Reviews

There are numerous reasons why Walter Hill's THE WARRIORS remains a classic film - and arguably not simply a cult classic, but a true classic - despite its very much of-its-time sensibilities. Somewhat ironically, the movie's acting is not among those reasons. With the exception of two bravura efforts by Roger Hill and David Patrick Kelly, one will not find "command performances" here (although James Remar and Deborah Van Valkenburgh do gnaw quite a bit on the scenery). Other than that, the acting is hard-boiled and generic. But then, the lack of flair in the acting department is arguably one of the film's unsung strengths. As the main protagonist, for example, Michael Beck, while not exactly sympathetic, is an easily relatable hero. He's very much like Henry Fonda in 12 ANGRY MEN - except, of course, for the long hair and the bare chest.

Much more remarkable are all the ways in which THE WARRIORS managed to create a thrilling cinematic experience that still holds up today, despite its low budget. The list is a long one: set design (such as it is), dialogue, music, costume design, makeup, thematic elements. But most worthy of mention is Andrew Laszlo's cinematography. I love the camera's aesthetic, which is very "1970s" but, in a number of ways, is more compelling than any filmic style you'll see today. It is rooted in realism, but the "reality" it depicts is clearly a "heightened" variety, as we see the dark New York City streets illuminated as if by nighttime stage lights. And the outlandish goings-on seen throughout much of the film compound the surreal atmosphere. The end result is wonderfully paradoxical: it is an awe-inspiring experience to imagine that the fantastical events depicted could actually be happening, or once did happen.

But the "look" of this film would be insignificant without a strong story and solid thematic content, and THE WARRIORS possesses these in spades. It is remembered, somewhat condescendingly, as a "typical" late '70s film, but I think it is more accurate to think of it as a '60s film made a full decade too late. It is, after all, adapted from Sol Yurick's 1965 novel of the same name (and its tagline, "These are the armies of the night," obviously echoes the title of Norman Mailer's 1968 novel). More to the point, the movie's premise of a gangland insurrection contains quite a few overtones and undertones of political radicalism, and visual reminders of the '60s counterculture are not uncommon. (It is interesting to note that the original novel was inspired in part by Xenophon's 4th century B. C. epic ANABASIS, so the film also offers allusions to Greek myth and legend for those who care to look for them.)

But there is so much more in THE WARRIORS to capture the imagination. The movie's soundtrack - an assortment of disco, hard rock, and early synthpop, plus a few would-be radio hits - is rightly famous, as is its carnivalesque depiction of inner-city life (an influence on the Insane Clown Posse's "Dark Carnival" mythology, perhaps?). The action sequences, too, are first-rate - intense and thrilling. (Given that the cops who are looking for the Warriors are no less silently menacing than the rival gang members out for revenge, the mood of suspense is non-stop.) And few films have captured the frustration and tedium of making one's way through New York City's countless neighborhoods more effectively than this one.

It is unfortunate that THE WARRIORS will probably never be taken completely seriously by film critics and historians, in part because of the campy 2005 video game adaptation released in its "honor" (which I have played, and which is undeniably addictive and a hell of a lot of fun). But all those who are able to peer beyond the lens of the "cult" prejudice will be able to appreciate both Walter Hill's cinematic genius and his penchant for visual pizazz. From the opening image of a lit-up Ferris wheel - both innocent and eerie - to the final shot of a carefree romp along Coney Island's beach, THE WARRIORS is unforgettable.

SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS is being called "the Asian BLACK PANTHER," and I think this is an inaccurate description for two reasons. First, Asian cultures have been explored in-depth by Hollywood since the 1970s at the latest, and in ways that sub-Saharan African cultures have not. But second, and more to the point, SHANG-CHI is really just a mashup of two Hollywood subgenres that have been around for quite some time: the "ethnic discovery" film and the "stupid American tourist" film.

The "ethnic discovery" film is the more recent type and by far the more interesting, ultimately inspired by Alex Haley's famous TV miniseries "Roots." It documents the saga of a protagonist who learns - or relearns - about his or her heritage and embarks on a quest to fully embrace that heritage. A good example I can think of is THUNDERHEART, in which an FBI agent (Val Kilmer) comes to appreciate his father's Native American ancestry while on a case on a Lakota reservation; a more famous but fantasy-based example is STAR WARS, in which Luke Skywalker learns that he has Jedi blood. On the surface, SHANG-CHI definitely follows this pattern.

