The character of Casey Jones was created by Kevin Eastman as a parody of other street level comic book vigilantes of the 1980s. Sporting his hockey mask and a golf bag packed with sports equipment, he made his debut as a supporting character in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics as well as appearing in the live action movie in 1990 where he was played by Elias Koteas. He’s a likeable and amusing side character that I never gave much thought to, even while watching the movie. This was obviously not the case with others, like Polaris Banks, the director/executive producer/cinematographer/writer/editor/production designer behind Casey Jones, a fan film detailing the little known origins of the character. The run time is only about 35 minutes and the plot revolves around Casey Jones being kicked off a hockey team and returning home to live with his mother. After getting attacked by a local street gang, he decides to become a vigilante and eventually runs into the Ninja Turtles.
As far as fan movies go, Casey Jones looks very impressive. The film was made with a budget of about $20,000 and made good use of it. The treatment of the character is geared much more dark and violent as opposed to being toned down for a younger audience. They didn’t go this far even in the first film. He actually kills criminals in this and does so in an alarmingly brutal way. As a vigilante, Casey Jones is extremely violent and aggressive; he bludgeons people and crushes their body parts using baseball bats, golf clubs, and cricket bats (there’s even a sledgehammer in there). It’s silly and at the same time gruesome. When compared to his somewhat laid back and amiable attitude, this contrast makes his nightly battles a little disturbing. He’s essentially been turned into a sociopath. This is one of the stranger aspects of the movie, as his actions are so alarmingly insane compared to how he acts around people normally. I remember that it was implied in the first movie that he was unnecessarily brutal with criminals, but that was never shown (a decision that worked better because it just doesn't fit).
The acting is decent from the central players, all using the stereotypical New York accent to various degrees. Hilarion Banks as Casey Jones - though he acts and sounds better with the mask on - is probably the most natural with it while others, such as his cousin Sid and some of the gang members, are borderline cartoons. The dialogue isn’t bad and sounds right coming out of these characters. Michelangelo (voiced by Robbie Rist, the same voice actor from the previous films) spouts out the usual lines and catchphrases the Ninja Turtles are known for so that’s no surprise. Speaking of the Ninja Turtles, Michelangelo is the only one to make an appearance towards the end, and the costume is…decent. Given the budget, it’s easy to forgive it not looking like the Jim Henson costumes/puppets used in the studio productions, but it’s actually not the worst live action adaptation I’ve seen (look up TMNT: “Coming Out of Their Shells” Tour if you want to see really bad costumes). He can move his mouth a little and he can also fight while wearing it which is important. It’s not great, but it’s understandably bad.
In the comics, he would shout nonsensical battle cries like "Goongala!"
As far as the look of the movie goes, it’s actually quite good. The night scenes are nicely shot and show off the small section of the city really well. It often looks and even feels like a legitimate action film. Even though it’s dark and set in a grim and gritty locale, the tone never takes itself too seriously. This is part of what makes it work because Casey Jones never takes himself too seriously either. He’s a well intentioned goof who’s overly aggressive when it comes to his surroundings. He seems to genuinely enjoy getting in fights, so it makes sense that no great motivation would lead him down the path he chooses. He needs an outlet and he has a lot of time on his hands.
As for the fights scenes, this is another part of what’s so surprisingly good about this short film. The stunts and battles are well staged and look really good. The climax has Casey and Michelangelo battling an army of the Foot Clan and the quality compares to almost any of the big budget versions. I think that this movie will definitely appeal to fans of the Ninja Turtles franchise. It’s well made and seems to have a lot of love and appreciation for the source material. Not bad for 35 minutes.
This is somewhat of a strange movie. The story really begins back in 1972 when Bruce Lee made Fist of Fury, the martial arts movie that helped launch him into international stardom. In it he played Chen Zhen, a patriotic martial artist trying to avenge his master who died at the hands of the Japanese invaders. It’s a classic martial arts film that inspired dozens of spinoffs in television and movies. Martial arts action star Donnie Yen even played the character in the Fist of Fury TV show during the ‘90s. Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen is a sort of sequel to the Bruce Lee film, several times citing the events as the back story. Where it gets strange however, is the way it also references Bruce Lee as the one who played the famous hero. The obvious way is in the character himself. Much as he was in the original, Chen Zhen is a patriot and a dedicated nationalist. He fought with his comrades during WWI and afterwards helps them rebel against the Japanese occupancy. The nod to Bruce Lee is catapulted onto the screen especially during the finale, when the famous dojo fight scene is literally reenacted, complete with Donnie Yen doing Bruce Lee’s signature fighting style (including the battle cries). The second reference is a bit more surreal. At one point, Chen Zhen is forced to disguise himself so that he can save a general from assassination. After looking into a store window, he sees a costume for a movie super hero called “The Masked Warrior”, which bears an uncanny resemblance to Kato, a character Bruce Lee played when he costarred on the American TV series The Green Hornet, which was known as The Kato Show in China.
