Odyssey 5: The Complete Series (2002)

Odyssey 5 is Apollo 13 meets 12 Monkeys (or even Lost). I saw the first half of this 20-episode series on Sci-Fi and was very impressed. Now I'm finally working my way through the DVD set. Peter Weller is always good but the nail-down-the-timeline premise is what carries this show like a train. A space shuttle crew led by Commander Chuck Taggart (Weller) is performing a challenging satellite retrieval just before the planet Earth is catastrophically destroyed. A time- and space-traveling alien tells the crew he has found 50 other worlds similarly destroyed and offers them the chance to go back in time five years to try to stop the apparently external influences that will lead to Earth's destruction. At first, several crew members just want to seclude themselves and try to change history for their personal benefit but they finally accept their joint and dangerous mission. Who or what is behind the two code names, Bright Star and Leviathan, that seem to have led to doomsday? As the crew begins to uncover an apparent conspiracy and cover-up, alien or artificially designed supercreatures, and threads that go progressively deeper and more dangerous, their actions and inquiries affect the timeline and may even accelerate the foretold destruction. Can their actions change the future -- for the better -- and amidst so many moving targets, can they ultimately succeed? This series was Emmy nominated for its Farscape-like musical score. 4.5 stars. (3-27-08 updated 10-24-09)

Titan A.E. (2000)

I saw Titan A.E. on its theater release and was duly impressed (along with the entire family that accompanied me), subsequently bought it on video, and have watched it a few times since then, including twice with my youngest son, who also really enjoys this movie. I've been suitably impressed with Don Bluth's often scintillating animation since The Secret of NIMH though I didn't recognize Joss Whedon's name yet. (I had an acquaintance who was a huge Buffy fan but my schedule kept the TV series below my radar.) So all I really knew of Titan A.E. was what I saw before my eyes: out-of-this-world scenery, well-above-average animation, a wry sense of humor and humanity, awesome surround-sound, and a kickass contemporary soundtrack (including It's My Time To Fly by The Urge, Cosmic Castaway by Electrasy, and Not Quite Paradise by Bliss 66). Titan A.E. felt targeted to true sci-fi fans and 11- to 16-year-old boys so it's no surprise it only recouped $23 million towards an estimated production budget of $75 million. I think the movie shows up its detractors well, however, since it was nominated for a Saturn award, three Annie awards, two Golden Reel awards, and a Golden Satellite award before it won a Golden Reel (for best sound editing). Our story begins as humanity is fleeing planet Earth immediately before (if not, for the stragglers, during) the catastrophic destruction of our planet. The exact motivation for the Holocaust-like vendetta pursued by the electric-blue Drej is unspecified though it's less related to what humanity "has done" so much as to humanity's recent and greatest discovery and to "what we can become." Ron Perlman is the voice of Prof. Sam Tucker, who accompanies the Titan project to a successful escape and remote hiding place. Bill Pullman is Capt. Joseph Korso, who once aided the Titan's escape and, 15 years later, locates Tucker's now-19-year-old son Cale (Matt Damon) to reveal him as humanity's last hope, since his father's ring bears a genetically encoded map to the Titan's location. Akima (Drew Barrymore) is Korso's tall Japanese-American pilot and Cale's love interest, marsupial-like alien Stith (Janeane Garofalo) is Korso's hot-tempered weapons expert, terrapin-like alien Gune (John Leguizamo) is Korso's engineer, and snarky lupine alien Preed (Nathan Lane) seems to be Korso's second-in-command. Such a cast of characters does not appear bland to me nor does the script seem remotely predictable. (Besides, calling anything predictable after the fact is pointless; you can only claim predictability if you write down your prediction beforehand and confirm it afterwards. How about those hydrogen trees? Or Preed's line "An intelligent guard -- didn't see that one coming.") Also far from pointless, the scene with the wake angels is my favorite. Titan A.E. is a wonderful PG-rated sci-fi film that can and should appeal to the whole family. 4.5 stars.

Nils Lofgren & Friends: Live Acoustic (2006)

Music. Nils Lofgren is an exceptional solo talent -- his cascading harmonics can make his six-string guitar sound half the time like a 12-string guitar, and that's just the acoustic set. And then he starts jamming -- and then he plugs in! Nils is more than a minstrel and triple the troubadour that the uninitiated might expect, even knowing his 25-year history with Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. One bluesy jam was the best I've heard this side of Saturday Night in San Francisco with John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, and Paco de Lucia. This concert at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va., is good at its lowest moments and exceptionally great at its highest. Instant Watch access does not include the behind-the-scenes features but the concert presentation runs 97 minutes. 4 stars.

