactly like the story we see in Heavy Metal 2000. As a fan of this magazine, I can tell you I’ve read my fare share of issues, most of the stories include half naked heroines fighting muscular evil dudes, sorcerers, magicians, aliens, you name it. Many of the stories include nudity, violence and gore in one form or another. This is why I say that Heavy Metal 2000 captures the feel of the magazine; it has all the elements you’d expect to find on any given issue. Yet even though Heavy Metal 2000 is inspired by Heavy Metal magazine and gets everything right in terms of the spirit of the magazine, Heavy Metal 2000 is actually based on a graphic novel called ‘Melting Pot’, which was written by Kevin Eastman, Simon Bisley and Eric Talbot. Kevin Eastman created the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (along with co-creator Peter Laird) and is the current publisher and editor (and has been for years) of Heavy Metal Magazine, so he truly knows what Heavy Metal is all about. This explains why he is one of the writers of the film. 

Above: Issue #4 of 'Melting Pot', the comic series on which Heavy Metal 2000 is based on 

Below: Lady Death, an example of the Bad Girl comic craze of the 90's 

So let’s keep things in perspective, Heavy Metal 2000 isn’t Shakespeare and it never intends to be. Heavy Metal Magazine has always been about the type of stories that sci-fi/horror fans love to read. Stories filled with the fantastic, the horrifying, the shocking. This magazine has always been a love letter to low brow entertainment, it’s the kind of literature that some will no doubt consider immature, and they’d be right, these stories are often times juvenile in nature, but that’s the nature of the beast. And so, Heavy Metal 2000 basks in its b-movie roots, unashamedly so. Trust me when I say that one liners will be spoken, in fact, you’ll feel that it is the only language these characters speak. In this film you will see females being treated like sex objects and the females loving it. For example, Julie Strain does the voice of the main character in the film, a bad ass lady who goes by the name of ‘Jules’. She’s you’re a-typical bad ass babe. During the 90’s Bad Girls were the rave of the comic book world; suddenly every comic book was about Bad Girls with big boobs and even bigger guns! During those days we had comics like Vampirella, Lady Death and Danger Girl. And though Heavy Metal 2000 was released at the beginning of the new millennium, it still retains that 90’s Bad Girl vibe to it. You’ll notice the emphasis on showing Jules breasts bouncing all the way through the movie, sometimes the camera will focus entirely on her ass, or take its time showing her taking a shower, it’s all very gratuitous, designed to titillate teenage boys. You should see the extras on the Heavy Metal 2000 dvd, where Mrs. Strain talks all about how much she loves being the sexy sci-fi chick and showing some skin. She’s the ultimate tease for young boys (and men in general) kind of like a sci-fi version of Elvira. She knows you like her jugs, and she’s got no problem showing them to you, in fact, she loves the adulation she gets from it. Julie Strain obviously infused the character of Jules with her own persona, so much so that they even share the same name. 

Above, Julie Strain dressed up as Jules, below her animated counterpart

On this film, Jules is out for revenge. You see, this power hungry madman who goes by the name of Tyler is on his way to a distant planet that holds the gates to immortality. Tyler has the key, and he aims to use it in order to acquire immortality. Problem is that whoever holds the key goes insane from lust of power, and so throughout the movie Tyler destroys, rapes and kills anything on his path. Too bad for him that on one of his joy rides he ends up killing Jules family and her people. To make matters worse, Tyler kidnaps Jules sister because he thinks she’s hot. Now Jules is on a race to try and stop Tyler from acquiring immortality, while avenging her people and rescuing her sister!

I’ve always had a couple of problems with this movie. Number one, the animation is not the best. Maybe it’s because its old school, but I’ve seen old school animation films with excellent traditional hand drawn animation, so maybe it’s just the animation on this show isn’t really that good. Then again, it’s American animation, which has never distinguished itself for being excellent. And they do that thing where they mix computer generated images with traditional hand drawn animation and it sucks big time because back in those days computer animation was just getting started, so whatever computer animation the squeezed into any given scene looks amateurish by today’s standards. Then again, maybe I’ve been spoiled rotten by anime films. That being said, once I got accustomed to the films look and the choppy animation, I found myself having fun with it. Same story with Ralph Bakshi films, you just gotta get accustomed to the fact that the animation is a little rough around the edges.

