"Steam Detectives" takes place in Steam City, on an alternate Earth where the only power source is coal. Apparently forgetting that gasoline can be made from coal, scientists there instead focused almost exclusively on steam power, and as a result made a "quantum leap" in the technology, meaning of course that they learned how to build giant robots. As you might expect, one of the favorite past-times of the people who own these robots is stealing stuff and busting up the place, which is made a little easier by the fact that the city is constantly draped in a white mist that helps disguise their nefarious activities. It's steampunk minus the punk.

Attempting to combat these criminals is Narutaki, an adolescent detective who lives with his ...Read the entire review

When BCI Eclipse announced that they had acquired the rights to "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" and other Filmation properties, there was an audible groan from fans. Until "The Best of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe,"BCI's catalogue was composed entirely of public-domain material, microbudget movies, and pornography with titles like "Awesome Strippers"—not exactly a company you trust to do justice to a nostalgic childhood favorite.

But then something interesting happened: they released a surprisingly great DVD that set a new bar for video, packaging, and extras for classic animation. Se...Read the entire review

Streets of Legend, written and directed by Joey Curtis, is a movie obsessed with its own street cred. Nearly everything, from the street races to the fights to the locations, is real, in that it was staged but there were no stunt doubles. Other directors might have taken some of this material—say, the numerous shots of real teenagers going 140 miles per hour while weaving wildly in and out of real highway traffic—and made a documentary out of it. Curtis decided to overlay a tedious and predictable love story instead.

In the film, Brihanna Hernandez stars as Noza, a teenage girl who apparently has no drive or ambition to do anything particularly important in life. Her world, such as it is, revolves around her boyfriend Chato (V...Read the entire review

I've never traveled outside of the United States. Even though I live less than three hours from Vancouver—the closest thing to "foreign" near me—I've never even made the short trip there, let alone overseas. Maybe that's why I have trouble describing just how appealing I find New Zealand's national coming-of-age tradition/compulsion: the OE. Europe is usually the destination for the "overseas experience," which typically begins in London and ends, well, wherever and whenever the cash runs out. Every year, swarms of young Kiwis descend on places like the Eiffel Tower and the Roman Coliseum in their cheap Volkswagon Kombi vans, living in youth hostels or on campgrounds, partying, drinking, and having sex; in general, experiencing the rest of the ...Read the entire review

Nostalgia. It's a big, dumb, powerful force. It makes us do things like buy Flight of the Navigator on release day, or spend $34.98 on The Last Starfighter, or get excited when a friend buys a used, full-frame copy of The Wizard on VHS for our birthday because it's not on DVD yet. This is the awesome power that Warner Bros. is attempting to harness for evil. You see, ThunderCats: Season One, Volume Two is $64.98.

Now, maybe I missed something, but I'm pretty sure "ThunderCats" wasn't an HBO drama produced in association with Steven Spielberg. This is a cartoon. Other animated shows from the '70s, '80s, and '90s are reasonably priced between $30 and $50, and many of them have smaller audiences, or remastered video and audio, or even mor...Read the entire review

Buddy Boy, written and directed by first-time filmmaker Mark Hanlon, takes place in an alternate universe where attractive, seemingly-well adjusted women find stuttering, cripplingly introverted men that live with their mothers and have no friends attractive. Such is the case when Francis (Aidan Gillen, Shanghai Knights), a voyeur who until now has satisfied his curiosity about other people's lives with his job as a drug store photo developer, discovers that he can see into the apartment of Gloria (Emmanuelle Seigner, The Ninth Gate), a woman for whom the word "curtains" appears to have no meaning. After several nights of watching Gloria, usually in a state of undress, Francis has a chance encounter with her on the street, and she invites him to ...Read the entire review

Being less than 60 years old, I'm not exactly what you would call the "target audience" for The Sid Caesar Collection, a compilation of select sketches from NBC's "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour." These were the shows my grandparents watched when they were my age: live, unedited, and without cue cards. It was a different time, then; "I Love Lucy" was on the air, "The Honeymooners" would debut a few years later, and "The Dick Van Dyke Show" not long after that. To today's audiences, these shows tend to appear sort of quaint and a little broad, much more hit-and-miss than they were when they first aired. The Sid Caesar Collection has some sketches like that. You know that they must have been hilarious at the time, because, well, they're on a DVD collection t...Read the entire review

From nobodies to household names to has-beens and back again, 2004's British TV biopic Not Only But Always... (written and directed by Terry Johnson) charts the rocky, love/hate relationship between Peter Cook and his comic duo partner Dudley Moore, but it is firmly centered on the former, exploring his neuroses as much as a 100-minute running time allows.