Dana Gould: Let Me Put My Thoughts In You (2008)

Dana Gould's material is pretty funny and he presents it like a champ. His timing and facial expressions are spot-on (though his body language could use some work). I really enjoyed the first half of his act as he channeled Lewis Black over parenting, marital relationships, and more. His hypothetical stories go over the top in a hilarious way though I was less enamoured of his final fantasy about going way-gay just to spite his father (esp. if you think about the pantomime of what he was doing with his fingers). Lastly, I don't mind vulgarity with a point or an edge but the three capsule lessons he hoped everyone would take away from his show were pointless and unnecessarily crude. 3.5 stars.

Head Case in 12 Minutes (2009)

This "preseason bonus feature" to Head Case: Season 2 may be a compilation of scenes from Season 1 but it's a rapid-fire and hilarious compilation. The selection and editing process tells a riveting tale of the dysfunction and wackiness that is the personal and professional like of Elizabeth Goode, therapist to the stars. Don't miss it esp. at just 12 min in length. 5 stars.

Nick Swardson: Seriously, Who Farted? (2009)

I didn't find Nick Swardson to be very funny at all. With a title like "Seriously, Who Farted?" I had my doubts going in, and he wasn't as scatological as I expected from the promos, but he was seriously gross -- all right, if I must give one example for you believe me, it has to do with getting sensorily intimate with baby poop -- not funny to me (though obviously, your mileage may vary, particularly if you re-e-ally like baby poop). 2.5 stars.

Assassination of a High School President (2008)

I watched Assassination of a High School President the week it came out on DVD. I really liked it and then some. It's a slightly quirky stream-of-consciousness first-person-narrative student-journalist detective story. I prefer to think of it as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (not Chinatown) meets Brick. While some of the St. Donovan's students' actions are reprehensible -- I'm not talking about Mean Girls but drinking and horndogging -- the movie portrays high-school malefactions quite realistically. Our clean-nosed protagonist and narrator Bobby Funke (Reece Thompson) wants to write a phenomenal investigative article for the school paper so he can wow his way into journalism school. He is trying to be more than lackluster about fulfilling his newbie assignment, a puff-piece profile of the school's conceited star jock (Patrick Taylor). Then the SAT tests are stolen and discovered in the jock's locker -- a muckraker's bonanza! Did he do it -- or was he framed? Did he have accomplices -- or enemies? His girlfriend (Mischa Barton), a valedictorian with bedroom eyes, migrates to Bobby and wryly whispers, "I can tell I'm going to corrupt you." The story's convolutions unwind to a satisfying conclusion. Bruce Willis wins kudos as the edgy principal who is a former Gulf War vet and Josh Pais has a droll role as the priest who teaches Spanish, speaking like Senor Wences on Valium. It's just possible many people have high-school memories very much like what these two authority figures portray on screen. 4.5 stars.

Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

Sunshine Cleaning did not completely win me over. Amy Adams' chief asset is her perkiness and sincerity but here she is a confused and struggling single mom whose career and personal life is a mess (quite literally). She's fallen so low in her dead-end job as a maid and long-time affair with her (married) high-school sweetheart -- we see Steve Zahn's buttocks, we see Amy's breasts -- that she's even seeking a real estate license and mouthing private platitudes such as "I am strong, I am powerful, I am a winner!" Her self-sabotaging sister's life is in even worse shape so the two women grasp at a straw and start a business doing crime-scene cleanup. They quickly learn they can't lowball in such a profession, which requires hazmat suits and biohazard handling certification. (The scenes before they learn these lessons are not anything that will cause you to salivate for more popcorn -- though I ate dinner while watching them.) I have a lot of quibbles with the movie: the acting in klutzy scenes was as forced as in any Diane Keaton movie, several scenes involved pot smoking, a lesbian is encouraged under false pretenses, the young son is brought to suicide and crime-scene cleanups and told to stay in the van or on the front steps (presumably for hours), and so on. Eventually we learn the source of the two sisters' lifelong emotional trauma and I could sympathize with them though just barely. Sunshine Cleaning is so episodic and disjointed that it's hard to get a bead on or give a fig for a given character. (In one scene, the industrial supply rep -- a taciturn amputee -- has been invited to the son's birthday party. Here is the conversation: "So you build model airplanes?" "Yes." "Is there much money in that?" "No." Then it's on to the next bewildering scene.) Alan Arkin as the girls' long-struggling father has a warm and empathetic role and he has the best line: "It's a business lie. It's not the same as a life lie." To tell the truth, I had been hoping for a darker or more comic treatment -- say, Amy Adams as a contract cleaner for the mob. Instead, I found something closer to The Squid and the Whale where no one really knows what they're doing as they bumble along, hoping against hope through all their tragic choices that they will somehow find happiness. It takes watching the entire movie to find out, but Amy's character just might. 3.5 stars.