Unfortunately, the movie's "ethnic discovery" theme is undercut by the clichés of an even older Hollywood storyline: what one film historian has dubbed the "racial adventure film," but which I simply call the "stupid American tourist film." Common since the 1930s, this film plot follows Western (and almost always white) characters as they visit an "exotic" foreign land - often for purely exploitative purposes - and proceed to reveal their ignorance about the "native" culture. It has always been demeaning to both the "colonizing" and indigenous peoples, since the former are forced to make buffoons of themselves and the latter must bear the humiliation of not being taken seriously.

SHANG-CHI is an "ethnic rediscovery" film in that two Chinese-Americans from San Francisco learn (and, in one case, relearn) about the culture of their ancestors; but it is also a racial adventure film in that they are essentially Westerners who travel to China and find themselves in the midst of a culture clash. While not white - and, in the case of the titular character, an immigrant - Shang-Chi and his girlfriend otherwise fit the role of the "stupid American tourist" with their unmistakably American accents, annoying use of slang, pointless pop-culture references, and wisecracking sarcasm. The twist here is that, like Kilmer in THUNDERHEART, they revert to their "noble savage" origins once they have traveled to an "ethnic" place and "gone native."

Not incidentally, there's one more way in which SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS differs dramatically from BLACK PANTHER. While both are based on "non-Western" comic book sagas created by white men, BLACK PANTHER turns stereotypes about black Africans completely inside-out, giving us fantastic science fiction instead of hackneyed "jungle" adventure. But SHANG-CHI is just the usual "kung pow" hash about the Orient, presented ironically but also in a way that isn't terribly original.

In fact, if there's another Marvel movie this one closely resembles, it's not BLACK PANTHER but DEADPOOL. Both combine wacky humor and serious (and even "dark") subject matter in a way that's very jarring and ultimately exasperating. But at least DEADPOOL felt fresh.

I'm willing to admit that much of what I enjoy and consider great art (or at least great entertainment) is considered garbage by most other people. That's fine. Everyone's opinion is valid, and "true art" is typically boring anyway. THE DOORS is one of those films I've yet to get my fill of, and that I watch on TV whenever I can (which unfortunately isn't often, since it's not as popular a film as it once was), along with other films I've "OD'd" on such as the INDIANA JONES series, BRAVEHEART, and various films by Quentin Tarantino. Someday, maybe, I'll have seen THE DOORS so many times that I'll have gotten sick of it, but that date lies far, far in the future - partly because I LOVE it!

I wasn't even born when the band broke up in the early '70s, but I grew up with them because my parents had been in high school and college when the Doors were at the height of their fame, and they were part of my parents' collective playlist along with the Beatles and nearly everyone on the soundtrack of THE BIG CHILL. Over time, as I heard more and more of their repertoire, I came to be fascinated by the Doors. To this day, I consider them the first "modern" rock stars in the sense in which the MTV and VH-1 generations (to which I belong) think of them, and a major influence on both alternative and progressive rock (and heavy metal, too, in some ways). I can hear or at least perceive their influence in many rock bands that followed them, including Blue Oyster Cult, Oingo Boingo, Tool, and even Nirvana. ESPECIALLY Nirvana. Both "Break on Through" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" have helped me to make since of the world during my periods of existential doubt.

So any movie about the Doors - and one by Oliver Stone in particular - is one I am going to revere. Not only is the music great (I don't think the band ever wrote a bad song), but the movie itself is unforgettable. Oliver Stone is a showman on par with Phineas T. Barnum, and so it goes without saying that THE DOORS is nothing short of a three-ring circus. Jim Morrison is shown to be a sort of combination of the Pied Piper and the title character of the famous comic book V FOR VENDETTA, with hangers-on from every which where latching onto him and his entourage. They are a diverse, even (arguably) multicultural bunch: Venice Beach bohemians, New York art snobs, Navajo Indians (albeit in Jim's fevered imagination), bikers and rednecks, and (of course) lots and lots and LOTS of hippies and flower children, decked out in everything from Nehru jackets to flowered headbands to pilgrim hats to skeleton makeup to striped clown pants. Not to mention massive hordes of teenage girls who would regularly become active participants in the stage shows - and would often be wearing absolutely nothing. I'd rather watch this than your average Fourth of July parade.