The plot follows Chen Zhen and his friends after the war. Located in Shanghai, they start up a newspaper and plan their resistance. This leads to all sorts of chaos with the villainous Japanese military and Chen Zhen trying to balance his multiple aliases. The chaos of the story has a lot to do with the sheer number of characters that are apparently crucial to the plot. In the beginning, it’s easy to get lost trying to keep track of all the key players. Several of the generals are given only a short amount of screen time to establish their roles before being reduced to mere references in the dialogue. Characters get killed or betrayed left and right so that it’s almost impossible to remember who’s important and who isn’t. To make it worse, the entire movie is overly dramatic and crammed with heavy-handed symbolism. You never feel as though you know any of the characters outside of the main three. Many of their motivations are unknown or just grouped into the overtly stated theme of nationalism. This lack of character development makes certain dramatic scenes fall flat or at worst leave you scratching your head as to why you should even care. The romance between Chen Zhen and the hostess singer Kiki (Shu Qi) is weak and relies too heavily on montage to show it blossom.
Donnie Yen as Chen Zhen as Kato
Speaking of montage, the movie is directed by Andrew Lau and he actually does a lot to make up for the often uninteresting characters. The setting is Shanghai in the twenties and it’s shown to be a stylish and glamorized place. The majority of the action revolves around the Casablanca Night Club where Chen Zhen works. The club and the city streets are full of bright colors and city lights, mixed with the cool fashions of the time and jazzy music. It’s a very fun setting and gives much of the film an eye-catching visual flare. Some of the better scenes are those just about establishing the atmosphere in the setting. Most of the time however – and this excludes the action scenes – the pacing is erratic. Certain scenes end abruptly while others that seem less important are dwelled on. There’s a scene of two generals talking and spewing exposition over dinner for several minutes before they are never seen again throughout the entire film. This kind of thing happens a lot at the beginning and only serves to muddle the plot.
Granted, this is a martial arts action flick so the real question is: how’s the action? Luckily, the action scenes are the strongest aspect of the movie. Watching Donnie Yen kick all kinds of ass (whether he’s dressed as Kato or not) never gets old. He moves so fast that it’s often hard to differentiate between whether they’re natural stunts or assisted with wires. The climax, which is a recreation of one of the most famous scenes from Fist of Fury, is pretty memorable; he takes down what looks like fifty guys simultaneously. This kind of over-the-top action is made clear from the first scenes which are filmed almost like your typical war movie until Chen Zen starts dodging bullets and actually takes down a machine gunner with a knife while swinging from a rope. It’s so insane that it’s great.
Although Legend of the Fist suffers from shallow characters and a convoluted plot, there’s still some fun to be had here. It pays a lot of tribute to Bruce Lee and with its well executed action sequences mixed with a unique style, it has the feel of something different.
Batman has an extensive history of stories, stretching all the way back to the mid-'30s. Since then he’s gone through dozens of re-imaginings, hundreds of villains, and even several sidekicks. There have been at least three different people to call themselves Robin over the years, and that becomes the focus of Under the Red Hood, the first Batman animated movie that’s in no way attached to the animated series of the ‘90s which spawned several other animated features, although it’s still produced by Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett (two veterans of the cartoon). The story takes place five years after the brutal death of Jason Todd, the second Robin. He’s viciously beaten to death by the Joker before Batman can come to his rescue. In the present, Batman is dealing with a war between the crime lord known as Black Mask and a newcomer calling himself the Red Hood (the name is revealed to be an old alias of the Joker).
Under the Red Hood is adapted from the story arcs “A Death in the Family” and “Under the Hood”, but you don’t need to have read these comics or have an in-depth understanding of Batman history to appreciate the story and its context (anyway, I haven’t read them and I understood everything just fine). There are several brief flashbacks to fill in the back story and – with the exceptions of a few villains – explain who everyone is. Aside from the Red Hood, a few other characters from Batman’s colorful Rogue’s Gallery make appearances. There's Ra’s al Ghul (Jason Isaacs), Black Mask, and a useless group of fighters called the Fearsome Hand of Four (which is a stupid name). Given his screen time and role in the plot, Black Mask (Wade Williams) is kind of a disappointment. His head is a black skull, but all he does is smash things in his office and bark orders at his underlings. He spends most of the movie screaming and whining about how difficult the Red Hood is making things for him. Nothing is revealed about his origin or even his relationship to the heroes. As far as Batman villains go, he’s a bit underwhelming.