Atonement (2007)

Atonement is a lush, beautiful, and emotionally intense period romance set in 1935 through World War II to the present day. Think of it as Sense and Sensibility meets The English Patient. As is common knowledge, the film examines a young girl's (Saoirse Ronan) misperception of a sexual advance on her sister and her ensuing testimony about a sexual crime against her cousin. The lives of her sister and her future husband are intrinsically bound up in the perpetually resonating tragedy that then follows all three to their graves. It's rated R mainly for a sexual scene where James McAvoy remains fully clothed in tux and tails while he pinions Keira Knightly against a library bookcase. (How his pants stay up while making her writhe remains a mystery of moviemaking.) Nevertheless, Atonement is not about sex but longing and sorrow, separation and repentance. I waited a year and a half to watch this emotionally resonant movie; don't make the same mistake. 5 stars.

Life Is a Long Quiet River (La vie est un long fleuve tranquille) (1988)

As it turns out, Life Is A Long Quiet River is ironically titled. Also, as a French movie, it is not for family viewing. It begins with a jolting scene that belies the anti-Semitism (against Arabs and Jews) that curdles through the script on occasion. The story moves on to a married doctor's ten-year affair with his head nurse (including two clothed scenes of groping and bouncy-bouncy) before she reveals her greatest acts of perfidy and revenge, each one a bookend to the affair, to the doctor and two families. In response, the richest family in town offers a compromise to what may be the poorest and most dysfunctional family in town in the paternalistic belief that it will be best for all concerned. However, in the wake of such trauma, everything gentrified, modest, and hygienic inevitably unravels in the face of moral entropy. (The movie also contains brief dorsal nudity while bathing and two implied sex scenes outdoors in high grass.) As if to explain why his siblings are devolving to choose chaos over culture, the affected son explains to his mother, "Life is not a long quiet river." The parish priest appears at difficult times and headlines a songfest with catchy gospel tunes. 3.5 stars.

Robots (2005)

Robots is a real delight, with a mishmash of animation styles (from Art Deco to '50s Aero) and a Rube Goldberg-themed city (not to mention its transportation system). Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan Macgregor) is a young small-town robot inventor who wants to be mentored under the avuncular Bigweld (Mel Brooks), who has meanwhile been deposed by the corporate villain Ratchet (Greg Kinnear), who has nefarious plans for the free citizens of Robot City. Rodney's right hand 'bot is Fender (Robin Williams in a classic Robin Williams performance). Rodney also attracts the interest and aid of Cappy (Halle Berry), shucks-y'all Piper (Amanda Bynes), and his gang of friends. Aside from the delightful characters, every scene in Robots is packed with humorous details about life as robots would live it -- for example, every shop name, customer, and activity as well as sidewalk passer-by as a scene sweeps manically down the street. (Watch Robots again and again or in slow-mo to catch all the details and chuckle if you like.) I chuckled at the scenes where Rodney's mom (Diane Wiest) and dad (Stanley Tucci) are "making a baby" (from a do-it-yourself assembly kit of nuts and bolts). The message of the story is to never give up on your dream -- and for Rodney and his father, their dreams are realized after a fair measure of sacrifice to a great hullabaloo. (It's a fine feel-good ending.) Enjoy! 5 stars.

VeggieTales Classics: God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?! (1997)

I viewed a 10-year anniversary edition of this disc, the second title produced in the VeggieTales lineup. Besides the usual kid-oriented games and karaoke, the Special Features includes a nicely done ensemble retrospective from the producers on how Big Idea produced its first colorful computer-animated title (one year before Toy Story hit the theaters) and then how the team answered the question "OK, what do we do next?" (The Forgive-O-Matic segment was slapped together from a Bible college script and the rest grew organically around that seed.) God Wants Me to Forgive Them is a solid VeggieTales production that emphasizes the Christian value of forgiveness (not just once, not seven times, but in Christ's words "70 times seven"). It is more didactic than later story-oriented titles, probably spending 10% of the script citing scriptural and divine injunctions ("the Bible says" and "God wants us") to forgive. It includes the traditional VeggieTales touchstones: the introduction, Silly Songs, QWERTY and a Bible verse, and so on. Unless they shy away from mild preachiness, VeggieTales-loving families ought to love this title. I acquired my copy from a competing service since the disc has been a Save title on this service for a number of years. 3 stars.