Ironically, Cook is the least likeable figure in his own biography. Strange, wry, and unbelievably sure of himself, Cook's star first rose with the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe (co-starring Moore), but it was Moore, not Cook, who was offered a BBC television series. Condescending towards Moore bef...Read the entire review

Chronicle of a Disappearance is a film with very little conversation, almost no recurring characters, and no plot whatsoever. That's really asking a lot from the audience watching it (and it's no small feat to review, either). The movie is about Palestinian life under Israel, portrayed in a series of vignettes focusing on seemingly random events. Alone, these scenes are somewhat pointless – a woman gossips about her relatives, a man feeds his parakeet, a shopkeeper prepares his shop for the day – but together they form a sometimes-meandering statement about the loss of a distinct Palestinian culture in the face of occupation.

That last part sounds a bit like a political statement. It's not, although the movie can't quite claim the same, even thoug...Read the entire review

Even if you're not a big fan of "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe," you've got to admit that any afterschool kid's show that features she-demons and witch-queens has a certain subversive appeal. In the episode "Wizard of Stone Mountain," for example, a lovestruck sorcerer named Mallek makes a Faustian deal with a creepy little demon named Lokus in exchange for Teela. When Lokus makes good on the agreement, Evil itself ("the master of fear and destroyer of hope, the enemy of Mankind throughout the universe") comes to collect on Mallek's soul. That's pretty hardcore for boys aged 5-12. Naturally, He-Man stops him, but it's no wonder that conservative religious groups had issues with this stuff.

They missed the point, of course. Not only d...Read the entire review

"Thieves… so you feel that thieves are responsible?"
"Good heavens no, I feel that thieves are totally irresponsible!"

-- Alan Bennett and Peter Cook, "The Great Train Robbery"

Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller, and Alan Bennett helped usher in the era of British satire with Beyond the Fringe, an irreverent and smart 1960s West End and Broadway comedy revue that inspired, in part, Monty Python. The show broached topics that were at the time extremely risky, and helped embed Cook and Moore into British pop culture, as well as launch Moore's moderately successful film career. While audio recordings of the act are widely available, it was thought that no film existed of the performance until recently, when their 196...Read the entire review

Earlier this year marked the 60th anniversary of the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. HBO marked the occasion with Warm Springs, a great film depicting the first few years of Roosevelt's struggle with polio, while The History Channel took the opportunity to create a comprehensive new two-part documentary called, "FDR: A Presidency Revealed." As the name implies, it's a sort of pseudo-sequel to 2003's "JFK: A Presidency Revealed" – filled with home movies, audio recordings, and personal remembrances of the late president, as well as discussion of his actions, policies, and place in history by more than 20 historians, including his grandson.

...Read the entire review

Pretend you've never seen a firecracker, and someone hands a lit one to you. Could you really be faulted for holding it in your hand, watching the fuse burn down, not anticipating the explosion that would follow? That was the personal computer revolution. After years of useless home computers – boxes that flashed lights, required you to write your own programs, and couldn't store information permanently – the Apple II and IBM-PC revolutionized the consumer world. Not with bigger or better machines, but with relevant applications and ease of use. Before that, the only people who really needed computers or could even make them do anything worthwhile were scientists and the government. And they certainly weren't going to waste time with the laughably underpowere...Read the entire review

I should start this off with an admission: I don't think I've ever disliked Kenneth Branagh in a film. He's a real actor's actor, molding himself into every role he takes on, whether that's as the goofy, self-obsessed Professor Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets or in his career-defining role as Hamlet. But had someone said to me, "We need someone to play Franklin Delano Roosevelt," I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where I or anyone else would immediately shout, "Kenneth Branagh! He would be perfect for the role!" A British actor isn't the first person that comes to mind to portray a man widely regarded as the greatest American president of the 20th century, after all. Likewise, I wouldn't ...Read the entire review

At age 17, Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf stabbed a young police officer in an attempt to steal his sidearm. Makhmalbaf, an Islamic militant at the time, was shot and taken into custody, where he spent the next four years of his life being tortured, sometimes severely, until he was freed in 1979 following the revolution. He emerged a changed man, started making films, and gradually became more and more humanist in his view of the world. One day Makhmalbaf was approached by the officer he stabbed years earlier. The man wanted to be an actor, and so, in 1996, the director decided to tell the story of that day, from each of their perspectives. That film became A Moment of Innocence (literally, The Bread and the Vase).

In doing ...Read the entire review

In 1942, after a crushing defeat in France and the loss of Singapore to Japan, British forces produced Germany's first major defeat at El Alamein, in northwestern Egypt. It was an unqualified success, and signaled to the British that the war was not hopeless. As Churchill later remarked, "Before Alamein we never had a victory; after Alamein we never had a defeat."