To further emphasize it’s non-canon with the animated series they’ve even gone so far as to re-cast all of the characters, the most obvious being Batman and the Joker. Batman is now played by Bruce Greenwood instead of Kevin Conroy, and it’s unfortunate to say that he’s the weakest voice actor in the film. He lacks the charisma and range of Kevin Conroy’s Batman, growling out all his dialogue and we never get to see any discernible difference between the Batman and Bruce Wayne persona, though he’s rarely seen outside his costume anyway. The rest of the cast is good, with Neil Patrick Harris playing Nightwing (the original Robin), Jensen Ackles as the Red Hood, and most surprisingly, John DiMaggio as the Joker. John DiMaggio is most known for voicing Bender on "Futurama". He’s definitely not the obvious choice to follow in the footsteps of Mark Hamill, but his own take on the character is actually really interesting. Unlike the over-the-top theatricality of the previous animated Joker, his is much more downplayed and sinister. In a way its better suited to the tone of the movie, which is geared towards an older audience. It’s dark, violent, and action packed.
Batman and the Joker
In fact, it’s too action packed. This is not a Batman movie for dialogue, since most of it’s only there to bridge together the next big action sequence. There’s never a quite moment and at its worst, the story feels rushed. One of the worst moments is when Batman literally spells out what he’s feeling about his guilt over Robin and the new villain. In animation, this kind of thing is meant to be shown but it’s reduced to a quick sentence as Batman rushes off to the next fight. There’s no attention given to establishing the atmosphere of GothamCity and the way the characters live there. Bruce Wayne is almost never seen without his costume and neither is the inside of Wayne Manor. This story is about Batman only, and any scene with him not fighting is kept inside the BatCave. GothamCity itself isn’t as visually stylized as it’s been seen before; it’s more modern and doesn’t draw much attention to itself. It pales in comparison to the Gothic noir look that made the animated series so memorable.
Given the devotion to the action sequences, at least they’re well executed. The character animations are fluid and the fights scenes are carefully choreographed. Batman, Nightwing, and the Red Hood are all ridiculously agile and skilled fighters, though they take some hits that would kill most people. In one scene the Red Hood, without the protection of his helmet, gets his face smashed into a wall, a sink and a toilet (all of which break), and yet he doesn’t have a single scratch on him. Overall, the animation is consistent and pretty polished. There’s some use of CG for vehicles and, though leaps and bounds better than it looked in Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero, it still clashes with the 2D characters and backgrounds.
It’s difficult not to compare Under the Red Hood to the previous animated movies, and it doesn't quite meet the standard they reached in terms of unique visual style and tone. It doesn't have the same emotional core that they did, instead putting all its emphasis into the fights. It almost feels as though it’s trying too hard to be dark and violent, when that’s not always effective. At its core, the story is about whether or not Batman is right in his devotion to not killing his enemies. Wouldn't the world be a better place if he just finally killed the Joker? This is a great theme for a Batman story, but when it’s finally brought to the foreground, the movie’s nearly over. It deserved more time to develop instead of being the focus of the finale. In the end, you have to ask yourself what’s more important: a story about Batman fighting the bad guys or a story about Batman?
Given the recent flu scares in the past decade, it should come as no surprise that an epidemic of some kind would be the focus of a movie. In fact, its even been done before with movies like28 Days LaterandChildren of Men. The idea of an invisible menace that plagues humanity on a massive scale is one that’s scared people since ancient times.Contagionis a “what if” scenario in which the world is afflicted with a new strain of virus that no one seems to have any idea how to stop. It’s highly contagious and passed on through multiple means; touching, breathing, etc.
With its large ensemble cast of recognizable actors (Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Bryan Cranston),Contagion's sort of a smart version of a Roland Emmerich disaster movie with the difference being director Steven Soderbergh opting for realism as opposed to big explosions and campy dialogue. Structurally however,Contagionclosely follows the exact same formula. The movie has multiple plotlines, providing a perspective on the spread of the virus from many different social vantage points ranging from government officials, scientists trying to find the cure, a father and daughter, and even a freelance blog journalist. All of them come together to present a bigger picture of the world wide threat, or at least as it affectsAmerica.
The two most important plotlines are those dealing with Matt Damon and Laurence Fishburne. Matt Damon plays Mitch Emhoff, whose wife (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) is one of the first to contract the disease creating an ongoing mystery as to where it originated. With regards to her contracting it, the disease becomes associated with the fact that she was also cheating on Mitch, thus making a potential apocalypse the result of a single woman's infidelity. Luckily this turns out not to be the case, but being led to think so makes the true cause a bit underwhelming. Anyway, through Mitch's point of view we’re shown the effects of such a large scale epidemic on a local level. There’s rampant rioting, looting, and almost complete anarchy in every populated area (especially when large groups are forced to stand in line). Laurence Fishburne plays Dr. Ellis Cheever, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is responsible for finding a cure for the disease, as well as what it is to begin with, and theories of it being a bioweapon are even considered among the possible answers. Dr. Cheever's also the person the public gets to blame when the progress for developing a cure takes too long.