VeggieTales: King George and the Ducky (2000)

King George and the Ducky is a disarmingly cute and harmless half-hour morsel of VeggieTales fun. I really liked its whimsy and innocent charm and I think your tykes will love it too. (Disclaimer: I say this only 3.5 years after I was dragged into watching VeggieTales for the first time so you can trust me when I say it's sweeter and less zany than most.) Sure, it has the same lumpen, cloying, schmaltzy polka intro -- "VeggieTales" (repeat many times to the accompaniment of accordion and tuba) -- but the story is a real chuckle-inducer. First, two squashes masquerade as Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber in hopes of hosting a show. They finally are given a chance but it doesn't work out so the program proceeds normally. The story of King George is about sharing -- a frequent if understated VeggieTales theme where, as with all good art, the moral is subordinate to the entertainment. You really have to respect the production values and creativity behind VeggieTales, from each character voice to how vegetables without limbs are drawn holding swords and playing musical instruments. VeggieTales has a captivating magic as a series and the King George disc is an excellent example. (In retrospect, introducing me to VeggieTales through the Lord of the Beans, Sheerluck Holmes, and Autotainment discs was not the best way to win me over.) [Note: This disc has been a Save title here on our favorite service for years. I encourage the use of a Save-only queue as the sole method of eventually renting a given postrelease Save title since you will never receive a Save title so long as there is one Add title in your queue. However, when a Save disc can be obtained from the public library or through a competing service, I will do so in order to devote my Save-only queues to those titles that can only be acquired here.] Enjoy! 4.5 stars.

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

Repo! The Genetic Opera is a groundbreaking, disturbing, and memorably impressive rock opera. I would describe it as Sin City, Brazil, Blade Runner, and Rocky Horror Picture Show meet Moulin Rouge -- with ex-splut-ational touches reminiscent of 300 and Sweeney Todd. Repo! is dark. It's often bloody. It's literally gristle-y and visceral. The premise portends a future society where designer cosmetic surgery has not only gotten under our skin but gone amok: Designer organ transplants have become more than fashionable, they are de rigeur -- esp. after customers default on even one payment and the repo man (who loves his work) pulls out a flivver before he cuts out their liver (and any number of other patented organs) while they are still alive and screaming. So, it's not your father's rock opera but it is an excellent rock opera with amazing costumes, staging, scripting, music, and so on. I was warned that getting through the first 20 minutes is the biggest challenge and I found that to be true. Unless you subsist solely on an entertainment diet of horror or slasher movies, Repo! will probably be hard to stomach until you get settled into the story line (and it settles down too). Besides, the disemboweling is theatrically staged and occasionally not depicted directly. What impresses me about Repo! is the sheer creativity behind the script, the staging, and the music. I actually want to make myself sit through it again because there's so much more to catch and savor in a second (and a third) viewing. In fact, I probably will purchase Repo! because of its science-fiction-based extrapolation of contemporary issues such as designer genes, the global financial crisis, and corporate greed. A gristly, great 5 stars.

Doggie Tails (2003)

First of all, I do not want to hear anyone complain that Doggie Tails is a waste of time who has ever indulged in time-wasting YouTube videos of piano-playing cats, water-skiing squirrels, and the like. (You know who you are.) Second, kvetching is disqualified from those who say they could have made a better movie themselves. (Those who can, do; those who can't, kvetch.) Third, if you're a grownup or anyone older than 8 with two functioning brain cells, you can't expect Doggie Tails to be Gone with the Wind or even Benji. It was written not for you but for 2- to 5-year-olds (and even younger) -- the Teletubbies to Barney set, not discerning adults. It's true that Doggie Tails is not as professionally produced as Teletubbies or Barney -- but it is above the grade (albeit slightly) of a homemade or YouTube video. And, like Barney, it may have a noxious effect on adults and anyone older than 5-8 because its target demographic -- clearly posted and an apparently successful one, from reading all the reviews -- is ages 2-5. Having said all that, I agree that the guy who does Lucky the shih-tzu's voice sounds like South Park's Mr. Hanky. The voice of the male rat terrier starts yukking it up like Barney. Yes, there is plenty to critique from an adult point of view -- but to tots, it's all about the dogs. There is a definite story, though it's kid-sized: While his family goes on a trip, Lucky gets to meet and talk with all the other dogs about feeling insecure during this first stay at a dog hotel. Video snippets of the other dogs' visions of "dog paradise" such as a dog park or playground where dogs frolic and doggie treats appear "like magic" to be snarfed up should keep tykes mesmerized. Different breeds of dogs are explained at the end. At 30 minutes, you should stream not rent Doggie Tails. 2.5 stars.

Kakurenbo: Hide & Seek (2005)

Kakurenbo strikes me as a nearly perfect Japanese anime short film. Every scene, angle, cut, motion, and sound throughout the film seems to be tightly measured, charmingly stylized, and originally presented. While the dark atmospherics and one plot element are reminiscent of Spirited Away and The Matrix, the urban setting with its demonic pursuers and ultimate revelations are genuinely original and surprising. The American voice talent is absolutely fine for anime (which always has a snivelly-voiced bully, an average boy, a giggling girl, and so on) and esp. for this production. The soundtrack has the measured stridency of a sacrificial ceremony and the demons are quite fresh and chilling. This is a perfect movie to watch with all the lights out, on Halloween night, alone -- or with someone you can squeeze or hug in suspense! It's 26 minutes long with the last 10 percent of that given to credits. 5 stars.