Forgotten by history, however, are the Italian troops that fought there. These were men who were despised by both the Germans and the British, and propagandized as cowards because many never supported the war in the first place. El Alamein: The Line of Fire, a film by Enzo Monteleone based on first-person accounts, is a story from their point of view. War stories generall...Read the entire review

"There's no such place as Paradise. At the ends of the earth, there's nothing at all."

In the distant future, humanity lives in great domed cities on a desolate Earth, and wolves are thought to have been hunted to extinction over 200 years ago. But unknown to man, wolves instead began to live amongst them, disguising themselves as humans. Legend has it that at the end of the world, wolves will lead the world to Paradise – and one wolf, Kiba, is convinced he knows the way.

Episodes 27-30 of Wolf's Rain were released as OAVs, or direct to DVD. Although volumes five and six were very good (and I recommend both), there was little in the way of conclusion for the pack's search for Paradise. Jaguara was dead, everyone was re...Read the entire review

"Something is about to happen."

In the distant future, humanity lives in great domed cities on a desolate Earth, and wolves are thought to have been hunted to extinction over 200 years ago. But unknown to man, wolves instead began to live amongst them, disguising themselves as humans. Legend has it that at the end of the world, wolves will lead the world to Paradise – and one wolf, Kiba, is convinced he knows the way.

Ah, this is more like it. Things finally start heating up in the third volume of Wolf's Rain as the assassination of Lord Orkham by the forces of Lady Jaguara starts the final countdown to the end of the world. With Orkham dead, his territory, including Freeze City (the one the main characters are all from),...Read the entire review

"You are out of luck today."

In the distant future, humanity lives in great domed cities on a desolate Earth, and wolves are thought to have been hunted to extinction over 200 years ago. But unknown to man, wolves instead began to live amongst them, disguising themselves as humans. Legend has it that at the end of the world, wolves will lead the world to Paradise – and one wolf, Kiba, is convinced he knows the way.

So I skipped to volume four in my player, and what to my wondering eyes did appear? The beginning of episode one! Oh, I went too far, I thought. I opened the player and checked the disc. No, this was four. They must have sent me a misprint. Wait, the title on this says "Recollections"-- oh no. This is a clip show d...Read the entire review

"The wolf seeks out the flower, and the flower seeks out the wolf. ...But you mustn't go with them."
"Why not?"
"It will lead to destruction."

In the distant future, humanity lives in great domed cities on a desolate Earth, and wolves are thought to have been hunted to extinction over 200 years ago. But unknown to man, wolves instead began to live amongst them, disguising themselves as humans. Legend has it that at the end of the world, wolves will lead the world to Paradise – and one wolf, Kiba, is convinced he knows the way.

Things take a turn for the weird in this volume as Cheza the Flower Maiden joins the group after escaping from Darcia. A bioengineered entity, she seems to have strange abilities, and an even stranger ...Read the entire review

"There's no such place as Paradise. At the ends of the earth, there's nothing at all."

In the distant future, humanity lives in great domed cities on a desolate Earth, and wolves are thought to have been hunted to extinction over 200 years ago. But unknown to man, wolves instead began to live amongst them, disguising themselves as humans. Legend has it that at the end of the world, wolves will lead the world to Paradise – and one wolf, Kiba, is convinced he knows the way.

Wolf's Rain originally aired around 2 in the morning in Japan, but it gained enough attention that it was picked up by Cartoon Network's Adult Swim only a few months after its conclusion, where it was recognized not only for its unique plot but also its st...Read the entire review

Girl-on-girl action. Combined with two or more B-starlets, those four words are enough to sell tickets to any Hollywood movie. Sex sells, and men view lesbians almost solely as sex objects, so they also assume lesbians must have lots of sex – witness the endless adolescent media fascination that surrounded Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche. It only extends so far, of course. Most people – male or female – have no interest in gay relationships, no matter how chaste or harmless they're portrayed. Some are downright offended if someone gay is on television at all; a couple gay characters in primetime and "gays are taking over TV." After Ellen came out, ABC even put a parental advisory notice at the beginning of her show. Mom and dad, get those kids ...Read the entire review

It was 1980, and nothing could touch Kenner's line of Star Wars action figures. Mattel's rival had a Lucasfilm-granted license to print money, and although the Barbie and Hot Wheels lines were solid performers, Mattel needed something to put them back in the game. He-Man, a strange amalgamation of swords, sorcery, and spaceships, was it.

Masters of the Universe quickly blossomed into a worldwide phenomenon, grossing over a billion dollars over the course of its lifetime and spawning two animated series, a television special, an animated movie, a live-action movie, a concert tour (!), and no less than two revivals (each with its own animated series). To say that He-Man was influential to legions of boys aged 5-12 is a bit of an understatement.

So it's a li...Read the entire review