One of her captors is "good with calculation"
A lot of screen time is spent with Jude Law as well, who plays Alan Krumwiede, a fictionalized stand in for real life Internet activist Julian Assange. His true purpose in the plot is to discuss and draw attention towards the conspiracy theories and greed based thinking that’s applied to pharmaceutical corporations as well as outline some of the risks involved in a hastily developed cure, but the way he’s demonized seems unnecessary. Is it meant to be a statement about this newer form of media coverage? Are we supposed to hate this character? Instead of seeing any traces of the corruption he reports on, we’re only shown his own. Other plotlines like Marion Cotillard’s - who plays an epidemiologist that gets captured inHong Kong- don’t seem to serve much purpose and sort of fade away without resolution.
There are two definitive sections to this film: the outbreak and the vaccination. The outbreak is the first half of the movie and is by far more interesting than the latter. The virus spreads at an alarming rate, creating pandemonium in its wake. It’s dealt with in a manner that feels realistic and intelligent, as if the movie isn’t condescending to its audience. The virus is complex and there’s only one scene in which the nature of it is explained on a white board with markers. The second and final parts of the movie mostly wind down, losing much of the momentum it began with. Some stories have conclusions while others don’t. The finale is so downplayed that it borders on anticlimactic. Overall, I would say Contagionmakes for a surprisingly good disaster movie, feeling ingrained in the modern setting. The plausibility of how quickly a dangerous disease could spread is frightening, and so is the speed in which society is shown to crumble. Maybe people should learn to stop touching each other so much.
Playing “Moneyball” is a term used to describe a baseball team that bases its roster on player statistics in terms of stolen bases, on-base percentage, runs batted in, slugging percentage and batting average. These statistics allow for a team with less financial backing to recruit players that, for any number of reasons, have been ignored when it came down to the drafts. It lets a team such as the Oakland Athletics, with $41 million dollars in salary, compete with others like the New York Yankees, who boast a salary of over $125 million. A team with a giant salary can buy out all the star players for their own roster in a way that no other can. It’s just one reason it’s so easy to hate the Yankees.
The movie is based on the Michael Lewis book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, which detailed the 2001-2002 season of the Oakland Athletics with their general manager Billy Beane, who decided to use this method as a way of competing despite their overwhelming financial disadvantage. It’s an incredibly interesting story, whether you’re a fan of baseball or not. Part of what makes this movie so engaging is the new and different side of the baseball world that’s depicted (who’d have thought it’d be the business side?). The story follows the game from the view point of the general manager, whose job has him buying, trading, and cutting players from the team at a moments notice. Given the financial limits imposed on his ability to do his job, being successful at this turns out to be a daunting task. The concept of playing “Moneyball” becomes a final chance to compete and possibly change the way the entire system operates. The non-conventional sabermetric approach to scouting their teams’ players is so far out of the ordinary that Billy Beane and his assistant Peter Brand have to go against heavy opposition which includes not only the press reports, but their own staff as well (including the Athletics manager, Art Howe).
Peter Brand (Jonah Hill)
The script, written by Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, is incredibly smart and makes what could have easily been a boring topic seem fresh and entertaining. I stress the intelligence in the way this script is handled because this topic, though made accessible to mainstream audiences (whether they're baseball fanatics or like me, not), doesn't condescend to those who are obsessed with player stats and numbers. I could easily see this movie appealing to hardcore sports fans. To add to the sharp dialogue, the film has a lot of really good performances with well developed characters that seem believable in their roles. Brad Pitt is very effective as Billy Beane, the general manager and a failed former player whose career was overestimated by scouts. This left a strong impact on his life and the way he sees the game. It’s a good role for him and one of his better performances. The supporting cast is a real highlight with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Art Howe, who could look convincing as literally anything, and Jonah Hill, who displays a good deal of range as the inexperienced Peter Brand. Even with all the numbers flying around, the story maintains a strong focus on the human aspect of managing a professional baseball team. The weight of the responsibility falls heavily on the shoulders of Billy Beane and he’s a sympathetic character. Interspersed throughout the film are several flashbacks revealing his decision to go professional instead of getting a college degree. Every time the Athletics lose a game, it feels like a crushing blow to him emotionally.
This is Bennet Miller’s first film since 2005’s Capote, and he proves once again that he knows how to tell a personal and involving story. Moneyball is smart, thought provoking, and depicts a side of professional baseball that few others are willing to delve into. It tells its story with intelligent writing and sympathetic characters, but it does something else I found surprising. On several occasions it had me rooting for the Oakland A’s.