THE DOORS is not a good film in the "classical" sense, and it doesn't even look like a classic film. At the very least, the cinematography is one-of-a-kind: so razor-sharp that nearly the entire film looks like a documentary (and not one from the 1960s, either, but the '90s, so I almost feel that the Doors are from my time); it reminds me a bit of THIS IS SPINAL TAP (another rock movie I enjoy). And I'd wager that nearly half the scenes in the film (yes, I kept track) are so rich in detail that they handsomely reward repeat viewings. But all that said, as visual storytelling THE DOORS falls well short of being perfect. The first hour is terrific, steadily charting the band's rise to the height of their fame. Then comes the second half, which shifts from Los Angeles to New York and San Francisco and Miami and eventually Paris, France - and the movie turns into a "leave-the-camera-running" exercise in self-indulgence (reminiscent of Andy Warhol, who appears as a character here). The rock concert scenes go on for what seem like hours, and they become repetitive (look, there's another naked girl, another angry cop, etc.). They're so long, in fact, that various other scenes - even some key scenes - end up being intercut with them. THE DOORS is approximately two and a half hours long, but it seems much longer.

But after all's said and done, would I recommend THE DOORS to just about anyone? Heck, yes. The movie is a big mess, but it's endlessly colorful and never dull. Val Kilmer was all but born to play Morrison, and most of the other actors are hardly slouches themselves. And despite having been filmed in the '90s and depicting the '60s and early '70s, it all feels remarkably timeless. The "Age of Aquarius" counterculture is something we are still (and very confusedly) grappling with, and the questions Jim asks himself about where he is going and about life in general are ones that are worth pondering by every human being on earth.

So hurrah for THE DOORS! To paraphrase the William Blake poem that inspired the bands name, Stone's opus allows us to see reality as it really is - infinite.

When I was in junior high school in the early to mid-1990s, nobody loved "Animaniacs" more than I did. It was tough getting picked on for liking a "kiddie" show, but I listened to my heart. Yakko Warner was one of my heroes, and I even dressed up as him for Halloween one year: white face, red nose, inky black bodysuit, the whole megillah. I adored him for having the wit, wisdom, and sassy attitude of Groucho Marx (who was also one of my heroes, and whom I likewise dressed up as). Well, Yakko's back now, and I'm happy to say that he's (mostly) still as lovable as I remember him. Unfortunately, "Animaniacs" is a package deal, and most of the stuff that has returned with Yakko just isn't as good as it used to be.

I've noticed an unfortunate trend with most of these remakes, reboots, and "next-generation" updatings. The people resurrecting the shows and movies obviously love them, but they also seem to feel a bit ashamed of having been fans, and they sublimate this shame beneath a sort of smug, superior attitude. These conflicting feelings on the part of the (re)creators mean that the original property must be "improved" in some way: it must be made more flashy, more high-tech, more socially and politically relevant, more "adult." And if those options turn out to be unworkable, then the original version of the entertainment must be meta-analyzed - which is to say, dissected and brutally mocked. Of course, they'll often have the characters mock THEMSELVES (as Yakko, Wakko and Dot do here) in order to ease the pain of the sting, but sting it still does.

The new "Animaniacs" gets most things wrong. It still delivers enough laughs to make it worth my while, and here and there I do see flashes of the old magic returning. But even so, too much has changed. I'm glad they've pared the cast back to just Yakko and his siblings, as well as Pinky and the Brain, but for the most part they're not using these characters correctly. The Warner Brothers (and their sister Dot) were always supposed to be 60-year-old (and now, 90-year-old) bratty man-children, but now their faux-innocence and faux-obnoxious cuteness have been buried beneath a crushing load of snarky self-deprecation; the writers have run away with the "precocious" part and forgotten the "child" part. It's a bit like finding out your local girl-next-door type, whom you used to swoon over for her adorable nerdiness, grew up to be a vulgar insult comic.

And the rest of the Warners' universe has grown up too. The humor is no longer as kid-friendly as it used to be, with undercurrents of grime and cynicism. The characters spend so much time reminiscing - and thus, indulging in presentist snobbery and "we-were-such-dorks-back-then" jocular smugness - that they often forget to charge forward, which is supposed to be the essence of what they are. And even the artwork is not what it should be; I really loved the "cutesy" pastel shades and soft-focus glow of 1980s and early '90s animation, but these new adventures have been shot in a photography style as crisp and "up-to-date" as any episode of "The Simpsons" or "Family Guy."

