Recent viewings: Death Race 2000 and Batman animated films.

[Neville]

Been watching some interesting stuff lately.

1) Death Race 2000: What a brutally fun film! I don't know where to start, because I'm sure most regulars already know this one. It is a cheap 70s Roger corman production involving a "future" dystopic USA and a death race celebrated for propaganda purposes, where a significant part of the score is achieved through running over people. The satire elements are deliciously malign (like having a rebel named Tomasina Payne), but the film should be best remembered for its action scenes, which look like "Wacky races" or "The Roadrunner" cartoons filmed with some gore. I almost expected the words "made by ACME" to appear in the devices the rebels use to stop the race. The film stars David Carradine and a young (and un-muscular) Sylvester Stallone.

2) Batman - Mask of the Phantasm: An animated film spawned from the TV series. It has some interesting paralelisms with "Batman begins", since it shows a Batman-on-the-making, but the paralel plot having a vigilante killing hoodlums is too weakly developed. Beautiful visuals, though, and a susprisingly somber tone.

3) Batman & Freeze Subzero: Far superior to the above mentioned "Mask of the phantasm", this one has Batman & Robin fighting Mr. Freeze, who has kidnapped Barbar Gordon. The plot is too thin, but it is directed with energy and Mr. Freeze makes a very interesting villain. The prologue set in the Arctic is very good.

4) The Batman & Superman movie: My favourite animated movie featuring the classic Batman. Here he travels to Metropolis to fight an allegiance of Lex Luthor and the Joker, also facing the rivalry of Superman. The villains are nothing short of excellent here, although my favourite is the Joker, whose mix of maniachal ruthlessness and demented intelligence provides some of ther film's higher points. The situations focused on the rivalty (on several levels) between Batman & Superman is also very well scripted, with some wonderfully sharp dialogues, specially those between Bruce Wayne and Louis Lane.

5) Batman of the future - Return of the Joker: Another winner. Time has passed, Gotham is older and so is Bruce Wayne, who has a young protegé working overtime as a new, almost cybernetic Batman. But everything changes when the Joker (or a very good copycat) starts his new reign of terror. Fast action, good character development and the Joker at his most diabolical (his dialogue, voice and manierisms are some of the best I've ever seen in an animated feature so far, moving from funny to sinister in a matter of seconds) are the best assets of this new adventure. Surprisingly violent for an animated film (saw the uncesored version).

[odinn7]

I also really enjoy Death Race...a fine, fun film.

I recently saw the Batman-Mask of the Phantasm and Batman Beyond- Return of the Joker. I was a little let down by the Batman Beyond because of the build up that the guy who lent it to me gave it. First, I don't really like the way the Beyond series is drawn and I really can't get my mind around Batman not being Bruce Wayne. Overall it wasn't bad but it just didn't do it for me. I liked the Phantasm a little bit more except for that I got the feeling that there was some film clipped out because there were some things left unexplained. Decent story line and drawn fairly well.
As a side note: Did you see the list of guest voices in those movies? Batman Beyond had Henry Rollins, Teri Garr, Melissa Joan Hart, and Angie Harmon, The Phantasm movie has Marilu Henner, Stacy Keach, Dana Delany, and Abe Vigoda. Are you also aware that Mark Hamill does the voice of the Joker in all the animated Batman movies? He does a fantastic job as you can't even tell it's him.

[Neville]

Yeah, the cast list of those movies is nothing short of impressive. The reason I didn't even mention it is because I watched all them in spanish, so I couldn't speak of the quality of the original voices. Still, the dubbing was very good. Whover did the Joker was f**king brilliant as well, although I'd like to hear Hamill some day, because his work is getting kudos everywhere.

If you mean the phantasm's powers, when you speak of missing explanations in the movie, is not only in your versions. Looks like the final cut is missing some crucial scenes. Although I adored the original TV series, I think "Return of the Joker" is a far more acomplished film. I didn't have much toruble with the draewing, although it sure looks more "naked" than the one in the original series, but the rest of it (characters, story) is quite coherent with the Batman universe.

[ErikJ]

I remember when Mask of the Phantasm came out ET had an interview with Mark Hamill. It sent chills down my spine the way he did it because he slowly went into the Joker character. By the end it was like the trasformation was complete and you were watching an interview with the Joker rather than Mark Hamill.

[LH-C]

Mark Hamill's Joker is awesome! Even though he's been doing voiceovers since even before Star Wars, I think he's been really coming into his own with this type of work over the last 12-13 years.

[Flangepart]

Oh, Mark is haveing a BALL doing the Joker. Who woulden't?

Neville...that an intresting problim, when watching films fom other lands. I prefer to watch kaiju films in the original Japanese, as it gives me a better feal for the actors work. But, i do need the subbing for plot comprehension.
How many American films have you seen in both English and Spanish to compare notes, even if only to get a sence of the emotions of the original actors?

[Neville]

Flangepart wrote: "Neville...that an intresting problim, when watching films fom other lands. I prefer to watch kaiju films in the original Japanese, as it gives me a better feal for the actors work. But, i do need the subbing for plot comprehension.
How many American films have you seen in both English and Spanish to compare notes, even if only to get a sence of the emotions of the original actors?"

I also prefer watching original versions with subtitles, but this is not possible most of the time. Whenever I watch a film on the theatre or on TV, 90% of the time is the spanish dubbed version. One of the things I like of DVDs is that they allow to listen to the original version.