Heavy Metal 2000 has its moments, like when Jules and Tyler meet up on this pleasure planet of sorts, filled with strippers with six breasts and aliens from all sorts of planets, it reminded me a bit of the cantina scene from Star Wars, if the cantina scene from Star Wars had been rated ‘R’. And by the way, speaking of this films rating, they don’t even make live action ‘R’ rated films like this one today! I mean, this is a hard ‘R’ rated film! There’s tons of gratuitous nudity, profanity is common place, and the gore, well, even for a cartoon it’s over the top at times. In that sense, this film is extremely rare, it’s an animated ‘R’ rated film! You don’t see one of those every day. Last time I saw one of those was Richard Linklater’s  A Scanner Darkly (2006), another one that comes to mind is South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999). Every once in a while, an adventurous filmmaker will make one from time to time, but the truth is that the R rated animated film is rare because (with rare exceptions) they are not marketable. For a time there, animated films for adults where trying to find its corner in the market with films like Fritz the Cat (1972), Fire and Ice (1983) and American Pop (1981), but I guess it proved too difficult to get the common American adult to think of animation as anything more than the stuff of Saturday Morning Cartoons or children’s films. So Heavy Metal 2000 is a rare bird, on this one axes slice people in half, brains are blown to smithereens and sex robots can be bought at the corner of the street.

The soundtrack of the first film is one of the most memorable things about it; it included old school rock and roll bands like Blue Oyster Cult, Stevie Nicks, Journey, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, Devo and even Sammy Hagar. So of course, the soundtrack for Heavy Metal 2000 had to amass an interesting amount of bands as well. On this sequel we get the likes of Pantera, Monster Magnet, Coal Chamber, Bauhaus, Insane Clown Pose, Queens of the Stone Age, System of a Down and Puya. The problem for me with this soundtrack is that sometimes, the visuals don’t match with the music. Sometimes there’s a real hardcore song going on and it just doesn’t go with the visuals. The same thing happened when Dario Argento started using heavy metal in his horror movies, the heavy metal just didn’t mix with the visuals, thank god he stopped doing it after a while.  This is something very important on any film, the visuals have to go in accordance and sometimes even to the rhythm of the music. Not so here where songs are apparently randomly inserted into a scene without rhyme or reason. It feels like the songs where only inserted into the film in order to sell a soundtrack and not because the song is perfect for the scene. This truly sucks in my book.

The other problem I had with it is the weak direction and the editing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any movie that uses fade to black so often! This is one of the signs of amateurish filmmaking, fade to black is what you resort to when you’ve got nowhere else to go because you forgot to film a transition or establishing shot. There’s no way to flow from one scene to the next so you fade to black. Well, they do this all the time in Heavy Metal 2000 and it just reeks of bad filmmaking. So there’s unevenness in the editing and the music. Strange thing is that even with all these imperfections, I still managed to have fun with Heavy Metal 2000. Its dialog, sense of humor and mentality is so comic bookish that I ended up surrendering to it and having a blast. It’s a film made for adults who want to feel 12 years old again. It’s the kind of film in which when the masses are calling his name, the villain says “Blind adulation makes me so horny! Get me a wench!” At first I hated Heavy Metal 2000 with a passion, but it’s grown on me over the years. It’s rude, raw, loud, imperfect and sexist, but that’s exactly the way it should be, or else it wouldn’t be Heavy Metal. The original Heavy Metal film is superior in the sense that if offers a larger variety of stories and styles, the animation is a million times superior and because the soundtrack is infinitely more melodic and plain cool, but this sequel is definitely worth a watch, if you can get over the imperfections.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)

Director: Shinichiro Watanabe, Hiroyuki Okiura, Tensai Okamura

My exploration of anime films continues and this time I tackle Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, an anime film that always pops up as the ones that “you gotta see” so I decided to finally give it a spin. The trailers for this film called it “Today’s hottest kind of cool” and a “gritty futuristic thrill ride that definitely delivers the goods” so of course my curiosity was sparked. My only concern was that I had never seen the series that the film is based on, so I was sort of going into this movie naked, not knowing anything about what the world of Cowboy Bebop was all about. But then I learned that the film was designed so that newbies like me and fans of the show could enjoy the film alike. I’m sure I’ll enjoy this film a bit more after I’ve seen the entire show, but I like watching anime films perse, so I decided to watch it even though I have not seen the show. Still, just in case you’re interested, this film takes place between episodes 22 and 23 of the show. So, how was my first dip into the world of Cowboy Bebop?