Tom Wolfe was right when he said, "You can't go home again." At least, where popular entertainment is concerned. I pity today's children, who are naturally going to be drawn to this "cool" and "new" show and whose parents will inevitably let them watch it (despite it being rated TV-PG instead of the TV-G of the original incarnation). Even sadder is that the paleo-"Animaniacs" is right there on the Hulu menu next to the neo-"Animaniacs" - and yet, if today's kids do happen to watch some of that classic material, most of them are sure to dismiss it as "old-fashioned," and I think it will be their loss.

Even though I've always loved Dr. Seuss, I was never particularly fond of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"; I was always more of a fan of "The Cat in the Hat" and "Green Eggs and Ham." And this film adaptation did not exactly cause my enthusiasm for "The Grinch" to increase.

Both the original book and the animated TV special keep the story as simple as possible and get the lesson to the audience without any problems. But this live-action version is an incoherent mess; what's worse, it can't even get the personality of its title character right.

In this version, we're supposed to view the Grinch as misunderstood and feel sorry for him - but Jim Carrey's performance makes that almost impossible. His Grinch, while not evil exactly, is one of the most uncouth and unpleasant individuals you'll ever see in a movie. To put it simply, he's a colossal jerk. Only a group of drunken college frat boys would find him anything less than extremely obnoxious. And what's worse, his aggressive behavior seems to stem from pretty much nothing; he's just a rotten person. With a personality this thin, the Grinch could be replaced with Oscar the Grouch from "Sesame Street" and the effect would be little different.

And frustratingly, there ARE some good reasons to see this film. It's a joy to look at, and Carrey's performance is tons of fun for what it is. But the attitude you'll get from watching him is the same you get from watching Jack Nicholson as the Joker in BATMAN: he's full of energy and screamingly funny, but you never sympathize with him and if he were real you wouldn't want to be anywhere within shouting distance of him. Not very helpful when he's the main character and even the scenes in which he doesn't appear almost always focus on him.

Making this film must have been like launching an asteroid at Jupiter: a tremendous effort put in to no satisfaction.

Gotham City has been portrayed in films and television many times since the first Batman serial was released back in 1943, so you'd think that town would have worn out its welcome by now. But Birds of Prey takes great pains to remind us that today's cities are more than just bloated villages; they're multicultural microcosms. Most depictions of Gotham make it look like Manhattan (specifically, as comic book editor Dennis O'Neil put it, Lower Manhattan around midnight on the coldest night of November), but here Bruce Wayne's hometown smacks a lot more of Brooklyn, and 21st-century Brooklyn in particular (especially ironic since this movie was filmed entirely in Southern California). Harley lives in a hipster's paradise where you never know just what you might see (or what you might eat, since Harley is very fond of food, and particularly ethnic food). Everything looks like a carnival, and that's before we get to the Joker's former amusement park hideout. Not only does the location make a very fitting dwelling for the story's unapologetically bohemian characters, but in an odd way it brings a dash of realism to what is otherwise a fantastic tale. Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher constructed Gothams composed of what were basically glorified cardboard cutouts, while Christopher Nolan depicted a sterile and anonymous world where technology seemed to have utterly triumphed.

But of course, the location is only half the setting; the staging is equally important. And what a stage we have here! All comic book movies contain at least a hint of the absurd, but Birds of Prey makes all of them look downright tame by comparison. I would say that watching it is like looking at the world through the eyes of the Joker, but then I remember that the Joker is even crazier than what's depicted here! But after all, Harley Quinn has been the Joker's disciple, and he certainly instilled her with a sense of wildly imaginative wonder in addition to all his other wacked-out sensibilities. Harley is a most audacious graffiti artist, and what a joy it is to watch her literally use the movie screen as her canvas! (Remember all those Day-Glo doodles in Suicide Squad? Here the entire movie is like that.) I think that's actually the key to Harley's appeal: there is plenty of innocence mixed in with her cynicism and coarseness, not to mention an inborn penchant for everything bizarre and outrageous. Compute all those factors and you get precisely what Birds of Prey is: an ultraviolent and very contemporary urban crime drama that often looks more like a classic Tex Avery cartoon. We all come to see the dark side of life at some point, but that doesn't necessarily mean we grow up.

Oh, yes - the violence. It is with only slight exaggeration that I dub Birds of Prey possibly the most violent movie I have ever seen (including all the horror films). Quentin Tarantino and Zack Snyder may have raised "violence porn" to the level of high art, but when it comes to sheer spectacle neither of them can match what director Cathy Yan has crafted here. Harley is such a terror with her "confetti gun" that you're almost left wondering whether Al-Qaeda just created a "circus" division, and she strikes grown men with her "Itchy & Scratchy"-style mallet viciously enough to crack jaws and break bones. (Home Alone burglars Harry and Marv were very lucky that they picked the McAllister residence and not the Quinn residence.) As if that weren't memorable enough, we also see the assassin Helena Bertinelli (also known as "The Huntress") using her crossbow to shoot people in the throat! And of course, how could I neglect to mention the scene of a runaway truck smashing into a chemical plant and causing it to explode in a cataclysm of neon-colored vapor? In the shadow of all that, the villain's nasty habit of slicing off the faces of his torture victims is almost forgettable.

Many people have said - almost to the point that it's become a cliché by now - that Birds of Prey is "feminazi," or "anti-man," or something similar. Considering how far afield our American culture has drifted, I find an issue like that almost trivial. Anyway, Birds of Prey, with its more heteronormative take on gender roles than we often see in the junk culture (one character is a lesbian, but that almost never comes up), is much less offensive to me than many of the "girl-power" farces I grew up watching. I need only mention Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where a girl grows up to become the deadliest fighter in the world despite having spent her youth in privileged sloth. But that wouldn't include the countless cookie-cutter heroines who thrived irrespective of Buffy - ladies who were able to effortlessly kick you-know-what because, well, they were women, and to dispute that point was to reveal yourself to be sexist. Birds of Prey, on the other hand, is more grounded in reality in the sense that it acknowledges that gender difference does matter: not only do all the heroines dress in basically masculine attire when they're out doing hyper-macho things, but the cutesy-wutesy Harley is more a cheerleader than a star athlete; and in comparison to the other Birds, her martial arts skills are lackluster and would not serve her well if she did not have one of her trademark Joker-style gag weapons in her hands (aside from the fact that she also somehow knows some professional wrestling moves, because ha-ha, comedy).

And that point brings me to the one ideological sweet spot that Birds of Prey hits right on the bull's-eye: despite its diverse cast and its message of female empowerment, the movie goes beyond psychosocial realism and straight to unvarnished emotional authenticity, thus becoming unabashedly politically incorrect. The humor is wacky, but it articulates a sort of antic disgust with the "conventional" world and especially with sociocultural pieties of all varieties. Harley Quinn may be a sociopath, but at least she's fair and rational, hating everyone pretty much equally and making the point that every single human being is a piece of scum at some point. In the course of reflecting on this movie, I'm reminded - fittingly enough - of last fall's Joker, wherein the Joaquin Phoenix incarnation of the character spewed misanthropic rhetoric with an absurdly ironic grin (definitely an improvement over Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and Jared Leto, all of whom colorlessly drawled anarchic wisdom with the glibness of a Zen master). But whereas Phoenix's take on the Clown Prince of Crime was deadly serious behind the obscenity, Margot Robbie's Clown Princess manages to channel her rage into jolly camp. That's probably the one thing about Birds of Prey that most appeals to me: for all its flaws, it manages to tell a tale about Gotham every bit as bleak as Burton's in a way that leaves you feeling almost as if you've just watched a marathon of Adam West's Batman. By the time the Picasso-inspired end credits sequence rolls, you're joyously drained.

This is a terrific film, with plenty of suspense and period detail.

More than thirty years later, it's amazing how impressive a figure the production values, music, and storylines of this animated gem still cut. A true original, obviously owing great debts to the Japanese "futurist" aesthetic and (to some extent) the gritty style of animation popularized by Ralph Bakshi, but still one-of-a-kind...and darn near unsurpassed in terms of entertainment value! So many gimmicks worth remembering: Bluegrass's friendly Western drawl, Copper Kidd's constant tweeting and electronic warbling, Melodia's theatrical insanity, and of course Mon*Star's remorseless evil! Obviously a tribute to the exhilarating sci-fi kiddie shows of the 1950s and '60s, but brought electrifyingly up to date with phantasmagoric animation and synthesized rock music every bit as haunting as it was thrilling. SILVERHAWKS forever!

I must admit I have no clear memory of ever watching this cartoon, but I did love the tie-in coloring book, which I read over and over. Cuddly puppies dressed like Robin Hood - who could resist?

Standout series about funny-looking but friendly creatures in an exotic environment. What's not to like?