The story for this film is fairly simple, a terrorist named Vincent wants to destroy the world via a virus he wants to set lose upon the world on Halloween Night. The government puts a hefty bounty on the head of the terrorist, so of course, Spike and his crew of bounty hunters decide to go after the guy, so they can cash in all those millions. Problem is that Vincent has gone into hiding, and Halloween night just keeps getting ever so close! How will they stop the terrorist attack from ever happening? As you can see, the story is nothing complex, a weakness of this film in my opinion, I was expecting a bit more. Thankfully, the visuals are top notch as is the animation. 

Now taking in consideration that I knew nothing of the concept behind Cowboy Bebop save for the fact that it was a beloved series, I’d say that I grasped the concept behind the whole thing pretty quickly. The idea is that these are a group of Bounty Hunters who are always looking for new bounties in order to make money, the idea being that they are only in it for the money. They aren’t cops or detectives or anything of the sort, they just do these missions for the money, hence the tag line for the film “They are going to save the world, but not for free!” Spike Spiegel is the leader, he’s you’re a-typical “cool dude” always posing, saying cool things, smoking his cigs. Oh and he’s good at martial arts at well! Then we have Jet Black, the aged tough guy/father figure who owns the spaceship they fly called ‘The Bebop’. Faye Valentine, the sexy chick who used to be a bounty but now forms part of the group, Ed who is a computer whiz and is always getting them all the info they need during their missions and finally, Ein a dog with human intelligence who’s also a genius at chess. 

But of course, me being a Cowboy Bebop rookie, some elements of the story flew right by me, for example, I didn’t exactly grasp the idea that the whole film takes place in Mars because humanity had to flee from earth. Humanity has spread itself throughout different planets because of this. The year wasn’t clear either. In fact, to me the movie simply takes place in a strange amalgamation between New York City, France and the Middle East. So of course, not having seen the show will put you at a small disadvantage, but not enough of a disadvantage that you won’t be able to enjoy the film. The whole film starts like you are walking into the middle of a film already in progress; I actually liked the fact that the film wasn’t spelling things out for the viewers. You have to sort of figure things out on your own and get on the bandwagon and I liked that about this film. From what I hear the show is structured in the same way. So the film doesn’t treet its viewers like idiots, a cool thing. Also, this is an animated film that’s rated ‘R’, so it has profanity, nudity, guns, violence, the works. So cool, an anime film entirely directed towards adults.

So with all these cool things going for it, why did I end up feeling underwhelmed? Not saying that it’s a bad film, it has some great things about it, and actually, I feel that I need to watch it a few more times to truly grasp the thing, but at first glance I felt the film was in need of a bit more action. As it is, the film has some cool action scenes, like for example the one that takes place on a train, which was awesome. There’s also a climactic spaceship chase sequence that I enjoyed, but in my opinion it needed a bit more than that. I think the big draw of the film is more the chemistry between the characters, but for a show with emphasis on gun play and fights, the film might have needed a bit more of that, or maybe editing a bit of the melodrama to make the pacing a little quicker. But I will say that when the action starts, it’s pretty cool. The animation, the angles chosen by the director and animators, I loved all that stuff because that’s what I love seeing in animation, things that aren’t done often in live action films. I was kind of saddened to hear that the show has a lot more space adventure in it, because sadly characters do not go into space on this film. I love sci-fi films that take place in space, so that would have added a whole other level of cool, but alas, that never came to be, a missed opportunity in my book. Still, we do get cool spaceships and I always enjoy those, even if they aren’t flying around in space. Actually, Spike has this whole scene that’s a chase as he drives this cool little spaceship (called The Swordfish II) which was pretty cool stuff, love the design work on this film.

Hollywood has shown interest in making a Cowboy Bebop live action film but its taking a while to lift off.  Shinichiro Watanabe, the creator of Cowboy Bebop assures us that its happening, but that it’s all very secret and hush-hush. At one point Keanu Reeves was going to play the role of Spike, sadly the project has been in development hell for so long that Keanu now feels that he is “too old” to play Spike, so he turned down the project. While it’s true that Keanu at one point would’ve been perfect for it, he actually looks a bit like Spike, I agree, too much time has elapsed and maybe the film would benefit from having a younger actor play the role of Spike. Keanu also stated that the film would cost a fortune to make, so maybe that's holding it back a bit as well, similar to how the live action Akira film is being held back for the same reason. But one thing’s for sure, I would love to see a live action Cowboy Bebop movie. In the meanwhile, you got the show (which I hear is better than the actual film) and this film to quench your thirst for Cowboy Bebops special brand of “Jazzy” action, just remember that its manufactured for fans of the show, newbies might feel just a little bit lost, still there’s fun to be had if you decide to take the plunge.

Rating:  3 out of 5