Truly an entertaining series. Cutting-edge in its day (with its pop-culture savvy humor, it might be considered a forerunner to THE SIMPSONS, and Nancy Cartwright has voiced characters on both!) and with very cute and colorful animal characters (Rick Raccoon was my buddy). My parents bought the action figures for me and I played with them all the time; poor Digger's pointed mole nose suffered serious erosion! But the T-shirts were what "sold" the show for me; I didn't like "naked" animals as a kid and always preferred them to be wearing hats, ties and/or shoes at the least (and to be bipedal, of course).

A shining star in its era, and well worth treasuring and celebrating. Shirts off!

It's been said by many animation experts that Ralph Bakshi may not be a top-notch animator, but he is still a force to be reckoned with in the world of animation. This 1977 animated film is proof of that in abundance.

Bakshi started out as a streetwise Jewish kid in Brooklyn. Many cartoonists have come from similar backgrounds, but I think Bakshi was one of the first to unapologetically draw upon (no pun intended) the insights and attitudes that such an upbringing tends to instill in a person. His neighborhood, Brownsville, was very crude and vulgar when he was growing up - and WIZARDS does nothing to disguise that fact. In a way, that is what makes the movie ingenious, if not exactly great. Like Tim Burton, Bakshi is a filmmaker who insists on making HIS movies HIS way, relevance to the subject matter be damned. And WIZARDS is just the sort of hot mess you get when you give free rein to a guy who is half auteur and half a--hole. (And believe me, I do not intend that final word as an insult; it's simply the truth, and it's stated with a candidness of which I can only imagine Bakshi himself would approve.)

The "modern" (i.e., post-1984) viewer would not be likely to proclaim WIZARDS to be "a fun time at the movies," or however one might put it. But that's to be expected, because WIZARDS is a product of its time - and that fact, far from being a weakness, bestows upon the movie a great deal of value. It is a mid-20th-century film by a mid-20th-century man.

The deliberately primitive animation is not the only element that dates the movie, because its overall tone is likewise a thing of the past. This is a story that could only have been told - or, at least, told in quite this way - in the pre-glasnost Cold War era. It is one of very few cartoon movies to display a truly "punk" sensibility, even though there is no actual punk rock on the soundtrack. What I mean is that Bakshi is ostensibly telling a fantasy story quite similar to THE LORD OF THE RINGS - a work he would tackle for real one year later - but without regard for the respect one would think the trappings and tropes of such a story would deserve. This is not Peter Jackson's brand of high fantasy no matter which way you slice it. While it is indeed an epic fantasy tale, it is shot through with cynicism, nihilistic humor, and much lowbrow content including some softcore pornography.

WIZARDS comes across as a drug-addled film student's grotesque parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's sagas, even to the point that the characters themselves are grotesques. The hero is a crotchety old man (9,000 years old, to be exact) who reminds the viewer not of a noble wizard but of a crass tough guy from film noir. The heroine is a bimbo in strip-club underwear; her father is literally a clown. The pointy-eared elven warrior would be totally out of place in Rivendell, since his voice is not unlike that of one of those bland he-man protagonists of the B-movies of the 1950s. The villain - the hero's long-estranged brother - seems more like an Orwellian social manipulator than a warlock. And the villain's army of thugs would not succeed in terrifying most people, since most of their number appear to be moronic or even retarded. Rounding out the cast are a farcical gallery of fairies, hookers, Nazi caricatures, and mutated ogre-things. The film's soundtrack is a hodgepodge of orchestral, jazz, psychedelic, and "futuristic" synthesizer tunes, contributing to the surreal atmosphere.

And yet, despite everything I have mentioned above, the film is not supposed to be a comedy. Or maybe it is. Who can tell?

Only Ralph Bakshi knows.

Again, it's my guess that most people would not enjoy this film. But I think it's worth seeing anyway, if only because it sowed the seeds of the viciously subversive humor with which we are so familiar nowadays thanks to "The Simpsons" and "South Park." Offensive content is most special when it's viewed in a context that allows one to perceive its maximum potential for offensiveness. In other words, the older stuff is often better because you can all the more vividly imagine it shocking people.

And anyone who watches WIZARDS expecting a traditional sword-and-sorcery saga is definitely in for a shock!

If nothing else, GROUND CONTROL should be praised for its realism. Unfortunately, that's the only factor it has going for it - and to a fault, too.

The video cover makes it look as if this is an action movie, but nothing could be further from the truth. If I had to give this film an honest-to-God title, I would call it "TAKE YOUR KIDS TO WORK DAY" WITH PRETTIER PEOPLE.

Seriously, that's all it is. A bunch of good-looking but boring movie stars punching the clock at an airport, dealing with...an airborne emergency, I suppose, but we never really get a sense of what's really happening because the action almost never leaves the control room.

The only real reason to watch is for Jack Harris's (Kiefer Sutherland) character development, and we don't even get to see much of that because there are too many damned characters around - some of whom are barely on screen.

Everything did look familiar, though. It was like watching AIRPLANE! - without the laughs (or the plane, for that matter).

Don't bother.

I don't know what I was expecting, but I think I got what I deserved. I shouldn't have been so stupid to fall into the trap.

I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER just rehashes every teen-movie stereotype we've seen since ANIMAL HOUSE, and not in a way that's at all fresh or funny. I could quibble about a lot of the little things: I could, for example, point out that a big opportunity was missed, if the heroine's parents were fans of heavy metal, to name her ALICE Cooper instead of Beth (especially since "School's Out" features so prominently on the soundtrack), though of course a movie called I LOVE YOU, ALICE COOPER would have thrown people off as to what it was really about.

That aside, what angered me most were the stereotypes, especially the "nerd" ones. I've always hated the very word "nerd": it's an ugly slur and even sounds ugly, and if you ask me it should be considered "the other n-word." But popular culture continues to condescend to intelligent, artistic and/or shy people, trying to weasel their way out of accusations of nerd-bashing with "C'mon, we're just joking" or "We're laughing WITH you, not at you." Bull. They are most definitely laughing AT us.

Actually, just about every teen character - and some of the adults, too - is a stereotype. There ARE a few bright points: it's refreshing for once to see a black character in a movie who's not tough or foul-mouthed or talks like Jar Jar Binks. And Beth Cooper herself is a LITTLE more developed as a character...but for a farce like this one, that's not saying much.

I can't understand why movies like this one are still being made in the 21st century. I thought this was a generation that prided itself on being (pardon my cynicism) really smug and smart-alecky, and too cool for the old Hollywood shtick. Well, movies like BETH COOPER are not cool at all. And I don't want to hear the "we're-cool-because-we're-doing-it-ironically" excuse, because that carries no credibility for me.

Really, the only reason to subject oneself to this movie is for the generous close-up shot it offers of Hayden Panettiere's cute porn-star panties. So I'll give this film a "2" for the panties and also because Panettiere as a whole is a joy to look at. But believe me: there is absolutely nothing else saving I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER from a "1" rating from me.

The time has now arrived when - at least if you're a particular kind of kid-at-heart - the stars have finally aligned again after having drifted apart for over 45 years. Batman is back on prime-time television, making this series certainly worthy of milestone status and also rendering it a bit of a shame that it is not getting the circus-like publicity from which the Adam West series benefited (specifically, a picture on the cover of LIFE magazine in 1966). But, then again, Anna Nicole Smith didn't get Marilyn Monroe's front-page coverage when SHE died too young, so maybe the above is just a sign of the times we live in - more sober, downsized, and far less heady times. I don't think that should be held against GOTHAM itself.

On its own terms, GOTHAM is probably the best Batman-themed show one could expect in the year 2014, considering everything that preceded it over the past quarter-century. The creators have obviously aspired to integrate Tim Burton's "dark Disney" aesthetic with Christopher Nolan's straight-edge DRAGNET style, and in this they have done a reasonably good job. GOTHAM is neo-noir at its best, conjured up with the kind of Hollywood magic that is sadly seldom seen anymore. Here, at last, is a "geek" show that will appeal to hardened city inhabitants every bit as much as to novelty-seeking suburbanites; in today's often culturally segregated America, that alone is worthy of praise.

And of course the performers collectively make up one of the show's best elements. The credible portrayals of edgy, cynical Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue), a surprisingly hard-bitten Alfred Pennyworth (Sean Pertwee), and the vicious yet pitiable Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor) are all welcome revisions of these familiar characters. Ironically, though, the best depiction offered is that of an original character: the pompous and secretly neurotic lady gangster Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett-Smith). This new villain, while not quite the main antagonist, is the one who on the surface appears to be running the show and having a grand old time doing it; Pinkett Smith gives her a glamorous (if not quite sexy) appeal and couples it with a depraved nastiness that makes Fish Mooney a character who is fun both to laugh at and hate.

All that to one side, it's still a surreal experience to be sitting there waiting for familiar Bat-conventions that never quite show up (Bruce Wayne still being a child when all of this is happening), like watching a prequel of THE WIZARD OF OZ and wasting all your time wondering when you'll see the Yellow Brick Road. The pacing of GOTHAM seems to indicate - or at least to hint - that we're slowly heading toward cape-and-cowl territory, but there's a long way to go just yet. I am sincerely hoping that millions of Bat-boys and Bat-girls will not come down with the countdown blues before Batman can be born again.

It is truly a pity that not every children's television show has proved to be as enduring or memorable as "Howdy Doody," "Sesame Street," or "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." Adults (particularly younger adults) do tend to be picky, but kids will accept just about any brand of entertainment as long as it's presented good-naturedly and with the aim of charging up their imaginations. This is not to say that all kids' shows are inherently equal, though: some are genuine masterpieces that even adults can hail as ideal examples of the fusion of art, commerce, and socialization; others are not quite so substantial in their themes, but tend to contain some element or another that encourages viewers to remember them fondly years or even decades after they are broadcast.

"Dumbo's Circus," a short-lived but aggressively syndicated "kiddie" show with puppets that aired on the Disney Channel in the 1980s, is a program whose quirks I remember with great joy despite not necessarily valuing the program as highly as I once did. Ostensibly a spin-off of Disney's 1941 animated movie DUMBO, this series placed the titular pachyderm (here voiced by successful voice-over actress Katie Leigh) among the denizens of a traveling circus that roamed the environs of an unidentified country. Dumbo served as a "Pegasus" of sorts for a magical flying wagon, drawing his friends through the sky to each new performance. These friends included Fair "Dink" Dinkum (voice of Patty Maloney), the Australian ringmaster; Lionel (voice of Jim Cummings), the troupe's Brooklyn-accented barker and magician; Lily (Patricia Parris), a glamorous lady trapeze artist; Q.T. (Caleb Chung), the shy but friendly strongman and calliope player; and others. All of these characters were rendered on the TV screen as startlingly lifelike puppets so impressive that even Jim Henson (of "Muppets" fame) might have been envious.

The adventures of the circus people involved countless other characters, some of whom were mere spectators at their shows and others intriguing personalities in their own right. (One especially enchanting episode had Dumbo and friends encounter a village inhabited by people who spent most of their existence sleeping and awake for short periods only once every one hundred years, in a sort of nod to BRIGADOON.) The typical episode featured one or more of the cast members confronting a challenge of some sort, though each problem was generally resolved by the end of the story. Sometimes the plots dealt with naive childhood fears, such as not wanting to go to the doctor or being lost in a mysterious forest. Other plots were much more comical but still imparted useful lessons, such as the one in which Lily is found to be nearsighted but refuses to wear eyeglasses because she fears they will make her unattractive; as the episode progresses, she commits a string of "Mr. Magoo"-style blunders that finally convince her of the error of her ways. "Dumbo's Circus" indeed dealt with mundane and even pat situations more often than not, but never in a propagandistic way and always with kindness.

The most wonderful aspect of "Dumbo's Circus" was its music! The program's creative staff included a stable of very talented and creative composers and lyricists whose genius is attested by the fact that I can still recite their songs by heart 20 years later! The show's opening theme song was a brassy, "circus-y" number that immediately got kids tingling in anticipation of the fun to come. I also enjoyed the calypso-tinged "I'm an Elephant, Too" and the Halloween-themed "The Day the Spooky Circus Came to Town" (with a bass line, believe it or not, that sounded like it was straight out of Michael Jackson's "Thriller"). "The Big Parade" was probably my favorite because it was the catchiest: if you ever hear it, you will NEVER get its infectious marching tune out of your head! And then there was the wistful "I Love a Circus," which was written by world-famous songwriter and guitarist Dan Crow - a man whom I was privileged to meet at a children's concert when I was seven. Less stirring but just as touching to the soul were various smaller, character-based songs like "Too Big" (Dumbo's lament about his weight problem) and "Matilda" (in which Dink sang passionately about his twin sister back in Australia).

Sensitively crafted children's fare such as "Dumbo's Circus" can affect the kids watching at home in amazingly profound ways, often even after they have grown to adulthood. Whenever I used to run the treadmill at my local fitness center, for example, I would sing "The Big Parade" in my head to encourage myself to lift my knees high while jogging in place. You simply can't buy a memory like that with all the riches in the world. I sincerely hope that I will be able to view reruns of "Dumbo's Circus" in the future, if only so I can approach them with a newfound appreciation born of nostalgia and gratitude.